Podcast appearances and mentions of chris krycho

Predrag Gruevski and Chris Krycho joined the show to talk about SemVer. We explore the challenges and the advantages of semantic versioning (aka SemVer), the need for improving the tooling around SemVer, where semantic versioning really shines and where it's needed, Types and SemVer, whether or not there's a better way, and why it's not as simple as just opting out.

Predrag Gruevski and Chris Krycho joined the show to talk about SemVer. We explore the challenges and the advantages of semantic versioning (aka SemVer), the need for improving the tooling around SemVer, where semantic versioning really shines and where it's needed, Types and SemVer, whether or not there's a better way, and why it's not as simple as just opting out.

What if your dedication to doing things right clashed with your company's fast pace? Chris Krycho faced this very question at LinkedIn. His journey was marked by challenges: from the nuances of remote work to the struggle of influencing company culture, and a critical incident that put his principles to the test against the company's push for speed. Chris's story highlights the tension between the need for innovation and the importance of project health. This all led Chris to a pivotal decision: to stay and compromise his beliefs or to leave in pursuit of work that aligned with his principles. He chose the latter. Join us as we dive into Chris's compelling story, exploring the challenges of advocating for principled engineering in a world that often prioritizes quick wins over long-term value. Episode Page Support The Show Subscribe To The Podcast Join The Newsletter Chris's Personal Website  

Richard talks to Chris Krycho about TypeScript's unusual take on semantic versioning, and type system complexity tradeoffs between various different languages.

Allen Wyma talks with Chris Krycho, host of the now-ended New Rustacean podcast about learning the Rust programming language. Contributing to Rustacean Station Rustacean Station is a community project; get in touch with us if you'd like to suggest an idea for an episode or offer your services as a host or audio editor! Twitter: @rustaceanfm Discord: Rustacean Station Github: @rustacean-station Email: hello@rustacean-station.org Timestamps [@1:08] - Chris' background and introduction [@4:33] - Chris' current career and projects [@12:17] - Rust and WebAssembly [@19:35] - Chris' podcasting plans [@23:47] - Chris' podcasting preparation and processes [@36:02] - Lessons and insights coming from podcasting [@48:08] - ZSH vs Fish [@53:12] - Picking out potential podcast guests and making great interviews [@57:12] - Chris' opinion and comparison on the different programming languages [@1:07:33] - Chris' parting thoughts and future plans Other Resources Chris's Twitter Credits Intro Theme: Aerocity Audio Editing: Plangora Hosting Infrastructure: Jon Gjengset Show Notes: Plangora Hosts: Allen Wyma

In early 2017, Chris Krycho was working at one of the few startups using Ember, searching for a way to bring types to the emerging language. His primary goal became solving semantic versioning for TS. As Chris kept iterating, striving to combine multiple programming worlds, other engineers joined him in the pursuit until eventually, the Ember TypeScript Core team was born.  Today, Chris is a lead engineer at LinkedIn, a father, husband, runner, music composer, and whiskey enthusiast. His current goal is to ensure Ember Polaris has first-class TypeScript support. Aside from offering new dad advice to Robbie, Chris also describes what can become a superpower for new developers willing to work. In this episode, Chris talks with Chuck and Robbie about best-case uses for TypeScript, a defense of complicated library code, Chris' ultimate goal with software engineering, and his advice for programmers on the rise.  Key Takeaways [01:10] - A brief intro to Chris.  [02:26] - A whiskey review.  [10:57] - How the Ember TypeScript Core Team originated.  [19:11] - When Chris believes TypeScript isn't necessary.  [26:52] - Chris' lengthy experience with programming languages.  [28:39] - Chris' advice to Robbie as a new father.  [30:59] - How Chris responds to Robbie's issue with TypeScript. [43:50] - What a first-class component template is. [52:14] - A music and Hot Ones-themed whatnot.  [57:43] - The one thing Chris always plugs for developers.  Quotes [16:27] - “TypeScript support is pretty essential to modern web development. Even if you're not using TypeScript in your web app, you are using TypeScript because under the hood, all of the tooling that exists across the ecosystem, more or less, uses TypeScript.” ~ @chriskrycho [19:39] - “There's no project in which TypeScript is necessary. There are very few projects in which it might not be useful, but that's going to depend on your team, your coding style, your mental frame, your background, etc.” ~ @chriskrycho [60:45] - “Getting deep on subject matter as well as having a general breadth is a really powerful one-two punch in terms of being able to grow as an engineer, to actually understand what you're working on.” ~ @chriskrycho Links Chris Krycho ChrisKrycho.com LinkedIn Ember LinkedIn Learning Kent C. Dodds  Old Forester 1920 Prohibition Style Whiskey W.L. Weller The Glenlivet 14 Year Old Four Roses Bourbon runspired Chris Manson Whiskey Web and Whatnot: Runspired vs. Chris Manson on Solving the Number One Open Source Maintainer Dilemma Discord EmberConf Ember TypeScript Core Team (Typed Ember) Dan Freeman James Davis  Derek Wickern Mike North Olo Flow JavaScript TypeScript 2.1 Robert Jackson Ember TypeScript on GitHub DefinitelyTyped on GitHub Glint  JSX  Vue.js Svelte Ember Observer ember-cli-babel IntelliJ IDEA Jet Brains VIM Visual Studio  Ruby Python Sorbet Stefan Penner Repple Greg Vaughn Elixir Glenn Vanderburg  Microsoft  GitHub Vanilla JS Fortran PHP Rust Swift Hascal Elm Discourse Semantic Versioning for TypeScript Types ember-try Redux Mark Erikson Codebase Sam Selikoff  Apollo GraphQL Chris Krycho's music Chris Krycho's on SoundCloud SpaceX Chris Garrett (zuraq) ShopTalk Show Ep 512: Web Whiskey Crossover with Chuck Carpenter & Robbie Wagner New Rustacean Podcast  Prolog Julia Evans Connect with our hosts Robbie Wagner Chuck Carpenter Ship Shape Subscribe and stay in touch Apple Podcasts Spotify Google Podcasts Whiskey Web and Whatnot Top-Tier, Full-Stack Software Consultants This show is brought to you by Ship Shape. Ship Shape's software consultants solve complex software and app development problems with top-tier coding expertise, superior service, and speed. In a sea of choices, our senior-level development crew rises above the rest by delivering the best solutions for fintech, cybersecurity, and other fast-growing industries. Check us out at shipshape.io.

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 Twitter and Tear Gas Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore The Printing Press as an Agent of Change The Postmodern Condition Contact Jurassic Park Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness The Real World of Technology Phaedrus The Age of Spiritual Machines Evolution as a Religion Chris’s list Twitter and Tear Gas Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore The Printing Press as an Agent of Change Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness Jurassic Park Phaedrus Contact The Real World of Technology The Postmodern Condition The Age of Spiritual Machines 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 Tüfeçki’s examination of social media and sociopolitical change. (We liked this book a lot.) Twitter and Tear Gas, Zeynep Tüfeçki Show Notes Zeynep Tüfeçki 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 Tüfeçki’s masterful explanation of the relationship between social media and protest movements. Twitter and Tear Gas, Zeynep Tüfeçki Show Notes Things we mentioned on the show, in the order we mentioned them: Zeynep Tüfeçki 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 1980’s, 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!

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](https://twitter.com/DZRishmawy) and Fred Sanders: [@FredFredSanders](https://twitter.com/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!

How do we make javascript easier to work with? Chris Krycho has been using typescript to add types to javascript since 2016. Chris is a software developer at LinkedIn who, at his previous gig, worked on converting one of the largest Ember apps in the world to TypeScript. I was shocked by the size. Chris also loves Rust and types and is a former C and FORTRAN programmers. He hosted a podcast called the New Rustacean, which he has retired from. Today we talk about TypeScript and when you should use it. We also talk about Language Server Protocols, Rust, working with large codebases, Structural types, row polymorphism and talking code over audio. Chris's Blog TypeScript New Rustacean Chris's Typescript Refinement types in TypeScript Winning Slowly Podcast https://corecursive.com/034-chris-krycho-typescript/  

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!