Sociotechnical

Sitting here, listenin’ to my playlist, thinking about temporality and how it relates to the kind of geekery I want to write and talk and teach and geek about. Over the last 10 years or so, the topics deriving from systems theory, from complexity theory, and so on, have wormed their way slowly into our mental frame. Just a little, just a little, but that’s how change works. And as I read the popular accounts, as well as the folk-theory

Who’s to blame? I notice how many folks seem to believe geeks are in charge of what software gets written in the world. When software is revealed to be immoral, I notice how reluctant they are to blame folks who are senior executives, boardmembers, or majority shareholders. The majority of working software developers who are adding code to projects are < 30yo. An actual current programmer is uncommon on the third floor and almost unheard of above that level. I

A thing that happens to me a lot. I want to say, "Yeah, that’s not how that works," about some over-simple explanation, usually something around using inorganic reasoning about humans. But when I go there, I know we’re gonna go instantly to vast areas of study & insight that most folks aren’t comfortable with. And it’s exhausting, and I’ve limited energy. They see the exchange — they see all of human discourse as far as I can make out —

I’ve made mention here and there of "the whole geek". I’d like to take a little time and lay out the idea. (There’s a video coming, too, expect it to be strange.) In our conversations about geek culture, I’ve tried to make my sense of its thinness as clear as I can. One of the key aspects of that thinness is the way in which it decides what belongs in our discourse and what doesn’t. In particular, the trade today