Winning Slowly: Recent Episodes
Chris Krycho and Stephen Carradini
There are plenty of podcasts that will tell you how the latest tech gadget or “innovation” will affect the tech landscape tomorrow, but there aren’t that many concerned with the potential impact of that tech in a decade—much less a century. In a culture obsessed with now, how can we make choices with a view for tomorrow, next year, and beyond? 25–35-minute episodes released the first and third Wednesdays of the month.
Show Notes You heard that right, everyone. Who knows, maybe we’ll be back someday, though!
(Long-time listeners: stick around for the last bit of this episode. Trust us.)
Music * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. * Something special
Respond We (still!) love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
Reviewing what we learned in 2020—and ranking what we read!
So many books!
Also: MARIMBAAAAAAAAAAA!!!
Show Notes The books we covered this season:
- Phaedrus, Plato: 8.02, 8.03
- The Postmodern Condition, Lyotard: 8.04, 8.05
- The Age of Spiritual Machines, Ray Kurzweil: 8.06, 8.07
- Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton: 8.08, 8.09
- The Printing Press as an Agent of Change, Elizabeth Eisenstein: 8.10, 8.11
- Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness, Simone Browne: 8.12, 8.13
- The Real World of Technology, Ursula Franklin: 8.14, 8.15
- Evolution as a Religion, Mary Midgley: 8.16, 8.17
- Contact, Carl Sagan: 8.18, 8.19
- Twitter and Tear Gas, Zeynep Tüfekçi: 8.20, 8.21
- Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, Robin Sloan: 8.22
Stephen’s list 1. Twitter and Tear Gas 2. Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore 3. The Printing Press as an Agent of Change 4. The Postmodern Condition 5. Contact 6. Jurassic Park 7. Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness 8. The Real World of Technology 9. Phaedrus 10. The Age of Spiritual Machines 11. Evolution as a Religion
Chris’s list 1. Twitter and Tear Gas 2. Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore 3. The Printing Press as an Agent of Change 4. Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness 5. Jurassic Park 6. Phaedrus 7. Contact 8. The Real World of Technology 9. The Postmodern Condition 10. The Age of Spiritual Machines 11. Evolution as a Religion
Credits Music * “Foxglove”, by Ryan Dugré. Used by permission, please don’t use without permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0, meaning you can do whatever you want with this music… as long as you share it for others to likewise do what they want.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Daniel Ellcey
- Douglas Campos
- Jake Grant
- Marnix Klooster
- Spencer Smith
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Shoot us an email, or hit us up on Twitter or Facebook!
Neal Stephenson at double speed and with a smile on his face.
Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, Robin Sloan
Show Notes * Robin Sloan + Sourdough * Ruby * George Saunders * Cory Doctorow
Credits Music * “Getaway Car”, by Ezekiel Songs originally written by Make Sure. Used by permission, please don’t use without permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0, meaning you can do whatever you want with this music… as long as you share it for others to likewise do what they want.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Daniel Ellcey
- Douglas Campos
- Jake Grant
- Marnix Klooster
- Spencer Smith
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Shoot us an email, or hit us up on Twitter or Facebook!
The things we learned from Zeynep Tüfekçi’s examination of social media and sociopolitical change. (We liked this book a lot.)
Twitter and Tear Gas, Zeynep Tüfekçi
Show Notes * Zeynep Tüfekçi + her recently-launched newsletter Insight * 52-Cent Party * Cultural Revolution * Tianenmen Square * Twitter and the 2020 US election + Twitter’s own take + Hunter Biden * Electoral college * Ben Thompson * Matt Levine’s newsletter Money Stuff + His latest issue before going on parental leave back in August + profiled in the New York Times
Matching blazers
For the ’gram
Upcoming Book * December (8.22 and 8.23): Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, Robin Sloan.
Credits Music * “Drop Off”, by Vertaal, feat. Severin Bruhin & Loren Hignell Used by permission, please don’t use without permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0, meaning you can do whatever you want with this music… as long as you share it for others to likewise do what they want.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Daniel Ellcey
- Douglas Campos
- Jake Grant
- Marnix Klooster
- Spencer Smith
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Shoot us an email, or hit us up on Twitter or Facebook!
Walking through Zeynep Tüfekçi’s masterful explanation of the relationship between social media and protest movements.
Twitter and Tear Gas, Zeynep Tüfekçi
Show Notes Things we mentioned on the show, in the order we mentioned them:
- Zeynep Tüfekçi
- her recently-launched newsletter Insight
- modern Turkey
- Zapatistas
- Occupy Wall Street
- 1999 World Trade Organization protests
- Arab Spring
- Tea Party
- China’s treatment of the Uyghurs
- Capacities/capabilities
- The Capability Approach, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Amartya Sen
- American Civil Rights Movement
- March on Washington
- Montgomery Bus Boycott
- John Lewis
- The Internet Archive
Upcoming Book * December (8.22 and 8.23): Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, Robin Sloan.
Credits Music * “Ode to Youth”, by Liam Mour Used by permission, please don’t use without permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0, meaning you can do whatever you want with this music… as long as you share it for others to likewise do what they want.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Daniel Ellcey
- Douglas Campos
- Jake Grant
- Marnix Klooster
- Spencer Smith
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Shoot us an email, or hit us up on Twitter or Facebook!
Thinking about Carl Sagan's views on belief, and how they relate to religion and science
Contact, Carl Sagan
Show Notes After reading Carl Sagan’s 1985 novel Contact and watching the 1995 movie of the same name, we discuss a major epistemological question: what are the acceptable grounds for belief? Are religious belief and scientific proof compatible? Sagan’s surprisingly nuanced views give us interesting ways forward.
Things we mentioned on the show, in the order we mentioned them:
- Carl Sagan
- Cosmos: TV show and book
- Non-overlapping Magisteria
- More commentary on Sagan’s complex and complicated relationship with religion
- One of many episodes of the Bible Project talking about God working through history
- Richard Dawkins
- “Verily I say unto you, they have received their reward in full” (Carradini version, a mashup of the KJV and NIV translations of Matthew 6:2)
- Sagan’s views on religion and nuclear war
- Jenkins and LaHaye dispensationalist eschatology, otherwise known as the Left Behind series
- Postmillenialism
- Soviet genetics, also known as Lysenkoism (bonus: Lysenkoism is based partially on Lamarckism, which should be familiar to you if you just listened to our episodes on Mary Midgley’s work)
Upcoming Book * November (8.20 and 8.21): Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest, Zeynep Tufecki. You can also download it from Tufecki’s website as a PDF. * December (8.22 and 8.23): Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, Robin Sloan.
Credits Music * “Character” by Kylie Odetta. Used by permission, please don’t use without permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0, meaning you can do whatever you want with this music… as long as you share it for others to likewise do what they want.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Daniel Ellcey
- Douglas Campos
- Jake Grant
- Marnix Klooster
- Spencer Smith
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Shoot us an email, or hit us up on Twitter or Facebook!
Another book from the ’80s, but hey: at least this one is fiction!
Contact, Carl Sagan
Show Notes We read Carl Sagan’s 1985 novel Contact and watched the 1995 movie of the same name. In this episode, our overview of the book: its plot and its basic interests.
Things we mentioned on the show, in the order we mentioned them:
- Carl Sagan
- Cosmos: TV show and book
- Neil Degrasse Tyson
- Fermi Paradox
- Wow! signal
- Very Large Array
- Arecibo Observatory
- Neil Patrick Harris (wait for it, it’ll all make sense in the end)
Upcoming Book * November (8.20 and 8.21): Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest, Zeynep Tufecki. You can also download it from Tufecki’s website as a PDF. * December (8.22 and 8.23): Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, Robin Sloan.
Credits Music * “It’s a Movie, It’s a Dream” by Josh Caress. Used by permission, please don’t use without permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0, meaning you can do whatever you want with this music… as long as you share it for others to likewise do what they want.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Daniel Ellcey
- Douglas Campos
- Jake Grant
- Marnix Klooster
- Spencer Smith
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Shoot us an email, or hit us up on Twitter or Facebook!
We argue with Mary Midgley on how she did what she did, more than what she did.
Evolution as a Religion, Mary Midgley
Show Notes * Descartes’ belief that people can’t be rational without God; see paragraph six * Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene * David Hume * Immanuel Kant * John Rawls, the specific claim Stephen most has a problem with is the veil of ignorance concept explained in this page (although this is not mentioned in the episode) * Jacques Monod * Wickedness: A Philosophical Essay * Robinson Crusoe
Here’s another great cover of the book from the ’80s!
Have to climb to Omega, man!
Upcoming Book * October (8.18 and 8.19): Contact, Carl Sagan (and the movie) * November (8.20 and 8.21): Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest, Zeynep Tufecki. You can also download it from Tufecki’s website as a PDF.
Credits Music * “Sailor’s Cry” by A.M.R via Silk Music. Used by permission, please don’t use without permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0, meaning you can do whatever you want with this music… as long as you share it for others to likewise do what they want.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Daniel Ellcey
- Douglas Campos
- Jake Grant
- Marnix Klooster
- Spencer Smith
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Shoot us an email, or hit us up on Twitter or Facebook!
What had Mary Midgley so incredibly angry in the 1980s, and what did she do about it?
Evolution as a Religion, Mary Midgley
Show Notes * Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene * “Superman” and Friedrich Nietzsche * David Hume * Immanuel Kant * The other book Chris is reading on politics &c. currently: Politics and the Order of Love, Eric Gregory
Here’s another great cover of the book from the ’80s!
Have to climb to Omega, man!
Upcoming Book * October (8.18 and 8.19): Contact, Carl Sagan * November (8.20 and 8.21): Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest, Zeynep Tufecki. You can also download it from Tufecki’s website as a PDF.
Credits Music * “Acquainted with the Night” by Ezra Feinberg. Used by permission, please don’t use without permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0, meaning you can do whatever you want with this music… as long as you share it for others to likewise do what they want.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Daniel Ellcey
- Douglas Campos
- Jake Grant
- Marnix Klooster
- Spencer Smith
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Shoot us an email, or hit us up on Twitter or Facebook!
We point out several concerns that we have with the arguments Dr. Franklin makes in her lectures-turned-book: the ineffectiveness of her holistic and prescriptive technologies frame, her deeply cynical view on policy, and other thorny places that her arguments lead (like the Soviet Union).
The Real World of Technology, Ursula Franklin
Show Notes * Cold War peace movement * Peace movements in Canada * Second-wave feminism (to which Dr. Franklin’s feminism approximately belongs to) * History of environmental movements, post-WWII * Bijker, Hughes & Pinch’s seminal work on Social Construction of Technology: Stephen left out Hughes. Sorry, Thomas P. Hughes. * Actor-Network Theory * John Law and Annemarie Mol’s Handpump article: Stephen incorrectly only mentioned Mol instead of Law and Mol. Sorry, John Law. * Robert Moses’s bridges * Bay of Pigs invasion, also sometimes known as the Bay of Pigs incident: Stephen’s point in bringing this up was to allude to the point made neatly in the Wikipedia article: “[The failed invasion] also pushed Cuba closer to the Soviet Union, and those strengthened Soviet-Cuban relations would lead to the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.” * Almost no nuclear power plants have been built since 1990 * Nuclear power plants historically have decreased carbon emissions significantly: see paragraph four
Here’s the great cover of the book from the ’80s–note that at no time are floppy disks mentioned in the book.
Dr. Franklin does not advocate throwing floppy discs at people’s faces, presumably
Upcoming Book September (8.16 and 8.17): Evolution as a Religion: Strange Hopes and Stranger Fears, Mary Midgley
Credits Music * “Vista” by Escaper. Used by permission, please don’t use without permission. We usually announce that on the show, but a technical error resulted in a second straight month without verbal crediting. Argh! Argh! * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0, meaning you can do whatever you want with this music… as long as you share it for others to likewise do what they want.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Daniel Ellcey
- Douglas Campos
- Jake Grant
- Marnix Klooster
- Spencer Smith
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Shoot us an email, or hit us up on Twitter or Facebook!
The Real World of Technology, Ursula Franklin
Show Notes * Cold War peace movement * Peace movements in Canada * Second-wave feminism (to which Dr. Franklin’s feminism approximately belongs to) * Third-wave feminism (to which Dr. Franklin’s feminism approximately does not belong to): * Oklahoma historically dumping stuff in rivers * Arkansas historically dumping stuff in Oklahoma’s rivers * Oklahoma contemporarily dumping stuff in rivers
Here’s the great cover of the book from the ’80s–note that at no time are floppy disks mentioned in the book.
Purple cover of a book with a floppy disk superimposed over a person’s face
Upcoming Books * September (8.16 and 8.17): Evolution as a Religion: Strange Hopes and Stranger Fears, Mary Midgley * October (8.18 and 8.19): Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology, Neil Postman
Credits Music * “Mission Plan” by Matthew Shaw. Used by permission, please don’t use without permission. We usually announce that on the show, but a temporary glitch corrupted that section of the podcast. Whoops. Also, learn more about Matthew Shaw, this song, and Stephen’s long and storied enthusiasm for Shaw’s work here. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0, meaning you can do whatever you want with this music… as long as you share it for others to likewise do what they want.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Daniel Ellcey
- Douglas Campos
- Jake Grant
- Marnix Klooster
- Spencer Smith
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Shoot us an email, or hit us up on Twitter or Facebook!
Discussing Simone Browne’s epistemology, ideas, and arguments: what persuaded us, and what didn’t?
Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness—Explained, Simone Browne
Show Notes * Critical theory * Critical race theory * Black feminism * Intersectionality * White as default in AI, potentially due to biased/non-diverse training data * Finding God in the Lord of the Rings * Looking for God in Harry Potter * Surveillance Studies * David Hume
The two main subjects we mentioned on the show as relevant were critical theory (and specifically critical race theory) and surveillance studies. Notably, while Browne describes herself as a black feminist and makes reference to the adjacent idea of intersectionality, she never explicitly refers to critical (race) theory. We applied the term to her work based on the historical and interpretive methods she used.
Reminder: as noted in 8.12, Stephen was definitely recording from a closet and some of his level drops are a result of (potentially) getting hit in the face with a sweater:
screenshot of our Zoom call with Stephen in a closet
Upcoming Books * August (8.14 and 8.15): The Real World of Technology, Dr. Ursula Franklin * September (8.16 and 8.17): Evolution as a Religion: Strange Hopes and Stranger Fears, Mary Midgley
(Last episode we said we had a plan for the year and then it changed, so we’ll just keep going two books at a time!)
Credits Music * “Sali Lento” by Chouk Bwa & The Ångstromers. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0, meaning you can do whatever you want with this music… as long as you share it for others to likewise do what they want.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Daniel Ellcey
- Douglas Campos
- Jake Grant
- Marnix Klooster
- Spencer Smith
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Shoot us an email, or hit us up on Twitter or Facebook!
Digging into Simone Browne’s application of critical race theory to surveillance studies.
Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness—Explained, Simone Browne
Show Notes The two main subjects we mentioned on the show as relevant were critical theory (and specifically critical race theory) and surveillance studies. Notably, while Browne describes herself as a black feminist and makes reference to the adjacent idea of intersectionality, she never explicitly refers to critical (race) theory. We applied the term to her work based on the historical and interpretive methods she used.
Stephen reviewed our intro music, Joshua Crumbly’s “New Rock Thingy,” here.
Finally (as noted on air), Stephen was definitely recording from a closet:
screenshot of our Zoom call with Stephen in a closet
Upcoming Books * August (8.14 and 8.15): The Real World of Technology, Ursula Franklin * September (8.16 and 8.17): (probably) Technopoly, Neil Postman
(We actually have a tentative plan through the end of the year… but we’ll publicize it once we’re more solid!)
Credits Music * “New Rock Thingy” by Joshua Crumbly. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0, meaning you can do whatever you want with this music… as long as you share it for others to likewise do what they want.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Daniel Ellcey
- Douglas Campos
- Jake Grant
- Marnix Klooster
- Spencer Smith
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Shoot us an email, or hit us up on Twitter or Facebook!
The printing press and the internet are often compared. How similar in impact are they really?
The Printing Press as an Agent of Change, Elizabeth Eisenstein
Show Notes Eisenstein’s outline:
- dissemination
- standardization
- reorganization
- data collection
- preservation
- amplification
- reinforcement
- cultural effects
- the Republic of Letters
Links to things mentioned on the show:
- On context collapse: 2.02: Basketballs ≠ Pumpkins
- Our strongest take on “big data:” 6.06: A Kind of Blindness—Smart cities, “big data”, and the meaninglessness of mere information.
- The Republic of Letters
- Clarkives
Upcoming books * July (8.12 and 8.13): Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness, Simone Brown * August (8.14 and 8.15): The Real World of Technology, Ursula Franklin * September (8.16 and 8.17): (probably) Technopoly, Neil Postman
Music * drawn, by Trevor Ransom. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Daniel Ellcey
- Douglas Campos
- Jake Grant
- Marnix Klooster
- Spencer Smith
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
Digging into Elizabeth Eisenstein’s magisterial and seminal work on how print changed culture.
The Printing Press as an Agent of Change, Elizabeth Eisenstein
Show Notes We almost entirely ended up talking about the contents of this book specifically! And we weren’t joking about how dense it is:
A picture Chris snapped of p. 113 of The Printing Press as an Agent of Change
We did mention a couple other episodes of the show:
- 8.08: Jurassic Park—Explained
- on friction
- 7.09: Frictioneers
Upcoming books * July (8.12 and 8.13): Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness, Simone Brown * August (8.14 and 8.15): The Real World of Technology, Ursula Franklin * September (8.16 and 8.17): (probably) Technopoly, Neil Postman
Music * “Alpha Orionis” by Juffbass * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Daniel Ellcey
- Douglas Campos
- Jake Grant
- Marnix Klooster
- Spencer Smith
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
Don’t go into science for the money: you will get killed by dinosaurs.
Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton (and the movie!)
Show Notes
We put dinosaurs mostly in the background and talk about what Crichton really wanted to discuss: the science/industrial complex, the limits of science to interpret or re-create nature, the limits of discovery, and disciplinary power.
Things mentioned on the show
- People trying to recreate mammoths in Siberia to fix … climate change?
- The world’s fastest supercomputer being used for climate simulations, among other things
- The wild tale of Anthony Levandoski’s self-driving cars corporate espionage
- Self-driving cars as a zero-sum game
We also mentioned the famous “you didn’t stop to consider whether you should…” quote in 6.11: Very Thoughtful Ethics Dogs.
Upcoming books
Note that we’ve ended up changing plans since we recorded our Kurzweil episodes! We originally planned to read Simone Browne’s Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness, but decided to talk about our “background” reading so far!
- June: The Printing Press as an Agent of Change, Elizabeth Eisenstein
- July: Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness, Simone Brown
Music
- “Pull Apart (feat. Samantha Eason)” by Summerooms
- “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho
Sponsors
Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Daniel Ellcey
- Douglas Campos
- Jake Grant
- Marnix Klooster
- Spencer Smith
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond
We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
What the well-known novel and movie have to say about science, ethics, epistemology, and hubris.
Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton (and the movie!)
Show Notes Things mentioned on the show * Media OS—see TVTropes’ “Extreme Graphical Representation” for many examples. * The Expanse + TV series overview + book series overview + Caliban’s War: the book in which “complex simple systems” appear * Nuclear meltdowns + Three-Mile Island + Chernobyl + Fukushima
Upcoming books Note that we’ve ended up changing plans since we recorded our Kurzweil episodes! We originally planned to read Simone Browne’s Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness, but decided to talk about our “background” reading so far!
- June: The Printing Press as an Agent of Change, Elizabeth Eisenstein
- July: Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness, Simone Brown
Music * “Achime” by TENGGER * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Daniel Ellcey
- Douglas Campos
- Jake Grant
- Marnix Klooster
- Spencer Smith
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
Digging into Kurzweil’s deficient view of culture and human nature—from sex and family to epistemology and human dignity.
The Age of Spiritual Machines, Ray Kurzweil
Show Notes Things mentioned on the show * Stephen’s music blog * 7.06 and 7.07: The ERLC AI Statement Parts 1 and 2 * Mass Effect and Mass Affection * The Matrix * I, Robot * Tolkien, Aüle, dwarves: + Dwarves: Origin at Tolkien Gateway + Aüle: The Creation of the Dwarves at Lord of the Rings Wiki * Turing test and Alan Turing + Lanier via Jacobs, 59th thesis
Upcoming books * May: Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton (and the movie!) * June: Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness, Simone Brown
Music * “SOL” by Pascal Schumacher * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Daniel Ellcey
- Douglas Campos
- Jake Grant
- Marnix Klooster
- Spencer Smith
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
Reading Ray Kurzweil’s prognostications about the future—and coming to terms with his ruthless optimism.
The Age of Spiritual Machines, Ray Kurzweil
Show Notes Things mentioned on the show * The Age of Intelligent Machines * Moore’s Law * Universal constants, and especially the speed of light * You Are Not a Gadget, by Jaron Lanier * The Shallows, by Nicholas Carr * René Descartes * Ludwig Wittgenstein * Paul Feyerabend * Thomas Kuhn and particularly The Structure of Scientific Revolutions * Daniel Dennett * Pentium III and Core i7s * Turing test and Alan Turing + John Searle’s Chinese Room Argument: “Minds, Brains and Programs” - a helpful deep dive - Chris’ blog post about it in 2018 + Lanier via Jacobs, 59th thesis * Google’s Calico project
Upcoming books * May: Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton (and the movie!) * June: Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness, Simone Brown
Music * “King of Thumbs” by Alex Dowling * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Daniel Ellcey
- Douglas Campos
- Jake Grant
- Marnix Klooster
- Spencer Smith
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
The Postmodern Condition, Jean–François Lyotard
Lyotard’s postmodernism, the politics of power, and aesthetics: what do we keep and what do we reject?
Show Notes Errata Chris, because he was slightly sick, forgot that although we were recording in February, the episode was coming out in March. This threw off everything we said about dates for the rest of the episode. Whoops!
(The book schedule is adjusted accordingly below.)
Things mentioned on the show * “Information wants to be free” * The Year of Our Lord 1943, Alan Jacobs, which we discussed in 7.01: Do We Really Need to Keep the Internet Around? * Simone Weil * Jacques Ellul * The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn * From Chris’ newsletter, quoting and discussing Elizabeth Eisenstein’s note on learning: Across the Sundering Seas 2020 #07 * Richard Dawkins * Apophatic theology and via negativa
Upcoming books * April: The Age of Spiritual Machines, Ray Kurzweil * May: Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton (and the movie!) * June: Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness, Simone Brown
Music * “Gizmo” by Camel Power Club * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Daniel Ellcey
- Douglas Campos
- Jake Grant
- Marnix Klooster
- Spencer Smith
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
Note: Hey listeners, sorry for the weirdness—I (Chris) accidentally published this pointing to the audio for last week’s episode. All fixed now!
Jean-François Lyotard on postmodernity, science, and kitschy art.
The Postmodern Condition, Jean–François Lyotard
Show Notes We do our best to explain this dense piece of French aesthetic theory, its arguments with German idealist philosophers, and its very strong feelings about non-avant-garde art.
Errata Chris, because he was slightly sick, forgot that although we were recording in February, the episode was coming out in March. This threw off everything we said about dates for the rest of the episode. Whoops!
(The book schedule is adjusted accordingly below.)
Things mentioned on the show * German idealists * Jürgen Habermas * J. L. Austin and his work How to Do Things With Words * John Searle * Ludwig Wittgenstein * Theodor Adorno and his work Aesthetic Theory * Systems theory * Kurt Gödel * Positivism * Karl Popper * Friedrich Nietzche * Artists Lyotard brings up in his strange appendix: + Marcel Duchamp + Marcel Proust + James Joyce + Gustave Flaubert * Karl Barth and specifically his work Nein
Upcoming books * April: The Age of Spiritual Machines, Ray Kurzweil * May: Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton (and the movie!) * June: Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness, Simone Brown
Music * “Tony Sendo” by Bluestaeb & S. Fidelity Present Underground Canopy * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Daniel Ellcey
- Douglas Campos
- Jake Grant
- Marnix Klooster
- Spencer Smith
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
Should we even keep reading this book—with its criticisms of books?
Show Notes We dig into our disagreements with and appreciations of Plato’s Phaedrus!
Other things mentioned on the show:
- C. S. Lewis’ Introduction to Athanasius’ On the Incarnation
- Marshall McLuhan
- Ellul and Mumford
- 2.02: Basketballs ≠ Pumpkins
- Chat apps Slack and Twist
Next month’s book: The Postmodern Condition, Jean–François Lyotard
Music * “Electric 1 (Part B)” by Elkhorn * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Daniel Ellcey
- Douglas Campos
- Jake Grant
- Marnix Klooster
- Spencer Smith
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
What did Plato actually argue two and a half millennia ago?
Show Notes We really only did one thing in this episode: talked about Plato’s Phaedrus! What did Plato say? How did he say it? What does it mean? There are, though, lots of interpretations.
- Relevant to our next episode: people have cited Lyotard a lot.
- Oh… and Alan Jacobs is back on Twitter.
- The Andy Matuschak post referenced in the episode
Music * “Oak Forest” by Ivan Muela * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Daniel Ellcey
- Douglas Campos
- Jake Grant
- Marnix Klooster
- Spencer Smith
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
An overview of Season 8: a book (and movie!) club devoted to the canon (as we define it!) for technology and ethics.
Show Notes The authors and topics we discussed in detail on the show:
- Phaedrus – linked here are a wide array of translations
- Elizabeth Eisenstein, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change
- Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities
- Hardcore History
Music * “To My Brain” by Aryl Barkley * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Daniel Ellcey
- Jake Grant
- Marnix Klooster
- Nathaniel Blaney
- Spencer Smith
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
Hey listeners, we had a miscommunication leading to the episode originally being published with the wrong intro music—sorry to any of you who got that earlier version! This new version has the right intro music (and one edit fix Chris caught listening back through the episode as a bonus). Sorry about any hassle or confusion!
An interview with author and editor (and our friend) about his new book!
Show Notes An interview with author and editor (and our friend!) Jake Meador—focused especially on his book In Search of the Common Good: Christian Fidelity in a Fractured World.
Links * Jake Meador * Mere Orthodoxy
+ possibly of interest to listeners: posts and essays Chris has written for Mere O
- “The Dishonesty of the Abortion Debate”, Caitlin Flanagan, The Atlantic
- The Human Condition, Hannah Arendt
-
“Why Don’t Rich People Just Stop Working?”, Alex Williams, The New York Times
- Related, see the episode “When meritocracy wins, everybody loses” on The Ezra Klein Show
- On India’s tax break for companies which can invest at least $750M in data centers: “This State’s 50-Year Bet on Big Tech Could Cost Hundreds of Millions of Dollars”, Mya Frazier, Bloomberg
- Derek Rishmawy: @DZRishmawy and Fred Sanders: @FredFredSanders
- Second Treatise on Government, John Locke
- ”Questions for Jake Meador after reading his lovely new book”, Brad East
- Herman Bavinck
- On the Christian view of marriage and family in the future:
But Jesus answered them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.…”
—Matthew 22:29–30, ESV * Desiring God, John Piper * Anne Bradstreet
+ “The Author to Her Book”
-
Sylvia Plath
- “Stillborn”
- “Slow Cooker vs. Crock Pot - What’s the Difference?” (because regionalisms are fun, and you might call this something else)
- For Chris on Sabbath and rest, check out the final section of Corecursive 34: Using TypeScript Like A Pro with Chris Krycho, or check out the transcript here
- The Divine Imperative, by Emil Brunner (read about him)
- Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe
- Lord of the Flies, William Golding
Music * “Shush Me” by Nimrawd * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Daniel Ellcey
- Jake Grant
- Jeremy W. Sherman
- Marnix Klooster
- Nathaniel Blaney
- Spencer Smith
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
Chris and Stephen talk about an interesting article… and then pivot to the nature of this podcast and some of their healthy differences—about the show, and in approach to these questions in general.
Show notes * Isaac Asimov’s Caves of Steel * Alan Jacobs’ Pinboard * “The Web Falls Apart” * Chris’ newsletter Across the Sundering Seas the last couple weeks, on progress and decline: + Flux (#27) + Edges (#28) * Jaron Lanier * Your Undivided Attention, Episode 9: The Dictator’s Playbook * Chris’ Christology class
Chris also wrote a follow-up post on Twitter bots and decline, to which Stephen thoughtfully replied.
Music * “Emerge” by Liam J. Hennessy * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Daniel Ellcey
- Jake Grant
- Jeremy W. Sherman
- Marnix Klooster
- Nathaniel Blaney
- Spencer Smith
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
Sustainable long-distance transportation, or really great virtual reality? Fight!**
Show notes Which would make for healthy localist cities in 80 years: sustainable long-distance transportation, or really great virtual reality? Chris says sustainable long-distance transporation. Stephen says VR. Fight!
(In which the phrase “I don’t think that’s true!” appears more than any other episode of the show… ever.)
Links * Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury * The Opolis * Cities/metropolitan areas on the East Coast with more than 4½ million residents + Atlanta + Baltimore + Boston + Miami + New York + Philadelphia + Washington D.C.
Music * “The Wait” by The Fierce and the Dead. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Daniel Ellcey
- Jake Grant
- Jeremy W. Sherman
- Marnix Klooster
- Nathaniel Blaney
- Spencer Smith
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
“Go Do Earth Things”, or, How 80 Years of Non-Technocratic Thinking Might Improve Phoenix, AZ
Show notes What will the world be like 80 years from now if we avoid technocratic thinking? We discuss the far future of ecologies, urban planning, and … open-source code economy. Listen all the way through for the closing note about the next episode and one of the most incredible bloopers we’ve ever produced.
Best efforts notwithstanding, we couldn’t actually find a news story about the Woodmoor HOA’s fight with its own residents—Chris got this from a friend who lived through it, but the news items (if any) are lost to the depths of time.
Links * iPhone comparison to a tricorder * The inventor of the cell phone says Dick Tracy inspired the cell phone, not Star Trek (Mea culpa: We said that iPhone was potentially inspired by Star Trek but it was really the first cell phone embroiled in this controversy) * Eastern Colorado’s unsustainable land/water management * Interactive tool assessing Phoenix’s water issues (Bonus: co-created by a member of Stephen’s academic department) * Flash Forward’s episode on space crime * Norman Music Fest
Previous episodes:
- 5.09: Regulate All the Things! (This is the “local loop unbundling” episode)
- 4.06: Kickstarting a Hyperlocal Superfarm
Errata The best thing about the blooper is that Stephen technically correct but still also technically wrong: While the state of Denmark (16,577 sq. mi.) is indeed larger than Rhode Island (1,034 sq. mi.), it is also larger than eight other U.S. States. It would place 42nd on a list of sizes, after West Virginia (24,087 sq. mi.) and before Maryland (9,775 sq. mi.). Furthermore, Denmark (as astute newswatchers know) technically includes Greenland and the Faroe islands as part of Denmark, making in total 857,510 sq mi; this would make Denmark literally the largest American state by almost 300,000 square miles. Depending on how you count it, Denmark is actually more than three times the size of Texas. Oops.
Music * “On Reflection” by Message to Bears. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Daniel Ellcey
- Jake Grant
- Jeremy W. Sherman
- Marnix Klooster
- Nathaniel Blaney
- Spencer Smith
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
Show Notes Press pause on the dystopias. Set aside interventions. Dream a little of a non-technocratic world.
We’ve mostly been in the weeds of thinking about specific interventions around technologism this season. Today, we press pause and just spend some time imagining—dare we say, dreaming—of what a non-technocratic world might look and feel like.
Links * psychohistory * The Dispossessed, Ursula K. Le Guin * Confessions, Augustine * The Expanse * Kim Stanley Robinson, New York 2140 and Mars Trilogy, beginning with Red Mars * our collective forgetting of the 1970s + Alan Jacobs + Slate Star Codex (see Section II.) * Life Finds a Way Kickstarter * What Technology Wants, Kevin Kelly (Chris cited it as being from Wired; in fact it is a book by one of the cofounders of Wired) * Software Against Humanity? An Illichian perspective on the industrial era of sofware, Stephen Kell + Ivan Illich, Tools for Convivality * The Bible Project – Series on Generosity (Abundance and Scarcity)
Music * Hayato’s Theme, by Home Brewed Universe. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Daniel Ellcey
- Jake Grant
- Jeremy W. Sherman
- Marnix Klooster
- Nathaniel Blaney
- Spencer Smith
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
Can adding a little friction back to user interfaces save us?
Show notes We talk about the currently-trendy concept of (design) friction and how it is necessary but not sufficient for right action on the Internet.
Links * Facebook admits that it intentionally defrauded children by making it easy to buy in-game purchases * The creator of the retweet button now thinks it was a bad idea (Mea culpa: We stated this article was written in Wired but it was in BuzzFeed) * Dark patterns * Alt-Meat Trounces Animal Meat’s Massive Inefficiencies * The Launch: After two decades of research and development, WA 38 lands this fall. It could disrupt an entire industry.—It’s an apple. * Manton Reece on hashtags and curation—note that Chris said these were totally curated, and they’re not; but they’re also designed not to behave like trends and hashtags on Twitter. + Search in Micro.blog + Books on Micro.blog * A short history of Gamergate * A compendium of articles concerning how Gamergate changed the Internet * Data arguing that Gamergate was more about harassment than ethics * A growing list of former tech company workers who regret their design decisions * The Center for Humane Tech’s podcast Your Undivided Attention * Tim-Berners Lee on his disappointments and frustrations with what people did to the world wide web
Things Chris has written in relation to this episode: * Friction is the Friend of Serendipity
Previous episodes: * 2.03: Impervious Scale—The Roman Empire and Friendster Have Things to Say to You * 6.08: People Do Reject Technologies, Part 2—Nuclear weapons, nuclear waste, and how to argue well with intractable disagreements. * 7.01: Do We Really Need to Keep the Internet Around? Season 7’s charter—by way of a rollicking argument about Alan Jacobs’ The Year of Our Lord 1943 and Tolkien’s idea of eucatastrophe.
Music “Stig of the Dump / Ogglet (Live)” - El Toppo (By the way, Stig of the Dump is a classic British children’s story, just in case you were wondering. Stephen looked it up after the show.) - “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Daniel Ellcey
- Jake Grant
- Jeremy W. Sherman
- Marnix Klooster
- Nathaniel Blaney
- Spencer Smith
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
Show Notes We pause from issue-focused episodes and try to pull together the threads of the season so far to take a step toward our ethic of technology.
Stephen imitating Lewis Mumford saying “I said that!!!”
Links * Donald Trump cannot block critical Twitter users, court rules * The Lindy effect – John D. Cook on the expected lifetimes of technology:
…if all you know is that a technology has survived a certain amount of time, you can estimate that it will survive about that much longer.
- President Bush’s “can’t get fooled again” gaffe
- “Keep your eyes peeled”
- A Framework for Moderation – Ben Thompson, published two days after we recorded
- After Technopoloy, Alan Jacobs. Stephen to this referred to as “Against Solutionism”—accidentally conflating Jacobs’ piece with a thesis Chris has been mulling on/slowly building an essay around this year. Chris is, uhh, flattered to be confused with Jacobs.
+ Jacobs’ other blog posts on solutionism
Things Chris has written related to this episode:
- Friction is the Friend of Serendipity
- “Zuckerberg’s Blindness and Ours” (L. M. Sacasas)—Solutionism is a nasty besetting culture-level sin we barely recognize as such. (riffing on a post by L. M. Sacasas)
- “Free Speech”
…the whole reason we have these arguments — and the reason people tend to think as they do about the “free speech” question in these situations, legally nonsensical or not — is that we have outsourced the vast majority of our public discourse to these private platforms.
- “The Slow Web” and the limits of “solutions” (from the email archive, discussed in more depth in 7.04)
Previous episode:
- 2.03: Impervious Scale—The Roman Empire and Friendster Have Things to Say to You
- 6.08: People Do Reject Technologies, Part 2—Nuclear weapons, nuclear waste, and how to argue well with intractable disagreements.
- 7.01: Do We Really Need to Keep the Internet Around?—Season 7’s charter—by way of a rollicking argument about Alan Jacobs’ The Year of Our Lord 1943 and Tolkien’s idea of eucatastrophe.
Music * The Commuter by Mister Lies * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Daniel Ellcey
- Jake Grant
- Jeremy W. Sherman
- Marnix Klooster
- Nathaniel Blaney
- Spencer Smith
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
Data privacy, just war, the sovereignty of God… there’s a lot here!
Show Notes We dig into the rest of the ERLC’s statement on AI—everything from security and privacy to just war and the sovereignty of God.
Links * Artificial Intelligence: An Evangelical Statement of Principles * In Search of the Common Good, Jake Meador * Minority Report * Deepfakes
+ Fake ‘drunk’ Nancy Pelosi video goes viral, and it wasn’t even that hard to make (Mashable)
- 6.06: A Kind of Blindness—Smart cities, “big data”, and the meaninglessness of mere information.
-
Just war theory (Wikipedia)
- Niebuhr is sometimes described as adhering to just war theory, but in fact articulated a different strand of thought: Christian realism
- Evolution and the Fall, eds. William T. Cavanaugh and James K. A. Smith
…we will have to concede that the determination of [what falls outside the essence of the Christian tradition] is entrusted to the people of God, which is wider than the realm of academics, scholars, and scientists (though scholars and scientists who are part of this community of practice also get to participate in this discernment process).
See also Chris’ review at Mere Orthodoxy: Faithful Extension and the Question of Human Origins
Music * Signals by Arwen & the Mega Reset * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Daniel Ellcey
- Jake Grant
- Jeremy W. Sherman
- Marnix Klooster
- Nathaniel Blaney
- Spencer Smith
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
People reflecting proactively on ethics? Sold! …mostly. Mostly!
Show Notes The ERLC published a statement on artificial intelligence and ethics. We give them an ‘A’ but have some substantive disagreements.
Links * Artificial Intelligence: An Evangelical Statement of Principles * Mass Effect - Mass Affection * I, Robot * Ray Kurzweil + The Singularity + Newton’s Wake, Ken Macleod * 6.03: I’m Not Puttin’ That Chip in My Cheek—Bodily modification, from hip replacement to magnets in your fingers. * 6.05: Crispr—Setting limits on how far we modify ourselves * Deepfakes
Music * Mixtaped Monk by Mixtaped Monk * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Daniel Ellcey
- Jake Grant
- Jeremy W. Sherman
- Marnix Klooster
- Nathaniel Blaney
- Spencer Smith
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
Localism is great! …but it is no panacea.
Show Notes We look at everything from American racial history to the differences between Chattanooga’s and China’s “local” internets.
Stephen gesticulating wildly!
Links * The New Sewer Socialists, Evan Malmgren, Logic * An alternate ending to the tragedy of the commons, Nadia Eghbal, on Elinor Ostrom’s Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action
Ostrom noticed there are many situations where common resources are allocated efficiently, without intervention from the market or state. She explores, through a series of case studies, why this occurred, and under what conditions we could recreate these situations.
Music * Bali” by Ryan Dugré * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Daniel Ellcey
- Jake Grant
- Jeremy W. Sherman
- Marnix Klooster
- Nathaniel Blaney
- Spencer Smith
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
Rejecting solutionism, the problems of the humane, and wise change.
Show Notes We dig into the challenge of taking a non-solutionist approach and rejecting a technocratic view of the world… while not rejecting “interventions” and making real progress along the way.
Corrections Stephen accidentally referred to Chris’ reference in his newsletter to C. S. Lewis’ foreword to St. Athanasius’ On the Incarnation as “On the Annunciation”—the annunciation is a related but distinct bit of Christian doctrine, when the Incarnation was announced (‘annunciated’) to Mary, the mother of Jesus.
Chris thought we talked about thinking-together-about-cell-phones in Season 4; it was all the way back in Season 3.
Links * “The Slow Web” and the limits of “solutions”, Chris’ newsletter issue mentioned on the episode + The Slow Web + The Convivial Society, No. 15: Fortnite and the Good Life, L. M. Sacasas * This is Water, David Foster Wallace’s commencement address at Kenyon College * A Regulatory Framework for the Internet, Ben Thompson’s careful, thoughtful, excellent take on the subject * The Checklist Manifesto, Atul Gawande * Amazon scraps secret AI recruiting tool that showed bias against women, Reuters * why Chris reacted at his use of the word “nudges”: Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness, Richard Thaler
Previous episodes referenced on the show:
- 3.10: Saying “Enough” – Phones, technological determinism, Christian ethics, and life in community., where we talked about cell phones and community life
- 6.06: A Kind of Blindness – Smart cities, “big data”, and the meaninglessness of mere information., where we talked about redlining and credit scores and the problems of “big data” as solutions
Music * “Hidden Worlds” by Teen Daze * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Daniel Ellcey
- Jake Grant
- Jeremy W. Sherman
- Marnix Klooster
- Nathaniel Blaney
- Spencer Smith
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
An interview with the founder of Longpath about his vision for the future and trans-generational ethics.
Show Notes We chat with Ari Wallach of Longpath about his vision for the future and the importance of trans-generational ethics. (There’s obviously a lot we both find valuable and disagree with here… keep your ears open for reflection on some of those differences in the future!)
Corrigenda Buckminster Fuller didn’t invent the trimtab—but he did invent the metaphor of the social aspects of trimtab!
Links * Forget short-termism: it’s time to think longpath * Our longpath future * “Faithful extension” – Evolution and the Fall, Cavanaugh and Smith, and Chris’ review of the same * Ari’s TED talk: 3 Ways to Plan for the Very Long Term * epigenetics and mitochondrial DNA * Auburn Theological Seminary (notably, a seminary with wildly different theology from our own!) * Theodor Adorno * Max Horkheimer * Jürgen Habermas * Karl Marx * Frankfurt School * Freud * Friedrich_Nietzsche and “God is dead” * UC Berkley * Buckminster Fuller * Peter Schwartz and Stewart Brand, and their Global Business Network * Peter Gabriel and Brian Eno * transhumanism and singularitism, the religions of SV * Moore’s Law * analogy to “interventions” from epidemiology – e.g. hand-washing * neuroplasticity * blockchain, monorails, jetpacks * trim tab * “stay woke” * Hermann Hesse * Soto Zen tradition * yurts * yeshiva model * WeWork * telos * Exodus narrative * longpath.gather * Future Congress
Music * ”First Do No Harm” by Kazyak * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Daniel Ellcey
- Jake Grant
- Jeremy W. Sherman
- Marnix Klooster
- Nathaniel Blaney
- Spencer Smith
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
Any positive vision of the future must contend with people who like the current way of doing things. We discuss personal and communal liturgies as potential ways to address the issue.
Show Notes * John Deere discussion in 6.13 * $200M lobbying from oil companies * 43 Democrats not even voting on a thing they support * $200M in lobbying from oil companies * Jake Meador’s articles: + “Whose Reaganism? Which Republicanism?” (Mere Orthodoxy) + “America’s Farming Crisis, Laid Bare by Midwest Floods” (Christianity Today) * “A Community Environmental Project”, Andrew “Spence” Spencer * Star Wars: Vision of the Future, Timothy Zahn * The church history podcast Stephen keeps mentioning: Communio Sanctorum
Music * ”Spring” by Teen Daze * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Daniel Ellcey
- Jake Grant
- Jeremy W. Sherman
- Marnix Klooster
- Nathaniel Blaney
- Spencer Smith
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
Season 7’s charter—by way of a rollicking argument about Alan Jacobs’ The Year of Our Lord 1943 and Tolkien’s idea of eucatastrophe.
Show Notes Major figures we discuss in this episode:
- Alan Jacobs’ recent work The Year of Our Lord 1943: Christian Humanism in an Age of Crisi
- Jacques Ellul
- C. S. Lewis
- T. S. Eliot
- Jacques Mauritain
- Simone Weil
- J.R.R. Tolkien
- The Lord of the Rings
- The Silmarillion
- eucatastrophe: from “On Fairy Stories” (published in The Monsters and the Critics)
Other topics/figures/books/etc. we mentioned:
- The Bill Nye/Ken Ham debate
- “A Conflict of Crypto Visions” – Arjun Balaji on Thomas Sowell’s A Conflict of Visions
- Oliver O’Donovan – see especially his Resurrection and Moral Order
- natural law and the naturalistic fallacy
- technocracy
- Chris’ newsletter and specifically his issue on 1943: Have We Already Lost?
- Phaedrus
Also, Audio Hijack saved our bacon because Chris’ computer temporarily lost power due to a blizzard—and we lost nothing. If you’re in the business of audio and on a Mac, you should check out Rogue Amoeba’s excellent apps.
Music * ”Mi Naci” by Panfur * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Daniel Ellcey
- Jake Grant
- Jeremy W. Sherman
- Marnix Klooster
- Nathaniel Blaney
- Spencer Smith
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
Documentary theater and the power of storytelling for social change.
Show Notes An interview with writer, director, and actor Jessica C. Blank, focusing on her approach to using writing and acting as a means of accomplishing social change. We talk about her work on The Exonerated and How To Be a Rock Critic, as well as her theory of story and the way it can help create common ground even when people have deep disagreements.
Links Most importantly:
- Jessica’s website
- her Instagram
All the things we talked about on the show!
- The Death Row 10
- The Culture Project
- The Center on Wrongful Convictions
- The Innocence Project
- Vietnam Veterans Against the War
- National Vet Center
- Oxytocin and Cortisol
- George Ryan of Illinois
- A few of the actors who participated in The Exonerated:
- Richard Dreyfuss
- Danny Glover
- Mike Farrell
- Joseph Campbell and the Hero’s Journey
- Marshall Ganz
- Mirror neurons
- Lester Bangs
- Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung
- Almost Famous
Music * “Gorilla” by Beatlove * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Daniel Ellcey
- Jake Grant
- Jeremy W. Sherman
- Marnix Klooster
- Nathaniel Blaney
- Spencer Smith
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
Wrapping up Season 6 by covering the topics we intended to cover before Chris’ experience with burnout broke everything.
Show Notes * On burnout: + Chris’ New Rustacean episode + Chris’ blog posts * Shannon Vallor and Technology and the Virtues * “Why American Farmers Are Hacking Their Tractors With Ukrainian Firmware”
Music * “Tiananmen Square” by Cameron Blake * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Daniel Ellcey
- Kurt Klassen
- Jake Grant
- Jeremy W. Sherman
- Marnix Klooster
- Nathaniel Blaney
- Spencer Smith
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
Regulation as neither bogeyman nor panacea, but a way of protecting out the right spaces for genuine competition to emerge.
Show Notes Back in September, we recorded this episode live, both of us in person, at Pikes Peak Brewing Company in Monument, Colorado—as Stephen was out visiting Chris and just hanging out for a weekend. We talk a bit about the history of the beer industry in the 20th and 21st century, with an eye to the way that government intervention can variously make things much worse or much better, when it’s tailored just right.
…and then we failed to publish it for almost exactly 2 months, because Chris ended up with a horrible case of burnout.
Links * Ben Thompson + On GDPR + On Aggregators * Previous episodes: + [6.09: Granular Levels of Tomato Tracking][6.09] + 5.09: Regulate All the Things! + 5.02: Monopoly: Never Okay + 4.12: Five Years of Facepalming + [4.07: Kickstarting a Hyper-Local Superfarm][4.07] + 2.09: Hi, We’re the Internet. + 0.01: We Need Some Context!
Music * “Us” by Jamison Isaak, a.k.a. Teen Daze * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Daniel Ellcey
- Kurt Klassen
- Jake Grant
- Jeremy W. Sherman
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
Reflecting on the limits of AI, and the limits we should put on AI.
Show Notes AI is coming and it’s going to take all of our jobs! …or, not, depending on who you ask and how optimistic they are or aren’t about the limits of AI as we understand it today. Regardless: how should we think about roboticizing all the jobs?
Links * A telling quote:
OH (from an awesome Lyft driver): “Today has been great. I’ve been blessed by the algorithm.”
Immediately had an eerie feeling that this could become an increasingly common way to describe a day.
—@kcoleman
- Hyperion AI – truly independent AI in sci-fi
- AI in Healthcare
- Boston Robotics Dog
- The polar bear problem paper
- A popular-level discussion of teh generalization problem
- And the same applied to roadblocks for automated cars
- The DeepMind papers
- AirBnB’s machine learning-powered sketching tool
- Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics
Previous episodes reference on the show:
- 6.10: The Future of Something Like Work
- 6.06: A Kind of Blindness
- 3.08: Juice of the Weird Edges of the Ecosystem
Music * “Knocking” by Basement Revolver. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Daniel Ellcey
- Kurt Klassen
- Jake Grant
- Jeremy W. Sherman
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
Our 100th episode spectacular – with a look at where we have come from and where we are going.
Show Notes It’s been four and a half years and 100 episodes of Winning Slowly! We pause to take a bit to reflect on what we’ve done, what we’re about, and where we hope to go from here. We also reflect on some of our craziest titles along the way. (“Buying Me Off With Warm Fuzzies”? “Juice Up the Weird Edges of the Ecosystem”? These got wild at times.)
Links * Cameron Morgan * Vallor’s book: Technology and the Virtues: A Philosophical Guide to a Future Worth Wanting + My blog post about it: Good Arguments * IBM Has a Watson Dilemma - WSJ
Previous episodes I mean, look people: basically it’s just “go look at earlier seasons.” So… quick links to earlier seasons it is!
- Season 0
- Season 1
- Season 2
- Season 3
- Season 4
- Season 5
- Season 6
Music * “No Haters” from New Life by The Midnight Sons, a.k.a. Stephen. It’s Creative Commons Attribution licensed, just like this website! * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Kurt Klassen
- Jeremy W. Sherman
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
The end of work, post-work, universal basic income—and a more hopeful frame than these.
Show Notes Economists, guilt-ridden Silicon Valley inventors and investors, and others have been looking at the future of work. One possible conclusion? That it’s going away. We don’t think that’s quite right—and we don’t think it would be good if it did. Not exactly, anyway.
Links * current US unemployment rate * Tolkien on subcreation: see his essay On Fairy-Stories * notes on J. S. Bach’s reception over time * Previous episodes + 3.13: Inevitable? – Self-driving cars, the limits of technology, and the tension between the personal and the communal. + 3.07: One Size Does Not Fit All – Amazon’s workplace culture as a view into corporate ethics and responsibility
Music * “Forever” by The Gray Havens. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Kurt Klassen
- Jake Grant
- Jeremy W. Sherman
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
Blockchain, the necessity of regulation, and the regulatory challenges posed by truly global technologies.
Show Notes Blockchain and the associated currencies and techniques derived from it have been in the news a lot for the last few years. And it’s an incredibly interesting technology, which basically only has benefits for individual users – but has some profoundly distortive effects at scale, on everything from economics to energy consumption. So what do we do about it?
Links * Cryptokitties * Chinese Bitcoin Miners getting relocated to… Canada. * ICOs (“initial coin offerings”) explained * “Smart Contracts” * current regulatory approaches
+ in Europe
+ in South Korea, including the latest as of the show’s publication
+ related: the relationship between trade agreements and regulation
-
Blockchain and triple-entry accounting
- that’s exactly what it is!
- that’s not what it is
- Bitcoin will use 0.5% of the world’s electricity by the end of 2018
- Terrorists have (unsurprisingly) already been using cryptocurrencies
- Bitcoin in your (rural!) neighborhood
-
On the basically-asymptotic difficulty of “mining”:
-
“Is the asymptotic performance of bitcoin O(n) relative to the block chain length?”
- “How many bitcoins will there eventually be?”
Every block introduces 50 new coins in the system. This quantity (50) halves every 210,000 blocks. So, getting the limit of coins it is possible to generate is quite easy: it’s the sum of a geometric series.
The total number of bitcoins that can ever be created is 21,000,000.
We also discussed the importance of regulation in some detail in a couple episodes in season 5:
- 5.09: Regulate All the Things - on regulations and the open internet
- 5.11: Fences, Neighbors, Etc. – on vaccinations and the application of force
Music * “Heavy Eyes” by Palm Ghosts. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Andrew Fallows
- Kurt Klassen
- Jake Grant
- Jeremy W. Sherman
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
Nuclear weapons, nuclear waste, and how to argue well with intractable disagreements.
Show Notes Sometimes, the rejection of a technology is far less clear cut than in last week’s discussion of Google Glass. With nuclear weapons (and nuclear waste), for example, decades of rejection by many people has not stepped further development and proliferation. What do we do when we face intractable disagreements, especially about things we think represent grave moral evils?
Links * Hiroshima and Nagasaki * Fire bombing of Dresden * Nuclear fallout * Half-lives * Mustard gas * 9 countries with nukes * Yucca mountain explainer * Yellow journalism * “The Really Big One: An earthquake will destroy a sizable portion of the coastal Northwest. The question is when.”, on the Pacific Coast Warning System
Previous discussion of similar themes on the show:
- 4.05 – The Price of Democracy: The necessity and the limitations of gradualism, incrementalism, and compromise in politics.
- 4.10 – The Ancient Wisdom of Usenet: Populism, social media, and wisdom in when, how, and where to (dis)engage with people you disagree with.
- 5.11 – Fences, Neighbors, etc.: How do we defend great common goods when they pose small, but real, individual risks?
Music * “Assembling the Fleets” by Andreas Waldetoft. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Andrew Fallows
- Kurt Klassen
- Jake Grant
- Jeremy W. Sherman
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
Google Glass, snap judgments, and how we form ourselves to make those snap judgments well.
Show Notes Google Glass failed miserably. Why? Because people sometimes do reject technologies. But why? People’s snap judgments are far from infallible, of course, but in this case they seem to have been correct. How can we train our snap judgments to be correct more often? And how can we interrogate and sharpen our own judgments?
Links Google Glass background and commentary:
- Google X and the Science of Radical Creativity: How the secretive Silicon Valley lab is trying to resurrect the lost art of invention (The Atlantic) – with this important note that Stephen mentioned during the show:
First, they said, Glass flopped not because it was a bad consumer product but because it wasn’t a consumer product at all. The engineering team at X had wanted to send Glass prototypes to a few thousand tech nerds to get feedback. But as buzz about Glass grew, Google, led by its gung-ho co-founder Sergey Brin, pushed for a larger publicity tour—including a ted Talk and a fashion show with Diane von Furstenberg. Photographers captured Glass on the faces of some of the world’s biggest celebrities, including Beyoncé and Prince Charles, and Google seemed to embrace the publicity. At least implicitly, Google promised a product. It mailed a prototype. (Four years later, Glass has reemerged as a tool for factory workers, the same group that showed the most enthusiasm for the initial design.)
- “I, Glasshole: My Year With Google Glass” – Matt Honan at Wired
- “The Rise of the Term ‘Glasshole,’ Explained by Linguists” (The Atlantic)
- “How the Camera Doomed Google Glass: By including a recording device, the first-gen smart specs went from dorky to disturbing.” (The Atlantic)
- “Google Glass 2.0 Is A Startling Second Act” – Steven Levy at Wired, covering how Glass is finding its home in a more sensible role
Chris’ example of his own snap judgment was in reading “Google’s Selfish Ledger Is An Unsettling Vision Of Silicon Valley Social Engineering” at The Verge.
Music * “Leafroad” by BLACKNIGHT. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Andrew Fallows
- Kurt Klassen
- Jake Grant
- Jeremy W. Sherman
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
Smart cities, “big data”, and the meaninglessness of mere information.
Show Notes We attempt to take down the idea that more data is the solution to our problems. Without wisdom, and without an ethical frame, numbers mean nothing.
Links * The metadata of experience, the experience of metadata – Nick Carr * China’s New Frontiers in Dystopian Tech – Rene Chun at The Atlantic * “Smart” refigerators DDOS-ing things + Massive Dyn DDOS Attack: Experts Blame Smart Fridges, DVRs And Other IoT Devices Why Your Internet Went Down + KrebsOnSecurity Hit With Record DDoS + The Democratization of Censorship * Redlining: + Wikipedia + Modern-day redlining: How banks block people of color from homeownership + See also: Ta-Nehisi Coates’ discussion of redlining in his much-discussed piece in The Atlantic, “The Case For Reparations”
Music * “Sharalee” by Jamison Isaak, a.k.a. Teen Daze * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Andrew Fallows
- Kurt Klassen
- Jake Grant
- Jeremy W. Sherman
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
What are the limits on gene editing? Should we be doing it at all? If so, under what circumstances? Who determines where it's okay to use Crispr?
Show Notes What are the limits on gene editing? Should we be doing it at all? If so, under what circumstances? Who determines where it’s okay to use Crispr?
Links * Crispr Makes It Clear: The US Needs a Biology Strategy, and Fast * Human Embryo Editing Gets the Ok—But No Superbabies
Music * “Kept” by Jason Van Wyk * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Andrew Fallows
- Kurt Klassen
- Jake Grant
- Jeremy W. Sherman
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
Why is Silicon Valley so broken?
Show Notes We dig into the reasons why so many Silicon Valley companies go so wrong. We talk about Chesterton's fence. We manage to agree with each other by arguing about Apple. We talk about everything from community practices to antitrust.
Links * Chris’ earlier podcast failure * Chesterton’s Fence * Biblical notes on greed + on the desire to become rich + on the love of money * #DeleteFacebook
Music * “Tamu”, by I Am Sonic Rain – used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Andrew Fallows
- Kurt Klassen
- Jake Grant
- Jeremy W. Sherman
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
Bodily modification, from hip replacement to magnets in your fingers.
Show Notes How should we think about bodily modification, on the range from replacing a hip joint or a heart valve to enhancing people well beyond normal human capabilities, to adding entirely new capabilities to the human body?
Links * The Olympics and body modification: Oscar Pistorius is an amputee with artificial legs * Tiamat Dragon Lady * Cambridge Analytica and #DeleteFacebook * On the question of whether we’re already past “peak body hacking” + An early prognostication: “6 Extreme Body Enhancements to Expect in the Next 10 Years + “I Hacked My Body For a Future That Never Came + The Hype Cycle (and its “Trough of Disillusionment) + “Cyberpunk Yourself: Body Modification, Augmentation, and Grinders * Ear gauges * NFC * The poll we referenced: “What Americans Think of Human Enhancement Technologies” (Scientific American) * Transhumanism – and see also Futurisms, at The New Atlantis, an incisive blog criticizing transhumanism. (This post highlights some of the very same questions we get at in this episode.)
Matthew Lee Anderson’s Earthen Vessels is, sadly, out of print – but we know Matt, and he has some extra copies, so if you want one, email us!
Music * “Quartessence”, by Kerim König used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Andrew Fallows
- Kurt Klassen
- Jake Grant
- Jeremy W. Sherman
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
A Christian view of ethics and technology - or, how we think about everything from Uber and Facebook to dealing with poverty.
Show Notes We talk about out explicitly Christian ethics - including our ethics of technology. How do we reason about technologies as individuals and communities? What is human flourishing?
Links Our previous discussion of self-driving cars (and note the title we picked two and a half years ago): 3.13: Inevitable
Articles on the self-driving car crash:
- “A self-driving Uber car has killed a pedestrian in Arizona”
- “Uber ‘likely’ not at fault in deadly self-driving car crash, police chief says” (The Verge)
- “Can You Sue a Robot?”, Ian Bogost/The Atlantic - a fairly thoughtful argument… which nonetheless ends up with some sweeping judgments of just the sort that we’re not sure are warranted in this specific case.
- John Gruber representing the “just get us to the future; it’s worth the cost” side of things -
Mentioned on the show:
- Prolegomena
- Specifically referenced: Kant’s Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (wikipedia article)
- “All the Poor and Powerless”, by Shane and Shane
- L. M. Sacasas with some important reservations about Heidegger - reservations we share about a man who, whatever his influence, seems to have been a Nazi sympathizer.
- Mal’s speech in Serenity:
A year from now, ten, they’ll swing back to the belief that they can make people… better. And I do not hold to that.
Music * “True Refuge”, by Ezra Feinberg. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Andrew Fallows
- Kurt Klassen
- Jake Grant
- Jeremy W. Sherman
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
Introducing a season focused on one theme: rejecting technology.
Show Notes Introducing a season focused on one theme: rejecting technology. Or rather, as you’ll hear us trace out in more detail in the episode: rejecting some technologies at some times, and thinking harder about them in general.
Links * L. M. Sacasas * “Why the Luddites Matter” * “What Technology Do We Really Need? A Critique of the 2016 Personal Democracy Forum
Music * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Andrew Fallows
- Kurt Klassen
- Jake Grant
- Jeremy W. Sherman
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
The latest Star Wars movie: the good, the bad, and the astounding.
Show Notes You knew this was coming! We talk our likes, dislikes, deep loves, and both hopes and concerns for the future of Star Wars.
Links * The Incomparable on The Empire Strikes Back
Music * “Main Title and Escape,” from The Last Jedi by John Williams. Fair use. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Andrew Fallows
- Kurt Klassen
- Jeremy W. Sherman
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
Cixin Liu's The Three Body Problem and the strengths and weaknesses of literature as a window into other cultures.
Show Notes We chat about a Chinese novel with an American translation, our love of sci-fi and fantasy, and the ways different cultures tackle the same kinds of underlying problems through fiction. We also talk about the beauty, and the limitations, of thinking about different cultures through their art. (Including what might happen if you tried to understand American culture through its popular art!)
Links * The Three Body Problem, by Cixin Liu * Season 4: Globalization * “genre-savvy” * The 1200-page-long Brandon Sanderson novel mentioned: Oathbringer * The Incomparable’s discussions of The Three-Body Problem: + Ep. 251 + Ep. 256 * Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card * Trappist system * Ancillary Justice * Howl’s Moving Castle and Hayao Miyazaki
Music * “Warm” by Speakman Sound feat. Frankie Forman. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Andrew Fallows
- Kurt Klassen
- Jeremy W. Sherman
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
Reflections on what we said in Season 5 and where we're going in Season 6. (Buckle up!)
Show Notes Wrapping up Season 5! We take a look at the things that worked well, summarize some of the big things we learned (or learned how to say more clearly), and give a bit of a preview of where we're going in Season 6!
Links * More __ in your __
Previous episodes we specifically called out during the show:
- 0.01: We Need Some Context!
- 2.13: A Disputation of Theses
- 5.03: It's Not Like Uber
- 5.04: Stuffy, Boring, Old, Lame
- 5.05: "Faint Not" (Live at NC State) -- when we talked about civil forfeiture
- 5.10: Super, Duper, Even Uber Bad
- 5.11: Fences, Neighbors, etc.
Music * "International Dreams" by Farm Hand. Used by permission. * "Winning Slowly Theme" by Chris Krycho.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month's sponsors:
- Andrew Fallows
- Kurt Klassen
- Jeremy W. Sherman
If you'd like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
Positive / Visible / Legal: Vaccinations and the application of force
Show NotesIt's one thing to be pro-vaccination. It's another to mandate vaccinations for everyone on the same schedule without any exceptions.
It's one thing to be an anti-vaxxer. It's something else entirely to have reservations about the particular schedule a government mandates.
How do we defend great common goods when they pose small, but real, individual risks?
Carefully.
Links* "Measles outbreak grows in L.A.'s Orthodox Jewish community despite California's strict new vaccination law" (LA Times) * "Volvo dragged into VW emissions scandal"
Music* "Basement Halloween" by Make Sure. Used by permission. * "Winning Slowly Theme" by Chris Krycho.
SponsorsMany thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month's sponsors:
- Andrew Fallows
- Kurt Klassen
- Jeremy W. Sherman
If you'd like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
RespondWe love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
Negative / Visible / Social: Sexism in the tech industry
Show Notes We look at the tech industry’s persistent habit of treating women badly – both overtly, in terms of sexual harassment, and less overtly, in terms of simply hiring and mentoring fewer women. What can we do to improve matters? What is the responsibility of individuals? Of companies? Of culture at large? Of the government?
Links * Recent examples of sexism in the tech industry:
+ “Reflecting On One Very, Very Strange Year At Uber” – Susan J. Fowler, with the piece that plunged Uber into its current, very much deserved, hot mess by explaining just how sexist its internal practices were.
+ “The fall of 500 Startups CEO Dave McClure” – Marisa Kendall, writing for the Mercury News, on Dave McClure of 500 Startups, who was forced to resign after (apparently well-founded) allegations of sexual harassment.
+ Binary Capital
- “Women in Tech Speak Frankly on Culture of Harassment” – Katie Benner, writing for the New York Times, on women harassed by Justin Caldbeck of Binary Capital.
- “Binary Accused of Post-Resignation Harassment by Ex-Employee” – Emily Chang and Sarah McBride, writing for Bloomberg, on Justin Caldbeck’s threats to a woman who had stopped working with Binary Capital on account of pervasive sexism.
+ “The long-term cost of sexual harassment” – Catherine Shu, writing for TechCrunch, with a description of her own experience of being harassed and the way it affected her long term.
- “Can Venture Capital Be Saved?” – Mitch and Freada Kapor, making a case for their own VC fund’s approach, with a clear recognition that (awful as it is) sexual harassment is a symptom of yet deeper problems with VC culture:
How can the industry celebrate people who glory in breaking all the rules, ask forgiveness not permission, and then be surprised when people are predatory, abusive and pursue their own desires at the expense and over the objection of others?
- “I’m a startup founder and I had sex with an investor — and I am sorry” – Perri Chase, writing for Business Insider, with a really thoughtful reflection on the current state of affairs, including a frank admission of her own choices and how they have played into things, but without blaming victims (a hard line to walk).
- Previously on the show:
+ Season 3 – many reflections on business success by way of taking the slow road.
+ 3.07: One Size Does Not Fit All – Amazon’s workplace culture as a view into corporate ethics and responsibility.
Music * “Jonah 2” by The Jonah Project. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Andrew Fallows
- Kurt Klassen
- Jeremy W. Sherman
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
Stephen gave his students a change of pace by having Chris deliver a guest lecture on podcasting. This lecture was recorded immediately before delivering 5.07: Books, the Internet, and Homeless People (Live at N.C. State).
Stephen gave his students a change of pace by having Chris deliver a guest lecture on podcasting. This lecture was recorded immediately before delivering 5.05: "Faint Not" (Live at N.C. State).
Negative / Visible / Legal: regulations and the open internet
Show Notes We look at internet policy and regulations as a view into the broader question of the relationship between government regulations and markets. Are all regulations harmful to the free market? Is a free market always the best? How do ideas like net neutrality and local loop unbundling play into it?
Correction Chris said, wrongly, that the North Carolina state government prevented Charlotte from building its own municipal fiber. What actually happened was the state passed a law preventing cities (like Wilson, North Carolina, which with the FCC sued the state but ultimately lost in a federal appeals court) from building out infrastructure to other communities (including rural areas outside the incorporated area of the city). The laws claimed to be in defense of competition; but there is notably no rush to build higher-speed internet to those rural areas.
The Winning Slowly Internet Platform What do we think is necessary for a well-functioning internet?
- Consistency and Reliability: or, you should be able to get sufficient speeds to learn or do your job on a normal basis.
- A Free/Functioning Market for Content: or, a level playing field for all the bits.
- A Competitive Market for Internet Service: or, enabling (1) and (2) by making internet service providers earn customers.
Links * Net neutrality
+ Wikipedia
+ “Net Neutrality in the US: Now What? (Vi Hart)”
+ The Open Internet (net neutrality advocate)
+ Zero-rating (Wikipedia)
-
Local loop unbundling
- Wikipedia
- “Planey Money 691: The Great Unbundling”
- As an alternative to net neutrality: “We don’t need net neutrality; we need competition—Op-ed:”Unbundled access" actually works.“
- The FCC vs. North Carolina and Tennessee on municipal ISPs offering service to neighboring communities
-
Cell phone competition:
-
The big four in the United States: AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile
- MVNOs: Wikipedia
- Cricket
- Ting
- Republic Wireless
-
Previously on the show:
-
4.12: Five Years of Facepalming – The EU and internet law—monopolies, copyright, taxing, freedom of speech, and learning from each other.
- 5.07: Books, The Internet, and Homeless People – Positive / Invisible / Legal (Organized): public libraries and the common good
Music * “Jep Shuffle” by Holy ’57. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Andrew Fallows
- Kurt Klassen
- Jeremy Cherfas
- Jeremy W. Sherman
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
At the end of 5.08 we made an offhand joke about Andrew Jackson. On further consideration, that joke wasn't funny: it missed some incredibly important realities. We got this wrong.
Reflections on the necessity, and the limitations, of empathy in light of the 2016 American election cycle
Show Notes In the wake of the surprising outcome of the 2016 American presidential election, we talk about how we do politics going forward. In particular, we look at how empathy and treating each other (no matter how sharp our differences) as people made in the image of God must inform our politics, even as we acknowledge that no amount of empathy will overcome all disagreements.
Links * “What A Difference 2 Percentage Points Makes” – Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight * Previously on the show + 4.11: How People Read C. S. Lewis + 4.10: The Ancient Wisdom of Usenet + 4.09: We’re Idealist Realists + 4.05: The Price of Democracy + 1.12: Political Appinations + 1.06: Rebuke Me Some People
Music * “Kid” by Arwen and the Mega Reset. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. Who, as it turns out, has been close friends with one of the
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Andrew Fallows
- Kurt Klassen
- Jeremy Cherfas
- Jeremy W. Sherman
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
Positive / Invisible / Legal (Organized):
public libraries and the common good
Show Notes We talk libraries. Why? Because public libraries are awesome. They’re on of the few unalloyed successes in social experiments. They do good in a wide array of areas, and they’re free to use (because we support them as taxpayers). If you want to hear Chris giddy, this is the episode.
The second of two episodes recorded live at NC State University on September 22, 2016. (Yep, our schedule is way different this year. You can thank Stephen’s Ph.D. thesis and the combination of Chris’ M. Div., work, and travel for that!)
Links * Dewey Decimal System * Library of Congress Classification system * Samsung Galaxy Note 7: exploding phone, do not buy, return if you bought one * TESOL (“Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages”)
Music * “Widows and Revolutionaries” by Darling Valley. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. After this episode, he should write something about libraries.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Andrew Fallows
- Kurt Klassen
- Jeremy Cherfas
- Jeremy W. Sherman
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
Art, faith, how culture shapes and is shaped by us, and more in The Gray Havens’ latest album
Show Notes Chris and Stephen have a wide-ranging conversation with Dave Radford of husband-and-wife folk-pop duo The Gray Havens about the value and purpose of art, the business side of the music industry, and the process of putting together their latest album, Ghost of a King.
- Musical influences:
- Simon and Garfunkel
- James Taylor
- Cat Stevens
- Frank Sinatra
- Dean Martin
- Queen
- Coldplay
- Mumford and Sons
- Florence and the Machine
- Fleet Foxes
- Bon Iver
- Lyrical influences:
- The Lord of the Rings
- the Gray Havens in _The Lord of the Rings
- The Chronicles of Narnia
- The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man’s Fear, by Patrick Rothfuss
- Other people mentioned on the show
- Jon Foreman
- Ben Shive
- Stephen’s rant on iPods: 1.10: Because Capitalism Yay
- Temple board
- John Piper
- 0.01: We Need Some Context—in which, in our very first episode, we discussed John Piper and Pope Francis as representing very different styles of using social media. (Also: whoa, that episode is rough…)
Music * “Shadows of the Dawn,” “Band of Gold,” “Diamonds and Gold,” and “This My Soul” from Ghost of a King by The Gray Havens – used by permission. Go buy this album! * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. Who is also deeply inspired by Tolkien, for the record.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Andrew Fallows
- Kurt Klassen
- Jeremy Cherfas
- Jeremy W. Sherman
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
Negative / Invisible / Legal (Organized): civil forfeiture and entrenched legal evil
Show NotesWe take on civil forfeiture. The short version: we hate it. It’s a wicked injustice and we think it ought to be fought, and fought hard. (If you want to hear Chris and Stephen get actually angry about something, this is the episode.)
Links * “Civil forfeiture in the United States” – Wikipedia * “NYPD admits accounting for its civil-forfeiture seizures is hopeless” – RT * “Asset Forfeiture Abuse” – ACLU * “Civil Forfeiture” – Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) * “Police Can Use a Legal Gray Area to Rob Anyone of Their Belongings” – Kaveh Waddell, The Atlantic
Music * “Faint Not” by Jenny & Tyler – used by permission, and with the deepest gratitude. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. Not quite as awesome as Jenny & Tyler, but that’s okay.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Andrew Fallows
- Kurt Klassen
- Jeremy Cherfas
- Jeremy W. Sherman
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
Positive / Visible / Social (Organized): orchestras and the question of “public goods”
Show NotesWe talk about orchestras, ask whether financial viability is a guide to the health or importance of particular institutions (hint: Betteridge’s Law), and look at how orchestras and other such institutions can be real markers of cultural health even for the people they don’t directly affect.
Links * An article in The New York Times, in 1903, referenced in The Perilous Life of Symphony Orchestras, by Robert J. Flanagan:
The permanent orchestra season has, as usual, been financially a bad one all over the country. With the end of April… come the bills for those who pay the piper…. There is always a deficit, which public-spirited guarantors are called upon to pay year after year. A permanent orchestra, it seems pretty welle stablished by American experience, is not at present a paying institution, and is not likely immediately to become so…. [Neverthless,] the prevailing note of the guarantors of the America Orchestras is one of hopefulness. Things are coming on; the public is being educated; it will support the orchestras in larger and larger numbers till they are finally… self-supporting.
- Stephen’s top three Dutch minimalist recommendations:
- “Canto Ostinato” by Simeon Ten Holt
- Joep Franssens, whose best known work is “Music of the Spheres”
- Jeroen van Veen
- Prog rock Chris likes:
- Explosions in the Sky
- Faunts (and especially their album M4)
- Other music mentioned on the show:
- Bach’s Mass in B Minor
- Lecrae
- Industrial music
- Stomp dance
- Mahler Symphony No. 2 “Resurrection”
- Blue Man Group
- Spoken word
- Poetry slam
- A few of Chris’ composed works
Music * “Generation Love” by Jon Reynolds – used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. Composed along with hours of other music over the course of his teenage years and adult life. Maybe he’ll make a second career out of that.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Andrew Fallows
- Kurt Klassen
- Jeremy Cherfas
- Jeremy W. Sherman
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
Show Notes In which we look at Facebook... but not like we ever have before. Why are people starting to turn off Facebook, and what social pressures are arising from that? How do social pressures of this sort work, and what kinds of changes do they affect?
Links * Virtue signaling * “Is Google Making Us Stupid? What the Internet is doing to our brains”, Nicolas Carr, The Atlantic, July/August 2008 * “The road out of Denton” – Jim Bradbury for TribTalk/The Texas Tribune, July 8, 2015, on Texas and municipal attempts to block oil drilling. * Chris’ conversation with his friend about social media: + spawned from this tweetstorm + the conversation started with this response * Before you go: “The cease-fire in Colombia’s long civil war starts today. Here’s what you need to know.”, The Washington Post * Previous discussions of social media or episodes referenced directly on the show: + 0.13: Ten Thousandth Lightbulb – What Happened to ADN, Paying to Socialize, Free or Not Free + 1.01: Massive Emotional Contagion – Facebook’s Social (Network) Science, User Responsibility, and Corporate Ethics + 1.13: Hello Ello? – Definitely Still a Beta, That’s Not a Gift, How People React to News, A Working Business Model + 3.01: The Ad-Driven Web, Part I – Denny’s, Newspapers, Native Advertising, and Vicious Cycles + 3.02: The Ad-Driven Web, Part II – The responsibilities of producers, consumers, and advertisers on the modern web + 3.04: Mom Memes – Generational shifts in social media and the diversifying web + 3.05: You Have Agency. Use It. – ‘The Web We Have to Save’—hyperlinks, the stream, algorithms, and human responsibility. + 3.11: Augustine’s Podcast – Social circles on- and offline and differences between our embodied and virtual selves. + 3.13: Inevitable? (Live at NC State) – Self-driving cars, the limits of technology, and the tension between the personal and the communal. + 4.10: The Ancient Wisdom of Usenet – Populism, social media, and wisdom in when, how, and where to (dis)engage with people you disagree with.
Music * “The Best Part” by Young Mister. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. He’s composing other music right now, and this inspired him a bit along the way. Get inspired yourself and remix it! We’ll feature it if you do.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Andrew Fallows
- Kurt Klassen
- Jeremy Cherfas
- Jeremy W. Sherman
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
Negative → Positive / Visible / Legal → Social: marijuana legalization and how systems change.
Show Notes Marijuana legalization is happening in various states in the United States. How does that kind of change fit into the system we’ve devised for talking about structure and agency/systems and individuals? Because norms do change: all the time. How?
Links * Reefer Madness * “What’s More Dangerous: Marijuana or Alcohol? A New Freakonomics Radio Podcast” * “Four of the Major Fear Campaigns That Helped Create America’s Insane War on Drugs” – we don’t necessarily endorse all the ideas here, but it does a nice job summarizing a lot of the issues around the drug war * “Stop Treating Marijuana Like Heroin” – the New York Times editorial board, on the DEA’s recent decision to continue categorizing marijuana the same way it does heroin (as a Category 1 drug) * “Donald Trump’s economic speech is basically about getting a do-over” – in which the journalists employed the Internet Archive as part of their reporting on Trump * Previous episodes mentioned on the show: + 4.12: Five Years of Facepalming (Live at NC State) – learning from other countries about our own legal approaches + 5.01: A Ph.D.-Level Math Problem – introducing our axes for analyzing systems and their effects on individuals
Music * “DaVinci” by Jaw Gems. This song is from Jaw Gems' new album Heatweaver. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. He’s composing other music right now, and this inspired him a bit along the way. Get inspired yourself and remix it! We’ll feature it if you do.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Andrew Fallows
- Jeremy W. Sherman
- Jeremy Cherfas
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
In which we laugh at ourselves and explain why you didn't get a new episode this week, but will get one next week, but not the week after that. Systems are hard, people.
P.S. We might just have more bonus episodes at some point. Like this one, they'll be in the feed, and in the Bonus category on the site, but not highlighted in the "Current Season" on the front page. Because they're, well... bonus episodes.
Explanation: New Rustacean is Chris' podcast about the Rust programming language.
Structures and systems, agency and individuals: three axes (and a sub-axis) for thinking about the world we live in.
Show Notes We introduce our system for thinking about the "structure/agency" or "systems and individuals" problem: how do the systems and structures of our lives shape us? How do we shape them? How free are we, and where are the places where more freedom is good, and the places where it might actually be bad? How do we confront the structural issues we face, or strengthen and preserve the good systems we do have in place?
Questions we'll be asking * How much can a system penalize an individual for not being part of it? * How much can a system hurt an individual who is part of it? * How much can a system benefit an individual that is part of it? * How much can a system benefit an individual who is not part of it?
Our analytical axes * Positive vs. Negative: is the relationship between systems and individuals good or bad---and if so, for society as a whole, for individuals, or both? * Visible vs. Invisible: is the structural pressure visible or invisible---i.e., living in a capitalist society is invisible but deeply impacts us. * Legal vs. Social: does the structure get its force through law and the power of the government, or through cultural and societal pressure? + Organized vs. Unorganized: both social movements and legal structures may be more or less coherent and organized.
Applying the axes Two big questions we'll ask about the particulars for each issue we look at:
- How constrained are you by these structural pressures?
- To what extent is that constraint or freedom good or problematic?
We think that in almost no cases is a radical end of individual freedom or structural control right. Nor does any system have merely positive or negative outcomes; we live in a broken world where even the best systems working in the most productive cycles with the most virtuous individuals still cannot solve everything perfectly. (And, since people's own situations and religious and ethical beliefs differe, there will be people who dispute our positive/negative valence. We make no apologies for ours, but we welcome disagreement!)
Links * 32 Theses (and several more words) on Podcasting * The Internet Archive
Music * "Equations", by The Midnight Sons, which is Stephen. Used by Stephen's permission. Or insistence, even. * "Winning Slowly Theme" by Chris Krycho. Kind of strange to think it's been two and a half years since he wrote this.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial
support! This month's sponsors:
- Andrew Fallows
- Jeremy W. Sherman
- Jeremy Cherfas
If you'd like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give
directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
Show Notes We use the Panama Papers as a jumping-off point to sum up the season and talk about:
- the alleged flatness of the world
- the possibilities of both globalization and localization
- the twin dangers of imperialism and parochialism
- the ways that growing income inequality intersect with globalization
- the things different cultures can learn from each other
- the distinction between “reasonable” and “justifiable” responses
- the importance of humility, whether in art or in charitable action
- the value of choosing not to do something at times
In other words: how can you be a good actor in a global space?
As an aside, on the rough size of a Word file (referenced with regard to the size of the Panama Papers data release): a 20-page paper from Chris’ seminary degree is about 52 kilobytes. 2 gigabytes would be 20,000 such papers.
Links * The Panama Papers:
+ “400 reporters kept the Panama Papers secret for a year. Here’s how they pulled it off.” (Mashable)
+ “David Cameron Answers for the Panama Papers” (The Atlantic) – and with a hilarious subtitle: ‘In a robust debate, one member was thrown out of the House of Commons for calling the prime minister “dodgy Dave.”’
+ “The 8 most important things to read to understand the Panama Papers document leak” (Vox)
+ “The Panama Papers leak, explained with an adorable comic about piggy banks” (Vox)
- The Three-Body Problem (Liu Cixin)
Previously on the Show * 4.07: Kickstarting a Hyper-Local Superfarm * 4.08: A Ghost in Singapore * 4.10: The Ancient Wisdom of Usenet * 4.12: Five Years of Facepalming (Live at NC State)
Music * “River’s Sigh”, by Hazelwood. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. This theme is never changing. Even if we get a neater recording, or a variation on it: it's slowly winning at taking over your brainspace at the end of every episode..
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Andrew Fallows
- Jeremy W. Sherman
- Jeremy Cherfas
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
The global nature of Christianity and the beauty of many cultures practicing the same faith
Show Notes We look at how Christianity is changing as it shifts from being heavily Western to being far more global (as it was in its birth). What new things might we see and learn as other eyes come to the same text? What do the various cultures of the world have to offer each other as we practice the same, ancient faith?
Links * Reading we’ve found helpful on today’s topic:
+ *Misreading the Bible Through Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible* (E. Randolph Richards and Brandon J. O’Brien)
+ *Theology in the Context of World Christianity: How the Global Church Is Influencing the Way We Think about and Discuss Theology* (Timothy Tennent)
+ *The Next Evangelicalism: Releasing the Church from Western Cultural Captivity* (Soong-Chan Rah)(Note that we don’t endorse everything in these books, as we don’t with *most* things we link—but that particularly bears repeating when looking at theology.)
- Zencastr
Music * “SARCOPH▲GUS”, by GLYPTØTEK. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. That Creative Commons bit is pretty great: it means you can do whatever you want with this theme wherever you live.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Andrew Fallows
- Jeremy W. Sherman
- Jeremy Cherfas
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
The EU and internet law—monopolies, copyright, taxing, freedom of speech, and learning from each other.
Show Notes In this second of two episodes recorded live at NC State (with a different class of students), we tackle the European Union’s approach to internet legislation—including everything from copyright law to dealing with monopolies—as a way to look at how differently things work around the world. What might we learn from other countries here in the U.S.? What might they learn from us?
Links * Internet history + ARPANET (Wikipedia) + MILNET (Wikipedia) (actually a subsection of ARPANET used specifically for military purposes) + World Wide Web & Tim Berners Lee (Pew) + Minitel (Wikipedia) - “Minitel, France’s precursor to the Web, to go dark on June 30 [2012]” (Ars Technica) * Monopsony (Economics Online) + Applied to the tech industry: “Publishers’ Deal with the Devil” (Stratechery) * United States v. Microsoft Corp. + “Justice Department Files Antitrust Suit Against Microsoft for Unlawfully Monopolizing Computer Software Markets” (United States Department of Justice, 1998) + Wikipedia summary * “EU Politicians Try To Create A New ‘Link Tax’ To Protect Newspapers Who Don’t Like Sites Linking For Free” * “Google dominates search. But the real problem is its monopoly on data” * Pirate Party (Wikipedia) * TARDIS * Last mile “loop unbundling” (Wikipedia) + “We Don’t Need Net Neutrality; We Need Competition” (Ars Technica) + “You Won’t Have Broadband Competition Without Regulation” (Reuters blog) * Schengen Agreement (Wikipedia) + “The Schengen area and cooperation” (Summaries of EU legislation at europa.eu) * DuckDuckGo * Bing * Packet sniffing + Packet analyzer (Wikipedia) + “Packet sniffing basics” (Linux Journal) + Wireshark network protocol analyzer tool * “Brazil Arrests Facebook Executive in WhatsApp Data Access Case” (New York Times) + “Brazil orders release of Facebook executive arrested in WhatsApp dispute” (The Verge) * End-to-end encryption (Wikipedia) * “Why Are We Fighting the Crypto Wars Again” (Steven Levy) – with a helpful history of the fight in the 1990s as well as the current issues * “You Can’t Outlaw Math (Accidental Tech Podcast 26:31 and following)” * Trans-Pacific Partnership + “Everything You Need to Know About the Trans-Pacific Partnership” (Washington Post, 2013) + “Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement” (Electronic Frontiers Foundation) * DMCA (Electronic Frontiers Foundation) * Digital cash in Kenya + “The Invisible Bank: How Kenya Has Beaten the World in Mobile Money” (National Geographic, 2012) + “Kenya’s mobile innovation brings digital money closer” (BBC) + Similar ventures in the U.S.: - Square Cash - Venmo
Previously on the Show * 4.09: A Ghost in Singapore
Music * “The House”, by Air Traffic Controller. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. That Creative Commons bit is pretty great: it means you can do whatever you want with this theme wherever you live.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Andrew Fallows
- Jeremy W. Sherman
- Jeremy Cherfas
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
Show Notes In the first of two episodes recorded live at NC State, we tackle the challenges posed by protest art. When does art cross a line and become morally reprehensible? When is it a viable alternative to other, far worse ways of dealing with the esame problems?
Links * “Stab Stab” + (Palestinian Anger in Jerusalem and West Bank Gets a Violent Soundtrack" (New York Times) + “NYT Front Page Indulges ‘Blunt’ Palestinian ‘Protest Songs’ Encouraging the Stabbing Murder of Jews” (NewsBusters) * C. S. Lewis + The Great Divorce + Mere Christianity + The Chronicles of Narnia * “Free Speech” * Shades of Blue * Black-ish + Season 2, Episode 16: “Hope”
Previously on the Show * 0.01: We Need Some Context! * 4.02: Helpiness * 4.10: The Ancient Wisdom of Usenet * Disagreeing well + 1.06: Rebuke Me Some Peopl + 4.05: The Price of Democracy
Music * “Half a Second” by Hemmingbirds. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. Big horns underneath and some piping woodwinds carrying the top line? Interesting thought.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Andrew Fallows
- Jeremy W. Sherman
- Jeremy Cherfas
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
Populism, social media, and wisdom in when, how, and where to (dis)engage with people you disagree with.
Show Notes There’s a wave of populism sweeping the world. Twitter and Facebook are some of the epicenters of the new populism. How should we think about interacting with radical populists in general? And what about specifically on social media?
Links * “Is Google Making Us Stupid (Nick Carr at The Atlantic)” * Bernie Sanders runs to man who fainted during speech (CNN)
Previously on the Show * 4.05: The Price of Democracy – the necessity and the limitations of gradualism, incrementalism, and compromise in politics. * 3.11: Augustine’s Podcast – Social circles on- and offline and differences between our embodied and virtual selves. * 3.04: Mom Memes – Generational shifts in social media and the diversifying web * 0.01: We Need Some Context – Religious twittering, Google nesting, and hobbyists careering.
Music * “Optimist” by Wanderwild. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. If you’re wondering what it would sound like as a majorly epic score, he’s thought about doing that version.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Andrew Fallows
- Jeremy W. Sherman
- Jeremy Cherfas
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
Show Notes We discuss the problems that face major nation-states trying to respond to the massive refugee crisis in Europe. We also look at the complex relationship between nations on topics like this in a “global world” (nice, Chris) and suggest that Americans both invest actively in making things better and chill out a bit insofar as we don’t live in Europe.
Links * “One in, one out”: Turkey and EU agree outline of ‘one in, one out’ deal over Syria refugee crisis (The Guardian) * “Central American Families Fear Deportation As Raids Begin” (NPR) * “The Shame of America’s Family Detention Camps” (The New York Times Magazine) * Safe cities in Syria: Why Syrian ‘Safe Zones’ Could Be Dangerous for Civilians and U.S. Policy (TIME) * Stephen’s Biblical metaphors: + “Take the beam out of your own eye…” + Casting stones
Previously on the Show * 1.12: Political Appinations – in which we talked (among other things) about the value of more local politics * 4.06: Kickstarting a Hyperlocal Super-Farm – in which we talked about local governance in the context of the * 4.07: A Muscle-Flexing Flyby – in which we talked about Russia * 4.09: A Ghost in Singapore – in which John O’Nolan exhorted people to be charitable in their assessments of businesses
Music * “Come Down” by Water District. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. Do you hear that? It’s the sound of there not being any sweet remixes yet. Someday. Someday.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Andrew Fallows
- Jeremy W. Sherman
- Jeremy Cherfas
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
John O'Nolan on Ghost, Singapore, international commerce, and giving the benefit of the doubt
Show Notes We invite Ghost cofounder John O’Nolan on the show to talk about Ghost’s reincorporation in Singapore, what that means for them as a non-profit, and how we should think about these kinds of moves. We talk about everything from the specific details of Ghost’s move to the ethics of business tourism, and John basically hammers on themes we’ve been talking about all season. It’s fantastic.
Links * “Ghost is moving to Singapore—and saying goodbye to the UK” (John O’Nolan at the Ghost blog) * Stripe + Stripe Atlas * VAT + VAT-MOSS * Net neutrality in the US * FBI demanding iPhone unlocking under a law from the 1700s * “Singapore” – Freedom House Report * “Censorship in Singapore” (Wikipedia) + “Internet Censorship in Singapore” + “Media Censorship in Singapore” + “Human Rights in Singapore” * “Singapore Professor Denied Tenure, Sparks Academic Freedom Debate” (Wall Street Journal)
Music * “A Better Life” from Silent Moon by Supersmall. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. If you ever do a remix of this track, we’ll probably feature it on the show. (Seriously.)
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Andrew Fallows
- Jeremy W. Sherman
- Jeremy Cherfas
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
Show Notes We talk about nation-states, war, hopes of permanent peace and how “the end of history” and the notion of fewer major wars is likely a pipe dream. But also, how to think about foreign policy issues as citizens of nations we love, and the value of nation-states even in a “global village.”
Links * Fall of the Berlin Wall * Russo-Japanese War * World War I + “War to end all wars” * World War II * Proxy wars + Cold War - Korean War - Vietnam War + Arab-Israel conflict * Exclave + Kaliningrad Oblast (Russian exclave on Atlantic ocean) * Gulf Wars + Gulf War + Iraq War * “War on Terror” * “Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine” (All of Vox’s coverage) + “Russian military intervention in Ukraine” + “Annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation” + “The Link Between Putin’s Military Campaigns in Syria and Ukraine” (The Atlantic) * China’s building islands in the South China Sea + “What China Has Been Building in the South China Sea” + “China’s President Pledges No Militarization in Disputed Islands” + “With China in Mind on a Visit to Manila, Obama Pledges Military Aid to Allies in Southeast Asia” * Neoliberalism * “End of history” * Nation-state * North Korea hack of Sony + “Timeline: North Korea and the Sony Pictures hack” * Britain considering exit from EU (“Brexit”) + “A background guide to “Brexit” from the European Union” * Putin flexing
Music * “Warpaint On” by Risley. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. He doesn’t need permission to use his own stuff. But you know what? It’s Creative Commons Attribution licensed… so neither do you.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Andrew Fallows
- Jeremy W. Sherman
- Jeremy Cherfas
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
Show Notes Links * The World is Flat, Thomas Friedman * New Rustacean, Chris’ other podcast * “Kickstarter Lesson #65: How to Get US Backers if You’re Running a Non-US-Based Kickstarter Campaign” * “Hong Kong has probably lost HSBC’s headquarters for good—and Beijing is to blame” * “The Facebook-loving Farmers of Myanmar”
Previously on the Show * 4.03: The Podcast Awakens—in which we talked about global fandoms specifically in the context of Star Wars * 3.12: Hungarian Folk Music—in which we talked about musical (sub)cultures not especially well-served by the current music market, but also how the internet is helping subcultures thrive
Music * “Solitude” by Alpenglow. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. Still Creative Commons Attribution licensed.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Andrew Fallows
- Jeremy W. Sherman
- Jeremy Cherfas
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
Show Notes We dive back into the deep end with a discussion of the necessity and challenge of compromise in the political realm. How do we work steadily but slowly toward the things we value? How do decide what we can compromise on and what we can’t? Can we “trade favors” in a good way? What about people working at totally cross purposes on a given issue?
Corrigenda The Myanmar military party no longer has a majority, but retains a substantial fraction of the parliamentary seats.
Links * “Myanmar opens new parliament session after military rule” * “Myanmar speculation mounts over Suu Kyi ‘president move’” * Keystone-XL + One site for it + One site against it * “Theological triage”
Music * “Curtain Call” by Takénobu. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho, who still thinks that when he grows up he’d like to be a composer like John Williams.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Andrew Fallows
- Jeremy W. Sherman
- Jeremy Cherfas
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
Following up on our previous conversation about The Force Awakens, this week we look at what makes art good, especially in the context of film. Was the latest Star Wars actually a good movie?
Links * Theodore Adorno * XKCD 915: Connoiseur * “I Want to be Well” from The Age of Adz by Sufjan Stevens, on Genius * The Force Awakens soundtrack on iTunes
Music * “Rey’s Theme” from Star Wars: The Force Awakens, by John Williams. Fair use. Utterly lovely. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho, who still thinks that when he grows up he’d like to be a composer like John Williams.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Andrew Fallows
- Jeremy W. Sherman
- Jeremy Cherfas
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
We say a few serious things about the nature of global fandom, the relationship between art and brand awareness in large media properties, and the future of as large a property as Star Wars.
But let’s be honest: mostly, we geek out.
Links * TheForce.net Literature Forum, where Chris was Master_Keralys * “How Disney Plans To Sell ‘Star Wars’ In China, A Box Office Far, Far Away” * “‘Star Wars’ China Box Office: Lukewarm Presales Could Signal Trouble For Disney Juggernaut” * The Force Awakens soundtrack on iTunes
Music * “Main Title” from Star Wars, by John Williams. Fair use. And amazing. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho, who started composing in no small part because of the “Twin Suns” cue from A New Hope, which rocked his world when he was just a little kid, and nothing was ever the same.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Andrew Fallows
- Jeremy W. Sherman
- Jeremy Cherfas
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!
We pick up from our discussion of Facebook and Internet.org last week to look at the broader questions we raised then: how do you help people well? It’s not enough to have good intentions—so how do you pick good charities to give to? How do you choose where to dedicate your own time and money? How should we think about foreign aid, and foreign intervention, and foreign policy in general?
Links * When Helping Hurts * Microcredit * Toms + Corporate Responsibility + “Some Bad News about TOMS Shoes”
Music * “Hero”, by Starlight Girls. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho, who still dreams of doing a dance kit version of this, and a rock version of it, and a massive orchestra version of it. Someday, maybe.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Andrew Fallows
- Jeremy W. Sherman
- Jeremy Cherfas
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up on Twitter, App.net, Facebook, or via email!
We open our fourth season with a discussion of Facebook’s Internet.org platform, open access vs. power plays by large companies, and the ethical questions at the intersection of business and philanthropy. Chris and Stephen disagree about how to read Facebook’s move, and set the stage for a season-long discussion of globalization and its ramifications for technology, religion, ethics, and art.
Just some light discussion to start things off, in other words.
Links * Quartz: + “Mark Zuckerberg can’t believe India isn’t grateful for Facebook’s free internet” + “Zuckerberg says the internet lifts people out of poverty, but is giving them subpar access” * Alternatives to Internet.org: + Medianama: “Mozilla’s Mitchell Baker offers alternatives to zero-rating for Internet services” + Jana + Gigato * Huffington Post: “Is Net Neutrality More Important Than Internet Access? Why Babajob’s On Internet.org” * “Internet.org VP: We used the Facebook platform to lobby TRAI just like the people on the other side”
Music * “Oh Boy”, by Hazelwood. Used by permission. (Fun fact: Hazelwood’s lead singer is Stephen’s wife!) * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho, who still dreams of doing a dance kit version of this, and a rock version of it, and a massive orchestra version of it. Someday, maybe.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Andrew Fallows
- Jeremy W. Sherman
- Jeremy Cherfas
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up on Twitter, App.net, Facebook, or via email!
We wrap up our third full season with another “lightning round”, talking about the structure/agency and tech accessibility, globalization, and owning your own content online.
Links * Structure/agency problem (Wikipedia) + Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) + Web accessibility * Globalization + Code for the Kingdom + The World is Flat + “Albuquerque” * Owning your own content: + Indie web + WordPress backups + Medium + Craig Mod essays * Previously on the show: + 3.12: Hungarian Folk Music
Music * “Broken” by Featurette. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. Still. Always. Forever.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Andrew Fallows
- Jeremy W. Sherman
- Jeremy Cherfas
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up on Twitter, App.net, Facebook, or via email!
We start wrapping up Season 3, tackling five topics that one or the other of us wanted to talk about but couldn’t get the other one all that excited about, or which we didn’t feel like we had enough to say yet:
- venture capitalism (both of us)
- online classes (Stephen)
- the ethics of algorithms (Chris)
- tracking people at work (Stephen)
- transparency in business (Chris)
Links * Venture capitalism article on Wikipedia + Insightful piece by Ben Thompson at Stratechery: “Venture Capital and the Internet’s Impact” + “Democratizing celebrity styling: Uber for your hair has arrived” * Algorithms failing: “Keep Calm and Rape a Lot” * Amazon worker treatment: + “Worse than Wal-Mart: Amazon’s sick brutality and secret history of ruthlessly intimidating workers” (from Salon, with a bit more acerbic a take than we might offer) + “They’re Watching You at Work” (The Atlantic) + 3.07: One Size Does Not Fit All
Music * “Run With Me” by Heather LaRose. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho, who is plotting ways to make this theme more robust for the upcoming seasons.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Jeremy W. Sherman
- Jeremy Cherfas
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up on Twitter, App.net, Facebook, or via email!
Talking about self-driving cars and the tensions between public safety and personal responsibility, and between technological possibility and cultural norms.
Corrigenda * Stephen meant “Black Beauty” rather than “Black Betsy”. * Mat Honan’s piece we referred to was on BuzzFeed, not Wired.
Links * Google’s Cute Cars And The Ugly End Of Driving: The main thing you should know about autonomous vehicles is that they are utterly inevitable. * Chrysler hack
Before You Go JetBrains gets subscription pricing right!
- Original post: “Introducing JetBrains Toolbox, easier access to your coding tools, more control and flexibility, and a lower entry price”
- Follow-up: “We are listening”
- Announcement of updated model: “Final update on the JetBrains Toolbox announcement”
Music * “Spring” by Sam Birchfield. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho, who still wants to find a Steinway and a good piano microphone to get a non-synthesized version of the theme.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Jeremy W. Sherman
- Jeremy Cherfas
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up on Twitter, App.net, Facebook, or via email!
If you listen to Hungarian folk music, or classical music, or recordings of live shows, or obscure bands, then the (otherwise pretty decent) GraceNotes CD database and the many apps that rely on it might not really work for you. We talk about why that might be and how we might think about fixing it.
Links * “The Enhanced Experience So Far: It’s the Indies Who Support the Fledgling [Enhanced CD] Format” * “The Invention of Compact Discs” * Hungarian Folk Music * Ryan Adams, 1989 * Dart Music * Creative Commons * Lawrence Lessig + Remix + campaign * Max Richter * Ingrid Michaelson * Murray Gold + Wikipedia + IMDB + iTunes Catalog * Amanda Petrusich’s Do Not Sell At Any Price
Before You Go The Atlantic Notes—still absolutely killing it. Good work, guys.
- Adoption stories series
- Incredibly thoughtful discussion on rape and empowering women
Music * “Psychrocker” by Honeymilk featuring De Montevert. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho, who is getting that composing itch again…
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Jeremy W. Sherman
- Jeremy Cherfas
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up on Twitter, App.net, Facebook, or via email!
We talk about how we present ourselves on social media: what happens as we present different aspects of ourselves over time? How do we manage those changes? How does the flattening out effect of social media and searchability intersect (or conflict) with the way we think about our social circles in “real” (that is, embodied, non-virtual) life?
Links * Geocities * Tripod * Friendster * Xanga * Augustine’s Retractions * First Friday in Raleigh * “Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg thinks telepathy tech is on its way” – The Guardian * Google Buzz * Google Plus Circles * Configuring the Networked Self, Julie Coen
Before You Go * “Ahmed Mohamed swept up, ‘hoax bomb’ charges swept away as Irving teen’s story floods social media” – The Dallas Morning News * “We Stand with Ahmed (and We Hope He’ll Join Us for Astronomy Night)” – WhiteHouse.gov * #standwithahmed
Music * “Modern Language” by Postcards from Jeff. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Jeremy W. Sherman
- Jeremy Cherfas
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up on Twitter, App.net, Facebook, or via email!
We start talking about phones again, and this time manage not to veer off into talking about robots. On the other hand, we do end up talking about a broad Christian ethic of technology, life in communities, and the pull toward social constructivism or technological substantivism.
Links * Sap.py – Chris’ podcast with his wife about her experience learning Python * Experience economy * Post-scarcity economy * Social constructivism * Substantivism * Previously on the show: + 3.08: Juice Up the Weird Edges of the Ecosystem
Before You Go Two good bits from The Atlantic:
- “Almost Half of Syria’s Population Has Been Uprooted”
- “A Map That Dramatizes (and Helps Explain) the Refugee Crisis”
Music * “Song of the Sun” by Fell Runner. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho, who thinks you should check out the theme for Sap.py, too. Bells are fun!
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Jeremy W. Sherman
- Jeremy Cherfas
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up on Twitter, App.net, Facebook, or via email!
In which we spend some time talking with Ryan O’Neal of Sleeping at Last about his soundtrack for the film Many Beautiful Things, and then branch out to discuss business and distribution models for artists in the 21st century.
Links * Many Beautiful Things: + The score - Stream it + The documentary about Lilias Trotter - trailer * Sleeping at Last + on television + Kid President + Notes on making “Mercury” + Yearbook - Box set - iTunes + Atlas: Year One + Atlas: Year Two subscription * Hans Zimmer + The Buggles * Rotten Tomatoes * Previously on the show: + 2.11: Encoding Quality: Potato + 0.11: Only Acceptable Cream Cheese
Before You Go * Charity water: + Overview + Ryan’s campaign * Narcos
Music * All music from Many Beautiful Things by Sleeping at Last. Used by permission. Go buy this fantastic album! + Intro: “Overture (Instrumental)” + 5:38–6:58: “Almost Idyllic” + 17:07–18:58: “Seeing” + 27:10–28:28: “Ill Equipped” * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho, who wishes he were cool enough to write 36 songs in a year.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Jeremy W. Sherman
- Jeremy Cherfas
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up on Twitter, App.net, Facebook, or via email.
In which we start by looking at how to think about buying new phones… And then pivot into a discussion of major economic transitions. Like robots.
Links * Carriers dropping subsidies: + “T-Mobile faces war of words after killing subsidies, contracts” (CNET) + “Verizon Wireless moving away from contracts and phone subsidies” (Ars Technica) + “Sprint to end two-year contracts - now here come the deals” (CNN) * Motorola Razr * “Pre to postmortem: the inside story of the death of Palm and webOS” (The Verge) * How Blackberry Fell (The New Yorker) * MMS (multimedia messaging hack) + on iOS: “iOS bug lets anyone crash your iPhone with a text message” (The Guardian) + on Android: “950 million Android phones can be hijacked by malicious text messages” (Ars Technica) * Xiaomi * Windows Phone * From the Garden to the City * Previously on the show: + 1.18: Keep on Keepin’ On
Before You GoThe Atlantic’s new Notes (blogging) section, with “comments” via email. Perhaps particularly relevant to our listeners is their response to Chris’ email. Note that they followed up a couple days after the episode was recorded with a personal email noting that they’d launched
Music * “Pirates”, by Heptagon Heaven. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. Slowly winning the “can’t get it out of your head” spot in every listener’s inner ear.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Jeremy W. Sherman
- Jeremy Cherfas
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up on Twitter, App.net, Facebook, or via email.
In which we quite aggressively tackle Amazon’s corporate treatment of its workers, and launch into a discussion of corporate ethics and responsibility. We also note that though we critique Amazon’s practices, we recognize that it has good effects in the world, some of them significant. The question is: at what point to the externalities associated with those benefits make dealing with any given company morally unjustifiable?
Links * The original piece which sparked this discussion: “Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace” * “Why the New York Times’s Amazon story is so controversial, explained” (Vox) – with a scathing and accurate comment on blue-collar workers as the real problem for Amazon:
The real workplace scandal at Amazon — and in the economy writ large — isn’t the treatment of white-collar workers with plenty of options. It’s the treatment of blue-collar workers with none.
Most of Amazon’s workers, after all, aren’t highly paid engineers or marketers sitting in a Seattle office. They’re contract warehouse workers rushing frantically to meet their packing quotas.
- Responses:
+ “Full memo: Jeff Bezos responds to brutal NYT story, says it doesn’t represent the Amazon he leads”
+ “An Amazonian’s response to”Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace“
+ “Amazon: Friend of the Christian Family?” – an outsider praising the ethic itself as well as the results of that ethic in the American economy (First Things)
+ “I Had a Baby and Cancer When I Worked at Amazon. This Is My Story”
+ “Amazon as an Antidote to Life Inside the High-Technology Bubble”
+ “The Case Against Full-Time Employees”
-
Takedowns of Amazon’s warehouse practices:
- “Inside Amazon’s Warehouse” (2011)
- “I Was A Warehouse Wage Slave” (2012)
- “My Week as an Amazon Insider” (2013)
- “Amazon workers face ‘increased risk of mental illness’” (2013)
- “Exclusive: Amazon makes even temporary warehouse workers sign 18-month non-competes” (2014)
- Previously on the show:
- 1.02: On Family
Before You GoFor just one of many articles on the Chinese nose dive last week, see “Global shares nosedive on China economic woes”. Notably, as we predicted it might, things substantially stabilized throughout the week elsewhere in the world.
Music * “it was gone” by orchid mantis. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. The piano version is cool; somewhere in the future is a rock orchestra version that’s been playing in Chris’ head for years.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Jeremy W. Sherman
- Jeremy Cherfas
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
We geek, we gush, and we even manage to say a few serious things about the future of humanity while talking about New Horizons, Rosetta, science fiction, nation-state rivalries, and how we would love to go visit other places in the solar system (or galaxy).
Errata: Chris said New Frontiers was an ESA probe; it was in fact a NASA probe. He was thinking of Rosetta, an ESA project to land on a comet—which they did, after the greatest gravity boost sequence in history:
Slingshot this!Note: yep, those are children fussing in the background at one point in the show. Chris has a 3-year-old daughter and a 1-year-old daughter, and the 1-year-old happened to lose her mind mid-recording. This is one of the many times a better microphone might be nice!
Links * New Horizons + XKCD What if?: New Horizons – on how incredibly fast New Horizons is traveling. + Wikipedia * Active solar system probes * The Expanse – a delightful romp of a space opera Chris and his wife have read. * SpaceX + Sued the Air Force * Virgin Galactic * Military-industrial complex: + Wikipedia + Eisenhower’s speech (from which the term derives) * The Fermi Paradox * Fusion reactor * Alcubierre Drive * Previously on the show: + 1.02: On Family – “You Can’t Have It All; Singleness Not a Disaster; and Family, Work, Innovation, and the Long View” + 1.04: Superhero Movies! + 1.11: We Need Life Editors – on Doctor Who + 1.15: Timelessishness – on HomestarRunner.com + 2.04: Might Actually Be Iron Man – Elon Musk, Tesla, SpaceX, and landing rockets on barges after using the!
Before You Go“The guys behind MegaBots say their giant fighting robot will pioneer an entirely new, worldwide sport” – and while we think that claim might be a bit over the top, it’s still hilarious and kind of great.
Music * “Don’t Go Quietly” by Light Music. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. This week, it managed to cover up some of those fussy children in the background. (Good editing work, Stephen.)
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Jeremy W. Sherman
- Jeremy Cherfas
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Blogging is not what it was in 2008. It has changed in some ways for the better, in some ways for the worse, and in a few ways that it’s hard to tell. Picking up from an Iranian blogger, Hossein Derakhshan, who was jailed for his political views in 2008, we take a look at hyperlinking, the stream, and personal agency. How can we keep the good of the blog world of 2008 and the good of the stream?
Links * “The Web We Have to Save” (Hossein Derakhshan) + His follow-up on the response * “The End of Surfing” (Chris Krycho) * “79 These on Technology. For Disputation” (Alan Jacobs) * Previously on the show: + 3.04: Mom Memes + 3.03: Look in Your Soul + On Alan Jacobs’ theses: 2.13: A Disputation of Theses + 1.01: Massive Emotional Contagion – on Facebook, social responsibility
Before You Go TUCOWS, parent company of Hover and Ting nailed its response to an intrusion on their servers. Note that Chris uses both Hover and Ting, and in fact winningslowly.org is registered at Hover—but we’re not getting anything from them (rather the opposite!)
See also our tweets back and forth with them here—turns out a kind word can be really appreciated.
Music * “Plastic Skateboard” by Brave Baby. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. This week, with an all-new… no, actually. There’s nothing new about this. It’s still great, though, right?
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Jeremy W. Sherman
- Jeremy Cherfas
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
In which we look at how moms took over the internet, and how the shift from 18–34-year-old white males to not only middle-aged moms but also many other demographics is good for the web—even when it might seem a little strange to those who came of age on the internet in the years before Facebook was taken over by mommy bloggers.
Spoilers: we only made one “your mom” joke the whole episode!
Links * “God-Tier: Facebook Moms Run the Meme Game” * Mommy bloggers: + “The Rise of the Mommy Bloggers” (Mashable) + “How moms won the internet – and what that means for the rest of us” * meme + Badgers (requires Flash!) - Wikipedia article + Scumbag Steve * “Black Twitter” * Previously on the show: + 2.13: A Disputation of Theses + 3.03: Look in Your Soul
Before You Go * “Charles Koch Urgest Conservatives to Skip ‘Corporate Welfare’” (TIME) * “Cecil The Lion Update: Yelp Users Outraged After Thousands Of River Bluff Dental Reviews Vanish” (International Business Times)
Music * “The Fog”, by Beach Moon, Peach Moon * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. A little fuzzy the past few weeks, but it’ll be back to its full glory by next episode, don’t you worry.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Jeremy W. Sherman
- Jeremy Cherfas
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Ashley Madison got hacked and blackmailed by people who hate Ashley Madison’s adultery-as-a-business-model, erm, business model. We also hate adultery, but we’re not so sure that hacking and blackmail is the right solution to this particular problem.
Links * Ashley Madison hacked + The DMCA + Lives being ruined: “Married Man Whose Name Was Leaked In Ashley Madison Hack By The Impact Team Speaks: 20-Year Marriage, $19 Paid Delete” + Very human reactions: “Ashley Madison hack: ‘Out of all the data breaches, this is probably the funniest’—It’s hard not to feel sorry for the site’s adulterous users, but when I think of how betrayed they must feel…” * Doxxing * Rule of law * Just one example of another contentious issue: “Undercover video shows Planned Parenthood official discussing fetal organs used for research” * Previously on the show: + 2.10: So You’ve Been Hacked + 1.06: Rebuke Me Some People
Before You Go Maybe it’s not a great idea to network all the things—Ars Technica: “Fiat Chrysler recalls 1.4 million cars over remote hack vulnerability Uconnect bug can shut down engine and brakes, take over steering.”
Music * “There’s No Love”, by We Are Magnetic. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. He’s been playing with electronica lately, so maybe you’ll get an electronica version eventually—but maybe not, because that would be a little strange.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Jeremy W. Sherman
- Jeremy Cherfas
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
In which we continue our conversation from 3.01, turning our attention from the system issues which led to the modern state of the web to what we ought to do about it—as consumers of content, as producers of content, and even as advertisers.
Links * Quartz: “Over one-fifth of people use ad-blocking software—and it’s beginning to hurt” * Ad blocking: + AdBlock Plus—associated with some not-so-savory practices, including letting advertisers buy their way onto a white list. + μBlock: aiming to be super light-weight, and no shenanigans about letting advertisers buy exceptions. Two variants:
- μBlock
- μBlock Origin—the blocker Chris uses.
The reasons for the split are political, personal, and quirky. Welcome to open-source software!
+ Ars Technica: Why Ad Blocking is devastating to the sites you love
+ The Art of Manliness: “How Advertising Works on the Art of Manliness” (via listener @mikehoss on App.net)
- The history of the internet:
- MILNET
- ARPANET
- The World Wide Web
- @oluseyi on App.net:
It is absolutely staggering how, once you visit a vendor’s site, nearly all of the ads you see for the next hour or two seem to be from that vendor. A real-time reminder of how much you’re being tracked.
cc @winningslowly
∞ July 21, 2015 3:01pm * Do Not Track * Tracking-blockers: + Ghostery—alleged to have some similar issues to Adblock with their relationship to trackers. + Disconnect.me—the ad tracking blocker Chris users. Identifies what trackers and third-party cookies are blocked on any given page, and allows you to enable or disable them as you like. * Previously on the show: + On Circa: - 2.01: Take My Money Now! - 2.15: Metapodcasting + 0.03: Echo Chamber—we talked about “losing parts of the internet” via link rot, which is a big part of why we’re supporting the Internet Archive.
Before You GoThe Business Journals: ACLJ: U.S. Deal With Iran “Unconscionable” Because It Leaves Imprisoned American Pastor Saeed Abedini Behind
Music * “Even Fireworks”, by Pushing Static. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. If you make a remake of this, we want to hear every beat.
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Jeremy W. Sherman
- Jeremy Cherfas
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
In which Stephen and Chris are back at it, with a discussion of the role advertising plays in the modern web—the good, the bad, the ugly, and the wonderfully hilarious. What makes advertising good or bad? How do companies get “native ads” right—and wrong?
Links * Denny’s Tumblr + That Huge Pork Heist * John Gruber/Daring Fireball * Ben Thompson/Stratechery + Why Web Pages Suck, on the same topic as today’s show… but posted two days after we recorded it. * Andrew Sullivan/The Dish
Before You Go * Europe’s demands on Greece * The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant
Music * “Marina and I”, by The Gorgeous Chans. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. Used by… uh… yeah, we kind of have permission to do whatever we want. Of course, it’s Creative Commons Attribution licensed, meaning so do you. How neat is that?
Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
- Jeremy W. Sherman
- Jeremy Cherfas
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
Show NotesChris and Stephen reflect on Season 2: what did we talk about, what have we learned, why do we take breaks, and what changes can you expect for Season 3? For that matter, when is Season 3 coming? And what in the world is the difference between a “series” and a “season” anyway?
Before You Go * Patreon—it’s a thing; we’ll be doing it. Keep an eye out.
Music * “Enanthropoisis” by Chris Krycho. Permission granted to remix! Seriously. It’s Creative Commons Attribution licensed, just like all of our content on this show. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. Written years after the other piece.
Links * Exponent Episode 044: Up in the Clouds with Twitter—Ben Thompson and James Allworth * “Exclusive: Amazon makes even temporary warehouse workers sign 18-month non-competes: Contract says it can limit jobs across the globe”
Previously on the showFor this episode, we mostly just direct you to the rest of Season 2. However, see also 0.13: Ten Thousandth Lightbulb on App.net’s business model.
Follow/Subscribe * Twitter: + @winningslowly + @chriskrycho + @scarradini * App.net + @winningslowly + @chriskrycho * Subscribe + RSS + iTunes
Show NotesChris and Stephen take three recent articles about the super-structure of how our society pays for college and scrutinize the issue. How does American society value what college delivers? (What does it deliver?) How do we fund it? Should we fund it? We take the time not just to ponder, but to celebrate an unlikely organization that’s doing some incredibly innovative moves in the space. Also Stephen inadvertently insults a whole group of people. Sorry about that.
Before You Go * “The Brutality of Police Culture in Baltimore” by Conor Friedersdorf * “Orioles VP Angelos Makes Profound Statement Following Baltimore Protests” by Conor Friedersdorf
Music * “St. Julian” by The Midnight Sons. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. Fact: Chris studied music composition in college.
Links * “The Upwardly Mobile Barista” by Amanda Ripley * “Amid Funding Cuts, Will LSU have to declare ‘Bankruptcy’?” by Martha C. White * “Corinthian Colleges Shuts Down, Ending Classes for 16,000 overnight” * Jubala Coffee * Scott Walker’s University Budget Cuts–How Big? by Dave Umhoefer * Rider University Apologies to Rider grads. * Getting Smarter on Skills Testing by Paul Fain. An article about skills-based credentialing.
Previously on the show * 2.12: In the Meanwhile— We talked about a small corporation being ethical. * 2.11: Hi, We’re The Internet— We talked about Uber acting unethically. * 2.06: The Ones- and Zeros-sphere— We talked about Marvel’s ethics.
Follow/Subscribe * Twitter: + @winningslowly + @chriskrycho + @scarradini * App.net + @winningslowly + @chriskrycho * Subscribe + RSS + iTunes
Show NotesChris and Stephen do something different this week and read Alan Jacobs’ 79 Theses on Technology (For Disputation) as an oral presentation. We throw in some thoughts at the end, thereby jumping into the conversation ourselves. But mostly we give Alan Jacobs the credit he is due and give his thoughts the space they deserve.
Before You Go * The Middle East
Music * “Mind Your Manors” by The Bandicoots. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. “I am moved by this music” -Aeschylus, probably, if he had heard it
Links * 79 Theses on Technology. For Disputation. by Alan Jacobs * An archive of blog post responses to the 79 Theses * Alan Jacobs’ website * The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr.
Previously on the show * 0.03: Echo Chamber—we talked about losing parts of the Internet.
Follow/Subscribe * Twitter: + @winningslowly + @chriskrycho + @scarradini * App.net + @winningslowly + @chriskrycho * Subscribe + RSS + iTunes
Show NotesChris and Stephen give three cheers for Dan Price, who voluntarily cut his own pay and raised the pay of his employees to a minimum of $70K a year. We discuss the nature of money, income inequality, how we can fix problems in non-governmental ways (sometimes, and in some ways), and about the limits of praise. We also inaugurate Mr. Price into the newly-founded Winning Slowly Hall of Fame amidst celebratory explosions. (No, really.)
Before You Go * SpaceX Rocket’s First Stage Crashes During Landing Attempt | Video by Thomas Friedman
Music * “Phoenix” by Laura Joy. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. We considered adding an explosion just because of the Before You Go, but alas, time constraints.
Links * One Company’s New Minimum Wage: $70,000 a year by Patricia Cohen * High income improves evaluation of life but not emotional well-being by Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton. The article that Dan Price read. * Scripture about Gleaning: Leviticus 19:10 * Costco CEO Craig Jelinek Leads the Cheapest, Happiest Company in the World by Brad Stone. Costco * Public-benefit corporation Wikipedia page * Rolling Jubilee * Fight for $15 * When Helping Hurts: Alleviating the Poverty Without Hurting The Poor…And Ourselves by Steve Corbett & Brian Fikkert
Further Reading * Praise and Skepticism as One Executive Sets Minimum Wage to $70,000 a year by Patricia Cohen
Previously on the show * 1.14: Buying Me Off With Warm Fuzzies—we talked about how corporations fund the arts.
Follow/Subscribe * Twitter: + @winningslowly + @chriskrycho + @scarradini * App.net + @winningslowly + @chriskrycho * Subscribe + RSS + iTunes
Show NotesChris and Stephen note the launch of Tidal with some skepticism, then contrast the service with what could be considered Tidal’s polar opposite: YouTube. We look at the international aspects of music distribution, and think about how youth factor in to the ever-changing equation. And, good news, there’s a happy ending. I love happy endings.
Before You Go * Iran and the Obama Doctrine by Thomas Friedman
Music * “Number One” by The Sideshow Tragedy. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. Now with more techno! Just kidding.
Links * Tidal * Spotify * Pono * Bandcamp * Beatport * The Piano Guys’ YouTube Page * Pentatonix’s Youtube Page * By the Numbers: 80+ Amazing YouTube Statistics * 33 Amazing YouTube Facts & Stats to Tweet & Share * 13–24 Year Olds Watching More YouTube Than TV - To The Surprise of No-one by Andy Smith * Lily Allen: “Tidal Will Make Fans Swarm Back to Piracy…” * Neil Young’s PonoPlayer: The Emperor Has No Clothes * Why Netflix needs to crack down on foreigners accessing its US site by Leo Mirani * Bandcamp Hits $100 Million Payout Milestone, Plans Artist Subscriptions by Andrew Flanagan
Further Reading * Jay Z Launches TIDAL As “Artist Owned” Music Service: Big On Star Power, Short On Details by David Ulevitch
Previously on the show * 2.03: Impervious Scale—we talked about YouTube’s Music Key product and their problems with artists like Zoe Keating. * 2.10: So You’ve Been Hacked—we talked about how all industries are affected by the Internet.
Follow/Subscribe * Twitter: + @winningslowly + @chriskrycho + @scarradini * App.net + @winningslowly + @chriskrycho * Subscribe + RSS + iTunes
Show NotesChris and Stephen use the news of communications tool Slack’s recent hacking incident to discuss the nature of digital security. Along the way we make a plea for candy, claim that almost all companies are digital companies now, offer some security tips to our listeners, and deliver a long bloopers reel. We hope we induce just enough paranoia to get things moving in your security life, but not too much.
Before You Go * These maps show why internet is way more expensive in the US than Europe by Allan Holmes and Chris Zubak-Skees
Note: The digital divide primarily has to do with socio-economic issues of development in rich and poor areas. Our BYG discussion points out the structural corporate collusion that enables the digital divide, which may not have been entirely clear.
Music * “Older” by Brother Moses. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. Watch out, Hans Zimmer.
Links * Slack * March 2015 security incident and the launch of two factor authentication Slack’s blog response to their hacking incident. * Target: Hacking hit up to 110 million customers * Target hacking mastermind identified as 17-year-old Russian Here’s another instance of passenger safety being breached in dangerous ways. * Heartbleed * Bash bug vulnerability * A big list of church management software * Health insurance companies prime targets for hackers by Jen A. Miller * Premera hacked - 4 key takeaways from another healthcare data grab
Further Reading * The new normal — We’re all security companies now by David Ulevitch * A security firm claims it was Russia that hacked Sony — and that it still has access Stephen mentioned that safety issues haven’t been in the news as much, and that was challenged very shortly after this was recorded.
Previously on the show * 2.06: The Ones- and Zeros-sphere—we talked about Marvel’s hack.
Follow/Subscribe * Twitter: + @winningslowly + @chriskrycho + @scarradini * App.net + @winningslowly + @chriskrycho * Subscribe + RSS + iTunes
Show NotesChris and Stephen use Chris’s first two ridesharing experiences as a jumping-off point to discuss services like Uber and Lyft from a host of angles: ethical, financial, technological, social, legal, and personal. Put on your seatbelts, folks: this one’s a long one.
Note: Chris told the drivers of his Lyft and Uber rides that he was going to talk about his experience on this podcast, and they agreed to talk with him.
Before You Go * NC State: PKP brothers must vacate house by the weekend by Ken Smith, Mark Simpson, Stan Chambers Jr., and Angie Basiouny * NC State to conduct thorough review of its Greek system by Michelle Hankerson
Music * “It’s Quiet Now” by Mon Draggor. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. Alas, you’ll never hear this on the radio in an Uber car.
Links * Uber * Lyft * Circa news app * Philadelphia Woman Accuses UberX Driver of Rape Stephen mentioned that safety issues haven’t been in the news as much, and that was challenged very shortly after this was recorded. * Indian Uber driver arrested after alleged rape, police say Here’s another instance of passenger safety being breached in dangerous ways. * Uber Regulatory Issues via Circa News * This is Uber’s playbook for sabotaging Lyft by Casey Newton * Uber goes Big Data, shares customers’ data with a hotel chain by Lisa Vaas
Further Reading * Why Uber Fights by Ben Thompson * Why Uber Is Worth $18.2 Billion by Ben Thompson * Obsoletive by Ben Thompson * Don’t Blame Uber by Ben Thompson
Previously on the show: * 1.03: Disrupting All the Things!—When talked about disruptions in tech. * 1.12: Political Appinations—When we talked about the limits of technology in the real world. * 1.09: Kind of Like a Virus—When we talked about seemingly intractable evil.
Follow/Subscribe * Twitter: + @winningslowly + @chriskrycho + @scarradini * App.net + @winningslowly + @chriskrycho * Subscribe + RSS + iTunes
Show NotesChris and Stephen discuss the ethics of individual health, a complex and idiosyncratic problem if there ever was one. How do we be responsible stewards of our bodies? How do we think about activities and intakes in moral, ethical, deeply personal ways? We suggest thinking about personal health in community, as well as from a spiritual perspective.
Before You Go * As Two Oklahoma Students Are Expelled for Racist Chant, Sigma Alpha Epsilon Vows Wider Inquiry
Music * “Red” by Mt. Wolf. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. Boomshakalaka.
Links * “One Twin Exercises, the Other Doesn’t” by Gretchen Reynolds * Earthen Vessels by Matthew Lee Anderson * Bowling Alone by Robert D. Putnam * 1 Timothy 4:8 by Paul * 1 Corinthians 6:19 by Paul * Previously on the show: + 1.12: Political Appinations—The first time we talked about neighbors
Follow/Subscribe * Twitter: + @winningslowly + @chriskrycho + @scarradini * App.net + @winningslowly + @chriskrycho * Subscribe + RSS + iTunes
Show NotesChris and Stephen “review” Rich Mullins’ 1993 album A Liturgy, a Legacy, and a Ragamuffin Band because it’s beautiful, thoughtful, and still relevant today. The music is still passionate, raw, and wild; the lyrics are still pensive, powerful, and awe-struck. We look at how Mullins wrote the album as a letter to Christians about how to be alive in the hope of Christ and reality of America. Also, there’s hammered dulcimer.
Thanks to our listener Austin Taylor for encouraging us to review more albums.
Before You Go * “What ISIS Really Wants” by Graeme Wood. + “The Phony Islam of ISIS” by Caner K. Dagli. A response to “What Isis Really Wants.” + “‘What ISIS Really Wants’: The Response” by Graeme Wood. A collection of responses to responses to the original article. * What If Wes Anderson Directed X-Men?—Prepare to laugh.
Music * “78 Eatonwood Green” from A Liturgy, a Legacy, and a Ragamuffin Band by Rich Mullins. Fair use. * “The Color Green” from A Liturgy, a Legacy, and a Ragamuffin Band by Rich Mullins. Fair use. * “Creed” from A Liturgy, a Legacy, and a Ragamuffin Band by Rich Mullins. Fair use. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. You can probably hum this by now.
Links * Andrew Peterson * The Jesus Album * “Elijah” * An Experiment in Criticism by C.S. Lewis * Previously on the show: + 1.05: Ars Moriendi—The first album we reviewed here on WS.
Follow/Subscribe * Twitter: + @winningslowly + @chriskrycho + @scarradini * App.net + @winningslowly + @chriskrycho * Subscribe + RSS + iTunes
Show Notes In which we talk about how companies have to deal with the inherent leak-ability of digital media, especially things like movie trailers. How should Marvel respond to whoever leaked the first Age of Ultron trailer? Stephen and Chris have a friendly disagreement about the best way to respond to this kind of thing.
Today’s blooper section is… amazing.
Alternate title we ultimately decided not to foist upon you: MPAAwful. You can thank Stephen for that one (as well as the much better actual title!)
Before You Go * Pebble Time Kickstarter * How much money has the Pebble Time Kickstarter raised?—graphing the craziness for fun and… fun. (Unfortunately, the graph is less interesting than it was the first day the project was live, when it earned most of the over $10M it has pledged.)
Music * “There’s a Light On (Kitchen Song)” from There’s a Light On by Brooklyn Duran. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. We’re running out of clever things to say here.
Links * When the RIAA sued a 12-year-old and a 71-year-old * “Dammit, Hydra”—Marvel’s (brilliant) PR-move tweet * “All-powerful Marvel subpoenas Google over trailer leak”
Marvel is seeking out the person responsible for a leak not of a script or of a movie, but of a trailer. Yes, Marvel’s executives are taking matters to the courts because people were able to watch about two minutes of footage that looked like every other Marvel trailer — fireballs and terrified citizens, heroes with far-off gazes and narration by an evil nemesis — before the company was ready for people to see it.
- Previously on the show:
- 1.08: Superhero Movies!—the first time we talked at length about Marvel.
- 2.02: Basketballs≠Pumpkins—on things on the internet growing beyond people’s ability to control.
Follow/Subscribe * Twitter: + @winningslowly + @chriskrycho + @scarradini * App.net + @winningslowly + @chriskrycho * Subscribe + RSS + iTunes
Show Notes In which we ask: What exactly is art? Specifically, is photography art? But more generally, can anyone actually define art? How does the difficulty in defining art affect the makers of art, and why do people spend so much time trying to draw lines around it? How have democratizing forces changed the nature of art in the last few decades, and what does that bode for our future?
Before You Go N.B. In addition to the clarifications Stephen offered, we should note that Chris’ initial description overstated the case a bit. The law did not technically forbid classes from teaching AP US History. It just, you know… promised to defund the teaching thereof.
- “Changes in AP history trigger a culture clash in Colorado”
- “Why Oklahoma Lawmakers Voted to Ban AP U.S. History”
Music * “Just What I Needed” by Wonderful Humans. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. Still delightful? We think yes.
Links * “The $6.5m canyon: it’s the most expensive photograph ever – but it’s like a hackneyed poster in a posh hotel” * “Why does our Instagram generation think its snaps are so special?” * The Olympus OM–10—the camera Stephen learned to shoot darkroom-style with. * “I know it when I see it”—the history of the phrase. * Chris’ snail picture on Instagram * Previously on the show: + 1.18: Keep on Keepin’ On
GIFs! Stephen’s Favorites
Doctor Who
Follow/Subscribe * Twitter: + @winningslowly + @chriskrycho + @scarradini * App.net + @winningslowly + @chriskrycho * Subscribe + RSS + iTunes
Show NotesIn which we ask: Is Elon Musk really Iron Man? (We have no evidence that he has a suit, but really, it seems like he should.) We reflect on how longer-term approaches are helping Tesla and SpaceX do things that few other companies are doing, how we hope other companies learn from their example, and how it would be nice if “capitalism” meant what it used to mean—long-term investment, not short-term greed.
Before You Go * “In Chapel Hill Shooting of 3 Muslims, a Question of Motive” * “NC State Hosts Funeral, Vigil, Continues Counseling”
Music * “Just Like Moonlight” by Inner Outlaws. Sounds like James Bond, perfect for Elon Musk-as-Iron Man. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho, who has been practicing piano so that he’ll eventually be able to sit down at some glorious Bösendorfer or Steinway and dazzle you with a real version of this.
Links * Elon Musk * Tesla Motors + Model S + Model X + “Four Reasons Why Tesla Won’t Sink (Even If the Signs Say It Should)” + “Tesla’s Q4 Results Show Lots of Cars and Lots of Losses” * SpaceX + “Reusability: The Key to Making Human Life Multi-Planetary” + “SpaceX: launch successful, landing not so much” + “DSCOVR space weather satellite launched by SpaceX successfully” + “SpaceX elbows into Air Force launch program after dropping lawsuit”
Follow/Subscribe * Twitter: + @winningslowly + @chriskrycho + @scarradini * App.net + @winningslowly + @chriskrycho * Subscribe + RSS + iTunes
Show Notes In which we look at Zoë Keating’s ongoing kerfuffle with YouTube. Is YouTube strong-arming indie artists? Should megacorporations force all their clients—customer and producer—to fit in a one-size-fits-all setup, or should they take the long view and do what is best not only for the bottom line but also for the relationship between artist and audience. Oh, and what about those monopolies and monopsonies? They might have some extra ethical responsibility, too!
Before You Go * LEGO Announces Doctor Who Set for Later this year * FCC announces intent to regulate broadband under Title II: + “This Is How We Will Ensure Net Neutrality” (FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler) + The Verge summarizes and editorializes
Music * “Let It Burn” by Magic Giant. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho, who has been practicing piano so that he’ll eventually be able to sit down at some glorious Bösendorfer or Steinway and dazzle you with a real version of this.
Links * “What should I do about Youtube?”—Zoë Keating’s original post + “Clarity”—her follow-up with her transcript of the conversation * Ben Thompson: “Dear Zoë Keating: Tell YouTube to Take a Hike” * The Guardian recaps the affair: “Zoe Keating v YouTube: key sticking points in Google’s latest music row” * David Lowery on the whole business: “Zoë Keating vs YouTube: The End of an Artist’s Right to Choose Where Their Music Appears on The Internet.” * Previous episodes: + 1.01: Massive Emotional Contagion
Follow/Subscribe * Twitter: + @winningslowly + @chriskrycho + @scarradini * App.net + @winningslowly + @chriskrycho * Subscribe + RSS + iTunes
Show Notes In which we talk about Marco Arment, Kirby Delauter, and the general phenomenon of things you say on the internet going viral (often when you least expect them to). How do you deal with the reality that your audience is never limited but may universalize at any moment? What is the audience’s responsibility, and what are creators’ responsibilities? How do we deal charitably with authors writing “in-house” on controversial topics?
P.S. You’re going to want to listen to the bloopers on this one, all the way through to the end. Trust us.
Before You Go * Google News: “Israel Hezbollah” * Son of ex-slave who fought in Union Army dies at age 97
Music * "Wasted Hours from The Best of Times by Cable Street Collective * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. Used even though it’s still just a digital recording. Some day maybe he can play it on a real piano!
Links * Marco Arment’s original post (“Apple has lost the functional high ground”) + His follow-up: "What it’s like to be way too popular for a day * Kirby Delauter’s original post + The Frederick News-Post responds (seriously, this is hilarious) + His apology… of sorts + The Streisand Effect * Previous episodes: + 0.12: You’ll Never Guess What the Hosts Say in This Podcast!
Follow/Subscribe * Twitter: + @winningslowly + @chriskrycho + @scarradini * App.net + @winningslowly + @chriskrycho * Subscribe + RSS + iTunes
Show Notes In which we discuss news app Circa, the value it provides in the rapidly evolving world of new journalism, and why we’re super sad about it. (Hint: it’s a Silicon Valley startup and you know what that means about its business model. Namely: as near as we can tell, they don’t have one.)
Before You Go * Churches Torched In Anti-Charlie Hebdo Protests * Drop in Ebola cases ‘signals turning point’
Music * “Everglow” by Jared Foldy. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. Used without a dance beat, because it’s been a busy few months.
Links * Circa * Previous episodes mentioned on the show + 0.12: You’ll Never Guess What the Hosts Say in This Podcast! + 0.01: We Need Some Context
Follow/Subscribe * Twitter: + @winningslowly + @chriskrycho + @scarradini * App.net + @winningslowly + @chriskrycho * Subscribe + RSS + iTunes
Show NotesIn which we talk about iPhone cameras, long-term thinking in general—including the kind that lets you keep going even when no one in your lifetime gets what you’re doing—and finally some thoughts on the first (non-beta) season of Winning Slowly.
Chapters * Intro (0:53) * People Taking Pictures With iPhones (0:53–10:12) * Whether or Not It Pays Off (10:12–19:38) * What Do You Think? (19:38–25:05) * Conclusion (25:05–26:29) * A Mistake (26:29–26:40)
Music * “Absent Within Skies” from Value to Survival by Speak, Memory—used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho—used even though it still doesn’t have a dance groove under it. Someday, kids. Someday.
Links * iPhone camera evolution: How does the iPhone 6 camera compare to previous iPhone cameras? – Lisa Bettany of Camera+. * The iPhone 6 camera reviewed by shooting crazy good pictures in Iceland: + The Ultimate Photoshoot: On Location With the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus – Austin Mann at The Verge. + iPhone 6 Plus Camera Review: Iceland – Mann at his own website with even more spectacular photos. * Previous episodes mentioned on the show: + 1.10: Because Capitalism Yay!—on the death of the iPod Classic. + 1.05: Ars Moriendi—in which we reviewed The Collection’s glorious album. + 1.02: On Family—where we said we think people shouldn’t run themselves into the ground.
Follow/Subscribe * iTunes * App.net * Ello * Twitter * Facebook
Contact * Both of us: contact [at] winningslowly [dot] org * Each of us individually: + chris [at] winningslowly [dot] org + stephen [at] winningslowly [dot] org
Show NotesIn which we talk about science journalism—the ways in which it is sometimes broken, the reasons why it ends up broken in those cases, and the responsibilities of scientists, scientific journalists, and the science-reading public in publishing and interpreting scientific findings. Science is hard. Reporting on it is hard. Making policy on it is hard. And we need all of them.
Chapters * Intro (1:27) * SCIENCE Drives Policy! (1:27–8:02) * Elitist, Protectionist, Obstructionist, Obscurantist? (8:02–17:14) * Pressures and Responsibilities All Around (17:14–24:10) * Conclusion (24:10–25:12) * Funny Things We Cut (25:12–25:22)
Music * “Where I Go”, by Pistol Shrimp. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. Who still gets it stuck in his head every time he edits the show.
Links Things we referenced on the show.
- ’Climate Science is Not Settled, by Steven E. Koonin, in the Wall Street Journal—not a global warming denier, it should be noted.
- ‘No Evidence for or Against Gravitational Waves’
- Previous episodes:
- 1.08 How Victor Hugo Could Afford to Live
- 1.15 Timelessishness
Follow/Subscribe * iTunes * App.net * Ello * Twitter * Facebook
Show NotesIn which we take a megachurch pastor’s resignation as a jumping off point for talking about individualism and community in the church, self-aggrandizement in the name of evangelism and church growth, and the danger of cults of personality, not only but especially in Christian communities.
Chapters * Intro (0:46) * Ups and Downs and Foibles (0:46–7:19) * Individualism and Community (7:19–14:42) * Self-Aggrandizement in the Name of Other Good Things (14:42–24:41) * Cults of Personality (24:41–31:32) * Conclusion (31:32–32:24) * Hilarities (32:24–32:36)
Music * “Lighthouse” from Love Alchemy, Life Algorithm EP by The Burgeoning. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. Still winning. Still slow. Still perfect for the show, am I right?
Links Things we referenced on the show.
- Mark Driscoll’s resignation letter
- Mars Hill Church’s announcement
Follow/Subscribe * iTunes * App.net * Ello * Twitter * Facebook
Show Notes In which we laugh our way through a podcast about the world’s greatest humor website: homestarrunner.com. Why is it still funny? How does “funny” (of all things) manage to endure? What role does humor play in culture? How do things become timeless(ish)?
An image of the main cast of the website.
Chapters * Intro (0:49) * White People Making Rap Videos (0:49–6:26) * An Episode of Ishes (6:26–16:43) * Put Things in Slow Motion to Make Them Awesome (16:43–26:26) * Conclusion (26:26–28:06) * Bloopers (28:06–28:49)
Music * “Everybody, Everybody” – click “Songs, Music, and Balance Transfers” for this and many other songs. * “Winning Slowly Theme” – nothing new or unusual about this.
Links By “links” we basically just mean: go read Hyperbole and a Half and watch things on HomeStarRunner.com.
- HomeStarRunner.com
- History section on Wikipedia (actually rather interesting!)
- Fish Eye Lens
- The System is Down
- Teen Girl Squad
- Strongbad emails
- Trevor the Vampire
- Trogdor
- The game
- A Folky Tale
- Senor Cardgage Mortgage
- Hyperbole and a Half
- The origin of “Clean All The Things”: “This is Why I’ll Never Be An Adult” (minor profanity warning)
- “The Alot is Better Than You at Everything”
- “Lampshade Hanging” (warning: if you click that link, it will take you to TVTropes.com… and you will waste all your time forever.
Note: if you downloaded this episode before 8:45pm Eastern time on October 21, 2014, you should re-download it. Chris made an error in mixing it together, leading to his and Stephen’s audio being slightly out of sync for the entire episode (!), which has since been fixed. If you downloaded it after that time, you’re good to go!
Show NotesIn which we ask: “Who funds the arts? And how does that impact the artist ethically?” Corporations, individuals, and governments all have distinct downsides as revenue streams for artists, and corporations and governments in particular can be problematic for both artists and consumers in the ways they complicate the expression of artistic intent.
Chapters * Intro (1:13) * No One Would Be Left (1:13–8:56) * Drop the Big Bombs (8:56–17:14) * To Power Their Evil Machines of Death (17:14–27:21) * Conclusion (27:21–29:34) * Bloopers (29:34–30:04)
Music * “Love Me Back” by Seer Group. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. Used by extra special super neat permission?
Links * Who Funds the arts and why we should care * National Endowment for the Arts + Controversy + “Piss Christ” * Deepwater Horizon oil spill (British Petroleum) * Exxon Valdez oil spill * “Kitsch” * Fritz Lang + Leaving Germany + The Incomparable #79: “Everything Sounds Beautiful in German” * Previous episodes relevant to the discussion/mentioned directly on the show: + 1.07: They Both Start With T? + 1.05: Ars Moriendi
Follow/Subscribe * iTunes * App.net * Ello * Twitter * Facebook
Show NotesIn which we talk about new social media player Ello—some initial impressions, venture capital’s influence in Silicon Valley and its distinctive shape there vs. elsewhere, and thoughts on business model and communication.
Chapters * Intro (0:44) * Definitely Still a Beta (0:44–5:27) * That’s Not a Gift (5:27–14:02) * How People React to News (14:02–22:32) * A Working Business Model (22:32–28:32) * Conclusion (28:32–30:04) * Outtake (30:04–30:10)
Music * “Aldebaran Serpent” from Tower by Falcon Arrow. Used by permission. (Isn’t that album art fantastic?) * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. We asked him for permission, and he said “Yes.”
Links Things we talked about on the show that we thought you might want to click a lovely link and read about.
- Ello
-
About:
- What is Ello?
- Who Created Ello?
- Ello Manifesto:
Your social network is owned by advertisers.
Every post you share, every friend you make, and every link you follow is tracked, recorded, and converted into data. Advertisers buy your data so they can show you more ads. You are the product that’s bought and sold.
We believe there is a better way. We believe in audacity. We believe in beauty, simplicity, and transparency. We believe that the people who make things and the people who use them should be in partnership.
We believe a social network can be a tool for empowerment. Not a tool to deceive, coerce, and manipulate – but a place to connect, create, and celebrate life.
You are not a product.
- Ello Doesn’t Have Ads
- Criticism:
- Aral Balkan: “Ello, goodbye.”
- Ello user Andy Baio (@waxpancake) on Ello’s venture capital
- fresh Tracks Capital
- Their information page on Ello
- Ello’s and freshTrack’s responses:
- Ello Founder Says VC Funding Is No Big Secret: ‘That’s Silly’
- Ello investor, co-founder: Funding or not, we hate ads and we want to “shift values”
- Ello Cofounder: ‘We Have NO Exit Strategy’
- Ben Thompson: “Ello and Consumer Friendly Business Models”
- The Vox: “31,000 people an hour are joining the social network Ello. The anti-Facebook, explained.”
- 86: Moving the Party to the Bar Down the Block (Accidental Tech Podcast)
- “Considering the audience” – Chris’ conversation with @oluseyi (and others) on Ello about iOS and Android
- Other social networks attempting to break free of the ad-driven model:
- App.net
- Tent.is/Cupcake.io
- Diaspora
- Markdown – a simple syntax for writing text for the web.
- Chris’ post on using Markdown for academic writing
- Previously on the show:
- 0.04 Tell Me What to Do: on Editorially and startup business models, and also on bands making genre shifts.
- 0.13 Ten Thousandth Lightbulb: on App.net, social media, and funding models.
- 1.07 They Both Start With T?: on Taylor Swift, Twitter, and messaging.
- 1.11 We Need Life Editors: in which we inveighed gainst the going-it-alone approach to the arts.
-
Follow/Subscribe * iTunes * App.net * Ello * Twitter * Facebook
Show NotesIn which we start with a look at some really neat apps designed to ease political engagement in the United States and then branch out to talk about the limits of political engagement, the importance of valuing other forms of public life, and what it means to be fully-realized human beings.
CorrigendaChris said that Countable addresses local politics; it does not. It focuses on national bills in the House and Senate. Also, he mentioned the Westminster Confession but meant the Westminster Shorter Catechism.
Chapters * Intro (0:29) * Techo-Utopianism (0:29–9:24) * 8,000 Years of Human History (9:24–18:40) * Do You Know Your Neighbors (18:40–24:24) * Conclusion (24:24–25:26) * Bloopers (25:26–26:08)
Music * “Those Days” by Noire. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. He dances a little jig inside every time someone starts whistling this theme after listening to an episode. Or he would if he knew about it.
Links The things we talk about in the show that might interest you. Click them! Click them!
- Countable
- Simpolfy
- IndieGoGo campaign
- Sites that aim to produce non-partisan information useful to the public for political engagement (listed alphabetically):
- Congress.gov—for access to bill listings
- The Cook Political Report
- FactCheck.org
- Pew Research Center
- Politifact.com
- Pro Publica
- To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World, James Davison Hunter
- Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, Robert D. Putnam
- The Westminster Shorter Catechism
Show NotesIn which we geek out about Doctor Who… and do our best to say something meaningful about the necessity of people who can tell us what we’re getting wrong in life, and who can be strong where we have weaknesses.
Correction We said only one episode of new Doctor Who has won a Hugo. We were dreadfully wrong: the show has won six Hugos since the revival in 2006.
Whoops.
Recommended Moffat Episodes of Doctor Who * “The Empty Child” and “The Doctor Dances” * “The Girl in the Fireplace” * “Blink” * “Silence in the Library” and “Forest of the Dead” * “The Day of the Doctor” (fiftieth anniversary special)
Chapters * Intro (1:10) * I Am Awesome At This (1:10–7:03) * Actually It Was a Robot in a Dream (7:03–14:48) * Lone Rebel Genius (14:48–20:38) * Hip Motion is for Losers (20:38–25:04) * Conclusion (25:04–26:30) * Things We Cut. Yep. (26:30–27:08)
Music * “Doctor Who Theme”, by Ron Grainer, arranged by Murray Gold. We’re pretty confident this goes under Fair Use. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. No dance beat today, sorry.
Links/Notes In which we link to neat things you might like.
- Allergic to Consensus – Real Life Comics by Greg Dean
- “What to do when you disagree with your editor” – Writing Excuses, Season 9, Episode 35
- Previously on the show: 1.04 Superhero Movies!
Follow/Subscribe * iTunes * Twitter * Facebook * App.net
Show NotesIn which we talk about something Apple did this week… but not the thing they announced, and almost certainly not what you’d expect. Namely: the death of the iPod Classic: Apple’s oldest consumer product outside the Mac, and a veritable gamechanger for the music industry. It’s gone, and Stephen is upset. (Chris, not so much.)
Chapters * Intro (1:32) * It’s Probably Pastel White (1:32–9:45) * You’re Probably in my Hundred Friends (9:45–14:45) * What the Corporate Overlord Giveth (14:45–19:45) * How You Relate to an Object (19:45–26:45) * Conclusion (26:45–27:58)
Music * “Carry Oceans”, by Montoya – used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho, who can use his own music in public context whenever he so desires.
Links * iPod Classic (Wikipedia) * Flipboard * Lumosity * Inkpad
Follow/Subscribe * iTunes * Twitter * Facebook * App.net
Show NotesIn which we talk about the recent celebrity nude selfies leak from just about every angle: the people who hijacked the photos, those who took the photos, the technology used to store the photos, and society at large. We talk about what individuals’ relationship with technology should look like, how we should view those who behave wickedly, and where there might be hope for solving these kinds of problems in our society.
Chapters * Intro (0:58) * The Internet is Not “Safe” (0:58–07:23) * Degrading Women (7:23–15:51) * People Do Wicked Things (15:51–20:57) * No Better Answers (20:57–27:45) * Conclusion (27:45–28:45)
Music * “Trap” from Believers by Remedies. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho, who can use his own music in public context whenever he so desires.
Links * Nude photos of Jennifer Lawrence and others posted online by alleged hacker (The Guardian) * Update: What Jennifer Lawrence can teach you about cloud security (Ars Technica) * Apple confirms celebrities’ accounts breached in “highly targeted” attack (Ars Technica) * Hack leaks hundreds of nude celebrity photos (The Verge) * Apple Denies iCloud breach in celebrity nude photo hack (The Verge)
Follow/Subscribe * iTunes * Twitter * Facebook * App.net
Show NotesIn which we talk about the drive to publish all the time and the value of publishing more substantive content at a slower pace. We talk about the way the internet has driven us toward rapid-fire publishing models and how long-form and high-quality content is difficult (if not impossible) to publish on this model. We look at how to build an audience via quality and the slow route instead of the click-driven model, note that this is difficult to sustain as a means of income, and even think a bit about the history of long-form and serial publishing.
Chapters * Intro (1:23) * Peak Stream (1:23–6:44) * Winning Slowly Quickly (6:44–11:14) * Winning Slowly Slowly (11:14–23:33) * Conclusion (23:33–24:35)
Music * “Seasons” from Palm Ghosts by Palm Ghosts * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. Mmm. Piano.
Links * “2013: The Year the ‘Stream’ Crested” – the Atlantic * Chris’ favorite podcasts (the ones he gets sad if they come out late): + The Incomparable + Accidental Tech Podcast * Independent Clauses – Stephen’s independent music site, with reviews that work as press quotes for small indie bands. + Stephen’s review of Palm Ghosts * Craig Mod + Post-Artifact Books & Publishing + Subcompact Publishing + Hack the Cover * John Siracusa + OS X 10.9 “Mavericks” Review - iBooks - Kindle + Hypercritical * Obduction Kickstarter – the new game from the folks behind Myst * Elite: Dangerous – a crowdfunded space sim currently in development + the Kickstarter project * Star Citizen – another crowdfunded space sim + the Kickstarter project * Shigeru Miyamoto: A rushed game is forever bad * Longform * Medium * Entitlement issues… – Neil Gaiman on George R. R. Martin’s writing pace * Previous episodes referenced on the show: + 0.09: Humility Please + 1.05: Ars Moriendi + 1.07: They Both Start With a ‘T’
Follow/Subscribe * iTunes * Twitter * Facebook * App.net
Show NotesIn which we talk about Taylor Swift, Twitter, and changes in expectations. We admit that Chris is a Taylor Swift fan and that Stephen is a hipster. Then we get down to the business of talking about how these two changes differ both in messaging and in contente, and look at the ways that both consumers and
Chapters * Intro (1:20) * Haters Gonna Hate (1:20–07:40) * Turning Itself Into Facebook (07:40–16:33) * Artists and Corporations Are Not the Same (16:33–24:15) * Social Media of Record (24:15–28:48) * Conclusion (28:48–29:40)
Music * “Betamax”, by Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey – used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme”, by Chris Krycho: still super neat. Right?
Links * “Shake It Off” – official music video * “Haters, Keep Hating: Taylor Swift’s ‘Shake It Off’ Will Take Over the World” * “This is how Twitter is starting to fundamentally redefine itself” * “Twitter now officially says your timeline is more than just tweets from people you follow” * Previous episodes referenced on the show: + 0.01: We Need Some Context! – Religious twittering, Google nesting, and hobbyists careering. + 0.04: Tell Me What To Do – Beating Up Writers, Musical Careering, and Losing Editorially + 0.13: Ten Thousandth Lightbulb – What Happened to ADN, Paying to Socialize, Free or Not Free + 0.14: Deep In Their Bones – Tech Companies Which Just Can’t Pivot, Denominations Don’t Change Fast Either, Dealing in Institutional Realities + 1.01: Massive Emotional Contagion – Facebook’s Social (Network) Science, User Responsibility, and Corporate Ethics + 1.05: Ars Moriendi – This Is An Orchestra, Those Lyrics, You Have to Go Through Death + 1.06: Rebuke Me Some People – Act Like Grownups, Rules 0 and 1, But We Still Disagree, Calling People on the Carpet
Show NotesIn which we discuss the necessity of extending charity to each other in our conversations, especially conversations on controversial issues. Springboarding from public/internet reactions to Christian musician Michael Gungor’s discussion of his views on Genesis, we talk about the necessity of charity, Chris’ Rules for Argument, the importance of taking a long-term view on friendship and persuasion, and what to do in the face of serious disagreement about important issues.
Chapters * Intro (2:06) * Act Like Grownups (2:06–6:15) * Rules 0 and 1 (6:15–15:55) * But We Still Disagree (15:55–23:58) * Calling People on the Carpet (23:58–30:50) * Conclusion (30:50–31:45)
Music * “Perfect World”, from I, by Americano: used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho: designed to make your ears giddy.
Links * “What Do We Believe?” – Michael Gungor’s original blog post * “Gungor drifts from biblical orthodoxy” – Jeff Kock at World Magazine * “I’m With You” – a follow-up blog post by Michael Gungor * “I’m With You (Part 2)” – more follow-up by Michael Gungor * “Why Are People So Upset About What Gungor Said?” – Aaron Ross at Relevant * Chris’ blog post on the young Earth/old Earth controversy * “Duty Calls” – the “obligatory XKCD” (“Someone is wrong on the internet.”) * Episode 0.03: Echo Chamber – in which we talked about Ken Ham, Bill Nye, culture wars, and the importance of wisdom in knowing how to engage appropriate in a given context
Follow/Subscribe * iTunes * Twitter * Facebook * App.net
Warning: this episode touches on some very difficult topics, including both death in general and suicide in particular. If these are especially sensitive topics for you, we recommend you skip this episode. Maybe go back and listen to Superhero Movies! instead.
Show NotesIn which we talk about The Collection’s new album, Ars Moriendi (“The Art of Dying”). We cover the musicality of the album itself, then dive into the way it wrestles with hard topics in a faithfully Christian way without either succumbing to despair or giving into the lure of trite and reductionistic answers. We talk about what good art is and does and how utilitarianism is a fundamental misstep in the making of good art, and we note that culture at large and evangelical subculture could do with a great deal more of this sort of thoughtful reflection on death.
Chapters * Intro (“The Gown of Green”) (0:30–3:09) * This Is An Orchestra (3:09–12:03) * “Broken Tether” (12:03–13:47) * Those Lyrics (13:47–20:48) * You Have to Go Through Death (20:48–28:33) * Conclusion (28:33–29:48) * Instrumental Break (29:48–30:01)
Music * “The Gown of Green” and “Broken Tether” from Ars Moriendi by The Collection: used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho: used because while it’s not as wonderful as Ars Moriendi, it was written just for the show.
Links * Ars Moriendi on Bandcamp. Seriously, why haven’t you gone and bought this album yet? * Episode 0.06 – Romans: The Movie, in which Chris and Stephen talked at length about the question of good art.
Follow/Subscribe * iTunes * Twitter * Facebook * App.net
Show Notes In which we talk about superhero movies as context for dealing well and poorly with success and failure. And geek out about superhero movies. (Honestly, we mostly just geek out about superhero movies.) But along the way, we do note that DC, Marvel, Sony, and Fox have dealt with their successes and failures in some radically different ways, and note some ways in which we might all learn from our superhero friends.
Also, we unabashedly make mistakes ourselves, own them, and laugh at them. One of them might even be after the theme music at the end.
Chapters * Intro (1:23) * Marvel/DC/Sony/Fox (1:23–5:22) * Reboots (5:22–8:53) * Copying the Other Guy (8:53–15:34) * Not Learning From Failure (15:34–19:25) * The Gold Standard (19:25–28:12) * Conclusion (28:12–29:28) * “You Just Forgot to Do the Other Half of That” (29:28–29:39)
Music * “Break Away”, from A Million Miles Away, by Afterlife Parade. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme”, by Chris Krycho. Used because he’s actually a superhero?
Links * X-Men on Wikipedia * Kevin Feige’s master plan for the Marvel Universe * Star Wars trailer cut to the beats of the Guardians of the Galaxy trailer
Follow/Subscribe * iTunes * Twitter * Facebook * App.net * RSS Feed
Show Notes In which we look (rather critically) at the tech sphere’s tendency to assume everything not only can but should be disrupted. Snarky asides on smartwatches and smartshoes segue into a discussion of the necessity of humility and the importance of recognizing what technology cannot do and what it should not do.
Note: by “disruption” we are focused not on the particular concept developed by Clay Christensen, but on the popular view of the word. We are aware of the distinction, but decided to set it aside for the purposes of this particular episode.
- MOOCs: Massively Open Online Courses
Chapters * Intro (2:09) * MOOCs! Watches! Shoes! (2:09–9:06) * The Cult of Disruption (9:06–15:32) * Technological Imperialism (15:32–21:22) * Recognizing Tech’s Limitations (21:22–27:36) * Conclusion (27:36–28:36)
Music * “Cado Año (Version Two)”, from For Tomorrow Will Worry About Itself, by Fiery Crash. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme”, by Chris Krycho. Used by dint of being written the show.
Links * Chris’ friend Kyle West, now self-publishing successfully: + website + Twitter + Facebook
Follow/Subscribe * iTunes * Twitter * Facebook * App.net * RSS Feed
Show NotesIn which we talk about one of the longest views: family. In particular, we look at the ways that all our pursuits—especially those having to do with family—force us to make choices about what we value most and to allocate our time accordingly. After all, one’s impact on one’s family is far more long-lasting than nearly anything else we do. We also spend some time thinking about the responsibilities of corporations to develop expectations that support families as genuinely valuable to culture
Chapters * Intro (2:43) * You Can’t Have It All (2:43–11:55) * Singleness Not a Disaster (11:55–16:32) * Family, Work, Innovation, and the Long View (16:32–28:50) * Conclusion (28:50–32:09)
Music * “Walls For The Wind”, from Nature’s Burrito by The Parmesans. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme”, by Chris Krycho. Used by dint of being written the show. Not too bad for a digitally voiced piano.
Show Notes We talk about Facebook’s much-discussed study of user responses to variations in their News Feed: what did Facebook do, exactly? Was it ethical? What responsibilities do users and consumers of different media (social included) have? What reponsibilities do companies have to their users?
Chapters * Intro (1:08) * Facebook’s Social (Network) Science (1:08–12:02) * User Responsibility (12:02–17:46) * Corporate Ethics (17:46–27:00) * Conclusion (27:00–30:00)
Music * “Summerooms Social”, from Summerooms [original master] by Summerooms. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme”, by Chris Krycho. Used by dint of being written the show. Also: it’s sweeeet.
Links * Facebook tinkered with users’ feeds for a massive psychology experiment, by William Hughes * In Defense of Facebook, by Tal Yarkoni (and see the comments for a helpful back-and-forth)
Show Notes In which we talk about how watching companies like Google, Apple, and Facebook try to “pivot”—that is, attempting (and usually failing) to do something outside their core areas of competency—highlights the difficulty of institutional change in general. We apply this idea to everything from the strengths and weaknesses of different Christian denominations to the way structural change occurs in the government.
A few explanatory comments:
- Yes, we’re fully aware that the PCA (of which Stephen is a member) has lots of missionaries on the field, and that Southern Baptists’ views on alcohol are a great deal more complicated than just generic grumpiness. But those details are less important to the particular discussion we were having today.
- “The most open of [the Creative Commons licenses]” (from when Stephen’s mind blanked trying to refer to it at the end of the show) is the Attribution 4.0 license. Read more about it here.
Chapters * Intro (1:32) * Tech Companies (1:32–8:16) * Denominations Don’t Change Fast Either (8:16–14:26) * Dealing in Institutional Realities (14:26–23:06) * Conclusion (23:06–24:24)
Music * “Sandbridge”, from Places, by Brittany Jean and Will Copps. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme”, by Chris Krycho. Used because it’s awesome! (You know it’s true.)
Links Things we mentioned in the show—news, books, articles, etc.
- Report: Google to end forced G+ integration, drastically cut division resources (from Ars Technica)
- Facebook buying Oculus VR for $2 billion (from The Verge)
- Apple reportedly nearing $3.2B acquisition of Beats Electronics (from Apple Insider)
- Culture Making, Andy Crouch
- To Change the World, James Davison Hunter
Show Notes In which we talk about App.net closing down, how even good business models do not guarantee successful businesses, and the future of paying for things on the internet—especially whether social media will ever be the kind of thing people are willing to pay for.
Chapters * Intro (0:53) * Follow-up: Fixed and Marginal Costs (0:53–1:44) * What Happened to ADN? (1:44–7:26) * Paying to Socialize (7:26–17:41) * Free or Not Free (17:41–23:00) * Conclusion (23:00–24:47)
Music * “Mountain Song”, from Lion’s Den by Little Chief. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme”, by Chris Krycho. Used because we don’t need permission to use our own stuff!
Links * App.Net State of the Union – in which Dalton Caldwell (founder of App.net) announced publicly the layoffs and future of the service.
Show Notes In which we talk about headline-writing in general, click-bait headlines in particular, and why we don’t think that click-bait headlines are a “best practice”—or really a good thing at all. How these realities shape all sorts of discourse, not just headline-writing, including political stances.
Note: Chris kept talking about Slate when he meant not Slate (and specifically “Pajiba.com”). His bad.
Chapters * Intro (1:26) * Headline-Writing (1:26–6:58) * Whether Ends Justify Means (6:58–12:30) * Means Shape Ends (12:30–16:47) * Truthy, or Truly? (16:47–21:07) * Conclusion (21:07–22:10)
Music * “Nightingale Movement I”, from Birds… Fly South!, by The Duke of Norfolk – used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme”, by Chris Krycho. Used because it was written just so you could hear it at the end of every show!
Links * “How Salon.com Rewrote My Headline and Turned Me Into an Internet Troll”
Show Notes In which we tackle copyright (or left, as you like), barely touch on patents, and generally try to think about how to handle questions of intellectual property as consumers and creators thereof in the brave new world of digital economics and cheap copies of everything (even Nike shoes).
Chapters * Intro (1:02) * The Reason for Copyright (1:02–8:22) * Valuing Products in Different Ways (8:22–19:55) * “Pay Me For This Thing” (19:55–26:55) * Conclusion (28:10)
Music We know. Pretty sweet sounds. Even if we do say so ourselves.
- “New Life”, from New Life, by Stephen Carradini. Used because we can do whatever we want with our own music! (Turns out, in this case, so can you…)
- “Winning Slowly Theme”, by Chris Krycho. See above!
Links Things we talked about in the show you might want to read some more about. We give them to you for free!
- Spreadable Media: Creating Value and Meaning in a Networked Culture, by Henry Jenkins
- Stratechery.fm Episode 02: Fat as a Service
- CCLI – church copyright licenses, designed to allow churches to use music in their services without paying exorbitant fees
Show Notes In which we talk about how anyone with a camera can be a “photographer,” anyone with a laptop can be a “musician,” anyone with a SquareSpace account can be a “designer,” and so on—and how these things are both beautifully empowering and incredibly frustrating for the pros in these fields.
Chapters * Intro (2:54) * Prosumerization (2:54–12:42) * I’m-Trying-To-Be-A-Professional Buttons (12:42–20:15) * The Digital Economy (20:15–27:51) * Conclusion (27:51–29:08)
Music * “Old Foes”, by Yaquina Bay. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme”, by Chris Krycho. Used by dint of being written for the show.
Links Things we mentioned in the show you might care about:
- Squarespace design kerfuffle
- Ben Thompson/Stratechery
Show Notes In which we take seventeen minutes (on the dot!) to have a really great time explaining why there was no Episode 0.08. Basically: because it ended up being terrible by dint of having completely gotten away from us. The net result: a lesson in the difference between blogging and podcasting, a bit more humility, and a lot of laughter at our own expense.
Chapters * Intro (1:06) * It Got Away From Us (1:06–5:56) [Don’t Blink! (3:54)] * Different Media, Different Beast (5:56–11:55) * A Humility Lesson (11:55–15:37) * Conclusion (15:37–17:00)
Music * “Ugly We Were Born”, from Real Snow, by Kye Alfred Hilling, used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme”, by Chris Krycho. Used by dint of being written for the show.
Show Notes In which we talk about the Affordable Care Act and how implementation—both at a technological level and at a general political level—public perception, and policy combine in strange and surprising ways.
Chapters * Intro and Overview (2:45) * Technology Failure (2:45–8:36): on how the initial failure of HealthCare.gov shaped public perception of the ACA. * Implementation Matters (8:36–15:58): on how policy in general is always dependent on how it is put in place. * Conclusion (17:28)
Music * “Comatose”, by Hayden Calnin. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme”, by Chris Krycho. Used by dint of being written for the show.
Links * HealthCare.gov * One of many articles talking about the dysfunction that led to the technological failure: Healthcare.gov and Obama’s Micromanagement Problem
Show Notes In which we talk at length about art and the arts in the context of Christianity, taking the three religiously themed movies in theaters right now as our jumping off point.
Chapters * God’s Not Dead (2:56–10:09) – propositions in movie format, a.k.a. a tract. * Son of God (10:09–18:45) – moving higher on the art scale, and not trying to be big (in contrast with e.g. The Passion of the Christ). * Noah (18:45–26:06) – all art, not so much on the textual fidelity. We might be okay with that. * “Heaven Thrown In” (26:06–31:04) – on how aiming to start a conversation sometimes has the opposite effect, and how making good art sometimes produces a great conversation.
Aside: Stephen made a tent to record in his hotel room in Indianapolis (visual proof here). Some scratchy audio from the blanket ensued, but so did clean audio for his voice. See what we do for you listeners?
Music * Opening Music: “This Landscape Is Our Escape”, from Unknown Ends by Dream Curtain. Used by permission. * Closing music: “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. Used by dint of being written for the show.
Links (This week, sorted alphabetically rather than by the order mentioned in the show… because I have no idea what order we introduced the books in the show.)
- Art and the Bible, Francis Schaeffer
- An Experiment in Criticism, C.S. Lewis
- God’s Not Dead official movie site
- Noah official movie site
- Son of God official movie site
- The Tolkien Reader, J.R.R. Tolkien (including “On Fairy-Stories”)
Show Notes In which we try out a 15-minute show format (and manage to run to 22 minutes, of course—you’re not really surprised, are you?) on one topic: Kickstarter hitting a billion dollars funded.
Chapters * Kickstart All The Things (0:40–13:57): Kickstarter hits a billion dollars, so we wax eloquent about just how neat the whole project is. * Ungreedy Capitalism (13:57–22:05): We talk about how Kickstarter’s business model and company structure are different in really good ways, and the history and future of capitalism.
Music * Opening music: “It’s Fine, It’s Fine”, from Westroy Sessions Volume Two by Daniel G. Harman. Used by permission. * Closing music: “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. Used by dint of being written for the show.
Links * Kickstarter * Kickstarter’s latest stats * Freakonomics: Pontiff-icating on the Free-Market System
Show Notes In which we talk about what happens when people yell at each other about what they should and shouldn’t be writing, how musicians’ attitudes toward “making a career of it” seem to have shifted in the last few decades, and why not having a business plan is a bad plan.
Chapters * Beating Up Writers (1:57–17:35): everyone from tech startups to Nicholas Kristof has an opinion about what you should be writing—and so do we… sort of. * Musical Careering (17:35–28:50): an interview with Future Islands prompts some reflection on what exactly a “career” in the music world is. * Losing Editorially (28:50–41:55): no business plan means you might not stick around as a company—and that makes us sad.
Music * Opening music: “Know How To Live” by Paper City * Closing music: Winning Slowly Theme by Chris Krycho. Used by dint of being written for the show.
Links * Blogging vs. Building * Professors, We Need You! * Interview with Future Islands * Goodbye to Editorially
Show Notes In which we talk about how greedy pricing schemes an and will run you right out of business (by running you right out of customers), how the Ken Ham-Bill Nye debate raises questions about Christians in the public square, and how incredibly weird it is that we can (and do) lose parts of the internet.
- Insane pricing schemes: Network Solutions ripping off its customers (1:07–13:05)
- Ken Ham vs. Bill Nye, the “culture war”, and having the wisdom to decide when one ought to opt for political silence and when one ought to opt for engagement (13:06–28:53)
- Link rot, backups, and losing parts of the internet (28:54–41:51)
Music * Opening music: “The South” by The Duke of Norfolk * Closing music: Winning Slowly Theme by Chris Krycho. Used by dint of being written for the show.
Links * Brent Simmons on Network Solutions
Internet Radio, Pastor-Authors, and Trade Agreements Show Notes In which we talk about doing “content” right—whether that content is streaming radio, books published by Christian pastors, or massive trade laws.
- Spotify, Pandora, and iTunes Radio: thinking about the ups and downs of each service
- Pastor-authors: thinking about “plagiarism” and whose names end up on books
- The Trans-Pacific Partnership: or, how making laws in secret as fast as possible is bad for democracy
Music * Opening music: "Time, Time" from Every Time I Leave by Paul J. Phillips. Used by permission. * Closing music: Winning Slowly Theme by Chris Krycho. Used by dint of being written for the show.
Links * Spotify * iTunes Radio * Pandora * Stop Fast Track * Lots of pols are against it * Senate Bill Text / Senate-provided info * House overview / House-provided info * Open Media Survey
Extras Sometimes, because we’re just that cool, we’ll include bonus content related to the show. Case in point: today, you get the full text of the OpenMedia survey discussed on the show. NEAT.
Open Media’s Citizen-Powered Digital Future Survey If you so desire, you can visit and participate in the original. If you’re just curious about the questions they’re asking, take a look:
-
How would you rank the priorities below if you were developing copyright laws?
- Protecting free expression
- Compensation for creators & artists
- clear and simple rules
- Rules made democratically
- Privacy Safeguards
- Protection for media conglomerates
-
If I download copyrighted songs without permission, the penalty should be:
-
A Tribunal should issue me a fine, ranging from $250 to $15,000. (New
Zealand’s Copyright “Infringing File Sharing” Amendment Act) + No penalty + A warning, and instruction about the laws surrounding copyright + Payment of a fine equivalent to the cost of purchasing the song + A Court should be able to issue a fine and order that I be disconnected from the Internet. (France’s “HADOPI” Law) * How many years should copyright last?
- 0yrs
- 10yrs
- 25yrs
- 50yrs
- 75yrs
- 100yrs
- until death of creator
- 10yrs after death
- 25yrs after death
- 50yrs after death
- 75yrs after death
- 100yrs after death
-
Which body(ies) should be responsible for enforcing copyright rules? (check all that apply)
-
None
- Internet Service Providers, with new technologies installed on their networks
- A new national government agency
- Copyright holders
- Police and judges
-
My Internet Service Provider should be permitted to share information about who I am and what I download with (check all that apply):
-
Any copyright holder that makes a request (i.e. publishing company, production company)
- Any copyright holder that makes a request (i.e. publishing company, production company)
- A copyright holder but only after a court order
- No-one ISPs should not share my information
- Law enforcement authorities at their discretion
-
Finland is set to vote on a new crowdsourced copyright law created by over 1100 people in collaboration with volunteer copyright lawyers. My country should:
-
Design copyright laws through the legislative process, with extensive public consultation
- Design copyright laws through the legislative process, with extensive public consultation
- Design copyright laws by following Finland’s example, launching a participatory multi-stakeholder process that involves the general public, including Internet users & creators as well as copyright law experts
- Design copyright laws by following Finland’s example, launching a participatory multi-stakeholder process that involves the general public, including Internet users & creators as well as copyright law experts
- Design copyright laws by following Finland’s example, launching a participatory multi-stakeholder process that involves the general public, including Internet users & creators as well as copyright law experts
-
When I download music, I want the following percentage of revenue to go to the artist:
-
100%
- 50%
- 0%
-
When I buy content (i.e. music, ebooks, movies) online, I expect to be able to:
-
Use it on any device and modify it if necessary for any special needs I have (i.e. using software that can convert text into speech for the blind)
- Use it on any device
- Use it on any device I own, modify it for my special needs, & share it with friends as I would a physical copy
- Modify it in any way I see fit, and make it available for free to anyone online, as long as nobody profits from it
- Use it only on the device I used to purchase it
-
When using the content of others online we should: (check all that apply):
-
Be able to excerpt from works to share commentaries and reviews without fear of legal penalties
- Always give credit to the creator of the work when sharing
- Be able to create parodies, remixes and fan fiction without having to break the law and face penalties
- Have free access to content so long as we do not profit from the original work
- Be sure that the majority of our payments goes directly to compensating the creator(s) of the work
Show notes In which we talk about how context shapes (or should shape) our decisions regarding technology, with three big topics:
- Christian author and former pastor John Piper and Pope Francis
on Twitter * Google acquiring Nest and the ensuing internet freakout * Intentionally unprofitable bands and the changing shape of music industry, as
highlighted by miniature label Controlled Burn Records and band
Nonagon
Links Sometimes we mention things in our show. When we do, we link them here. Makes it
easier for you that way… gives you some context, as it were.
- @JohnPiper
- @Pontifex
- Google Can Buy Nest, But It Can’t Buy Our Trust
- Every Data Point is Sacred: Article about home security and data
surveillance * The Exploit: Book on network theory * Controlled Burn Records * Nonagon
