Tela Network Forum

Iron sharpens iron.

Latest Post

#84 | 2025-11-29 10:20:03 UTC
The future of business
Paul Thaler-Williams

We won't even see the next era of business coming. One day it will just appear. We look backwards for inspiration. Forwards for escape. Recently, I was inspired by an answer from Roman Mars of 99% invisible to the question "which design hill would you die on?" His response: "efficiency makes society worse." All our attempts to carve the perfect process leave us with hyper-efficient, but inhuman monoliths. People, the real elements of society, get left by the side of the road. Valencia's Juan Roig, well-known for his entrepreneurship, had a similar response to the Classic American Capitalist perspective that calls for endless streamlining working towards the capitalist ideal of running a billion-dollar company with a single employee. Roig's approach was instead: maximum employment. The highest good is the highest engagement with society. Is it efficient? No. Is it human? Very much yes. I would like to see business become more human.

Random Post

#19 | 2025-06-15 18:35:16 UTC
(If) God wills it
Duncan Tertius-Froude

“… Fatalism is thought to be meshed in Islam. “Inshallah” - if God wills it - can breed a sense of resignation, a “why bother?” attitude. That’s the opposite of taking charge and getting things done. It’s also used by non-religious Arabs and it really predates Islam. I was in Iraq for a bit during the second Gulf War and I talked to a young American soldier who was training Iraqis to take over. He said that time and time again their soldiers would literally hold their rifles above their head to shoot. Their belief was that God would guide those bullets, so it really didn't matter if they aimed their guns at all. That’s not great soldiering.” Source: “Why Can’t Arab Armies Beat the West?” (9:55) Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=robmO5AKJ8 “Deus vult” — “God wills it” — was the rallying cry of the First Crusade. Unlike “IF God wills it,” the phrase asserts divine approval, not possibility. That’s a qualitative difference.

Topics

• Introductions

• Skills

• Portfolios

• Podcasts

• Articles

• Jobs

• Politics

• Culture

• What Is To Be Done ?