Gold 3D render of the number '2024'.

Well, here we are at the end of another year! My sole criterion for inclusion in this ‘best of’ list is that the articles I reference made me think. Reinforcing my existing views, or being merely ‘interesting’ wasn’t enough to make it. So, after whittling down from twenty or so, here are my top ten Thought Shrapnel posts of 2024:

  1. De-bogging yourself — Adam Mastroianni’s topic is getting yourself out of a situation where you’re stuck, which he calls “de-bogging yourself”. I love the way he breaks it down into three different kinds of ‘bog phenomena’ and gives names to examples which fall into those categories.
  2. The importance of context — I can highly recommend this conversation between Adam Grant and Trevor Noah. The conversation they have about context towards the start is so important that I wish everyone I know would listen to it.
  3. Begetting Strangers — This is such a great article by Joshua Rothman in The New Yorker. Quoting philosophers, he concisely summarises the difficulty of parenting, examines some of the tensions, and settles on a position with which I’d agree.
  4. Man or bear IRL — This article by Laura Killingbeck is definitely worth reading in its entirety. Not only is it extremely well-written, it gives a real-world example to a hypothetical internet discussion. Killingbeck is a long-term ‘bikepacker’ and therefore the “man or bear” question is one she grapples with on a regular basis.
  5. Philosophy and folklore — I love this piece in Aeon from Abigail Tulenko, who argues that folklore and philosophy share a common purpose in challenging us to think deeply about life’s big questions. Her essay is essentially a critique of academic philosophy’s exclusivity and she calls for a broader, more inclusive approach that embraces… folklore.
  6. ‘Meta-work’ is how we get past all the one-size-fits-none approaches — Alexandra Samuel points out in this newsletter that a lot of the work we do as knowledge workers will increasingly be ‘meta-work’. Introducing a 7-step approach, she first of all outlines why it’s necessary, especially in a ‘neurovarious’ world.
  7. We become what we behold — An insightful and nuanced post from Stephen Downes, who reflects on various experiences, from changing RSS reader through to the way he takes photographs. What he calls ‘AI drift’ is our tendency to replace manual processes with automated ones.
  8. You don’t have to like what other people like, or do what other people do — Warren Ellis responds to a post by Jay Springett on ‘surface flatness’ by reframing the problem as… not one we have to worry about. It’s good advice: so long as you can sustain an income by not having to interact with online walled gardens, why care what other people do?
  9. 3 strategies to counter the unseen costs of boundary work within organisations — This article focuses on research that reveals people who do ‘boundary work’ within organisations, that is to say, individuals who span different silos, are more likely to suffer burnout and exhibit negative social behaviours.
  10. Dark data is a climate concern — I mean, yes, of course I knew that data files are stored on servers and that those servers consume electricity. But this is a good example of reframing. How many emails have I got stored that I will never look at again? How many files stored in the cloud ‘just in case’?

Thanks for reading and sharing Thought Shrapnel this year! I’ll be back in 2025 🎉