The Disentanglement Podcast

After rereading Matthew Crawford's The World Beyond Your Head, we consider in what ways computing and digital tools could actually serve us in growing authentic mastery in a very human-centered way, instead of pushing us around like the robot overlords they long to become.

In which we discuss the pitfalls of communication by private text... but also, which app to use if you insist on doing it anyway.

In which Sara presses André to explain why cryptocurrency, and bitcoin specifically, seems to prompt enthusiasts to take more, not less, interest in the world around them, their local environs, and even religion, in a concerted effort to disentangle themselves from previously assumed verities.

In which we discuss two new additions to our digital device collection that we think actually help in the disentanglement process.

In which we discuss the state, not of not being addicted to something you consume that compromises your resilience in the world, but the state of failing to consume something you need that to be resilient. Trust us, it makes more sense when you hear us talk about it.

In which we explore the common use of "addiction" to describe damaging entanglements with digital media and devices, in conversation with these books:

Haidt, The Anxious Generation

Alter, Irresistible

Lembke, Dopamine Nation

Courtwright, The Age of Addiction

In which we detail our efforts to extract ourselves from certain Google systems, chiefly free email, calendar, drive, and the Chrome browser, replacing them with a Protonmail family account and the Brave browser.

In which Mister André explains how he bought a Google Pixel for the precise purpose of deGoogling it, and what he has learned about smartphone use generally from the annoyances of going outside the privacy-sucking mainstream.

In which we discuss one of our favorite recent reads, The Revenge of Analog by David Sax, as depicting a positive alternative to many of the toxic digital entanglements of our time.

In which André and Sara, still pretending to be their very-bad-spy-alter-egos, tell you why you haven't heard from them in about 10 months, what they've been up to, and what to look forward to on Season 2 of the Disentanglement Podcast.