Techs on Texts

Techs on Texts

By Jed SundwallSociety & CultureTechnologyArtsBooks
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Techs on Texts episodes

  • Techs on Texts is on Hiatus

    I'm too busy to do this thing the way I want to, so I'm taking a few months off before coming back with something better. In the meantime, please check out:

    • The Ends of Information: Searching for Truth in the Digital Age by Nissim Lebovits: https://symposeum.us/the-ends-of-information/
    • Downtown Loyal Heights: https://dtlh.org
    • Tons of CNG (Cloud-Native Geo) events this year: https://cloudnativegeo.org/events

      • Email me at jed at techsontexts.net 🫰

      If you enjoyed this, please share it.

      Produced by Jed Sundwall. Write to jed at techsontexts.net with feedback and suggestions for books or guests.

      Intro music by Secret School.

      Outro music is "3/10th of the Population" by WE™.

      Please donate to Radiant Earth.

      4 min
    • Episode #28: George Dyson on The Tale of the Big Computer

      George Dyson – historian, boat maker, and volunteer Staff Historian at Radiant Earth – returns for his fourth appearance to discuss The Tale of the Big Computer, written by Hannes Alfvén in 1966 under the pseudonym Olof Johannesson. Published in Swedish in 1966, the novel is a remarkably prescient vision of how machine intelligence could quietly take over the organization of society. We discuss Alfvén's "sociological complexity theorem," his uncannily accurate predictions of the internet and neural interfaces, a devastating early joke about open-source code as a safeguard, how influence technology now outpaces vote-counting technology, the case for local governance, and why we need to get this book back in print.

      Show notes:
      • The Tale of the Big Computer on the Internet Archive
      • Hannes Alfvén on Wikipedia — the physicist behind the pen name Olof Johannesson; winner of the 1970 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on magnetohydrodynamics
      • Alfvén waves — the electromagnetic waves in plasma that bear his name, long dismissed as crackpot science before being confirmed throughout the universe
      • BESK — the Stockholm copy of von Neumann's Princeton machine that outpaced the original by using solid-state diodes; Alfvén was deeply involved in its development
      • Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs — the international forum for scientists to address nuclear risk, founded by Joseph Rotblat (the only Manhattan Project scientist who quit when Germany's nuclear program proved non-existent), which Alfvén later chaired
      • What Technology Wants by Kevin Kelly
      • Thomas Ray and Tierra — the artificial life program that aimed to evolve digital organisms; Ray famously replied to Ray Kurzweil's case for immortality: "I prefer to achieve my immortality the old-fashioned way — through my children"
      • Origins of Life by Freeman Dyson — contains the observation that life had to invent death in order to evolve
      • Elinor Ostrom — Nobel laureate whose research on common-pool resources shows that effective, accountable governance of shared resources can only happen locally
      • Politics Is for Power by Eitan Hersh — argues that most political engagement today is performative "political hobbyism" that distracts people from accruing real power where they live
      • "Unicorn Show Ponies and Gazelles" — Jed's essay on technology theater in organizations, which finds its Ur-example in Alfvén's gilded government machine

        • If you enjoyed this, please share it.

        Produced by Jed Sundwall. Write to jed at techsontexts.net with feedback and suggestions for books or guests.

        Intro music by Secret School.

        Outro music is "3/10th of the Population" by WE™.

        Please donate to Radiant Earth.

        1 hr 10 min
      • Episode #27: Justin Kiggins on Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

        Justin Kiggins, neuroscientist, artisinal oboe reed maker, and builder at the intersection of AI and biology, joins us to discuss Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. We explore the book's concept of Quality, what it is, where it lives in the scientific method, and whether AI will make it more or less elusive.

        Show notes:
        • Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance on Wikipedia
        • Plato's Phaedrus and the myth of Theuth and Thamus — Socrates recounts an Egyptian myth: Theuth, inventor of writing, brings it to King Thamus as a gift for memory; Thamus replies it will do the opposite, replacing real memory with the mere appearance of wisdom. Every technology creates new capabilities and changes what it means to be human.
        • The Aswan High Dam - Justin's example of technology erasing local knowledge.The dam ended the Nile's annual floods, and with them thousands of years of farming knowledge adapted to those floods
        • HarassMap - the SMS-based street harassment reporting platform Justin helped launch in Cairo, Egypt
        • Open San Diego - the civic tech community where Jed and Justin first met
        • Ted Chiang, "ChatGPT Is a Blurry JPEG of the Web" - Chiang's essay on why AI-generated text lacks real meaning, which rhymes with Pirsig's argument about Quality: making choices is the act of creation
        • A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander - Alexander's "quality without a name" is a great corollary to Pirsig's concept of Quality
        • Emergent Standards - the white paper I quote in the podcast where I explain how the World Wide Web functions as an engine that helps us find new ways to share information about many different things

          • If you enjoyed this, please share it.

          Produced by Jed Sundwall. Write to jed at techsontexts.net with feedback and suggestions for books or guests.

          Intro music by Secret School.

          Outro music is "3/10th of the Population" by WE™.

          Please donate to Radiant Earth.

          1 hr 13 min
        • Episode #26: JB Flinders on Sneakers

          JB Flinders – omnitechnologist, fellow Ute, and co-host of the Andy and Ammon's Excellent Odyssey podcast: joins us to discuss the 1993 film Sneakers. We discuss data as the primary seat of power, the ethics of privacy protection work, panopticons, Heidegger's "standing reserve," fear as the driver behind nearly every decision in the film (and in life), and what Martin Bishop means when he says "There's nobody there."

          This was a continuation of conversations JB and I have had for 30 years. What a joy.

          Show notes:
          • Sneakers on Wikipedia
          • Phil Alden Robinson: director and co-writer of Sneakers, also directed Field of Dreams
          • Enemy of the State: part of what JB calls the "Sneakers bundle" of surveillance films from the 70s–90s worth watching together
          • Martin Heidegger on Technology: JB draws on Heidegger's concept of "standing reserve": the danger that technology causes everything, including people, to appear as something to be optimized and used
          • Discipline and Punish by Michel Foucault: Foucault's analysis of the Panopticon as a model for how surveillance modifies behavior without requiring active observation
          • Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: "Because attention determines what will or will not appear in consciousness, and because it is also required to make other mental events - such as remembering, thinking, feeling, and making decisions - happen there, it is useful to think of it as psychic energy. Attention is like energy in that without it no work can be done, and in doing work it is dissipated. We create ourselves by how we invest this energy. Memories, thoughts, and feelings are all shaped by how we use it. And it is an energy under our control, to do with as we please; hence, attention is our most important tool in the task of improving the quality of experience."
          • "Love and Serve Where You Stand" a beautiful sermon by Ankur Shah Delight in which he explains how despair is used as a tool of control, and how to fight it.
          • The eBay security team harassment campaign: NYT article on the eBay employees who sent live roaches, a bloody pig mask, and more to a couple who ran a niche e-commerce newsletter. Reads like a Coen Brothers movie.

            • If you enjoyed this, please share it.

            Produced by Jed Sundwall. Write to jed at techsontexts.net with feedback and suggestions for books or guests.

            Intro music by Secret School.

            Outro music is "3/10th of the Population" by WE™.

            Please donate to Radiant Earth.

            1 hr 25 min
          • Episode #25: Kate Chapman on Wool by Hugh Howey

            Kate Chapman, geographer and technologist, joins us to discuss Hugh Howey's Wool. We discuss failures of governance, the perils of IT supremacy, the difficult ethics of constrained environments, and competitive goating.

            Kate shares her background building digital public infrastructure (Common Space, Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Open Supply Hub) and currently providing fractional CTO work and AI enablement. We discuss how Wool serves as a cautionary tale about bad governance, the intersection of information control and governance, and what happens when humans can't push boundaries or explore frontiers.

            Show notes:
            • Wool by Hugh Howey - Originally published as five novellas, later compiled as the Wool Omnibus
            • "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson - Short story about the dangers of blindly following tradition
            • How to Lie with Maps by Mark Monmonier - Classic book on cartographic manipulation
            • Nonviolent Communication - Framework for conflict resolution
            • Terrible, Thanks for Asking (now Thanks for Asking) - Kate's favorite podcast
            • The Gervais Principle, Or The Office According to “The Office” - Fantastic analysis of how The Office portrays social dynamics
            • Slavoj Žižek's red ink joke:
              • "In an old joke from the defunct German Democratic Republic, a German worker gets a job in Siberia; aware of how all mail will be read by censors, he tells his friends: “Let’s establish a code: if a letter you will get from me is written in ordinary blue ink, it is true; if it is written in red ink, it is false.” After a month, his friends get the first letter, written in blue ink: “Everything is wonderful here: stores are full, food is abundant, apartments are large and properly heated, movie theaters show films from the West, there are many beautiful girls ready for an affair — the only thing unavailable is red ink.”"

                • If you enjoyed this, please share it.

                Produced by Jed Sundwall. Write to jed at techsontexts.net with feedback and suggestions for books or guests.

                Intro music by Secret School.

                Outro music is "3/10th of the Population" by WE™.

                Please donate to Radiant Earth.

                1 hr 29 min
              • Episode #24: Kevin Bullock on Pluribus by Vince Gilligan

                Kevin Bullock joins us to discuss the sublime first season of Vince Gilligan's Pluribus. Yes, TV is a "text," especially when Vince Gilligan is making it. We talk about individual morality, the ethics of science, AI, human nature, selfhood and memory, and ghosts. Inexplicably, we do not talk about HDP.

                Show notes:
                • Pluribus on Wikipedia
                • Vince Gilligan
                • Andrej Karpathy on Dwarkesh Podcast
                • Satellite views of Carol's cul de sac - Kevin's fantastic post on LinkedIn.
                • The insane rig built to film Carol's drive in the unicorn truck
                • George Dyson on Childhood's End - Techs on Texts Episode #14
                • ¡Chinga tu madre, quebrón! (sic)
                Also:
                • Listen to Great Data Products
                • Get your tickets to CNG Forum

                If you enjoyed this, please share it.

                Produced by Jed Sundwall. Write to jed at techsontexts.net with feedback and suggestions for books or guests.

                Intro music by Secret School.

                Outro music is "3/10th of the Population" by WE™.

                Please donate to Radiant Earth.

                1 hr 27 min
              • Episode #23: Cyd Harrell on “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” by Jorge Luis Borges

                Cyd Harrell, devout civic technologist, joins us to discuss Jorge Luis Borges's "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius." We talk about tungsten cubes, techno cults, and our guesses about the "horrifying or banal" truth revealed by the story.

                Show notes:
                • Buy Cyd's book! A Civic Technologist's Practice Guide (Bookshop.org, Amazon)
                • "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" on Wikipedia
                • "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" PDF
                • Discussion of Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius on Very Bad Wizards
                • Julius Pringles
                • Karl the fog
                • Rosicrucianism
                • Crisis Text Line and Loris.ai Controversy
                • Picigin: an amateur sport from Split, Croatia played in shoals or other shallow water, usually consisting of cooperating players keeping a small ball from falling in the water.
                • "Pets" by Porno for Pyros
                • Reality-based community
                • Great Data Products blog post - blog post based on the talk I gave in October in which I warn against open data dogmas.
                • The duodecimal system
                • A painting called Pan Arbol referencing the duodecimal system by Borges's friend Xul Solar, who is mentioned in Andrew Hurley's translation of the story as a translator of Tlön's language.
                • When Republicans Became ‘Red’ and Democrats Became ‘Blue’

                If you enjoyed this, please share it.

                Produced by Jed Sundwall. Write to jed at techsontexts.net with feedback and suggestions for books or guests.

                Intro music by Secret School.

                Outro music is "3/10th of the Population" by WE™.

                Please donate to Radiant Earth.

                1 hr 28 min
              • Episode #22: Marta Regn on “Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom” by Ted Chiang
                • "Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom" on Wikipedia - note the fan art book cover
                • Read "Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom" on Medium
                • Or buy Exhalation: Stories, the collection containing this story
                • The Weathering Podcast – More discussions of Earth systems, chaos, and the meaning of life from Marta, Marshall, and Alden
                • Kierkegaard's The Concept of Anxiety on The Marginalian
                • Stoner by John Williams
                • No Way Recordings on YouTube

                More show notes at https://techsontexts.net/episodes/2025/11/chiang-marta-regn/

                Next month, we'll talk about "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" by Jorge Luis Borges.

                If you enjoyed this, please share it.

                Produced by Jed Sundwall. Write to jed at techsontexts.net with feedback and suggestions for books or guests.

                Intro music by Secret School.

                Outro music is "3/10th of the Population" by WE™.

                Please donate to Radiant Earth.

                1 hr 24 min
              • Episode #21: George Dyson on The Black Cloud by Fred Hoyle

                George Dyson – historian, boat maker, and volunteer Staff Historian at Radiant Earth – returns to discuss Fred Hoyle's The Black Cloud. We discuss the cultural conflicts that arise between scientists and politicians, the limits of human language, human-incomprehensible modes of communication, the inevitable benefits of creating new observing instruments, alien consciousness, and the perils of simplified science.

                Show notes:

                • The Black Cloud on Wikipedia
                • Fred Hoyle on Wikipedia
                • George's keynote at Radiant Earth's Expanding and Accelerating Global Climate Data Collaboration workshop on 14 October 2025
                • Cause of Cambrian Explosion - Terrestrial or Cosmic? – as mentioned by George, the paper exploring extraterrestrial origins of life on Earth, co-authored by Hoyle's student and collaborator Chandra Wickramasinghe
                • Buy George's books!

                Next month will be a discussion of Ted Chiang's "Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom" with Marta Regn.

                If you enjoyed this, please share it.

                Produced by Jed Sundwall. Write to jed at techsontexts.net with feedback and suggestions for books or guests.

                Intro music by Secret School.

                Outro music is "3/10th of the Population" by WE™.

                Please donate to Radiant Earth.

                54 min
              • Episode #20: Mark Chambers on Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton

                Mark Chambers – my friend from high school (and former Chief Sustainability Officer of DC and NYC among other things) – joins us to discuss Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park. We talk about the collision between money and science, the illusion of control, dignity, public service, how many humans there should be, why it may or may not be ok to grill, and positive visions for the future.

                Show notes:

                • Jevons paradox – how technological efficiency can paradoxically increase resource consumption
                • What Michael Crichton Reveals About Big Tech and A.I. - Cal Newport's New Yorker piece about Jurassic Park
                • The Weathering Podcast – exploring Earth systems, climate, and chaos. I don't talk about it in the podcast, but I should because it's relevant and so great. I love it.
                • Colossal Biosciences Dire Wolf Project (Wikipedia article) – the real-world de-extinction effort
                • The 13th Warrior – A movie Mark loves that I still need to watch
                • Mark Coatney on A Wizard of Earthsea – our previous conversation about power and its pitfalls
                • Nine Inch Nails wins Country Music Award for "Old Town Road"
                • Internet Power
                • The Ministry of the Future (Wikipedia article) by Kim Stanley Robinson

                Next month (hopefully): The Black Cloud by Fred Hoyle with George Dyson.

                Bonus announcements:

                • CNG Conference 2026 announced for 6-9 October 2026
                • New work podcast: Great Data Products

                If you enjoyed this, please share it.

                Produced by Jed Sundwall. Write to jed at techsontexts.net with feedback and suggestions for books or guests.

                Intro music by Secret School.

                Outro music is "3/10th of the Population" by WE™.

                Please donate to Radiant Earth.

                1 hr 37 min

              About Techs on Texts

              From the publisher's feed

              Techs on Texts is a podcast featuring conversations with technologists about the literature that has influenced them. Hosted and produced by Jed Sundwall.