Rabbit Holes 🕳️ #118

From relational labor to nothing being curated, artifical thinking, the rich getting richer, sustainability as a principle, the space in-between, artists in boardrooms, and financing system networks

May 28, 2025

Hello and welcome to the 34 new subscribers who joined us since last week.

Two quick things before we get into this week’s Rabbit Holes issue:

I’m celebrating reaching 10,000 followers on LinkedIn and shared my advice on building a small audience on social media (TL;DR: don’t! social media sucks! 😅)
And then just a reminder that I will be releasing a deep dive into my Reframing Craft in the next few days. I’ve worked a lot on this one, and I think I’ve created a really useful and practical reframing tool. Very, very excited to share this one with you! So get ready!

Now on, or rather, into the Rabbit Holes which are 🔥 this week:

THIS WEEK ↓
🖼️ Framings: Relational Labor // Nothing Is Curated // Artificial Thinking
📊 Numbers: Rich = Richer
🌀 Re-Framings: Sustainability Strategy → Sustainability Principle // Binary → The Space In-Between // Artists In Boardrooms
🧬 Frameworks: Pando Funding: Financing System Change Networks
🎨 Works: Bees & Friends Hotels // Compost Party // Offline

⏳ Reading Time: 11 minutes

Thumbnail of Tweet — I always feel extremely excited to share these Rabbit Holes with all of you! :)

🖼️ Framings

~~Naming~~ Framing it! Giving something we all feel more prominence in a way that promotes a deeper reflection.

🧑🏾‍🤝‍🧑🏼 Relational Labor

Great framing by the always insightful Anu Atluru. Some myths regarding AI and automation are just so easy to debunk if one simply takes the time to think through them. The ‘relational labor’ framing adds a new color to the otherwise quite black and white discussion around AI replacing human labor. In the end it’s all about how we see people: merely as workers?; as resources?; as organic productivity machines? – or as interesting, caring, in-this-together lifeform?

“The myth of progress is that efficiency always wins: that the future belongs to solo geniuses with infinite leverage, aided by armies of machines that run themselves.
First, we automate the hands. Then we automate the head. With each technological wave, what was once skilled human labor becomes infrastructure. But the more we automate, the more we notice what’s missing. In the race to automate the world, we’ve outsourced the meaning too.
This begs the obvious question: What remains when machines surpass us at manual and cognitive work? When do we prefer a flawed, imperfect human instead of a perfect machine — or an infinite number of them? We’re just beginning to ponder how much we still need people, and how to value them.
In this pursuit, we often point to traits like curiosity, creativity, willpower, attention, agency, and taste. Yes, these will all matter. But this essay isn’t about the ingredients of individual brilliance. It’s about the roles we want humans to play, the ones that make us valuable to each other beyond any single trait or skill.
I call this the third labor — Relational Labor.
Relational labor is an essential layer embedded alongside manual and cognitive labor — rooted in presence, context, commitment, and care. It’s the kind of work that doesn’t always show up in metrics, but you feel it in morale, momentum, and trust. And it runs through so many modern roles: cofounders, assistants, coaches, therapists, creative producers, teachers, social workers, doulas, chiefs of staff.
Relational labor aligns, animates, and amplifies the other two kinds of labor.
It’s why we hire for companionship as much as competence.
The job isn’t just the job. It’s the relationship.”

» The Job Isn’t Just A Job by Anu Atluru

𖡎 Nothing Is Curated

‘Nothing is curated’ is basically a different way of saying that ‘nothing is meaningfully cared for’ (Latin ‘curare’ = to take care of). The framing in this blog post links back to last week’s piece about the death of collecting and also reminds me of philosopher Byung-Chul Han’s words: “Everything that binds and connects is disappearing. Bits of information provide neither meaning nor orientation. They do not congeal into a narrative. They are purely additive. From a certain point onward, they no longer inform — they deform.”

“I always felt like social media creates an illusion of convenience. Think of how much time it takes to stay on top of things. To stay on top of music or film. […] Although technology has made information vast and reachable, it's also turned the entire internet into a sludge pile. And now, instead of relying on professional curators to sort through things for us, now we have to do the sorting.
Think of the old days. When I was a kid, I lived in a podunk, suburban town in the middle of nowhere. It wasn't a major city or even a major state, but I was able to quite easily stay on top of everything pop culture related, even things that weren't mainstream or even super popular in my country.
I discovered interesting music like Aphex Twin, Squarepusher, Portishead, Tricky, Orbital, Takako Minekawa, Hooverphonic, Poe, Veruca Salt all from sporadically listening to one college radio station in my hometown and, once a week, watching one music program on MTV (usually 120 Minutes or AMP). Then, once a month, I would sometimes flip through a music magazine while at the hair salon (usually Rolling Stone or Spin). And that was literally it. […]
Relying on algorithms puts way too much power in technology's hands. And algorithms can only predict content that you've seen before. It'll never surprise you with something different. It keeps you in a little bubble. Oh, you like shoegaze? Well, that's all the algorithm is going to give you until you intentionally start listening to something else.
It makes art (music, film, tv, etc.) seem like one big sludge pile. It makes it feel vast and exhausting, like an endless list of things that you'll never get to the end of. I've been noticing this sentiment with society, this feeling of always being mentally exhausted. […]
Who has the time for any of this? Technology is making our lives harder, not easier.[…] The ones who prioritize comfort will stay in their algorithmic bubbles, while those who care about broadening their horizons will prioritize finding things on their own. Search long enough and eventually you will find what you're looking for. Eventually.”

» If nothing is curated, how do we find things by Tadaima

🤔 Artificial Thinking

It’s a feeling I think we can all relate to. We use AI because it’s fast, convenient, almost magical sometimes – but does it really improve our lives and augment our brains, or does it rather atrophy “organic” thinking? The piece below echoes two other interesting ones: the first one framed this phenomenon as capability atrophy, the other one as cognitive debt, i.e. when you forgo the thinking in order just to get the answers, but have no real idea of why the answers are what they are.

“I used to write prolifically. I’d have ideas, write them down, massage them slowly and carefully into cohesive pieces of work over time, and then–when they were ready–share them with the world. I’d obsess for hours before sharing anything, working through the strengths and weaknesses of my thinking. […] And because I think when I write, and writing is how I form opinions and work through holes in my arguments, my writing would lead to more and better thoughts over time. Thinking is compounding–the more you think, the better your thoughts become.
But now, when my brain spontaneously forms a tiny sliver of a potentially interesting concept or idea, I can just shove a few sloppy words into a prompt and almost instantly get a fully reasoned, researched, and completed thought. Minimal organic thinking required. This has had a dramatic and profound effect on my brain. My thinking systems have atrophied, and I can feel it–I can sense my slightly diminishing intuition, cleverness, and rigor. And because AI can so easily flesh out ideas, I feel less inclined to share my thoughts–no matter how developed. […]
Learning by reading LLM output is cheap. Real exercise for your mind comes from building the output yourself.
The irony is that I now know more than I ever would have before AI. But I feel slightly dumber. A bit more dull. LLMs give me finished thoughts, polished and convincing, but none of the intellectual growth that comes from developing them myself. The output from AI answers questions. It teaches me facts. But it doesn’t really help me know anything new.”

» Thoughts on thinking by Dustin Curtis

📈 Numbers

A thought-provoking chart that perfectly captures a pivotal shift:

💸 Rich = Richer

“$1 Trillion of Wealth Was Created for the 19 Richest U.S. Households Last Year”

🌀 Re-Framings

A few short re-framings for building better systems or worlds that I’ve recently come across:

⚖️ Sustainability Strategy → Sustainability Principle

“We need to stop “selling” sustainability like it’s a business hack. For years, sustainability was pitched to companies with one main promise: “It’s good for the planet, and even better for your bottom line.” Lower energy costs. Higher margins. Better brand loyalty. Increased profits… this and that…
This narrative kind of worked right? At least it got sustainability through the boardroom door; something called ESG emerged etc… But here’s the problem: it also reduced sustainability to a strategy, not a principle. It made care for people and the planet somewhat conditional on “results”. […] And now we’ve reached a point where that narrative no longer holds. Where green washing and social washing, green hushing and so on exist because sustainability’s almost only value companies can clearly agree on is its marketing value. […]
We’ve taught ourselves to measure value only in financial terms. Sustainability is often seen as “worth it” only when it saves money, sells more, or improves image. But real sustainability isn’t a profit strategy. It’s a commitment. To fairness. To future generations. To producing less, but better. To healing, not extracting.
We need to rewrite the narrative. From “doing good is good for business” to “business can be good, period.” From “return on investment” to “return on integrity.” […]
So let’s ask better questions: Not “What’s in it for me?” But “What’s my responsibility?” And “How do we define success differently—together?””

» We need to stop “selling” sustainability like it’s a business hack. by Izabela Szeliga Ersahin

↔ Binary → The Space In-Between

“Freedom vs. collective responsibility.
Innovation vs. stability.
So often, our debates – political, organisational, even personal – endlessly cycle through these binaries. Back and forth – each side convinced they’re protecting a future the other would destroy.
But what if, in the most daunting challenges we face, choosing a side is exactly what’s holding us back from moving on?
Binaries aren’t inherently bad. They’re essential to how we make sense of reality. They help us navigate complexity, sharpen our priorities, and mobilise action. But this clarity always comes at a price: the unseen trade-offs, the night-sides, the unexplored possibilities that lie beyond our either-ors.
To move out of these loops, we might not want to pick a side, but to recognise the space in-between two sides as an interface: a space charged with friction, tension, and potential.
Interfaces aren’t always comfortable. They challenge us. They demand translation. But it’s precisely here – in the uneasy space in between the binary – that we discover pathways we couldn’t imagine from either position alone. […]
The goal of this type of thinking is not to erase boundaries – they're essential for making sense of the world. Instead, it's to make our binaries more intelligent, more permeable, more alive. To treat them as the interfaces they are and to collectively move beyond the limiting loops we keep finding ourselves in.”

» Beyond the binary by Simon Höher

👩‍🎨 Artists In Boardrooms

“In an era of data obsession and AI-powered solutions, we’ve sidelined a crucial catalyst for transformation: the artist's mind. While businesses scramble to hire more engineers and data scientists, could they be overlooking their most powerful allies in navigating uncertainty and driving innovation? […] What if your next strategic hire wasn’t an analyst — but an artist? […]
To reimagine the future, we must look back. The Renaissance wasn’t just an art movement — it was a systems reboot. Artists worked alongside mathematicians, philosophers, and merchants to reframe society’s operating systems. From the Medicis to the Vatican, power was paired with imagination, not to dazzle but to direct. […] Today, our systems are stagnating not from lack of innovation, but from a collective amnesia around the role of beauty and imagination in driving societal change. […]
Historically, artists have not merely reflected society — they’ve provoked it. Their work has been banned, branded “degenerate,” or erased — not because it lacked value, but because it revealed inconvenient truths. Artists often serve as conduits for a society’s collective emotional undercurrents — the invisible data that businesses and institutions desperately need, but struggle to recognise. […]
We’ve been taught to relegate creativity to marketing departments or brainstorming sessions, treating it like a mood rather than a muscle. And in the uncertain terrain of today’s economy, survival isn’t about efficiency — it’s about adaptability. Creativity is what allows cultures to bend instead of break, to reconfigure themselves when the old structures begin to rot. In uncertainty, it’s survival tech. In systemic failure, it’s a generator of renewal. […]
To welcome artists into boardrooms, then, isn’t just about diversity of thought. It’s about strategic resilience. It’s about embracing ambiguity as a design material, and story as a strategic asset. It’s about recognising that the artist’s way of seeing — sensitive, symbolic, non-linear — might just be our best shot at shaping a future where human and planetary flourishing is not just a hope, but a strategy.”

» What if Artists Were Your Strategic Weapon in the Boardroom? by Annalise Lewis & Laura Melissa Williams

🧬 Frameworks

One small, handy framework to build more regenerative, beautiful, and just systems:

Pando Funding: Financing System Change Networks by Robert Ricigliano & Anna Muoio

“Pando Funding pools capital to increase the likelihood of shifting a complex system for the better by investing in a system change network — what we are now calling a Pando Network. It brings together system leaders, helps them develop a shared vision for transformational change, and shifts decision-making into their hands so they can adapt and innovate in response to emerging developments on the ground. […] Pando Funding creates the conditions for deeper, more resilient change by aligning the strategic use of capital with the collective intelligence and shared purpose of leaders working within system change networks.”