Rabbit Holes 🕳 #6

From vuja de to algospeak, the a-ha moment and carnism

Heyyyy we’re back with Rabbit Holes this week 🥳!!! Read on to dive into 5 perspective-shifting ideas and stories.

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Rabbit Holes 🕳

👀 Vuja De = Creative Destruction

The concept of Vuja De (or sometimes also refereed to as Vu Deja) describes exactly what this newsletter is all about. So if you’re into methodologies and tools, I highly recommend you to keep reading and dive deeper into Vuja De:

Ana Lorena Fabrega@anafabrega11

Young kids and innovators share an important trait: What everyone else takes for granted, they see as new and ripe with opportunity. Let’s talk about the power of vuja de 🪡

2:16 PM · Sep 12, 2021

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92 Reposts · 548 Likes

Ana Lorena Fabrega@anafabrega11

Déjà vu occurs when we encounter something new, but it feels as if we’ve seen it before. Vuja de is the reverse. “We face something familiar, but we see it with a fresh perspective that enables us to gain new insights into old problems.” @AdamMGrant

2:16 PM · Sep 12, 2021

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9 Reposts · 99 Likes

→ check out the entire Twitter thread or read this article to learn more about Vuja De

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💬 Algospeak Is Changing Our Language

“‘Algospeak’ is becoming increasingly common across the Internet as people seek to bypass content moderation filters on social media platforms such as TikTok, YouTube, Instagram and Twitch.”

“For instance, in many online videos, it’s common to say ‘unalive’ rather than ‘dead,’ ‘SA’ instead of ‘sexual assault,’ or ‘spicy eggplant’ instead of ‘vibrator.’”

“When young people began to discuss struggling with mental health, they talked about ‘becoming unalive’ in order to have frank conversations about suicide without algorithmic punishment.”

“Black and trans users, and those from other marginalized communities, often use algospeak to discuss the oppression they face, swapping out words for ‘white’ or ‘racist.’ Some are too nervous to utter the word ‘white’ at all and simply hold their palm toward the camera to signify White people.”

→ read the entire article about Algospeak

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🫠 Story Breakdown

“I believe that we are in a period of story breakdown […]. As many stories that we held so dear in our near-recent human history are unravelling, the rates of mental health problems are rising. Things like ‘if I spend my life working hard everyday then I will be financially secure and happy’ or ‘if I go to a good University I will be successful’ are no longer a given.”

“We’re in a chasm between stories that used to function and new stories which haven’t yet gathered enough coherence to function effectively. We can respect the stories of the past, but we also realise that they often aren’t actually helping us to navigate the reality we are living in anymore.”

“There’s also the fact that we’ve not quite made sense of the immense power we’ve unlocked with technology, or constructed a new story that incorporates how we’d like to interact and engage with it. If technology is good, then why do so many algorithms seem to leave us feeling depressed and isolated?”

“…in a time of greater access to information and an explosion in the number of choices we have it becomes harder to cling onto a simple story. Perhaps it’s time to accept that an increasingly complex world we need to adapt to more nuanced stories and resist the urge to hone in on the one that is the most black-or-white.”

→ keep on reading this amazing article

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🔌 The A-ha Moment! Or How Norwegian Band A-Ha Helped Kill The Petrol Car In Norway

Yes, that’s right! Through civil disobedience, A-ha changed the rules and incentives for electric vehicles in Norway which today is considered the global leader in EV adoption. Here is the whole story:

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🥩 Carnism vs. Veganism

Wanna get more people off of eating animals?! Shine a spotlight on the ideology they already subscribe to: carnism. And make veganism less -ism.

“Veganism also has a disadvantage built into its name - ism.

By design it speaks ‘ideology’, while eating meat has escaped this type of classification. Eating meat is very much an ideology on its own, successfully hidden within the dense fabric of society. This ideology is called ‘carnism’ and it ranks in horror right up there with patriarchy, racism, nazism, and other violent belief systems.”

“We are at a tipping point and our survival on this planet is in serious jeopardy. So what are we doing? We fight. We point fingers. We bully, we insult, we provoke. ‘Like a bunch of animals.’ A true testament to our ‘carnal nature’. In the end, we shall eat ourselves. A fitting end for a spectacular species. I sure hope that’s not the case, though. I hope we learn to see our commonality.”

“We don’t have to regard a diet shift towards more plants as a ‘sacrifice’. It’s more an opportunity to diversify the food on our plates. It’s an opportunity to rediscover our connection to food, to our bodies, and to the world.”

→ read more here

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That’s it for this week! As always, please do share this newsletter with your network if you find it valuable. 😉

Thanks a lot!

Thomas