Shows
Winning Slowly8.23: Things Get Weird When You Add New TechnologyReviewing 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
2020-12-3047 minWinning Slowly8.19: Contact—ExaminedThinking 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 co...
2020-10-2236 minWinning Slowly8.17: Evolution as a Religion—ExaminedWe 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 t...
2020-09-1634 minWinning Slowly8.16: Evolution as a Religion—ExplainedWhat had Mary Midgley so incredibly angry in the 1980s, and what did she do about it?
Evolution as a Religion, Mary Midgley
Show Notes
Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene
“Superman” and Friedrich Nietzsche
David Hume
Immanuel Kant
The other book Chris is reading on politics &c. currently: Politics and the Order of Love, Eric Gregory
Here’s another great cover of the book from the ’80s!
Have to climb to Omega, man!
Upcoming Book
October (8.18 and 8.19): Contact, Carl Sagan
November (8.20 and 8.21): Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragili...
2020-09-0228 minWinning Slowly8.15: The Real World of Technology—ExaminedWe 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. Hughe...
2020-08-2041 minWinning Slowly8.14: The Real World of Technology—Explained
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
...
2020-08-0641 minWinning Slowly8.13: Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness—ExaminedDiscussing 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 femini...
2020-07-2337 minWinning Slowly8.12: Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness—ExplainedDigging 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 musi...
2020-07-0834 minWinning Slowly8.11: The Printing Press as an Agent of Change—Analogs to the InternetThe printing press and the internet are often compared. How similar in impact are they really?
The Printing Press as an Agent of Change, Elizabeth Eisenstein
Show Notes
Eisenstein’s outline:
dissemination
standardization
reorganization
data collection
preservation
amplification
reinforcement
cultural effects
the Republic of Letters
Links to things mentioned on the show:
On context collapse: 2.02: Basketballs ≠ Pumpkins
Our strongest take on “big data:” 6.06: A Kind of Blindness—Smart cities, “big data”, and the meaninglessness of mere information.
The Republic of Letters
Clarkives
Upcoming books
July (8.12 and 8.13): Dark Matters: On the Surveil...
2020-06-1735 minWinning Slowly8.10: The Printing Press as an Agent of Change—ExplainedDigging into Elizabeth Eisenstein’s magisterial and seminal work on how print changed culture.
The Printing Press as an Agent of Change, Elizabeth Eisenstein
Show Notes
We almost entirely ended up talking about the contents of this book specifically! And we weren’t joking about how dense it is:
A picture Chris snapped of p. 113 of The Printing Press as an Agent of Change
We did mention a couple other episodes of the show:
8.08: Jurassic Park—Explained
on friction
7.09: Frictioneers
Upcoming books
July (8.12 and 8.13): Dark Matters: On the...
2020-06-0334 minWinning Slowly8.09: Jurassic Park—ExaminedDon’t go into science for the money: you will get killed by dinosaurs.
Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton (and the movie!)
Show Notes
We put dinosaurs mostly in the background and talk about what Crichton really wanted to discuss: the science/industrial complex, the limits of science to interpret or re-create nature, the limits of discovery, and disciplinary power.
Things mentioned on the show
People trying to recreate mammoths in Siberia to fix … climate change?
The world’s fastest supercomputer being used for climate simulations, among other things
The wild tale o...
2020-05-2036 minWinning Slowly8.08: Jurassic Park—ExplainedWhat the well-known novel and movie have to say about science, ethics, epistemology, and hubris.
Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton (and the movie!)
Show Notes
Things mentioned on the show
Media OS—see TVTropes’ “Extreme Graphical Representation” for many examples.
The Expanse
TV series overview
book series overview
Caliban’s War: the book in which “complex simple systems” appear
Nuclear meltdowns
Three-Mile Island
Chernobyl
Fukushima
Upcoming books
Note that we’ve ended up changing plans since we recorded our Kurzweil episodes! We originally planned to read Simone Browne’s Dark Matters: On the Su...
2020-05-0627 minWinning Slowly8.07: The Age of Spiritual Machines—ExaminedDigging 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, Mi...
2020-04-1541 minWinning Slowly8.06: The Age of Spiritual Machines—ExplainedReading 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...
2020-04-0134 minWinning Slowly8.05: The Postmodern Condition—ExaminedThe 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 Jaco...
2020-03-1839 minWinning Slowly8.04: The Postmodern Condition—ExplainedNote: 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...
2020-03-0435 minWinning Slowly8.03: Phaedrus ExaminedShould 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...
2020-02-1932 minWinning Slowly8.02: Phaedrus ExplainedWhat 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 wh...
2020-02-0530 minWinning Slowly8.01: A Book Club!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 possi...
2020-01-2932 minWinning SlowlyJake Meador: In Search of the Common GoodHey 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: Chri...
2019-12-0559 minWinning Slowly7.13: A Healthy TensionChris 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
“Em...
2019-11-2144 minWinning Slowly7.12: An Experiment in Moral Imagination, Pt. 3Sustainable 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 F...
2019-10-2336 minWinning Slowly7.11: An Experiment in Moral Imagination, Pt. 2“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 thro...
2019-10-0635 minWinning Slowly7.10: An Experiment In Moral Imagination, Pt. 1Show 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 Se...
2019-09-1143 minWinning Slowly7.09: FrictioneersCan 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 tw...
2019-08-2937 minWinning Slowly7.08: Literally Metaphorically Listen for EarthquakesShow 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 foo...
2019-08-0837 minWinning Slowly7.07: The ERLC AI Statement, Part 2Data 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 mea...
2019-07-1945 minWinning Slowly7.06: The ERLC AI Statement, Part 1People 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 C...
2019-07-0343 minWinning Slowly7.05: Chattanooga, China, and SubsidiarityLocalism 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...
2019-05-2335 minWinning Slowly7.04: Not Better EnoughRejecting 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...
2019-05-0938 minWinning Slowly7.03: Ari WallachAn 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...
2019-04-2549 minWinning Slowly7.02: People Who Don’t Want To Do ThingsAny 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 keep...
2019-04-1142 minWinning Slowly7.01: 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.
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 de...
2019-03-2738 minWinning SlowlyJessica C. BlankDocumentary 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...
2019-02-0454 minWinning Slowly6.13: A Four-in-One SpecialWrapping 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
Spe...
2019-01-0137 minWinning Slowly6.12: Beer RulesRegulation 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...
2018-11-0840 minWinning Slowly6.11: Very Thoughtful Ethics DogsReflecting 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 fee...
2018-08-3137 minWinning Slowly100!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: T...
2018-08-1640 minWinning Slowly6.10: The Future of Something Like WorkThe 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 te...
2018-07-2032 minWinning Slowly6.09: Granular Levels of Tomato TrackingBlockchain, 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...
2018-07-0834 minWinning Slowly6.08: People Do Reject Technologies, Part 2Nuclear 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
Ye...
2018-06-2236 minWinning Slowly6.07: People Do Reject Technologies, Part 1Google 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 Si...
2018-06-1430 minWinning Slowly6.06: A Kind of BlindnessSmart cities, “big data”, and the meaninglessness of mere information.
Show Notes
We attempt to take down the idea that more data is the solution to our problems. Without wisdom, and without an ethical frame, numbers mean nothing.
Links
The metadata of experience, the experience of metadata – Nick Carr
China’s New Frontiers in Dystopian Tech – Rene Chun at The Atlantic
“Smart” refigerators DDOS-ing things
Massive Dyn DDOS Attack: Experts Blame Smart Fridges, DVRs And Other IoT Devices Why Your Internet Went Down
KrebsOnSecurity Hit With Record DDoS
The Democratization of Censorship
Redlining:
Wi...
2018-05-1631 minWinning Slowly6.05: CrisprWhat are the limits on gene editing? Should we be doing it at all? If so, under what circumstances? Who determines where it's okay to use Crispr?
Show Notes
What are the limits on gene editing? Should we be doing it at all? If so, under what circumstances? Who determines where it’s okay to use Crispr?
Links
Crispr Makes It Clear: The US Needs a Biology Strategy, and Fast
Human Embryo Editing Gets the Ok—But No Superbabies
Music
“Kept” by Jason Van Wyk
“Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho.
2018-05-1534 minWinning Slowly6.04: Move Slowly and Fix ThingsWhy is Silicon Valley so broken?
Show Notes
We dig into the reasons why so many Silicon Valley companies go so wrong. We talk about Chesterton's fence. We manage to agree with each other by arguing about Apple. We talk about everything from community practices to antitrust.
Links
Chris’ earlier podcast failure
Chesterton’s Fence
Biblical notes on greed
on the desire to become rich
on the love of money
#DeleteFacebook
Music
“Tamu”, by I Am Sonic Rain – used by permission.
“Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho.
Sponsors
Many thanks...
2018-04-2339 minWinning Slowly6.03: I’m Not Puttin’ That Chip in My CheekBodily modification, from hip replacement to magnets in your fingers.
Show Notes
How should we think about bodily modification, on the range from replacing a hip joint or a heart valve to enhancing people well beyond normal human capabilities, to adding entirely new capabilities to the human body?
Links
The Olympics and body modification: Oscar Pistorius is an amputee with artificial legs
Tiamat Dragon Lady
Cambridge Analytica and #DeleteFacebook
On the question of whether we’re already past “peak body hacking”
An early prognostication: “6 Extreme Body Enhancements to Expect in the Next 10 Years
“I...
2018-04-0635 minWinning Slowly6.02: The Ethics of TechnologyA Christian view of ethics and technology - or, how we think about everything from Uber and Facebook to dealing with poverty.
Show Notes
We talk about out explicitly Christian ethics - including our ethics of technology. How do we reason about technologies as individuals and communities? What is human flourishing?
Links
Our previous discussion of self-driving cars (and note the title we picked two and a half years ago): 3.13: Inevitable
Articles on the self-driving car crash:
“A self-driving Uber car has killed a pedestrian in Arizona”
“Uber ‘likely’...
2018-03-2233 minWinning Slowly6.01: Actual LudditesIntroducing a season focused on one theme: rejecting technology.
Show Notes
Introducing a season focused on one theme: rejecting technology. Or rather, as you’ll hear us trace out in more detail in the episode: rejecting some technologies at some times, and thinking harder about them in general.
Links
L. M. Sacasas
“Why the Luddites Matter”
“What Technology Do We Really Need? A Critique of the 2016 Personal Democracy Forum
Music
“Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho.
Sponsors
Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possibl...
2018-03-0830 minWinning SlowlyThe Last JediThe latest Star Wars movie: the good, the bad, and the astounding.
Show Notes
You knew this was coming! We talk our likes, dislikes, deep loves, and both hopes and concerns for the future of Star Wars.
Links
The Incomparable on The Empire Strikes Back
Music
“Main Title and Escape,” from The Last Jedi by John Williams. Fair use.
“Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho.
Sponsors
Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
Andrew Fal...
2018-01-1136 minWinning SlowlySome Sciency Stuff!Cixin Liu's The Three Body Problem and the strengths and weaknesses of literature as a window into other cultures.
Show Notes
We chat about a Chinese novel with an American translation, our love of sci-fi and fantasy, and the ways different cultures tackle the same kinds of underlying problems through fiction. We also talk about the beauty, and the limitations, of thinking about different cultures through their art. (Including what might happen if you tried to understand American culture through its popular art!)
Links
The Three Body Problem, by Cixin Liu
Season 4...
2017-12-0331 minWinning Slowly5.12: Resisting and SustainingReflections on what we said in Season 5 and where we're going in Season 6. (Buckle up!)
Show Notes
Wrapping up Season 5! We take a look at the things that worked well, summarize some of the big things we learned (or learned how to say more clearly), and give a bit of a preview of where we're going in Season 6!
Links
More __ in your __
Previous episodes we specifically called out during the show:
0.01: We Need Some Context!
2.13: A Disputation of Theses
5.03: It's Not Like Uber
5.04: Stuffy, Boring, Old, Lame
5.05: "Faint Not" (Live...
2017-09-2730 minWinning Slowly5.11: Fences, Neighbors, Etc.Positive / Visible / Legal: Vaccinations and the application of forceShow NotesIt's one thing to be pro-vaccination. It's another to mandate vaccinations for everyone on the same schedule without any exceptions.It's one thing to be an anti-vaxxer. It's something else entirely to have reservations about the particular schedule a government mandates.How do we defend great common goods when they pose small, but real, individual risks?Carefully.Links"Measles outbreak grows in L.A.'s Orthodox Jewish community despite California's strict new vaccination law" (LA...
2017-09-1336 minWinning Slowly5.10: Super Duper, Even Uber BadNegative / Visible / Social: Sexism in the tech industry
Show Notes
We look at the tech industry’s persistent habit of treating women badly – both overtly, in terms of sexual harassment, and less overtly, in terms of simply hiring and mentoring fewer women. What can we do to improve matters? What is the responsibility of individuals? Of companies? Of culture at large? Of the government?
Links
Recent examples of sexism in the tech industry:
“Reflecting On One Very, Very Strange Year At Uber” – Susan J. Fowler, with the piece that plunged Ub...
2017-08-0231 minWinning Slowly5.09: Regulate All The Things!Negative / Visible / Legal: regulations and the open internet
Show Notes
We look at internet policy and regulations as a view into the broader question of the relationship between government regulations and markets. Are all regulations harmful to the free market? Is a free market always the best? How do ideas like net neutrality and local loop unbundling play into it?
Correction
Chris said, wrongly, that the North Carolina state government prevented Charlotte from building its own municipal fiber. What actually happened was the state passed a law preventing cities (like Wilson...
2016-11-2930 minWinning Slowly5.08: Empathy is Hard WorkReflections on the necessity, and the limitations, of empathy in light of the 2016 American election cycle
Show Notes
In the wake of the surprising outcome of the 2016 American presidential election, we talk about how we do politics going forward. In particular, we look at how empathy and treating each other (no matter how sharp our differences) as people made in the image of God must inform our politics, even as we acknowledge that no amount of empathy will overcome all disagreements.
Links
“What A Difference 2 Percentage Points Makes” – Nate Silver at FiveTh...
2016-11-1630 minWinning Slowly5.07: Books, The Internet, and Homeless PeoplePositive / Invisible / Legal (Organized):public libraries and the common good
Show Notes
We talk libraries. Why? Because public libraries are awesome. They’re on of the few unalloyed successes in social experiments. They do good in a wide array of areas, and they’re free to use (because we support them as taxpayers). If you want to hear Chris giddy, this is the episode.
The second of two episodes recorded live at NC State University on September 22, 2016. (Yep, our schedule is way different this year. You can thank Stephen’s Ph.D. thesis...
2016-11-0125 minWinning Slowly5.06: Ghost of a KingArt, faith, how culture shapes and is shaped by us, and more in The Gray Havens’ latest album
Show Notes
Chris and Stephen have a wide-ranging conversation with Dave Radford of husband-and-wife folk-pop duo The Gray Havens about the value and purpose of art, the business side of the music industry, and the process of putting together their latest album, Ghost of a King.
Musical influences:
Simon and Garfunkel
James Taylor
Cat Stevens
Frank Sinatra
Dean Martin
Queen
Coldplay
Mumford and Sons
Florence and the Machine
Fleet Foxes
Bon Iver
Lyrical influences:
The Lord of...
2016-10-1848 minWinning Slowly5.05: “Faint Not”Negative / Invisible / Legal (Organized): civil forfeiture and entrenched legal evil
Show NotesWe take on civil forfeiture. The short version: we hate it. It’s a wicked injustice and we think it ought to be fought, and fought hard. (If you want to hear Chris and Stephen get actually angry about something, this is the episode.)
Links
“Civil forfeiture in the United States” – Wikipedia
“NYPD admits accounting for its civil-forfeiture seizures is hopeless” – RT
“Asset Forfeiture Abuse” – ACLU
“Civil Forfeiture” – Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
“Police Can Use a Legal Gray Area to Rob Anyone of Their Belon...
2016-10-0425 minWinning Slowly5.04: Stuffy, Boring, Old, LamePositive / Visible / Social (Organized): orchestras and the question of “public goods”
Show NotesWe talk about orchestras, ask whether financial viability is a guide to the health or importance of particular institutions (hint: Betteridge’s Law), and look at how orchestras and other such institutions can be real markers of cultural health even for the people they don’t directly affect.
Links
An article in The New York Times, in 1903, referenced in The Perilous Life of Symphony Orchestras, by Robert J. Flanagan:
The permanent orchestra season has, as usual, been financially a bad one...
2016-09-2029 minWinning Slowly5.03: It's Not Like UberShow Notes
In which we look at Facebook... but not like we ever have before. Why are people starting to turn off Facebook, and what social pressures are arising from that? How do social pressures of this sort work, and what kinds of changes do they affect?
Links
Virtue signaling
“Is Google Making Us Stupid? What the Internet is doing to our brains”, Nicolas Carr, The Atlantic, July/August 2008
“The road out of Denton” – Jim Bradbury for TribTalk/The Texas Tribune, July 8, 2015, on Texas and municipal attempts to block oil drilling.
Chris’ conversation with his friend a...
2016-09-1328 minWinning Slowly5.01: A Ph.D.-Level Math ProblemStructures and systems, agency and individuals: three axes (and a sub-axis) for thinking about the world we live in.
Show Notes
We introduce our system for thinking about the "structure/agency" or "systems and individuals" problem: how do the systems and structures of our lives shape us? How do we shape them? How free are we, and where are the places where more freedom is good, and the places where it might actually be bad? How do we confront the structural issues we face, or strengthen and preserve the good systems we do have in...
2016-08-0925 minWinning Slowly4.14: This Money Might Be IllegalShow Notes
We use the Panama Papers as a jumping-off point to sum up the season and talk about:
the alleged flatness of the world
the possibilities of both globalization and localization
the twin dangers of imperialism and parochialism
the ways that growing income inequality intersect with globalization
the things different cultures can learn from each other
the distinction between “reasonable” and “justifiable” responses
the importance of humility, whether in art or in charitable action
the value of choosing not to do something at times
In other words: how can you be a good actor in a glo...
2016-04-2032 minWinning Slowly4.09: We're Idealist RealistsShow Notes
We discuss the problems that face major nation-states trying to respond to the massive refugee crisis in Europe. We also look at the complex relationship between nations on topics like this in a “global world” (nice, Chris) and suggest that Americans both invest actively in making things better and chill out a bit insofar as we don’t live in Europe.
Links
“One in, one out”: Turkey and EU agree outline of ‘one in, one out’ deal over Syria refugee crisis (The Guardian)
“Central American Families Fear Deportation As Raids Begin” (NPR)
“The Shame of America...
2016-03-1529 minWinning Slowly4.06: Kickstarting a Hyperlocal Super-FarmShow Notes
Links
The World is Flat, Thomas Friedman
New Rustacean, Chris’ other podcast
“Kickstarter Lesson #65: How to Get US Backers if You’re Running a Non-US-Based Kickstarter Campaign”
“Hong Kong has probably lost HSBC’s headquarters for good—and Beijing is to blame”
“The Facebook-loving Farmers of Myanmar”
Previously on the Show
4.03: The Podcast Awakens—in which we talked about global fandoms specifically in the context of Star Wars
3.12: Hungarian Folk Music—in which we talked about musical (sub)cultures not especially well-served by the current music market, but also how the internet is helping subcultures t...
2016-02-1628 minWinning Slowly4.03: The Podcast AwakensWe say a few serious things about the nature of global fandom, the relationship between art and brand awareness in large media properties, and the future of as large a property as Star Wars.
But let’s be honest: mostly, we geek out.
Links
TheForce.net Literature Forum, where Chris was Master_Keralys
“How Disney Plans To Sell ‘Star Wars’ In China, A Box Office Far, Far Away”
“‘Star Wars’ China Box Office: Lukewarm Presales Could Signal Trouble For Disney Juggernaut”
The Force Awakens soundtrack on iTunes
Music
“Main Title” from Star Wars, by John Williams. Fair us...
2016-01-2929 minWinning Slowly4.01: Unambiguously MehWe open our fourth season with a discussion of Facebook’s Internet.org platform, open access vs. power plays by large companies, and the ethical questions at the intersection of business and philanthropy. Chris and Stephen disagree about how to read Facebook’s move, and set the stage for a season-long discussion of globalization and its ramifications for technology, religion, ethics, and art.
Just some light discussion to start things off, in other words.
Links
Quartz:
“Mark Zuckerberg can’t believe India isn’t grateful for Facebook’s free internet”
“Zuckerberg says the internet lifts people out of poverty, b...
2016-01-1229 minWinning Slowly3.14: Smorgasbord, Part IWe start wrapping up Season 3, tackling five topics that one or the other of us wanted to talk about but couldn’t get the other one all that excited about, or which we didn’t feel like we had enough to say yet:
venture capitalism (both of us)
online classes (Stephen)
the ethics of algorithms (Chris)
tracking people at work (Stephen)
transparency in business (Chris)
Links
Venture capitalism article on Wikipedia
Insightful piece by Ben Thompson at Stratechery: “Venture Capital and the Internet’s Impact”
“Democratizing celebrity styling: Uber for your hair has arrived”
Algorithms failing: “Keep Calm and Ra...
2015-10-2730 minWinning Slowly3.13: Inevitable? (Live at NC State)Talking about self-driving cars and the tensions between public safety and personal responsibility, and between technological possibility and cultural norms.
Corrigenda
Stephen meant “Black Beauty” rather than “Black Betsy”.
Mat Honan’s piece we referred to was on BuzzFeed, not Wired.
Links
Google’s Cute Cars And The Ugly End Of Driving: The main thing you should know about autonomous vehicles is that they are utterly inevitable.
Chrysler hack
Before You Go
JetBrains gets subscription pricing right!
Original post: “Introducing JetBrains Toolbox, easier access to your coding tools, more control and flexibility, a...
2015-10-2026 minWinning Slowly3.10: Saying “Enough”We start talking about phones again, and this time manage not to veer off into talking about robots. On the other hand, we do end up talking about a broad Christian ethic of technology, life in communities, and the pull toward social constructivism or technological substantivism.
Links
Sap.py – Chris’ podcast with his wife about her experience learning Python
Experience economy
Post-scarcity economy
Social constructivism
Substantivism
Previously on the show:
3.08: Juice Up the Weird Edges of the Ecosystem
Before You Go
Two good bits from The Atlantic:
“Almost Half of Syria’s Population Has Been...
2015-09-2330 minWinning Slowly3.08: Juice up the Weird Edges of the EcosystemIn which we start by looking at how to think about buying new phones… And then pivot into a discussion of major economic transitions. Like robots.
Links
Carriers dropping subsidies:
“T-Mobile faces war of words after killing subsidies, contracts” (CNET)
“Verizon Wireless moving away from contracts and phone subsidies” (Ars Technica)
“Sprint to end two-year contracts - now here come the deals” (CNN)
Motorola Razr
“Pre to postmortem: the inside story of the death of Palm and webOS” (The Verge)
How Blackberry Fell (The New Yorker)
MMS (multimedia messaging hack)
on iOS: “iOS bug lets anyone crash your iPhone with a t...
2015-09-0829 minWinning Slowly3.07: One Size Does Not Fit AllIn which we quite aggressively tackle Amazon’s corporate treatment of its workers, and launch into a discussion of corporate ethics and responsibility. We also note that though we critique Amazon’s practices, we recognize that it has good effects in the world, some of them significant. The question is: at what point to the externalities associated with those benefits make dealing with any given company morally unjustifiable?
Links
The original piece which sparked this discussion: “Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace”
“Why the New York Times’s Amazon story is so controversial, explained”...
2015-09-0130 minWinning Slowly3.06: SPACE!We geek, we gush, and we even manage to say a few serious things about the future of humanity while talking about New Horizons, Rosetta, science fiction, nation-state rivalries, and how we would love to go visit other places in the solar system (or galaxy).
Errata: Chris said New Frontiers was an ESA probe; it was in fact a NASA probe. He was thinking of Rosetta, an ESA project to land on a comet—which they did, after the greatest gravity boost sequence in history:
Slingshot this!Note: yep, those are children fussing in the ba...
2015-08-2527 minWinning Slowly3.05: You Have Agency. Use It.Blogging is not what it was in 2008. It has changed in some ways for the better, in some ways for the worse, and in a few ways that it’s hard to tell. Picking up from an Iranian blogger, Hossein Derakhshan, who was jailed for his political views in 2008, we take a look at hyperlinking, the stream, and personal agency. How can we keep the good of the blog world of 2008 and the good of the stream?
Links
“The Web We Have to Save” (Hossein Derakhshan)
His follow-up on the response
“The End of Surfing” (Chris Krycho)
“79 These on Tec...
2015-08-1828 minWinning Slowly3.02: The Ad-Driven Web, Part IIIn which we continue our conversation from 3.01, turning our attention from the system issues which led to the modern state of the web to what we ought to do about it—as consumers of content, as producers of content, and even as advertisers.
Links
Quartz: “Over one-fifth of people use ad-blocking software—and it’s beginning to hurt”
Ad blocking:
AdBlock Plus—associated with some not-so-savory practices, including letting advertisers buy their way onto a white list.
μBlock: aiming to be super light-weight, and no shenanigans about letting advertisers buy exceptions. Two variants:
μBlock
μBlock Origin—the bloc...
2015-07-2830 minWinning Slowly3.01: The Ad-Driven Web, Part IIn which Stephen and Chris are back at it, with a discussion of the role advertising plays in the modern web—the good, the bad, the ugly, and the wonderfully hilarious. What makes advertising good or bad? How do companies get “native ads” right—and wrong?
Links
Denny’s Tumblr
That Huge Pork Heist
John Gruber/Daring Fireball
Ben Thompson/Stratechery
Why Web Pages Suck, on the same topic as today’s show… but posted two days after we recorded it.
Andrew Sullivan/The Dish
Before You Go
Europe’s demands on Greece
The Parable of the Unforgivi...
2015-07-2131 minWinning Slowly2.15: MetapodcastingShow NotesChris and Stephen reflect on Season 2: what did we talk about, what have we learned, why do we take breaks, and what changes can you expect for Season 3? For that matter, when is Season 3 coming? And what in the world is the difference between a “series” and a “season” anyway?
Before You Go
Patreon—it’s a thing; we’ll be doing it. Keep an eye out.
Music
“Enanthropoisis” by Chris Krycho. Permission granted to remix! Seriously. It’s Creative Commons Attribution licensed, just like all of our content on this show.
“Winning Slowl...
2015-05-1224 minWinning Slowly2.14: Starbucks UniversityShow NotesChris and Stephen take three recent articles about the super-structure of how our society pays for college and scrutinize the issue. How does American society value what college delivers? (What does it deliver?) How do we fund it? Should we fund it? We take the time not just to ponder, but to celebrate an unlikely organization that’s doing some incredibly innovative moves in the space. Also Stephen inadvertently insults a whole group of people. Sorry about that.
Before You Go
“The Brutality of Police Culture in Baltimore” by Conor Friedersdorf
“Orioles VP Angelos...
2015-05-0531 minWinning Slowly2.13: A Disputation of ThesesShow NotesChris and Stephen do something different this week and read Alan Jacobs’ 79 Theses on Technology (For Disputation) as an oral presentation. We throw in some thoughts at the end, thereby jumping into the conversation ourselves. But mostly we give Alan Jacobs the credit he is due and give his thoughts the space they deserve.
Before You Go
The Middle East
Music
“Mind Your Manors” by The Bandicoots. Used by permission.
“Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. “I am moved by this music” -Aeschylus, probably, if he had heard it
Links
79 Theses...
2015-04-2927 minWinning Slowly2.12: In the MeanwhileShow NotesChris and Stephen give three cheers for Dan Price, who voluntarily cut his own pay and raised the pay of his employees to a minimum of $70K a year. We discuss the nature of money, income inequality, how we can fix problems in non-governmental ways (sometimes, and in some ways), and about the limits of praise. We also inaugurate Mr. Price into the newly-founded Winning Slowly Hall of Fame amidst celebratory explosions. (No, really.)
Before You Go
SpaceX Rocket’s First Stage Crashes During Landing Attempt | Video by Thomas Friedman
Music
“Phoen...
2015-04-2229 minWinning Slowly2.11: Encoding Quality: PotatoShow NotesChris and Stephen note the launch of Tidal with some skepticism, then contrast the service with what could be considered Tidal’s polar opposite: YouTube. We look at the international aspects of music distribution, and think about how youth factor in to the ever-changing equation. And, good news, there’s a happy ending. I love happy endings.
Before You Go
Iran and the Obama Doctrine by Thomas Friedman
Music
“Number One” by The Sideshow Tragedy. Used by permission.
“Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. Now with more techno! Just kidding.
Links
...
2015-04-1430 minWinning Slowly2.10: So You’ve Been HackedShow NotesChris and Stephen use the news of communications tool Slack’s recent hacking incident to discuss the nature of digital security. Along the way we make a plea for candy, claim that almost all companies are digital companies now, offer some security tips to our listeners, and deliver a long bloopers reel. We hope we induce just enough paranoia to get things moving in your security life, but not too much.
Before You Go
These maps show why internet is way more expensive in the US than Europe by Allan Holmes and Chris Zu...
2015-04-0731 minWinning Slowly2.09: Hi, We’re the InternetShow NotesChris and Stephen use Chris’s first two ridesharing experiences as a jumping-off point to discuss services like Uber and Lyft from a host of angles: ethical, financial, technological, social, legal, and personal. Put on your seatbelts, folks: this one’s a long one.
Note: Chris told the drivers of his Lyft and Uber rides that he was going to talk about his experience on this podcast, and they agreed to talk with him.
Before You Go
NC State: PKP brothers must vacate house by the weekend by Ken Smith, Mark Simpson, Stan...
2015-04-0331 minWinning Slowly2.08: More Than Thick or ThinShow NotesChris and Stephen discuss the ethics of individual health, a complex and idiosyncratic problem if there ever was one. How do we be responsible stewards of our bodies? How do we think about activities and intakes in moral, ethical, deeply personal ways? We suggest thinking about personal health in community, as well as from a spiritual perspective.
Before You Go
As Two Oklahoma Students Are Expelled for Racist Chant, Sigma Alpha Epsilon Vows Wider Inquiry
Music
“Red” by Mt. Wolf. Used by permission.
“Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. Boomshakalaka.
Links
2015-03-1728 minWinning Slowly2.07: A Liturgy, A Legacy, & A Ragamuffin BandShow NotesChris and Stephen “review” Rich Mullins’ 1993 album A Liturgy, a Legacy, and a Ragamuffin Band because it’s beautiful, thoughtful, and still relevant today. The music is still passionate, raw, and wild; the lyrics are still pensive, powerful, and awe-struck. We look at how Mullins wrote the album as a letter to Christians about how to be alive in the hope of Christ and reality of America. Also, there’s hammered dulcimer.
Thanks to our listener Austin Taylor for encouraging us to review more albums.
Before You Go
“What ISIS Really Wants” by Gr...
2015-03-1029 minWinning Slowly2.06: The Ones- and Zeros-SphereShow Notes
In which we talk about how companies have to deal with the inherent leak-ability of digital media, especially things like movie trailers. How should Marvel respond to whoever leaked the first Age of Ultron trailer? Stephen and Chris have a friendly disagreement about the best way to respond to this kind of thing.
Today’s blooper section is… amazing.
Alternate title we ultimately decided not to foist upon you: MPAAwful. You can thank Stephen for that one (as well as the much better actual title!)
Before You Go
Pebble Time Kickstarter
How...
2015-03-0431 minWinning Slowly2.05: Beauty-MakingShow Notes
In which we ask: What exactly is art? Specifically, is photography art? But more generally, can anyone actually define art? How does the difficulty in defining art affect the makers of art, and why do people spend so much time trying to draw lines around it? How have democratizing forces changed the nature of art in the last few decades, and what does that bode for our future?
Before You Go
N.B. In addition to the clarifications Stephen offered, we should note that Chris’ initial description overstated the case a bi...
2015-02-2431 minWinning Slowly1.18: Keep On Keepin' OnShow NotesIn which we talk about iPhone cameras, long-term thinking in general—including the kind that lets you keep going even when no one in your lifetime gets what you’re doing—and finally some thoughts on the first (non-beta) season of Winning Slowly.
Chapters
Intro (0:53)
People Taking Pictures With iPhones (0:53–10:12)
Whether or Not It Pays Off (10:12–19:38)
What Do You Think? (19:38–25:05)
Conclusion (25:05–26:29)
A Mistake (26:29–26:40)
Music
“Absent Within Skies” from Value to Survival by Speak, Memory—used by permission.
“Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho—used even though it still doesn’t have a dance groove under it. Somed...
2014-11-1826 minWinning Slowly1.14: Buying Me Off With Warm FuzziesNote: if you downloaded this episode before 8:45pm Eastern time on October 21, 2014, you should re-download it. Chris made an error in mixing it together, leading to his and Stephen’s audio being slightly out of sync for the entire episode (!), which has since been fixed. If you downloaded it after that time, you’re good to go!
Show NotesIn which we ask: “Who funds the arts? And how does that impact the artist ethically?” Corporations, individuals, and governments all have distinct downsides as revenue streams for artists, and corporations and governments in particular can be problematic for both...
2014-10-2230 minWinning Slowly1.13: Hello Ello?Show NotesIn which we talk about new social media player Ello—some initial impressions, venture capital’s influence in Silicon Valley and its distinctive shape there vs. elsewhere, and thoughts on business model and communication.
Chapters
Intro (0:44)
Definitely Still a Beta (0:44–5:27)
That’s Not a Gift (5:27–14:02)
How People React to News (14:02–22:32)
A Working Business Model (22:32–28:32)
Conclusion (28:32–30:04)
Outtake (30:04–30:10)
Music
“Aldebaran Serpent” from Tower by Falcon Arrow. Used by permission. (Isn’t that album art fantastic?)
“Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. We asked him for permission, and he said “Yes.”
Links
Things we talked about on the...
2014-10-1430 minWinning Slowly1.12: Political AppinationsShow NotesIn which we start with a look at some really neat apps designed to ease political engagement in the United States and then branch out to talk about the limits of political engagement, the importance of valuing other forms of public life, and what it means to be fully-realized human beings.
CorrigendaChris said that Countable addresses local politics; it does not. It focuses on national bills in the House and Senate. Also, he mentioned the Westminster Confession but meant the Westminster Shorter Catechism.
Chapters
Intro (0:29)
Techo-Utopianism (0:29–9:24)
8,000 Years of Human Hi...
2014-10-0726 minWinning Slowly1.10: Because Capitalism Yay!Show NotesIn which we talk about something Apple did this week… but not the thing they announced, and almost certainly not what you’d expect. Namely: the death of the iPod Classic: Apple’s oldest consumer product outside the Mac, and a veritable gamechanger for the music industry. It’s gone, and Stephen is upset. (Chris, not so much.)
Chapters
Intro (1:32)
It’s Probably Pastel White (1:32–9:45)
You’re Probably in my Hundred Friends (9:45–14:45)
What the Corporate Overlord Giveth (14:45–19:45)
How You Relate to an Object (19:45–26:45)
Conclusion (26:45–27:58)
Music
“Carry Oceans”, by Montoya – used by permission.
“Winning Slowly...
2014-09-1627 minWinning Slowly1.08: How Victor Hugo Could Afford to LiveShow NotesIn which we talk about the drive to publish all the time and the value of publishing more substantive content at a slower pace. We talk about the way the internet has driven us toward rapid-fire publishing models and how long-form and high-quality content is difficult (if not impossible) to publish on this model. We look at how to build an audience via quality and the slow route instead of the click-driven model, note that this is difficult to sustain as a means of income, and even think a bit about the history of long-form and...
2014-09-0224 minWinning Slowly1.07: They Both Start With a T?Show NotesIn which we talk about Taylor Swift, Twitter, and changes in expectations. We admit that Chris is a Taylor Swift fan and that Stephen is a hipster. Then we get down to the business of talking about how these two changes differ both in messaging and in contente, and look at the ways that both consumers and
Chapters
Intro (1:20)
Haters Gonna Hate (1:20–07:40)
Turning Itself Into Facebook (07:40–16:33)
Artists and Corporations Are Not the Same (16:33–24:15)
Social Media of Record (24:15–28:48)
Conclusion (28:48–29:40)
Music
“Betamax”, by Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey – used by permission.
“Winning Slowly Theme”, by Chris Krycho: sti...
2014-08-2629 minWinning Slowly1.06: Rebuke Me Some PeopleShow NotesIn which we discuss the necessity of extending charity to each other in our conversations, especially conversations on controversial issues. Springboarding from public/internet reactions to Christian musician Michael Gungor’s discussion of his views on Genesis, we talk about the necessity of charity, Chris’ Rules for Argument, the importance of taking a long-term view on friendship and persuasion, and what to do in the face of serious disagreement about important issues.
Chapters
Intro (2:06)
Act Like Grownups (2:06–6:15)
Rules 0 and 1 (6:15–15:55)
But We Still Disagree (15:55–23:58)
Calling People on the Carpet (23:58–30:50)
Conclusion (30:50–31:45)
Music
“Perfect World”, from I...
2014-08-1931 minWinning Slowly1.05: Ars MoriendiWarning: this episode touches on some very difficult topics, including both death in general and suicide in particular. If these are especially sensitive topics for you, we recommend you skip this episode. Maybe go back and listen to Superhero Movies! instead.
Show NotesIn which we talk about The Collection’s new album, Ars Moriendi (“The Art of Dying”). We cover the musicality of the album itself, then dive into the way it wrestles with hard topics in a faithfully Christian way without either succumbing to despair or giving into the lure of trite and reductionistic answers. We tal...
2014-08-1230 minWinning Slowly1.03: Disrupting All The ThingsShow Notes
In which we look (rather critically) at the tech sphere’s tendency to assume everything not only can but should be disrupted. Snarky asides on smartwatches and smartshoes segue into a discussion of the necessity of humility and the importance of recognizing what technology cannot do and what it should not do.
Note: by “disruption” we are focused not on the particular concept developed by Clay Christensen, but on the popular view of the word. We are aware of the distinction, but decided to set it aside for the purposes of this particular episod...
2014-07-2928 minWinning Slowly0.14: Deep in Their BonesShow Notes
In which we talk about how watching companies like Google, Apple, and Facebook try to “pivot”—that is, attempting (and usually failing) to do something outside their core areas of competency—highlights the difficulty of institutional change in general. We apply this idea to everything from the strengths and weaknesses of different Christian denominations to the way structural change occurs in the government.
A few explanatory comments:
Yes, we’re fully aware that the PCA (of which Stephen is a member) has lots of missionaries on the field, and that Southern Baptists’ views on alc...
2014-05-2024 minWinning Slowly0.12: You’ll Never Guess What the Hosts Say in This Podcast!Show Notes
In which we talk about headline-writing in general, click-bait headlines in particular, and why we don’t think that click-bait headlines are a “best practice”—or really a good thing at all. How these realities shape all sorts of discourse, not just headline-writing, including political stances.
Note: Chris kept talking about Slate when he meant not Slate (and specifically “Pajiba.com”). His bad.
Chapters
Intro (1:26)
Headline-Writing (1:26–6:58)
Whether Ends Justify Means (6:58–12:30)
Means Shape Ends (12:30–16:47)
Truthy, or Truly? (16:47–21:07)
Conclusion (21:07–22:10)
Music
“Nightingale Movement I”, from Birds… Fly South!, by The Duke of Norfolk – used by permission...
2014-05-0622 minWinning Slowly0.11: Only Acceptable Cream CheeseShow Notes
In which we tackle copyright (or left, as you like), barely touch on patents, and generally try to think about how to handle questions of intellectual property as consumers and creators thereof in the brave new world of digital economics and cheap copies of everything (even Nike shoes).
Chapters
Intro (1:02)
The Reason for Copyright (1:02–8:22)
Valuing Products in Different Ways (8:22–19:55)
“Pay Me For This Thing” (19:55–26:55)
Conclusion (28:10)
Music
We know. Pretty sweet sounds. Even if we do say so ourselves.
“New Life”, from New Life, by Stephen Carradini. Used because we can do whateve...
2014-04-2928 minWinning Slowly0.06: Romans: The MovieShow Notes
In which we talk at length about art and the arts in the context of Christianity, taking the three religiously themed movies in theaters right now as our jumping off point.
Chapters
God’s Not Dead (2:56–10:09) – propositions in movie format, a.k.a. a tract.
Son of God (10:09–18:45) – moving higher on the art scale, and not trying to be big (in contrast with e.g. The Passion of the Christ).
Noah (18:45–26:06) – all art, not so much on the textual fidelity. We might be okay with that.
“Heaven Thrown In” (26:06–31:04) – on how aiming to start a conversatio...
2014-03-2532 min