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303 lines
12 KiB
Plaintext
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[1]Interconnected
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A blog by Matt Webb
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• [2]About
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• [3]Archive
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• [4]Work
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Subscribe for $0
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• [5]Email
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• [6]RSS feed
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• [7](What is a feed?)
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Unoffice Hours
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• [8]Book a call
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• [9](What is this?)
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a.k.a. genmon
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• [10]Bluesky
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• [11]X/Twitter
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• [12]Insta
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• [13]Mastodon
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• [14]LinkedIn
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Building the AI clock
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• [15]Check out Poem/1
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Singing the gospel of collective efficacy
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20.01, Friday 30 Jan 2026 [16]Link to this post
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If I got to determine the school curriculum, I would be optimising for
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collective efficacy.
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So I live in a gentrified but still mixed neighbourhood in London (we’re the
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newbies at just under a decade) and we have an active WhatsApp group.
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Recently there was a cold snap and a road nearby iced over – it was in the
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shade and cyclists kept on wiping out on it. For some reason the council didn’t
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come and salt it.
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Somebody went out and created a sign on a weighted chair so it didn’t blow
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away. And this is a small thing but I LOVE that I live somewhere there is a
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shared belief that (a) our neighbourhood is worth spending effort on, and (b)
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you can just do things.
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Similarly we all love when the swifts visit (beautiful birds), so somebody
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started a group to get swift nest boxes made and installed collectively, then
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applied for subsidy funding, then got everyone to chip in such that people who
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couldn’t afford it could have their boxes paid for, and now suddenly we’re all
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writing to MPs and following the legislation to include swift nesting sites in
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new build houses. Etc.
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It’s called collective efficacy, the belief that you can make a difference by
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acting together.
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(People who have heard of Greta Thunberg tend to [17]have a stronger sense of
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collective efficacy (2021).)
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It’s so heartening.
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━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
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You can just do things
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That phrase was a Twitter thing for a while, and I haven’t done the archaeology
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on the phrase but there’s this blog post by Milan Cvitkovic from 2020: [18]
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Things you’re allowed to do.
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e.g.
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• `Say I don’t know'
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• `Tape over annoying LED lights'
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• `Buy goods/services from your friends'
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I read down the list saying to myself, yeah duh of course, to almost every
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single one, then hit certain ones and was like – oh yeah, I can just do that.
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━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
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I think collective efficacy is maybe 50% taking off the blinkers and giving
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yourself (as a group) permission to do things.
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But it’s also 50% belief that it’s worth acting at all.
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And that belief is founded part in care, and part in faith that what you are
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doing can actually make a difference.
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For instance:
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A lot of my belief in the power of government comes from the fact that, back in
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the day, London’s tech scene was not all that. So in 2009 I worked with
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Georgina Voss to figure out the gap, then in 2010 bizarrely got invited on a
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trade mission to India with the Prime Minister and got the opportunity to make
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the case about east London to them, and based on that No. 10 launched Tech City
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(which we had named on the plane), and that acted as a catalyst on the work
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that everyone was already doing to get the cluster going, and then we were off
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to the races. WIRED magazine wrote it up in 2019: [19]The story of London’s
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tech scene, as told by those who built it (paywall-busting link).
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So I had that experience and now I believe that, if I can find the right ask,
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there’s always the possibility to make things better.
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That’s a rare experience. I’m very lucky.
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━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
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ALTHOUGH.
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Should we believe in luck?
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Psychologist Richard Wiseman, [20]The Luck Factor (2003, PDF):
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I gave both [self-identified] lucky and unlucky people a newspaper, and
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asked them to look through it and tell me how many photographs were inside.
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On average, the unlucky people took about two minutes to count the
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photographs whereas the lucky people took just seconds. Why? Because the
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second page of the newspaper contained the message “Stop counting - There
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are 43 photographs in this newspaper.”
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`Lucky people generate their own good fortune via four basic principles.'
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They are skilled at creating and noticing chance opportunities, make lucky
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decisions by listening to their intuition, create self-fulfilling
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prophesies via positive expectations, and adopt a resilient attitude that
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transforms bad luck into good.
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I insist that people are not lucky nor unlucky. Maybe some amount of luck is
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habit?
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You can just be lucky?
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(Well, not absolutely, privilege is big, but maybe let’s recalibrate luck from
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believing it is entirely random, that’s what I’m saying.)
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━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
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When I was a kid I used to play these unforgivingly impossible video games –
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that’s what home video games were like then. No open world play, multiple ways
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to win, or adaptive difficulty. Just pixel-precise platform jumps and timing.
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Yet you always knew that there was a way onto the next screen, however long it
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took.
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It taught a kind of stubborn optimism.
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━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
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Or, in another context, `No fate but what we make.'
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Same same.
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All of which makes me ask:
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Could we invent free-to-plan mobile games which train luckiness?
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Are there games for classrooms that would cement a faith in collective efficacy
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in kids?
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Or maybe it’s proof by demonstration.
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I’m going into my kid’s school in a couple of weeks to show the class photos of
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what it looks like inside factories. The stuff around us was made by people
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like us; it’s not divine in origin; factories are just rooms.
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I have faith that - somehow - at some point down the line - this act will help.
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━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
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If you enjoyed this post, please consider sharing it by email or on social
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media. [21]Here’s the link. Thanks, —Matt.
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Most recent posts
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• Singing the gospel of collective efficacy 30 Jan 2026 (This post)
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• [22]Do today’s work today 23 Jan 2026
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• [23]The natural home for AI agents is your Reminders app 15 Jan 2026
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• [24]Real like ghosts or real like celebrities? 9 Jan 2026
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• [25]My top posts in 2025 3 Jan 2026
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• [26]More scraps from my notes file 26 Dec 2025
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• [27]Filtered for conspiracy theories 19 Dec 2025
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• [28]My new fave thing to go to is algoraves 11 Dec 2025
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• [29]My mental model of the AI race 5 Dec 2025
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• [30]Context plumbing 29 Nov 2025
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• [31]Spinning up a new thing: Inanimate 19 Nov 2025
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• [32]3 books with Samuel Arbesman 14 Nov 2025
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Continue reading: [33]All in 2025
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streak New posts for 305 consecutive weeks (see: [34]blogging tips)
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New? Start here: [35]Best of 2025 (also [36]2024, [37]2023, [38]2022, [39]2021,
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[40]2020)
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Or explore the archives: [41]On this day
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Archive
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• [42]2026 5 posts
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• [43]2025 61 posts
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• [44]2024 60 posts
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• [45]2023 68 posts
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• [46]2022 96 posts
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• [47]2021 128 posts
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• [48]2020 118 posts
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• [49]2019 23 posts
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• [50]2018 47 posts
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• [51]2017 22 posts
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• [52]2016 48 posts
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• [53]2015 88 posts
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• [54]2014 30 posts
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• [55]2013 6 posts
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• [56]2012 27 posts
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• [57]2011 76 posts
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• [58]2010 2 posts
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• [59]2009 2 posts
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• [60]2008 59 posts
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• [61]2007 20 posts
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━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
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[62][ ] Search
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Since February 2000. Copyright © 2026 Matt Webb.
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p.s. here’s [70]my blogroll and the [71]colophon.
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References:
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[1] https://interconnected.org/home/
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[2] https://interconnected.org/
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[3] https://interconnected.org/home/2026/01/30/efficacy#archive
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[4] https://www.actsnotfacts.com/
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[5] https://buttondown.com/genmon
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[6] https://interconnected.org/home/feed
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[7] https://aboutfeeds.com/
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[8] https://calendly.com/mwie/30min
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[9] https://interconnected.org/home/2020/09/24/unoffice_hours
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[10] https://bsky.app/profile/genmon.org
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[11] https://x.com/genmon
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[12] https://www.instagram.com/genmon/
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[13] https://mastodon.social/@genmon
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[14] https://www.linkedin.com/in/genmon/
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[15] https://poem.town/
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[16] https://interconnected.org/home/2026/01/30/efficacy
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[17] https://interconnected.org/home/2021/04/08/efficacy
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[18] https://milan.cvitkovic.net/writing/things_youre_allowed_to_do/
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[19] https://archive.ph/GJrTT
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[20] http://richardwiseman.com/resources/The_Luck_Factor.pdf
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[21] https://interconnected.org/home/2026/01/30/efficacy
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[22] https://interconnected.org/home/2026/01/23/umpa
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[23] https://interconnected.org/home/2026/01/15/reminders
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[24] https://interconnected.org/home/2026/01/09/real
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[25] https://interconnected.org/home/2026/01/03/top-posts
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[26] https://interconnected.org/home/2025/12/26/scraps
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[27] https://interconnected.org/home/2025/12/19/filtered
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[28] https://interconnected.org/home/2025/12/11/live
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[29] https://interconnected.org/home/2025/12/05/training
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[30] https://interconnected.org/home/2025/11/28/plumbing
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[31] https://interconnected.org/home/2025/11/19/inanimate
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[32] https://interconnected.org/home/2025/11/14/arbesman
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[33] https://interconnected.org/home/2025
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[34] https://interconnected.org/home/2020/09/10/streak
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[35] https://interconnected.org/home/2026/01/03/top-posts
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[36] https://interconnected.org/home/2024/12/30/top-posts
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[37] https://interconnected.org/home/2023/12/22/top-posts
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[38] https://interconnected.org/home/2022/12/21/top_posts
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[39] https://interconnected.org/home/2021/12/23/top_posts
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[40] https://interconnected.org/home/2020/12/17/top_posts
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[41] https://interconnected.org/home/on-this-day
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[42] https://interconnected.org/home/2026
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[43] https://interconnected.org/home/2025
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[44] https://interconnected.org/home/2024
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[45] https://interconnected.org/home/2023
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[46] https://interconnected.org/home/2022
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[47] https://interconnected.org/home/2021
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[48] https://interconnected.org/home/2020
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[49] https://interconnected.org/home/2019
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[50] https://interconnected.org/home/2018
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[51] https://interconnected.org/home/2017
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[52] https://interconnected.org/home/2016
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[53] https://interconnected.org/home/2015
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[54] https://interconnected.org/home/2014
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[55] https://interconnected.org/home/2013
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[56] https://interconnected.org/home/2012
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[57] https://interconnected.org/home/2011
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[58] https://interconnected.org/home/2010
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[59] https://interconnected.org/home/2009
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[60] https://interconnected.org/home/2008
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[61] https://interconnected.org/home/2007
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[70] https://interconnected.org/home/blogroll
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[71] https://interconnected.org/home/2024/10/28/colophon
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