How does rationality/ea and faith intersect? Austin Chen joins me to explore the overlaps between Catholic upbringing and EA principles. We discuss his car wash story, tithing/earning to give, the concept of utilons and fuzzies, creating secular liturgies like Taco Tuesday, the tension between being agentic and the savior complex, on rest and waiting, and seeing the uniqueness of each person amidst the systems we create. (Recorded May 2024) Transcript: https://hopeinsource.com/charity

• (00:00) - Jewish Culture and Rationalism
• (00:57) - Growing up Tithing
• (02:16) - Car washing for missions to earn to give
• (03:49) - Ebbs and Flows
• (05:32) - How far does a dolllar go
• (08:49) - Separate your utilons and fuzzies
• (09:55) - Assumptions in value
• (11:24) - EA as at it's best a meta-framework?
• (13:18) - Friends vs Movements
• (15:42) - Continual commitment
• (18:56) - Babel and Pentecost
• (20:16) - The Mystical Body and Taco Tuesdays
• (24:23) - Agentic or Salvific
• (26:08) - Humility of Sabbath
• (28:22) - Efficiency and Waiting
• (29:49) - Hope is trusting in people
• (32:06) - Knowledge Progression, Loose Structure

How does faith call us to both right action and right emotion? Sonya Mann joins me again to discuss the layered meanings of biblical parables. Some themes I liked: the paradoxical nature of faith, the generousity of God, the interplay bt obligation and grace, freedom within constraint, the parable of workers in the vineyard and talents, lay utilitarianism, the nature of praise, phenomenology in faith, the metaphor of weddings, viserality and the flesh, specificity, sacred modes, acceptable woo, cheap grace. (Recorded October 2020) Transcript: https://hopeinsource.com/feeling

• (00:00) - Right Feeling (Sonya Mann)
• (02:30) - Come to the table: God's generosity
• (05:21) - Orthopathos: a change of heart
• (08:53) - Freedom and Responsibility within the Body
• (12:42) - On obligation: asking something of you
• (15:41) - The freedom of the woodcarver
• (18:36) - formative moments of intimacy
• (22:37) - integrating with tradition, Christian art, Kanye
• (25:37) - Archaic on the outside, Alive inside
• (27:34) - Fruits: the form of faith
• (30:18) - Auras: acceptable woo and phenomelogy
• (33:25) - Sacredness as a mode of being
• (37:26) - Communities of praise
• (40:05) - One can't help but laugh
• (41:34) - cheap grace, coming prepared for the wedding
• (44:09) - A vibration throughout the whole stack

Why does everyone care about New York? Drew Austin explores the interplay bt digital/physical env and how tech values shape our lives. We discuss some of his past essays: fashion as public good, airport lounge-ification highlighting, and how digital paradigms reshape our physical spaces. Topics include: fake serendipity, lofi, gm, resilient systems, the commons as customs, postmodernist software, leaving a trace, Twitter as a waiting room. (Recorded October 2021) Transcript: https://hopeinsource.com/artificial

• (00:00) - Artificial Physicality (Drew Austin)
• (00:08) - So what's the weather in New York?
• (01:58) - Even a pandemic becomes about NYC
• (03:18) - We behave the same, online or in a city
• (04:39) - Technology, Memory, and Depersonalization
• (06:46) - Lofi, CDs, and Artifical Physicality
• (13:19) - From Sharing Silence to gm
• (15:58) - Worn Out: Fashion and Public Space
• (21:39) - Modernist architecture and postmodernist software
• (27:41) - Code isn't just code
• (29:25) - Infrastructure requires resilience
• (31:28) - The commons as customs
• (33:43) - Airport Lounge-ification of Cities
• (37:03) - McDonalds as the only third place
• (39:51) - Reverse engineering bodegas
• (41:31) - Fake serendipity vs the city
• (44:17) - Can digital environments enable serendipity?
• (47:12) - Leaving a trace, a legacy, provenance
• (48:17) - Twitter as a waiting room

How do we all act as protestants online? L.M. Sacasas joins Henry (4th time!?) to chat about material/digital culture, how we compensate for natural affordances in new digital interfaces, our inability to account for non-measurable losses, texture vs. frictionlessness, lofi, roguelikes, reality tv, ambient data capture, extracting our private life for gain, how digital space is more of a past rather a place. (Recorded August 2022) Transcript: https://hopeinsource.com/protestant

• [00:00] Introduction
• [04:15] The Everyday Texture of Material Culture
• [07:11] Translated Affordances of Digital Interfaces
• [09:11] The Burden of Note-Taking Systems
• [10:36] No Accounting for Loss
• [11:48] The Added Texture of Lofi
• [14:54] Anchors of the Material World
• [16:02] The Frictionless Life
• [18:03] The Internal Motivation of Roguelikes
• [19:42] The Language of Needs
• [21:52] Liturgies and Mediums
• [22:47] No Material Trace
• [24:41] Compensating for the Losses of the Digital
• [27:28] You can't capture me!
• [29:11] Reality TV prepped us for the Very Online Life
• [31:23] Ambient Capture and Surveillance Culture
• [33:41] On the Terms of the Medium 
• [35:41] Extraction of Private Life into Public Benefit
• [38:28] On Loneliness and Making a Living
• [41:45] Negotiating The Terms of Technology
• [43:45] The Gradience of Relationality in Sidewalk Life
• [45:12] Artificially Reconstituting Our Being in a Built Environment
• [48:07] A Gaze Turned Pastward

Where can hope be found? Alex Kim joins again to open up questions of responsibility, and our place in relation to times of weariness. He speaks out his experiences growing up and also shepherding a local church body as a youth pastor. We speak amidst the burnout on notions of time, the work of Charles Taylor through Andrew Root, work/play, and living out in hope. Maybe it's what this podcast is attempting to work towards! (Recorded June 2022) Transcript: https://hopeinsource.com/hope

Sections:

• [00:00] La Fatigue d'être soi (Weariness of the Self)
• [04:32] These Churches have Five Year Plans
• [06:30] The Dynamics of a Pastor
• [08:49] Intimate Moments > Big Programs
• [11:38] Notions of Time
• [14:36] Having a Proper Sense of Efficiency
• [16:32] Work in Order to Play
• [17:58] Trapped in Itineraries
• [22:23] Where is Hope?
• [25:41] On Shepherding
• [27:36] Against Walls and Fences of Hopelessness
• [31:08] Dual Causality
• [33:09] Church as Wirecutters
• [36:02] Living Out a Seen Hope
• [39:24] Hope for Life and Life to Hope

Can our digitally mediated environment be spiritual? Nick Ripatrazone takes us through the lens of the Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan, focusing on his not well-known Catholic faith. McLuhan himself describes his testimony into the Church as, "I came in on my knees. That is the only way in." We discuss the topics around inter-textuality, the complexity of life, on form/function within mediums like poetry, concept/percept, ambiguity and paradox, and McLuhan's famous phrase "the medium is the message". (Recorded April 2022) Transcript: https://hopeinsource.com/communion

- Digital Communion (book)
- Nick's site

Sections:

• [00:00] Layers of Language Meaning
• [04:26] Bible as Hypertextual Medium
• [08:47] Embracing the Messiness of Everything
• [12:57] Incarnational Poetry
• [17:41] 'Coming on my Knees'
• [20:28] From Tech to Philosophy
• [24:14] In Art, Faith is Perception
• [30:42] Art as the Boundaries of Language
• [33:20] Satan as a Great Electrical Engineer
• [37:23] Authentic Religion is Full of Ambiguity
• [39:52] What is Sin Really?
• [42:34] Understanding McLuhan
• [47:06] Living is Lengthening the Narrative

What is the place of history in our society? Who was Ivan Illich and how might he be a helpful voice, even in his passing? David Cayley shares about his new book, "Ivan Illich: An Intellectual Journey". It's not really a biography, and as Illich himself would say, "you can't capture me!" We talk about open source, big tech, and enclosure, history which gives you roots, how tradition and change are intertwined, the many myths/idols of society, on good vs. value, aestheticism, and much more. (Recorded in January 2022) Transcript: https://hopeinsource.com/history

- David's website
- Ivan Illich: An Intellectual Journey (book)
- Two Bits: The Cultural Significance of Software (Kelty)

Sections:

• [00:00] Recursive Publics or Enclosure of a New Commons?
• [12:03] Deaf to the Divine
• [14:03] History as a Place to Stand
• [20:54] Tradition and Innovation as Inseparable Pairs
• [23:13] Administering The Kingdom
• [29:55] Progress as the Myth Of Our Civilization
• [33:40] Recovering Renunciation
• [36:09] Promethean Man has Immunity from Surprise
• [37:58] Value has no Opposite
• [41:03] Askesis: A New Aestheticism
• [44:03] Risk Awareness as Ideology
• [47:42] The Myth About Science

What is the nature of reality? Esther Lightcap Meek speaks of reality as interpersonal, saying yes to life, everyday knowing. We discuss hope as a person-ed affair, how life is a sort of scrabbling together of clues, gift economies, covenant epistemology, on commitment, consent, belonging. (Recorded in November 2021) Transcript: https://hopeinsource.com/reality

Esther: https://www.estherlightcapmeek.com

Sections:

• [00:00] Hope as a Person
• [01:33] Creative Subsidiary Scrambling
• [04:21] The Gift
• [09:03] Polanyi's Interpersonal View of Reality
• [12:03] Covenant Epistemology
• [16:28] Reality Explodes Your Questions
• [18:14] Loving with Control-F
• [21:54] Technology is like Chocolate
• [24:07] Fire Pit Conversations
• [26:46] Faces that see you
• [29:44] Myopic Fixation
• [32:45] Commitment
• [35:10] Moment of Consent
• [37:12] Willed Loneliness
• [39:47] Have Your Hands Out

Why is Christianity so commercialized? Conley shares about The Dorean Principle, his new book which explains this biblical concept of the Gospel being "freely given". We talk about being a colaborer vs. a customer, reciprocity vs. gift, Bible translation, Christian music, copyright and creative commons, and how it all relates to an open source ethos. (Recorded in October 2021) Transcript: https://hopeinsource.com/dorean.

Book: https://thedoreanprinciple.org

Sections:

• [00:00] Supporting Ministries with Co-Laborers
• [02:22] The Modern Publishing Industry
• [06:25] Co-Laborers vs. Customers
• [07:52] Beyond Reciprocity: Contribution Matching + Family Worship
• [10:12] False Teachers are also Greedy Teachers
• [12:31] The Copyright Milieu of The Bible
• [16:59] The Oddity of Christian Music Licensing
• [23:44] Personal Bibles
• [26:17] Given Without Price

How can we think about digital communication, let alone silence? Is it possible? L.M. Sacasas is back to chat about a few of his last newsletter posts: the nature of silence, attention not as a resource, on hope vs. expectations, the arms race of escalation, manufactured needs, askesis or discipline, the commons vs. the public, and trustlessness and codes of law. (Recorded in July 2021) Transcript: https://hopeinsource.com/silence.

Previous: https://hopeinsource.com/limits, https://hopeinsource.com/convivial
Michael: https://twitter.com/LMsacasas
Henry: https://twitter.com/left_pad

Sections:

• [00:00] Impossible Silences
• [07:03] Silence as a Commons
• [15:10] Attending with the Body
• [23:27] Hope vs. Expectation
• [25:48] Vendor Lock-in
• [29:15] Rat Race or Arms Race?
• [32:33] What in Fact Do We Need?
• [36:33] Askesis of Perception
• [41:28] Isn't Just Something You Can Code into a Program
• [43:29] The Commons vs The Public
• [55:40] Trustlessness and Codes of Law

Why read Ivan Illich today? What does the thought of this radical historian have to bear on our modern tech world? In this episode, Madhu Suri Prakash and Dana L. Stuchul of Penn State University interview L.M. Sacasas on his work as being a sort of bridge or interlocutor of Illich's thoughts. They talk about schooling and inequality in COVID, ways of thinking about technology, a life of planning vs. gift, convivial tools, redemption of work, and more. (Recorded in December 2020) Transcript: https://hopeinsource.com/illich

(It's a guest podcast, as I just edited it!)

Previously: https://hopeinsource.com/convivial, https://hopeinsource.com/limits
The International Journal of Illich Studies: https://journals.psu.edu/illichstudies/index

Sections:

• [00:33] Working within the Christian tradition
• [03:04] Why start the newsletter?
• [07:16] Lost year of schooling
• [09:00] Inequality in COVID
• [14:03] What's Compelling about Illich?
• [17:28] Resisting the frame of control and embracing gift
• [22:03] Tesla as a "solution"
• [26:29] The challenge of needs
• [28:12] Progeny
• [30:24] Redeeming work
• [33:16] The body and senses
• [34:50] Playfulness
• [36:34] Why read Illich today?
• [40:43] Making Illich accessible
• [44:24] Starting point to his work?
• [47:27] Illich in Conversation