Winning Slowly

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

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

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 you

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

“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-cr

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

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 m

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

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 w

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,

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 p

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

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 Schwart

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

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, y

7.01 will be in your ears tomorrow. For today: how Stephen copes with Twitter.

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