7.08: Literally Metaphorically Listen for Earthquakes

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.

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!