Status and Self-Optimising

Boarding Group One

JA Westenberg | 18th September 2025

Observations from the airport boarding gate. Obsession with status is one of the last mainstream religions. "It makes me wonder: what would life look like if we stopped boarding by group? If the airline called out, 'Everyone at once,' would we descend into chaos, or would something like order figure itself out? Maybe the whole system depends on our willingness to submit to hierarchies that humiliate us" (1,000 words)

Nomido is the Browser's daily word game. Play today's before it's gone!

The Imp Of Optimisation

Sean Voisen | 1st August 2025

We have a high tolerance for tracking and monitoring. Governments and corporations perpetrate much of it, but we also do it to ourselves: sousveillance, not surveillance. Turn off the Apple Watch for a bit. "In a culture obsessed with achievement and self-optimisation, this might be the most countercultural act possible: to leave some things unmeasured, untracked, unoptimised, unpublicised" (2,100 words)