We live by metaphors. They shape our understanding and actions within the world. In previous posts, we've explored the mechanics of dumb and smart sharing at a high level. In this post, we're going to provide a complementary metaphor for Subset's capabilities. It's one of many we use to inform what we're doing, and why. And it's derived from a seminal animated series that began in 2005—Avatar: The Last Airbender.
Avatar: The Last Airbender is set in a world where certain individuals, known as benders, can manipulate one of four elements: water, earth, fire, or air. Each element has its own bending style, inspired by different forms of martial arts:
Waterbending: fluid movements resembling Tai Chi
Earthbending: strong, grounded movements similar to Hung Ga
Firebending: aggressive movements akin to Shaolin kung fu
Airbending: agile, evasive techniques like Baguazhang
The Avatar, a generational figure, can bend all elements and is tasked with maintaining harmony. The series follows Aang, the current Avatar, on his quest to master each element, stop the Fire Nation from conquering the world, and restore peace.
As the story unfolds, we learn that bending is more than a mere skill. It is a holistic practice. One that encompasses physical prowess, spiritual depth, emotional stability, intellectual agility and cultural rootedness. For the bender, it is as much about mastering oneself as it is mastering the manipulation of the elements.
Subset affords access to a fifth element. One that people like us—children of the Third Industrial Revolution instead of the Water Tribes, Earth Kingdom, Fire Nation and Air Nomads—can learn to bend: information.
Like creatures in a great ocean, we exist within a seething, never-ending flow of activity instantiated as bits and transformed via layer layer upon layer of socio-technical abstraction into the emphatically digital society we know and love-hate. Some of the most common activities we undertake within this seething, shifting entity are saving, sharing and searching:
We discover interesting things and store them
We draw other people's attention to the things we've found via various means
We search for utility and novelty amongst the things ourselves and others have found
The current state of this saving, sharing and searching is best characterised as physical manipulation. Like the non-benders in the world of the Avatar, we expend a lot of time, energy and expense on a recurring basis to accomplish simple actions, like sharing something with a friend or surfacing that meme we dropped in a group chat on some platform two weeks ago. The coming state of how we save, share and search, in contrast, is best characterised as intent-based manipulation. As bending.
Imagine yourself stood in a mountain stream, cold, glass-clear water flowing around your bare feet and shins. On the bank to your right is a bucket. Your task is to direct some of that water into it. As a non-bender, you must resort to cupped hands and careful steps across the smooth stones of the stream bed. As a bender, however, a focusing of your intent and will is enough to siphon a sliver of the stream and direct it into your target. Without Subset, we save, share and search with cupped hands. With Subset, little more than intent is required.
Right now, we are at the early stages of information bending. We've focused on a single save-share-search pattern with our 0.2 product: the unreasonably effective email digest. Soon, we'll be delivering deeper digest controls and introducing more save-share-search patterns, such as direct and group emails. Ultimately, though, the aim is to transform information bending from a neat metaphor into reality. Into an art and a practice that people the world over can pick up, master and use to deepen connections with themselves, with others, and with the world around them.
If that sounds like something you'd be interested in then send us a message at hello@subset.network. We've got a lot of exciting capabilities in development and we're looking for a handful of pioneering information benders to help us steer this new art. Because as Aang discovered, mastering bending is much easier when you're surrounded by fellow practitioners.
