Call for Pitches: CLOUDS (Spring 2022) Clouds are fuzzy. They have shifting dimensions and indistinct edges. They are vague shapes, so they make for vague metaphors. Computing needs metaphors to make it legible: it is hard to describe what happens inside or between computers without them. The cloud symbol was used as early as 1970 in technical diagrams to represent telephone or computer networks. Today, the cloud has become the master metaphor for a global archipelago of warehouses that collectively coordinate most of the world’s computing power. This cloud is in turn implicated in other kinds of cloudiness—clouds of smoke (vaporware, wildfires), clouded thinking (boosterism, bourgeois idealism). This issue will explore tech’s many clouds and the interesting, hopeful, or destructive shapes they make in the literal or figurative sky. Pitch window closes 11/8.
Pitch Guidelines:
In terms of length, our pitches are usually around two short paragraphs.
In terms of content, we’re generally looking for the following:
-
Specificity: The more details, the better. How does the thing or process you’re describing work, at the most intimate level? The kind of detail can vary widely: it might involve technical detail if you’re describing a technology, or reported detail if it’s a reported piece. But specificity is critical to any good piece. It not only helps make for an interesting piece of writing, it also establishes your credibility as the one writing it. It speaks to why you should be the one writing this piece. What makes you uniquely positioned to write this?
-
Stakes: Why does this piece matter? Why should the reader read past the first few paragraphs? A successful piece should answer the “so what?” question early and often. It’s possible that a few readers will come to your piece already interested in the particular subject you’re discussing—but the vast majority won’t. How will you make the case to your readers that they should keep reading?
We recommend reading some of the pieces that have appeared in Logic, to get a sense of how writers have approached the above considerations. There’s a fair bit available online at our website, https://logicmag.io/
Pitch Ideas
- talk about shift from local to cloud. what does that imply?
- how can the cloud set us free and how can the cloud imprison us?
- when we look at clouds as children, they are very amorphous, squishy, whimsical… They are a gateway for imagination and easy summer days.
- When we look at thunder clouds, they are omens. They feel dangerous, scary, suppressing, ruinous.
- Why does some technology feel like thunder clouds and others feel like fluffy clouds? How do we create technology that encourages whimsicality and play?
#writing/ideas make a pitch about clouds forming shapes that the viewer decides. Technology should be the same way; it should shape itself to what we want it to do. Can it be shown in a series of stories about different people imagining and experiencing technology differently?
- optimist
- Pessimist
- Old
- Young
what should the technology be?
- social media
- future form of social media where every action is logged
- future form of social media where everyone own their own identity online
- future form of social media where everyone shares streams of things and they all interface together
- moldable software/technology where every piece of technology you interact with every day has an interface for you to change it
- draw inspiration from dynamicland
Type* What sort of piece are you pitching us?
- Short (1200 - 1600 words)
- Long (2000-4000+ words)
- Interview
- Art
- Other
What’s the pitch? *
Like clouds, to different people, the same technology can appear vastly different. Because technology is so ephemeral and fuzzy, we’ve learned to impart our assumptions and desires and more on the technology we use every day, but they often don’t respond in kind. What makes someone look at tech with hopeful eyes rather than ones full of fear? I argue that the difference is the ability of the underlying technology to accept and channel our feelings and thoughts and needs, rather than emptying them onto a black hole of consumption. I want to explore how technology can give us agency and how that agency translates into the power to forming the clouds that we want to see. What might a future look like where we can communally cultivate a shared understanding of and control over the technological clouds that we feel beholden to now?
Currently, the clouds are out of our control. Big tech corporations hold the keys to the kingdom, while many of our elected government representatives struggle to even understand how these companies and their applications even work. Automation has begun to eliminate jobs that used to provide a living, and many have begun to view all of tech as storm clouds, bringing destruction. While software literacy is increasing, it will be many decades or even centuries before we have universal basic computer science literacy. The shift in perspective towards viewing tech’s clouds as destructive and dangerous is directly caused by the fact that we’re beholden to profit-driven mega companies and their faceless software developer armies. Our avenues for input are limited and hold little sway over how decisions are made within the companies, compared to the desires of their shareholders. We need technologies that empower individuals and communities to express their opinions in new software creations in the open. Many products are attempting to democratize the open source movement by making software creation accessible to non-technical people through no-code builder, flow-based automation creators, and documents that grow into apps, web 3 advocates are exploring new protocols for permanent personal data ownership through IPFS and Arweave, and non-profit research foundations like Dynamicland are dreaming of worlds where computing mediums are as approachable to modify as toys for kids. We need to invest in and support these efforts to reclaim our agency in order to dispel the clouds of fear and give people the power to form the hopeful and whimsical that they want to see in the sky.
What are the Stakes of this piece?
And how does this piece intervene with, interrogate, or complicate those stakes?
We’re at a critical moment in our society where our discourse teeters between decrying tech as the harbinger of destruction and tech as humanity’s only hope. The rift in understanding between the two groups is only widening and with every new tech scandal, the sense of unactionable frustration grows. One of the few popular ways to stand up for your beliefs towards these big tech companies is to delete their apps, yet it’s not enough to make a dent and some can’t afford to lose out on a critical outlet for connection. Without a significant outlet, we are at risk of losing many of those frustrated to apathy, internalizing that they have no power to affect change. We need to act to advocate for software agency before we lose society to a sense of apathy towards tech and give people an outlet for channeling their frustrations productively and openly.
Why you?
Why are you the right person to write this piece? During the day, I’m an engineer at Coda, a startup trying to give more agency to non-technical people over the tools they use every day. I’ve always struggled with how to channel my concerns and frustrations with tech in an actionable way without falling to apathy. Through Reboot and other communities thinking critically about tech optimism, I’ve been exploring a lot of avenues for how we can empower people with the agency to create the change they want to see.
Why Logic?
Why is this piece a good fit for Logic to publish? I believe this piece would be perfect for Logic because it matches Logic’s philosophy around exploring how specifically we can shape technology to make it better for us moving forward, rather than blanket rejecting or accepting it as doombringer or savior. Logic gives a voice to pieces that show and explore the human touchpoints of tech and how we can shape our technology to support and evolve our ways of living while preserving our very human tenderness and mundanity, and this piece explores how we can create technology that gives every person the agency to shape the tech they use for their needs—to tell their stories rather than the dramatized “viral” content that traditional tech discourse optimizes for now. I believe this piece explores one of the fundamental questions of our time: how do we give everyone the power to shape technology towards building a better future rather than trusting the small group of elites that have all the say now?
Related work?
Are there other examples of your work you can share to give us a sense of your writing style and approach?
I mostly write on my website/blog at https://spencerchang.me (my favorites are showcased on the home page, with a full list at https://www.spencerchang.me/posts). My style mostly revolves around personal essays, but I also have written technical blog posts for companies and more idea-focused personal essays on my website. examples include https://coda.io/@spencer/rituals-at-scale-how-we-remixed-templates and https://www.spencerchang.me/posts/better-world-delusion/ and https://www.spencerchang.me/posts/liminal-illusions/.
Please tell us about how you identify and would like to be seen For example, you may wish to include gender identity, preferred pronouns, sexuality, cultural heritage, national origin, immigration status, disability status – or any other aspect of your identity you’d like to share.
My pronouns are he/him/his and I’m a second-generation immigrant from Taiwan.