## Highlights Perhaps the most famous call to arms was Vannevar Bush’s *As We May Think*, published in 1945, in which he imagined a memory expanding device called the *memex*. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j2sv4p1zpxx19dxe5y9gpdj2)) --- There have been several such futurists since: from Douglas Engelbart and Ted Nelson at the dawn of personal computing, to Alvin Toffler and Stewart Brand at the dawn of the internet, to Kevin Kelly and Andy Matuschak today. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j2sv53w0tg4g7347mm75maxd)) --- You can't transcend current systems to build a new tool for thought before you've thoroughly probed the [idea maze](https://cdixon.org/2013/08/04/the-idea-maze/) to find the right atomic concepts. In the [words of Kevin Kwok](https://kwokchain.com/2021/02/05/atomic-concepts/): > The best products map to how customers think about their workflow... They choose the right atomic concepts. These are the core concepts around which the entire product is built. They not only align with how customers think of their workflow, but often crystallizes for customers how they ought to. Great atomic concepts are honed and then extended and built upon in more complex compounds that…well for lack of a better word…compound. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j2sw02wqxvm03d2jawb60xv4)) > Note: What’s the law about building systems from complex systems? ---