James Fairbairn
@jfairbairn.bsky.social
Fledgling corporate shaman. Pay attention, help others, let go. Product ∪ strategy; seeking ways to heal people, society and our biosphere. 🇭🇰🇬🇧 in 🇺🇸. We/us.
You can follow my Mastodon posts at @james.exitmusic.world
You can follow my Mastodon posts at @james.exitmusic.world
Reposted by James Fairbairn
People working in tech deserve both awakening to their part in the state of the world, and also compassion for not already knowing it or knowing how to extricate themselves yet
January 2, 2026 at 7:11 AM
People working in tech deserve both awakening to their part in the state of the world, and also compassion for not already knowing it or knowing how to extricate themselves yet
Reposted by James Fairbairn
Before the LLM craze, the “we should maybe reconsider Luddism” thing was kind of a niche topic. Now its urgency level has switched to “everything’s on fire”
December 26, 2025 at 10:10 PM
Before the LLM craze, the “we should maybe reconsider Luddism” thing was kind of a niche topic. Now its urgency level has switched to “everything’s on fire”
Reposted by James Fairbairn
Tyson Yunkaporta likes to say that the oral tradition is the ultimate data resilience strategy, which should give a decent hint as to whether physical durability or social relations are the real underpinning of resilience
December 26, 2025 at 10:07 PM
Tyson Yunkaporta likes to say that the oral tradition is the ultimate data resilience strategy, which should give a decent hint as to whether physical durability or social relations are the real underpinning of resilience
All right so I spammed this out after listening to one too many A*G*I apocalypse interviews
exitmusic.world/ai-researche...
exitmusic.world/ai-researche...
AI researchers' wrong theory of cognition is making us worry about the wrong kind of AI apocalypse
I originally wrote this (in 18 minutes!) as a stream-of-consciousness Mastodon thread. Thought it might be worth putting it all together ...
exitmusic.world
December 5, 2025 at 7:50 PM
All right so I spammed this out after listening to one too many A*G*I apocalypse interviews
exitmusic.world/ai-researche...
exitmusic.world/ai-researche...
Reposted by James Fairbairn
I find my LLM writing radar getting stronger over time. There’s a certain brassy, self-confident style, coupled with the sense of incoherence that comes from a slightly ill-placed metaphor, or even the casual elision of meaning from a plausible but wrong choice of noun.
Texts gives this off […]
Texts gives this off […]
Original post on mastodon.exitmusic.world
mastodon.exitmusic.world
November 30, 2025 at 5:17 AM
I find my LLM writing radar getting stronger over time. There’s a certain brassy, self-confident style, coupled with the sense of incoherence that comes from a slightly ill-placed metaphor, or even the casual elision of meaning from a plausible but wrong choice of noun.
Texts gives this off […]
Texts gives this off […]
Join us
Thanks to modern industrial technology, the midlife crisis is now available to any worker, at any age!
November 21, 2025 at 5:51 PM
Join us
Reposted by James Fairbairn
Capital is busy completing the construction of a no-escape two-tier economy society. And LinkedIn thought leaders think they can get in on that upper tier if they are loud enough in their support of “disruptive change”
October 21, 2025 at 1:05 AM
Capital is busy completing the construction of a no-escape two-tier economy society. And LinkedIn thought leaders think they can get in on that upper tier if they are loud enough in their support of “disruptive change”
Reading Kingsnorth’s “Against the Machine” and Kemp’s “Goliath’s Curse” back to back is quite a trip
Recommended, so far :)
Recommended, so far :)
October 19, 2025 at 1:37 AM
Reading Kingsnorth’s “Against the Machine” and Kemp’s “Goliath’s Curse” back to back is quite a trip
Recommended, so far :)
Recommended, so far :)
Reposted by James Fairbairn
“The type of self I am capable of being is incredibly constrained by my context.”
https://exitmusic.world/design-can-help-tilt-what-we-do-towards-who-we-want-to-be
https://exitmusic.world/design-can-help-tilt-what-we-do-towards-who-we-want-to-be
Design can help tilt what we do towards who we want to be
We should design for moral coherence. If we design for anything, our designs should aim to bring our habits and actions into line with the values we truly hold, or perhaps more accurately, the values we wish we were able to hold.
“The type of self I am capable of being is incredibly constrained by my context.” – Taylor Guthrie, https://overcast.fm/+AA2tlVFUsQs/45:28
exitmusic.world
October 17, 2025 at 6:54 AM
“The type of self I am capable of being is incredibly constrained by my context.”
https://exitmusic.world/design-can-help-tilt-what-we-do-towards-who-we-want-to-be
https://exitmusic.world/design-can-help-tilt-what-we-do-towards-who-we-want-to-be
I’ve started using this place to sketch out my random thoughts - to think in public, but with as small an audience as possible to minimize my self-consciousness. Don’t subscribe unless my public messy thinking is what you want! exitmusic.world/life-is-supp...
Life is supposed to be pleasurable
Adrian Bejan’s Constructal Law is something I keep thinking about. It states: For a finite-size flow system to persist in time (to liv...
exitmusic.world
July 30, 2025 at 5:31 PM
I’ve started using this place to sketch out my random thoughts - to think in public, but with as small an audience as possible to minimize my self-consciousness. Don’t subscribe unless my public messy thinking is what you want! exitmusic.world/life-is-supp...
What does your salary depend on your not understanding?
June 24, 2025 at 7:52 PM
What does your salary depend on your not understanding?
Reposted by James Fairbairn
Executives: if I'm working for you I want you to delegate management & retain leadership. Definitely not the other way around.
June 3, 2025 at 3:05 PM
Executives: if I'm working for you I want you to delegate management & retain leadership. Definitely not the other way around.
Reposted by James Fairbairn
Today's NY Times comparison of Elon Musk and Cecil Rhodes really clarifies what Musk's whole deal has always been about: rehabilitating the colonialist tradition around new frontiers on the internet and in outer space, and rebranding this deracinated neo-neo-colonialism as "adventure" and "purpose."
I want to especially draw attention to the use of "exploration" as the preferred euphemism here for "choosing to participate in explicitly racist late-stage colonialism." Musk's rhetoric about "exploring" space is widely seen as his most inspiring, but it is rarely located in the colonial tradition.
June 3, 2025 at 2:53 PM
Today's NY Times comparison of Elon Musk and Cecil Rhodes really clarifies what Musk's whole deal has always been about: rehabilitating the colonialist tradition around new frontiers on the internet and in outer space, and rebranding this deracinated neo-neo-colonialism as "adventure" and "purpose."
Life is (living systems are) vertically coherent. Things built on top of computers, not so much.
June 2, 2025 at 1:01 AM
Life is (living systems are) vertically coherent. Things built on top of computers, not so much.
“If this is the game, I wouldn’t try to win it”
May 30, 2025 at 4:56 AM
“If this is the game, I wouldn’t try to win it”
Reposted by James Fairbairn
the reasons gadgets are neato is because they are self-contained and limited
gadgetry is a frame, it requires a border
physical camera: gadget, neato
eink weather display: gadget, neato
ipod: gadget, neato
modern iphone: not gadget, not neato
slop generator device: not gadget, not neato
gadgetry is a frame, it requires a border
physical camera: gadget, neato
eink weather display: gadget, neato
ipod: gadget, neato
modern iphone: not gadget, not neato
slop generator device: not gadget, not neato
May 22, 2025 at 6:57 PM
the reasons gadgets are neato is because they are self-contained and limited
gadgetry is a frame, it requires a border
physical camera: gadget, neato
eink weather display: gadget, neato
ipod: gadget, neato
modern iphone: not gadget, not neato
slop generator device: not gadget, not neato
gadgetry is a frame, it requires a border
physical camera: gadget, neato
eink weather display: gadget, neato
ipod: gadget, neato
modern iphone: not gadget, not neato
slop generator device: not gadget, not neato
Petition for a hand-wringing emoji
May 12, 2025 at 9:38 PM
Petition for a hand-wringing emoji
If you evaluate a technology’s ability to do a job “better than a human”, you have to include all the benefits that the human version of the practice created, in terms of social bonds, regenerative capacity and cultural meaning.
May 10, 2025 at 8:20 PM
If you evaluate a technology’s ability to do a job “better than a human”, you have to include all the benefits that the human version of the practice created, in terms of social bonds, regenerative capacity and cultural meaning.
- Life is emergent self-sustaining, self-complexifying complexity and self-diversifying diversity, and thus can only evolve in interaction
- Life and entropy are in a dance with each other. No evidence that entropy has to win in the long run, given quantum fluctutations
- Life and entropy are in a dance with each other. No evidence that entropy has to win in the long run, given quantum fluctutations
May 2, 2025 at 1:57 AM
- Life is emergent self-sustaining, self-complexifying complexity and self-diversifying diversity, and thus can only evolve in interaction
- Life and entropy are in a dance with each other. No evidence that entropy has to win in the long run, given quantum fluctutations
- Life and entropy are in a dance with each other. No evidence that entropy has to win in the long run, given quantum fluctutations
Okay... deep breath. I’m, erm, I'm writing a book. I think. Or at least I'm writing something that sits in my heart as a book now. Who knows where it'll lead. If you'd like to follow along and cheerlead/act as a passive accountability partner, join up here :)
departurein.place/departure-in...
departurein.place/departure-in...
Departure In Place: An outline for a wildly ambitious book
I’ve been circling this book for a long time without quite realising it. It’s about collapse—yes—but not as apocalypse, not as spectacle, not even as a single event. Collapse here is understood as a l...
departurein.place
April 30, 2025 at 6:14 AM
Okay... deep breath. I’m, erm, I'm writing a book. I think. Or at least I'm writing something that sits in my heart as a book now. Who knows where it'll lead. If you'd like to follow along and cheerlead/act as a passive accountability partner, join up here :)
departurein.place/departure-in...
departurein.place/departure-in...
A society is civilized to the extent to which it makes room for the unimportant
April 25, 2025 at 4:11 AM
A society is civilized to the extent to which it makes room for the unimportant
Reposted by James Fairbairn
Video Dispatch #20: Kill Magic Thinking
Bulls**t isn't created or destroyed, it just takes on different forms
Podcast episode: pnc.st/s/faster-and...
Video dispatch: www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLHm...
If you enjoy it please consider subscribing, leaving a rating, or writing a review
1/4
Bulls**t isn't created or destroyed, it just takes on different forms
Podcast episode: pnc.st/s/faster-and...
Video dispatch: www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLHm...
If you enjoy it please consider subscribing, leaving a rating, or writing a review
1/4
March 19, 2025 at 7:38 PM
Video Dispatch #20: Kill Magic Thinking
Bulls**t isn't created or destroyed, it just takes on different forms
Podcast episode: pnc.st/s/faster-and...
Video dispatch: www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLHm...
If you enjoy it please consider subscribing, leaving a rating, or writing a review
1/4
Bulls**t isn't created or destroyed, it just takes on different forms
Podcast episode: pnc.st/s/faster-and...
Video dispatch: www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLHm...
If you enjoy it please consider subscribing, leaving a rating, or writing a review
1/4
Don’t act because you have hope. Have hope because you act.
April 23, 2025 at 1:18 AM
Don’t act because you have hope. Have hope because you act.
Reposted by James Fairbairn
Hey, just a quiet reminder: it’s not true that people get more conservative as they age. *Populations* get more conservative as they age because poor and marginalized people die sooner.
nymag.com/intelligence...
nymag.com/intelligence...
Seniors Are More Conservative Because the Poor Die Off
Sometimes older voters aren’t just naturally more conservative. It’s just that wealthier and whiter people tend to live longer and healthier lives.
nymag.com
April 13, 2025 at 12:02 AM
Hey, just a quiet reminder: it’s not true that people get more conservative as they age. *Populations* get more conservative as they age because poor and marginalized people die sooner.
nymag.com/intelligence...
nymag.com/intelligence...