Software Tetris (Stephen Kell)

How is the state of modern software like losing at Tetris? Stephen Kell joins Henry to chat about Ivan Illich's thought (counter-productivity, radical monopoly, critique of institutions) applied to modern software culture! We talk about the software/hardware arms race, how our default is more is better, tech being all-consuming, the tyranny of updates. (recorded in Dec 2020) Transcript: https://hopeinsource.com/tetris.

Stephen: https://twitter.com/stephenrkell
Talk slides: Software against humanity? An Illichian perspective on the industrial era of software
Henry: https://twitter.com/left_pad

Headings:

• [0:00] The Software/Hardware Arms Race
• [3:37] Solving a Crisis by Escalation
• [5:31] The All-consuming Tech Industry
• [7:06] Counting the Costs
• [9:37] The Politics of Open Source
• [13:06] Software Convergence to Pi
• [14:45] Never Obsolete
• [16:59] Communicating with Aliens
• [19:25] The Radical Monopoly of the Recent
• [21:48] The Tyranny of Updates
• [24:07] End-user Programming
• [26:43] Thresholds of Automation
• [30:33] Software Slogans
• [33:04] Corruption of Christianity
• [35:56] Need to Care for One Another
• [38:50] Monasticism

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