off-the-cuff conversations between friends
finding the sacred in the ordinary
universal within the particular
where word becomes flesh
What makes something call out to us?
Sonya and I explore how prayer transforms perception — ceaseless prayer, the felt body, sacred patterns, remembrance in communion, the invisible church spread through all time, and the holy mystery we're part of. (Recorded October 2020)
Can a conversation have a sense of place?
Laurel and I take a stroll through Central Park on Memorial day, chatting about sauntercasts, voice notes, memory, the romance of distance, physicality, embodiment, and ordinary time.
Does technology give us control or the illusion of it?
We explore how societal expectations, the nature of work, and AI challenge what it means to be human, contrasting the allure of self-sufficiency with the call to vulnerability.
What does it really mean to call yourself anything?
Joseph Choi begins to explore his ongoing journey of faith deconstruction, reconstruction, and whatever it is now. But we end up through about the anxieties around labeling one's beliefs, between commitment and optionality, and abundance and scarcity mindsets
How does rationality/ea and faith intersect?
Austin Chen joins me to explore the overlaps between Catholic upbringing and EA principles. We discuss his car wash story, tithing/earning to give, the concept of utilons and fuzzies, creating secular liturgies like Taco Tuesday, the tension between being agentic and the savior complex, on rest and waiting, and seeing the uniqueness of each person amidst the systems we create. (Recorded May 2024)
How does faith call us to both right action and right emotion?
Sonya Mann joins me again to discuss the layered meanings of biblical parables. Some themes I liked: the paradoxical nature of faith, the generousity of God, the interplay bt obligation and grace, freedom within constraint, the parable of workers in the vineyard and talents, lay utilitarianism, the nature of praise, phenomenology in faith, the metaphor of weddings, viserality and the flesh, specificity, sacred modes, acceptable woo, cheap grace. (Recorded October 2020)
Why does everyone care about New York?
Drew Austin explores the interplay bt digital/physical env and how tech values shape our lives. We discuss some of his past essays: fashion as public good, airport lounge-ification highlighting, and how digital paradigms reshape our physical spaces. Topics include: fake serendipity, lofi, gm, resilient systems, the commons as customs, postmodernist software, leaving a trace, Twitter as a waiting room. (Recorded October 2021)
How do we all act as protestants online?
L.M. Sacasas joins Henry (4th time!?) to chat about material/digital culture, how we compensate for natural affordances in new digital interfaces, our inability to account for non-measurable losses, texture vs. frictionlessness, lofi, roguelikes, reality tv, ambient data capture, extracting our private life for gain, how digital space is more of a past rather a place. (Recorded August 2022)
Where can hope be found?
Alex Kim joins again to open up questions of responsibility, and our place in relation to times of weariness. He speaks out his experiences growing up and also shepherding a local church body as a youth pastor. We speak amidst the burnout on notions of time, the work of Charles Taylor through Andrew Root, work/play, and living out in hope. Maybe it's what this podcast is attempting to work towards! (Recorded June 2022)
Can our digitally mediated environment be spiritual?
Nick Ripatrazone takes us through the lens of the Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan, focusing on his not well-known Catholic faith. McLuhan himself describes his testimony into the Church as, 'I came in on my knees. That is the only way in.' We discuss the topics around intertextuality, the complexity of life, on form/function within mediums like poetry, concept/percept, ambuigity and paradox, and McLuhan's famous phrase the medium is the message. (Recorded April 2022)
What is the place of history in our society?
Who was Ivan Illich and how might he be a helpful voice, even in his passing? David Cayley shares about his new book, Ivan Illich: An Intellectual Journey. It's not really a biography, and as Illich himself would say, 'you can't capture me!' We talk about open source, big tech, and enclosure, history which gives you roots, how tradition and change are intertwined, the many myths/idols of society, on good vs. value, aestheticism, and much more. (Recorded in January 2022)
What is the nature of reality?
Esther Lightcap Meek warmly speaks of reality as interpersonal. We discuss hope as a person-ed affair, how life is a sort of scrabbling together of clues, gift economies, covenant epistemology, on commitment, consent, belonging. (Recorded in November 2021)
Why is Christianity so commercialized?
Conley shares about The Dorean Principle, his new book which explains this biblical concept of the Gospel being 'freely given'. We talk about being a colaborer vs. a customer, reciprocity vs. gift, Bible translation, Christian music, copyright and creative commons, and how it all relates to an open source ethos. (recorded in October 2021)
How can we think about digital communication, let alone silence?
Is it possible? L.M. Sacasas is back to chat about a few of his last newsletter posts: the nature of silence, attention not as a resource, on hope vs. expectations, the arms race of escalation, manufactured needs, askesis or discipline, the commons vs. the public, and trustlessness and codes of law.
Why read Ivan Illich today?
In this episode, Madhu Suri Prakash and Dana L. Stuchul of Penn State University interview L.M. Sacasas on his work as being a sort of bridge or interlocutor of Illich's thoughts. They talk about schooling and inequality in COVID, ways of thinking about technology, a life of planning vs. gift, convivial tools, redemption of work, and more. (Recorded in December 2020)
How does the digital life shape our perceptions of ourselves?
Maggie Appleton starts us off on a discussion of school in pandemic times which lead to a discussion of the disembodiment that technology can create, somehow bringing us further towards our thoughts on time and space? (Recorded in November 2020)
What is the state of modern software now, and how is it like losing at Tetris?
Stephen Kell joins Henry to chat about Ivan Illich's thought (counter-productivity, radical monopoly, critique of institutions) applied to software! We talk about the software/hardware arms race, how our default is more is better, tech being all-consuming, tyranny of updates. (recorded in Dec 2020)
What happens when we open up browser APIs like a filesystem?
Omar Rizwan joins Henry to chat about his latest project, TabFS! We discuss possible extensions, tinkering with scripts vs being a whole project, writing it yourself, few dependencies, determining your 1.0, literate documentation, and maintaining a newly popular open source project!
How do we think about ourselves and the communities we move into?
Sonya Mann and Henry continue a chat about the nature of conversion: about using jargon within a community, individuation, and transformation. Topics include the tools of a worldview, flavors of faith, the good of questions, essence and discovering yourself, hierarchies of reality, interwoven histories. (Recorded in September)
How does one come to faith, let alone come back to it?
Sonya Mann graciously shares some raw thoughts on her relatively recent re-conversion to Christianity. We cover a lot of ground, going through doubt and spiritual malaise, the phenomenology of faith, fractal reality, happeningness. (Recorded in September)
What is Advent anyway?
Alex Kim joins Henry to chat about the season of waiting, memory, our loss and discovery of tradition, teaching ritual as meaningful, a Christian conception of time, and opening ourselves up to hope.
Is technology just of chips and gadgets?
Maggie Appleton joins Henry again in a 2-part chat to discuss how tech isn't such a static thing, building off of Mcluhan's thought of media and Dan Wang's article, How Technology Grows. We cover how tech itself contains it's own process knowledge involving how it is used, built, and maintained as well as going into digital immortality and the protestant work ethic, and chat about how our cultures are intertwined with tech.
Can there be knowledge without a knower?
Maggie Appleton joins Henry again in a 2-part chat to discuss how knowledge is personal, through the work of Michael Polanyi. We cover how knowing is an activity, ambient technology, dualism, Bruno Latour, knowing as faith, learning through liturgy, Jesus as the embodiment of God. We end by asking how we should navigate the post-truth world.
What does a convivial society entail?
L.M. Sacasas joins Henry in the second part of a conversation about Illich and his views of the common good. We speak about Illich's critique against institutions, autonomy and interdependence, the story of the Good Samaritan, learning through apprenticeship and intimate participation, and outsourcing our choices
Can we consider limits as a gift?
L.M. Sacasas and Henry discuss an understated concept in our modern times, namely limited nature as creatures in the context of parenting, social media, and health. We pass through a mix of (sometimes heavy) topics: violent games and virtue ethics, parents as gardeners rather than carpenters, the issues of unprecedented scale, modernity as the application of technique, our inclination to believe more is better, and the art of dying.
What can we learn from someone's last tweets?
Omar Rizwan joins Henry to chat about the Dynamicland way of thinking: communal, involving the whole person, user agency. We discuss user control, the problem of lists, industrial open source, materiality and embodiment, knowing through doing, and being aware of your emotions when programming. Also (of course) screenshots. (recorded in August)
Do we think about how the places in which we live are passed down?
Both Bernardo Robles Hidalgo (architect) and Marianita Palumbo (anthropologist) join Henry to chat about living as maintenance. We discuss Bosch, responsibility of taking care of the places we live in, on our desire for comfort, the right to repair, the aesthetic of maintenance, and communal living. (recorded in February)
Is more (information, people, code) always better?
Nadia Asparouhova joins Henry to chat about her new book, Working in Public: The Making and Maintenance of Open Source Software, a deep-dive into the of open source community and how it may paint a picture of online communities in general. They talk about her 2x2 model of communities, the public web (Twitter) to private groups (group chat), the turn to individual creators, and the importance of moderation and boundaries.
What happens to our religions when they meet the Internet?
Tara Isabella Burton joins Henry to chat about her new book, Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World. They chat about our failing institutions, taking fandoms like Harry Potter seriously, how we all remix religion, how consumerism infects all of life, on embodiment and givenness, and most importantly, what is our freedom even for?
What does flourishing look like?
Nicole Williams joins Henry to chat about faith in a less reductive way (than many of us may of grown up with). On rationality, the Church as a body, education, liturgy, family, being productive, and simply doing things for it's own sake. Was rather hard to say what we were getting at until the very end, all tying back to a picture of shalom! (This was recorded in May)
Why do we so easily forget where we come from?
Dr. Timothy Patitsas joins Henry again to chat about the affect of legacy on our lives through the language of standards, language diversity, being a melting pot or mosaic, legibility, Jane Jacob's tripartite society, algorithmic control and agency, sanctification and faith as an adventure. Michael Polanyi says that "a society which wants to preserve a fund of personal knowledge must submit to tradition".
What's life after removing yourself from social media?
Philip Gee joins Henry (the last in the trilogy) to chat about LAT, life after Twitter. We discuss being irrelevant, forcing yourself to think about different things, treating a newsletter like email, restraining your growth, moving to the digital suburbs, engaging with the past, directing your attention and production, being particular and local, making it normal again to not have to create. (recorded in July)
Why would you choose to leave the public internet on your own terms?
Philip Gee joins Henry (for the 2nd time) to chat about his recent choice to make a minimal public web presence after being on the web for many years. We discuss the logistics of removing social media (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube), moving to longer forms of media (podcasts, essays, books), making introductory content, recognizing different stages of your career, being out of touch, freeing your mind for the next thing, not being ashamed of previous work, taking time to reflect, and friction. (recorded in May)
What does it mean to be code adjacent?
Shawn Wang joins Henry to chat about not just open code but open thinking with his experience in community managing, the idea of tummling, moderating /r/reactjs, starting the Svelete Society meetup, documenting and learning in public, being historians of our field, fresh notes vs. awesome lists, the meta language, and adoption curves. (recorded in June)
Why attempt to faithfully recreate the past?
Jordan Scales joins Henry to chat about design systems, being pixel perfect, accessibility, the Microsoft Windows User Experience reference manual, using VMs, MSPaint and Figma, whimsy and having fun with coding, creating satire at no one's expense, and even how Babel's Guy Fieri meme could of been Jeff Goldblum in another universe.
Is programming all digital or do we still have embodied roots?
How does this affect how we write, teach, and learn code? Maggie Appleton joins Henry again to discuss everything metaphors (basically everything). We chat about mental models and abstraction, Polanyi, Cartesian dualism, auto ethnography, knowledge, cats!
Is the open source community a gift economy?
What even is a gift? Maggie Appleton joins Henry to discuss open source as a gift economy (versus a market economy), why we participate in open source and exchange gifts, rituals and habits, patronage and crowdfunding, quantified self and disembodiment, our role in tech
How should we think about saving something forever?
Jonathan Farbowitz (Guggenheim) continues the on-going discussion of software preservation with Henry in talking about the goals of museums, the hard (and maybe impossible) task of keeping something intact, the norms and steps of conservation, comparing physical and digital artwork, the importance of authors in conserving a piece, emulation vs. language porting (rewrites), a discussion about an art's 'dependencies', possibly adding automated testing, and deprecations/breakages in environments/standards.
In our excitement to develop products for the future do we neglect the past?
Wendy Hagenmaier (Georgia Tech) discusses with Henry on the importance of maintaining our history, especially in software itself. They chat all about archival: what is it, what should concern an archivist, differences b/t physical/digital, artifacts/process, value/worth of things to preserve, struggles, places where archival can happen (personal, libraries, companies, museums), and our shared responsibility and knowledge.
Why play or even make games?
Anthony Giovannetti (MegaCrit) joins Henry to chat building the video game Slay the Spire with the community. They discuss games an a interactive medium, immersion, player incentives/tradeoffs, emergent gameplay through roguelikes (procedural generation, permadeath), player mastery/difficulty, Steam early access, user feedback, importance of testing, data-informed balancing, and player accessibility driving features via streaming, translations, and UX.
Do we learn in a vacuum, or does it involve our whole selves?
Philip Gee (UC San Diego) joins Henry to chat about maintaining a web presence since its beginnings. We discuss some of the points made in Nadia's post on ideas carrying us forward, even beyond what we are known for, the greater intimacy of podcasts and vlogs, attaching ideas to people, science as subjective vs. purely objective and in community, knowledge as opening up possibilities, embracing whimsy and being random (haircut podcasts), embracing spontaneity and cities, understanding our bodies and mortality and it's relation to our digital lives and rest.
Why should we standardize?
Jory Burson (Bocoup) joins Henry to talk open source and standards: what they are, why we need them, what should be standardized, lifecycles of standards, past/future accessibility of participating in the process, and more!
How can we be free?
Evan You (Vue.js) chats with Henry about the complexities of funding people vs. projects, non-monetary perks of oss, Patreon potentially just a payment processor, the honing in on the uniqueness of open source (being free, flexible, organic/emergent, self-motivated, distributed/remote), full time not being for everyone, the importance of side projects and off-pressure moments and just having fun.
How old is open source anyway?
Mikeal Rogers (Protocol Labs) joins Henry in talking about making friends through podcasting, conference organizing as maintainer-ship, patronage and fundraising, old/new school open source, deprecating packages and ecosystem health, new ideas and becoming a maintainer by being the 'first', and parenting!
What do we treasure?
Stephanie Hurlburt (Binomial) joins again to chat about inherent vs. perceived value, success breeding success, psychology around hiding information, code versus money, a holistic/explicit view of business, everything as marketing, confidence, money as idolatry, the nature of giving, our biases around people/status, people want to see you succeed, communicating how people can help you. (recorded in February)
How is business development relevant to open source?
Stephanie Hurlburt (Binomial) joins Henry to chat about understanding learnings from success, setting health boundaries, what 'networking' really means, conversations/pitching, and more! (recorded in February)
What's beyond simply beating a video game?
Henry is joined by Eric 'Omnigamer' Koziel to chat about speedruning as an optimization problem (code golf), game knowledge as discovery, access as a result of technology, issues of game preservation/archival, coordination issues, obscure/popular games, versioning/patches, and more! (recorded in January. Since then, Eric has a new book out, Speedrun Science)
Why not record an conversation while getting a haircut?
Fellow friend and developer Jonathan Tsao cuts Henry's hair and they have a spontaneous conversation about a variety of topics covering faith and culture, living in NYC, creativitiy, narratives, sharing in vulnerability, and embodiment.
Is the city a toaster (an object) or a cat (a living organism)?
We are joined by Dr. Timothy Patitsas to talk about how our physical and digital spaces, like liturgy, can be understood as "the work of the people". We discuss science as organized complexity, the meaning of knowledge, recursive societies, fractal hierarchies, and implications for governance.
Why do we trust anyone?
We talk about trust as an act of faith, trusting people versus trusting code, and the relationship between trust and work.
How do our rituals shape us?
We talk about where habits come from, why we use them, and whether they strengthen our belief systems.
Does authority have a place in religion?
We talk about authority in decentralized organizations, listening to others versus trying something new, and when to fork or leave a community.
How do symbols and stories foster culture?
We talk about stories as a way to onboard new contributors, the mythology of leadership, when leaders step down, and how traditions evolve over time.
How do communities handle money?
We talk about money and centralization, tithing systems, how much funding is too much, and when to contribute money versus time.
How do we evangelize our ideas?
We talk about evangelism in religion and tech, meeting people where they're at, living one's values in public, and maintaining humility in the face of conviction.
Can everything that matters be measured?
We talk about measuring the output and health of a community, competition between groups, growing a community without losing authenticity, and embracing "holy inefficiency".
Why do we do what we do?
We talk about intrinsic motivation, the role it plays in creative work with uncertain outcomes, motivating new contributors, and sustaining motivation over time.
What does it mean to join a community?
We talk about casual versus committed membership, and how maintainers and leaders manage expectations around trust and collaboration.
Why does faith seem so prevalent among open source developers?
We talk about our backgrounds and motivation for starting this podcast.
What happens when anyone can build anything?
Internet CheckpointWhat makes something call out to us?
SalienceCan a conversation have a sense of place?
An Ordinary WalkDoes technology give us control or the illusion of it?
The Façade of ControlWhat does it really mean to call yourself anything?
Unpacking BeliefHow does rationality/ea and faith intersect?
Sacred CharityHow does faith call us to both right action and right emotion?
Right FeelingWhy does everyone care about New York?
Artificial PhysicalityHow do we all act as protestants online?
Everyone is "Protestant" OnlineWhere can hope be found?
Finding Hope Amid BurnoutCan our digitally mediated environment be spiritual?
Digital CommunionWhat is the place of history in our society?
History is NecromancyWhat is the nature of reality?
Reality is PersonalWhy is Christianity so commercialized?
The Dorean PrincipleHow can we think about digital communication, let alone silence?
Attending to SilenceWhy read Ivan Illich today?
Ivan IllichHow does the digital life shape our perceptions of ourselves?
Digital DisembodimentWhat is the state of modern software now, and how is it like losing at Tetris?
Software TetrisWhat happens when we open up browser APIs like a filesystem?
TabFSHow do we think about ourselves and the communities we move into?
EssenceHow does one come to faith, let alone come back to it?
ReconversionWhat is Advent anyway?
Approaching AdventIs technology just of chips and gadgets?
Technology as ProcessCan there be knowledge without a knower?
Embodied KnowledgeWhat does a convivial society entail?
The Convivial SocietyCan we consider limits as a gift?
Natural LimitsWhat can we learn from someone's last tweets?
Emotional ProgrammingDo we think about how the places in which we live are passed down?
Inhabiting HeritageIs more (information, people, code) always better?
Managing Over-ParticipationWhat happens to our religions when they meet the Internet?
Very OnlineWhat does flourishing look like?
Towards ShalomWhy do we so easily forget where we come from?
LegacyWhat's life after removing yourself from social media?
Life After Digital DeathWhy would you choose to leave the public internet on your own terms?
Unlisting YourselfWhat does it mean to be code adjacent?
Open KnowledgeWhy attempt to faithfully recreate the past?
Nostalgia and Not Taking Yourself Too SeriouslyIs programming all digital or do we still have embodied roots?
Embodiment Through MetaphorsIs the open source community a gift economy?
Open Source as a Gift EconomyHow should we think about saving something forever?
The Commitment to Infinite UptimeIn our excitement to develop products for the future do we neglect the past?
Preserving the (Digital) PastWhy play or even make games?
Mastery and Learning through GamesDo we learn in a vacuum, or does it involve our whole selves?
Growing Old with the WebWhy should we standardize?
The Significance of StandardsHow can we be free?
Funding One's FreedomHow old is open source anyway?
Getting Old in Open SourceWhat do we treasure?
Perception of ValueHow is business development relevant to open source?
BoundariesWhat's beyond simply beating a video game?
Speedrunning as ResearchWhy not record an conversation while getting a haircut?
HaircutIs the city a toaster (an object) or a cat (a living organism)?
City as LiturgyWhy do we trust anyone?
TrustHow do our rituals shape us?
LiturgyDoes authority have a place in religion?
Authority and LeadershipHow do symbols and stories foster culture?
Mythology and SymbolismHow do communities handle money?
MoneyHow do we evangelize our ideas?
EvangelismCan everything that matters be measured?
Holy InefficiencyWhy do we do what we do?
Intrinsic MotivationWhat does it mean to join a community?
Community MembershipWhy does faith seem so prevalent among open source developers?
Faith and Open SourceThere is no inevitability as long as there's a willingness to understand what is happening.
Henry — Internet CheckpointThere is this transcendent, holy mystery that we are part of and that we confront.
Sonya — SalienceTechnology as a whole feels like a coping mechanism to not be able to deal with our problems.
Henry — The Façade of Controlwe're always trying to do things for God, but we should think about doing things with God.
Henry — Unpacking Beliefpeople are just individually irreplaceable. Engineering is about kinda getting rid of those differences in some sense. When you engineer a system, you try to make it replicable. You try to use pieces that are interchangeable.
Austin — Sacred Charitywe delight to praise what we enjoy because it doesn't just express what we like, but also completes the enjoyment. It is its appointed consummation.
Henry — Right FeelingIn the physical world, you can be silent and present at the same time. We could be sitting in this room together, not talking, and there would be some benefit of shared human contact there, even though there was no quote unquote content.
Drew — Artificial PhysicalityEverything now can just be a source of production, right? It has no integrity on its own terms except as a potential source of content.
Michael — Everyone is "Protestant" OnlineI really do think that the way that we help people to understand hope is not merely talking about hope. That's part of it, but we just need to live as hopeful people, right. We just need to show people.
Alex — Finding Hope Amid Burnoutwhat we think is clarity and accuracy is sometimes neutering the messiness of everything.
Nick — Digital Communionprogress is not a thought of our civilization, it's the form of our civilization. So it's not a content that we think about. It's the way that we think.
David — History is NecromancyIt's not so much that reality answers your questions as that it explodes them. Reality really is in the driver's seat. So it walks in and takes over.
Esther — Reality is PersonalThe right is not the copyright holders as though this were physical property. The right is anyone to whom the idea comes because once it has entered their head, it is now their idea as well.
Conley — The Dorean PrincipleDo I live in such a way that I am prepared to be surprised? By my circumstances, by the world, by people. But if I only ever think about my self given goals, right? The goals I give myself to accomplish. You're inhabiting the world in such a way that you're not able to see what may be there. The gifts that might be there, right in your path.
Michael — Attending to SilenceHow do I refuse the framing that modern technological culture offers to me, of being the one who will master and control the world. The one who sees the world as raw material for my own projects.
Michael — Ivan IllichIdeally, we would know ourselves, like when we feel anything. When I feel emotions, when I feel like my body needs food or whatever, right. And then you could see a moment where like the app will tell me everything and then I won't need to rely on my own sense of feeling.
Henry — Digital DisembodimentLosing at Tetris is basically the state of software right now where blocks are just falling into place. We don't have time, we don't have the resources to put them in the right place, so they just kind of pile up and there's kind of an explosion of kind of arbitrary complexity.
Stephen — Software TetrisA good project idea comes out of some kind of personal history or personal relationship that you have with the concepts or with the system. It's something that not anybody could just come up with and try.
Omar — TabFSI don't think of a material reality as being like distinct from religious reality. It's just all the same thing. Maybe that's one of the things that is so intoxicating about Christianity and about faith is like becoming part of this integrated whole.
Sonya — EssenceA not insignificant part of coming back to religion for me was feeling this like insufficiency of rationalism, where I felt like it really wasn't actually answering all of my questions or some of the answers felt really like incomplete, unsatisfying.
Sonya — ReconversionThese rituals again, they're not things that we just do alongside our active remembrance. They themselves are the remembrance. It's a memorial that causes us to remember.
Alex — Approaching AdventIf you have a brain in a machine, how does it know what up and down is? And left and right, and front and back, and heavy and light? And the experience of having a body? If it doesn't have that, like it isn't capable of understanding human thought and rationality and cognition like on a fundamental level. That's a conversation that never happens in AI.
Maggie — Technology as ProcessSinging a hymn that has been sung for thousands of years and you think, Oh, well, you know, it has no meaning to me, let's just not do it anymore. You're not making space for what maybe it can like teach you that you aren't consciously aware of.
Maggie — Embodied KnowledgeOne of the threats of modern tools and modern institutions is that they teach us to depend upon the products that they offer or the services they render, instead of our neighbor. Instead of another person, right, another human being. So we lose the capacity, to not just take responsibility for ourselves, but to care for one another, in this context.
Michael — The Convivial SocietyThe proposition that there should be limits is a kind of modern heresy. It goes against something I think, deeply ingrained in Western modernity.
Michael — Natural LimitsI think emotions are a big deal in programming. Like I think most of the work in programming is managing your own feelings about it.
Omar — Emotional ProgrammingWe deny completely the dimension of taking care the space we live. In a daily scale, we don't make it visible. We don't look for it. It's this blurry part of life on which we all depend.
Marianita — Inhabiting HeritageImagine trying to collaborate with your comment section is kind of like at the heart of why this stuff is so challenging.
Nadia — Managing Over-ParticipationThe sort of turn, which I think is phenomenologically true, towards a kind of intuitional model of understanding. Sort of trusting your gut, rejecting external, believing that your desires are kind of ontologically good. All of these things are kind of natural, normal, and even rational responses to a broader question, which is you can't trust anybody else.
Tara — Very Onlinethere's equal glory in you being a garbage woman that there is in you being like a pastor, a theologian, or like a great nonprofit worker
Nicole — Towards ShalomFor them the small scale is the only scale.
Philip — Life After Digital DeathBy just kind of quitting you just free up your mind. They were known for Seinfeld obviously, but they also had a bunch of stuff afterwards. So I find that's pretty admirable.
Philip — Unlisting YourselfOpen source code is better than closed source code because there's more people looking at it. It's easy to contribute. You know, open source has clearly eaten software, right. But the way that we treat our knowledge is very close source.
Shawn — Open KnowledgeI can't make a Windows 98 that's not accessible. I can't do it. That would be disgusting of me.
Jordan — Nostalgia and Not Taking Yourself Too SeriouslyWhen the program dies, it's not when the program doesn't work, it's when the people don't understand how it works.
Henry — Embodiment Through MetaphorsPatreon in a way is running under the guise of being a gift economy. All their marketing language and the way they pitch themselves is very much that we are supporting the new internet gift economy, but on the actual functional level they are pure market economy.
Maggie — Open Source as a Gift EconomyOur purpose is not to make something better. It's to make it as faithful to the original as possible.
Jonathan — The Commitment to Infinite UptimeThat emotional reaction to technology, whether it's a digital file or a piece of software or a piece of hardware or whatever is really fascinating. It makes me hopeful, I think, for the future of how people will value their archives.
Wendy — Preserving the (Digital) PastI think that it's foolish to try to make a game that pleases everyone and then you're just not doing a good job of pleasing the ... you can make everyone kind of like your game, but then you won't have people that just absolutely love it.
Anthony — Mastery and Learning through GamesI think developing these core skills opens up new things. It pushes the frontier outward of what the possibilities of what you can possibly do.
Philip — Growing Old with the WebPeople are the hardest part of software. The way I have been thinking about this for a while now is like, how can we solve the human interoperability problem, which will help improve a lot of our technical interoperability problems.
Jory — The Significance of Standardsthe nice thing about it being an open source project is we don't really have... we're not working for survival. I think that's the key. We don't have a burn rate, we don't have a runway. That relieves us from having to always rush.
Evan — Funding One's FreedomWe don't know how software gets built. It just happens.
Henry — Getting Old in Open SourceIf what you care about is having a big impact on the world, the business skills arguably did that just as much as the code. People don't just use things because they're out there.
Stephanie — Perception of ValueBeing firm allows you to not have that pent up aggression and be kinder overall.
Stephanie — BoundariesYou have a game that's kind of its own scientific field, where it's completely unknown at the start, it's a black box, but you can gradually start to pick away and find out what's going on with it.
Omnigamer — Speedrunning as ResearchWe want to treat everything like a robot or a program because it's easy to reason about those things. But reality is so complicated that it actually makes more sense to treat it as living.
Henry — HaircutThey substituted a living, very sophisticated, rich and subtle order, with something that was visually flashy and comprehensible, but that was outside of time and therefore dead.
Timothy — City as LiturgyYou have people that are unpaid, that probably most maintainers are accidental. They didn't have experience in maintaining before. And yet, somehow you actually are able to make things happen. And in that sense this is almost surreal in a way.
Henry — Trustthrough the practice of doing open source I learned to love it more.
Henry — LiturgyPeople don't really understand why they believe what they believe, or they forgot about it because it becomes just like a what you do.
Nadia — Authority and Leadershiptradition is also like participatory. You have to connect to it or else it doesn't really work. You have to actually feel like you are carrying something on and feel like ownership in whatever that thing is, otherwise it's just meaningless.
Nadia — Mythology and SymbolismThe point of the tithing is to help people but it's also to help yourself. It's an opportunity for you to kind of act out that belief that your money is not yours.
Henry — MoneyIf you don't actually truly believe it yourself and live it out, then how are you gonna be able to like show or convince that in anyone else?
Henry — EvangelismTo be in a relationship is actually to be inefficient.
Henry — Holy InefficiencyIf it's not ever done or there's always something else I could be doing, then how do I find a way to find my own inner quiet and be able to stand still and say, I'm doing this for me and not because I'm chasing after whatever extrinsic reward there is.
Nadia — Intrinsic Motivationit's not because I'm devoted that I'm going. It's 'cause going will make me more devoted as well. Same with open source. Continuing to do it will make me continue to want to do it.
Henry — Community MembershipGod already loves you, so you shouldn't have to work to get his approval, but because he loves you, you work. You're doing it out of a sense of joy or love already, instead of trying to gain it.
Henry — Faith and Open SourceI just wonder how this can help nurture and recover people's creativity.
Melody — Internet Checkpointhow do you talk about something that is outside of, or bigger than, or contains what you are?
Sonya — SalienceHow should we think about what it means to be created in the image of God?
Henry — The Façade of ControlDo you think this is the central theme of Christianity, or is this the central theme of Christianity right now because of the time that we live in?
Joseph — Unpacking Beliefin some sense, like I feel so brainwashed that like I have a hard time trying to understand the benefit.
Austin — Sacred CharityChristianity itself could be looked at from that lens. Something that can seem kind of quaint and archaic from the outside, but from the inside it's just as fresh and alive as ever.
Sonya — Right Feelingit also feels like fake serendipity. Because someone clearly thought very hard about what you were going to encounter as you move through this environment.
Drew — Artificial PhysicalityTrying to figure out what is sidewalk life online. Does that exist?
Henry — Everyone is "Protestant" Onlinehow can we make this hope compelling for this generation?
Alex — Finding Hope Amid BurnoutWhat is the equivalent to the word sin for a secular person?
Nick — Digital Communionthere's obviously something to understand about how to live in history while living in the present that we really don't have as a possibility.
David — History is Necromancymodernity is characterized by saying no, where we need to say yes. And actually there's a term for that. It's acedia, which is one of the seven deadly sins.
Esther — Reality is Personalit's possible too that they're saying this isn't right co-labor, because you're not one of us. But I don't know. Anyway, this is one of the more finer points that I haven't worked out.
Conley — The Dorean PrincipleA commons is a space which is established by custom. It can not be regulated by law. The law would never be able to give sufficient details to regulate a commons.
Henry — Attending to SilenceAnd so this focus on how we outsource our embodied experience of the world through tools that then interrupt our senses' direct contact with the world or displace it. I've been very curious about that.
Michael — Ivan IllichWe have no affordances that suggest presence without noise.
Maggie — Digital DisembodimentWe sort of deliberately create a sort of shifting sands that we then build on. It's kind of hilarious when you look at it from that distance.
Stephen — Software TetrisThat's where a lot of my attention I want to go. And so I wonder if I haven't documented that part enough, or if I need to have more structures to support that. Or maybe people just don't have new ideas about what to do there.
Henry — TabFSWhen language was evolving, it's not like someone sat down and thought like, okay, I'm going to design a form so that we can, you know, talk about things. Like all of these like notions of what language is and what it does and what it's for and how it transforms us and how we transform it, all of this comes after language.
Sonya — EssenceI feel like you might be into it. Like givenness makes me think of happeningness. That something can exist because of the interaction of various processes. And then it becomes sort of more than the sum of the parts.
Sonya — ReconversionAdvent is about putting ourselves into the story of preparation waiting that happened way before we were even born. Advent is a story of Israel preparing and waiting for the coming of Jesus, whom they may not have known until he actually came.
Henry — Approaching AdventI wonder when we're going to start seeing burn out on digital gardening, because it's such a fun thing now, but are you responsible?
Henry — Technology as ProcessAnd I wonder if then transhumanism is some sort of reaction to maybe some of the more traditional religious beliefs.
Maggie — Embodied KnowledgeTo simply look at the world is not to see it. And so we need to learn to see, and part of that I think involves the learning to name the world.
Michael — The Convivial SocietyAnd I wonder to what degree, to reflect on this from a theological perspective, if that is a function of just coming to see that this is sort of it, right? This is the one shot you get at life. And so the only thing to do is to extend it indefinitely.
Michael — Natural LimitsI think I want to play around more with like really fine grain open source. That's where it is sort of at the line of code level or the cell level with a spreadsheet.
Omar — Emotional ProgrammingDo you have in the field of coding, do you have sometimes this impression that before it was better? Are you already there?
Marianita — Inhabiting HeritageIt feels like it's completely inverted, where a maintainer doesn't always have authority over their projects when something happens. You can just get this flood of people from the outside who are coming in.
Nadia — Managing Over-ParticipationWhat do we do with our freedom? How do we, in an era where human creative powers are so visible, where we are more and more divorced from givenness, facticity, and Nature, how do we manage that?
Tara — Very Onlineyou can't sort of like deconstruct the church and recreate it in other spaces, which is a popular idea. Some people are like, what if you just take worship, what if you just take the community aspects? How can you recreate just community without believing in God? And I think it's really hard to explain all of the parts, how they fit together perfectly, but you can't reverse engineer any of it.
Nicole — Towards ShalomIt's like, once you're on that train, you're getting a regular dose.
Philip — Life After Digital DeathI think that having role models for people who've done this without any sort of crisis, right? You hear about these detox things like, Oh yeah, I'm like addictive gambler or addicted to social media. And it ruined my life.
Henry — Unlisting YourselfAnd I'm looking for that. I haven't found that yet.
Shawn — Open KnowledgeIs it done? Maintenance, what's that even going to look like? How do you maintain something that feasibly the button borders should look like they do now in five years?
Jordan — Nostalgia and Not Taking Yourself Too SeriouslyAll dirt is contextual. It all just depends on where we draw the boundaries.
Maggie — Embodiment Through MetaphorsIf the thing that makes gift exchange means something to us, if we lose that direct social relationship, that's what threatens it maybe. That's what makes the economy not quite function the way we wish it would.
Maggie — Open Source as a Gift EconomyAs conservators and archivists, we're kind of tethered to these technologies that we don't have much control over. We can't tell Firefox, don't deprecate this thing because this artwork depends on it.
Jonathan — The Commitment to Infinite Uptimethe thing that we want to preserve isn't just that artifact itself, and not even just metadata, but almost the process, the culture of that project.
Henry — Preserving the (Digital) Pastdisplaying information and being open in a strategy game is I think an interesting thing that's probably underutilized with the current moment.
Anthony — Mastery and Learning through GamesBefore you maintain anything, you got to maintain yourself and your health.
Philip — Growing Old with the WebI've been thinking a lot lately about how we have a lot of open source projects and things that have, especially in the last 10 years, that got super popular and then just like that they were passe. But we've got all these applications, we've got all these sites using them. So there's like this sort of, the analogy I have been describing is sort of like a garbage dump.
Jory — The Significance of Standardsif you want to talk about game theory, it's like an infinite game. You're like playing to not win, you're just playing to keep going forever.
Henry — Funding One's FreedomI don't even know where even something as big as NPM shakes out in that.
Mikeal — Getting Old in Open SourceAnd you might change so much that you don't want to give back in the way that you used to.
Stephanie — Perception of ValueWhat's your leverage? He was like, Gosh, I don't know. It's like, Can you stop maintaining it for a while? Can you not respond speedily to people? He was like, Oh, God. I can't do that. I was like, If you're not willing to do that, making money is going to be very hard.
Stephanie — BoundariesWhat's going to happen more and more is basically people do what they want, they get their run and then they move on. And if there's nothing beyond the run - and in some cases the run might even disappear - that just means that everyone else has to start from square one.
Omnigamer — Speedrunning as ResearchKnowing God versus knowing about God.
Jonathan — Haircuthow do you know when you're dealing with an artifact versus dealing with like a living organism?
Nadia — City as LiturgyWhen does it make sense to encode trust versus just trying to trust people and accept that sometimes you're gonna be wrong?
Henry — Trusthow would you start a new shared habit, and then kinda like more importantly, how do you know that the habit you personally want is a good habit
Nadia — LiturgyIt almost seems like it comes out of nowhere, but it had been silently building for a long time. And I think it happens a lot with like leadership change in open source, too.
Nadia — Authority and LeadershipI wonder if there is like an optimal time for a maintainer to step down or not- just in terms of like the trajectory of the life of the project.
Nadia — Mythology and SymbolismYou wanna sustain yourself but then you're like, should I limit how much that I make? I felt like that a lot when I was trying to raise money on Patreon where you feel bad that people are giving you money but you should feel free but you don't. You almost feel trapped.
Henry — MoneyI really try not to use that word unless I'm feeling lazy because it sets off so many different ideas in someone's head about what it means.
Nadia — EvangelismI think there's something special or interesting about not knowing and maybe never really understanding completely, but knowing it truly and that we can know, but we might not know exhaustively.
Henry — Holy Inefficiencyhow do you know, either in a faith or open source context, when someone isn't just sort of there to do their thing and leave.
Nadia — Intrinsic MotivationWhen you're too authoritarian, then people are unhappy. But then if you go too far on the other side, you find that it becomes really overwhelming to cater to the needs to lots of people who might not necessarily be that committed.
Nadia — Community Membershipif you do that sort of self-inquiry, and you realize that this isn't bringing you the joy that you wish it did, do you think... There's two paths, right? You step away, or you change what you're doing so that it does bring back that sense of joy.
Nadia — Faith and Open Source