Log: Humanization

Lucidity. A concept Camus explored in a few of his essays, and that in many ways echoes a kind of personal philosophy that Andrea and I have been developing. To us, lucidity means to see the world for what it is, instead of ascribing grand narratives or superstition to it as a way to console ourselves for the perceived "meaninglessness" of existence.

In The Stranger, Camus writes about a man named Meursault and describes his complete indifference to the world. Meursault is meant to be unrelatable. Someone who seems almost inhumane, and so, who would not be able to relate or empathize with us either. Through his actions and attitudes, Meursault reveals what Camus calls "the absurd," which has to do with the perceived absence of meaning in life. However, Camus also introduces symbolism to reveal that as humans, we can rebel against the absurd.

In the very first scene of the book, when Meursault finds out his mom died, his apathetic response is difficult to stomach, as it is later on, when he encounters the titular stranger. In both scenes, Meursault focuses on a light that flickers or the sun that blinds him. His fixation on light during moments in which more "important" things occur, like the death of his mother, increases the distance between Meursault and the reader.

The light and the sun to me represents two things in this book. On some level, the distance we feel between ourselves and Meursault serves as a reminder of our innate urge to care, even when the world appears to be meaningless. An urge to care that Meursault does not seem to experience.

But the depiction of light also serves as another reminder, that when we feel the weight of the absurd the most, the shining light can set a path forward. The light shines on our skin and makes us see, and so it reminds us to be present. When we are present and experience the world for what it is, lucidly, we can revolt against the absurd.

This idea of lucidity and Camus' articulation of this concept was eloquently spelled out in a recent episode of Philosophize This on The Stranger, and I felt myself just nodding along in agreement.

- Marc

As AI slop begins to become omnipresent, curation and support will be more important than ever. I think we can carry this anxiety that our artistic efforts will cease to exist if we are replaced by machines.

Here is the thing though: if we collectively decide not to let that happen, it won't. If we continue to buy art and support endeavors we believe in, those endeavors can continue to be.

That's why I think that, today, it is more important than ever to support compelling independent projects and to promote them. That way, we can build the society that we want: one in which artists can thrive without having to resort to tools that go against their ethics.

Recently, I've made an effort to end many of my subscriptions, for example Spotify, and then spend that money instead on artistic, tech, or social projects that speak to me. That does limit my access to popular media, but at least I am more mindful about what I consume.

Recently, Andrea and I booked tickets to go to South Africa. In various Bantu languages, there exists the term ubuntu, which roughly translates to I am because we are. I am excited to learn more about this idea when we are there. For now, the definition I found online really speaks to me, ubuntu "encompasses the interdependence of humans on one another and the acknowledgment of one's responsibility to their fellow humans and the world around them" (Wikipedia). I think the philosophy that underpins ubuntu may be very relevant to face the questions and challenges of our times.

-Marc

There are now more birds in Paramytha than when we first arrived. They sing from a scenery that is now greener due to the rains that have arrived with them and with the end of summer. The days are still warm, but the nights are fresh—now populated by new scents, awakened by the humidity that has set in.

When it rains, it pours, and that’s exactly what has happened in Limassol. During a recent, sudden thunderstorm, a tornado was spotted near the city. All the while, the air has been heavy with dust and particles swept up from the Sahara. Coughing, cold, soaked, it has been hard to not feel like Cyprus is testing me. Every time I try to crawl out of sickness, weariness, stress, there is a new challenge to face.

But this post is not really about that. Not directly. It is about the day after the storm, when I headed out to the local taverna for a Halloumi wrap. Milos Taverna was a bit emptier than usual, the lights dimmer. The two men who seem to run the place were hard at work in back room. Something seemed off.

It turned out that the thunderstorm and wind had produced leaks, flooding parts of the taverna and shutting them down for the day. But even so, they insisted on making me something. There was a bit of dry charcoal leftover, after all!

That small act of kindness, despite the big headache they were dealing with, really touched me. I felt guilty too, after all, running a business is tough. I didn’t want to put them through more trouble, and I wondered how I could tip them as a thank you. But when it came time to pay, the owner handed me the pita and told me it was on the house.

It seems like these past few days after the rain, I notice glints and glimmers of this sort of kindness all around. A kind word from an old professor, genuine curiosity about my work from a stranger, a joke from the barista at the usual café.

In spite of winds, dust storms, viruses, and the weight of a day like today, glimmers of kindness persist and remind me of the things that are worth nurturing and protecting.

- Andrea

Recently, I finished up Donald Norman's An Invisible Computer. It's a fantastic book, probably one of my favorite books, and it starts off with a powerful quote:

"The personal computer is perhaps the most frustrating technology ever. The computer should be thought of as infrastructure. It should be quiet, invisible, unobtrusive, but it is too visible, too demanding. It controls our destiny. Its complexities and frustrations are largely due to the attempt to cram far too many functions into a single box that sits on the desktop. The business model of the computer industry is structured in such a way that it must produce new products every six to twelve months, products that are faster, more powerful, and with more features than the current ones."

As much as I like the book, however, there is one important concept that I disagree with. Norman titles and concludes the book with this idea: that technology should be completely invisible. By invisible, he means that technology should blend so seamlessly into our everyday life that we do not notice it is there.

"[.. talking about the goal of technology] The end result, hiding the computer, hiding the technology, so that it disappears from sight, disappears from consciousness, letting us concentrate upon our activities, upon learning, doing our jobs, and enjoying ourselves."

Sounds great in theory, in practice of course what we find is that companies make something that is easy to use, and then do not necessarily act in the users' best interest, but the user is stuck with what the company provided and is neither empowered to seek out other options nor fix it. I think this is an anti-pattern, and I talk about this in depth in my essay, The Curse of Convenience.

However, there is also another section that I found particularly interesting and shines a light on the direction where I think technology should go, which is Norman's idea about what makes a good tool. Norman has this to say:

"Good tools are always pleasurable ones, ones that the owners take pride in owning, in caring for, and in using. In the good old days of mechanical devices, a craftperson's tools had these properties. They were crafted with care, owned and used with pride. Often, the tools were passed down from generation to generation. Each new tool benefited from a tradition of experience with the previous ones so, through the years, there was steady improvement."

I do not feel like modern phones and computers are like this kind of tool. A good retro camera is something we learn inside out, with its quirks and unique abilities, and becomes part of our craft and personality. This is not so much the case with a modern iPhone. Modern technology removes as much personalization as possible and makes it hard to repair for the sake of convenience, looks and ease-of-use. That means that you do not put effort into truly knowing your tool nor personalizing it, and so as a result, do not appreciate it as much. Instead of customizing and learning about your unique device, you buy a new one, that acts just like the old one. Devices become impersonal and invisible.

In a recent interview, Norman laments the fact that his all time best-seller, Design of Everyday Things, did not cover that tools should be designed to be repairable too. To me, repairability is in opposition to his idea of technology becoming invisible. At the same time, I think repairability and customization go hand in hand with his idea that you should feel pride in owning a tool, and that that is what makes a good tool. A device that you tweak and make truly your own, you will care for more and want to repair as well. As I replace parts of my Thinkpad and change the way it looks and feels, I find it becomes more personal to me.

- Marc

Today we are in Lofou, a small village located 20 minutes north of Paramytha. It is another dreamy place that has preserved its beautiful stone architecture. In the café-restaurant that we sit at, a calm and cool atmosphere gives peace. We are surrounded by books, ceramics, dried plants, wood, art, the blue sky, and a green garden.

I have Javier Darío Restrepo’s Pensamientos: Discursos de ética y periodismo with me, which I read from a beautifully and simply designed armchair. Pensamientos reminds me of home. Life feels joyful.

And yet, whenever I pull up a map, I am reminded that we are now just off the coast of Lebanon. Perhaps an hour-long flight from Gaza. If I zoom out, I notice that we are on the same longitude as Ukraine, we share the same time zone.

I was born surrounded by violence. In Bogotá, you are always on your guard, even if the city is safer now than what it used to be, and a whole lot safer than what other parts of Colombia are still like today. Being here now, in this idyllic village, the contrast feels stark.

During a brief period in my early adulthood, (outright) war between nations went from feeling unthinkable to almost inevitable. I know this isn’t true, violence and injustice have been and continue to be ever-present. The turn of the century was incredibly bloody for Colombia with the "war on drugs." But it does feel that now there has been a broader mental shift: that before war and violence were somehow more unacceptable globally, and so different actors undertook violence in slyer and stealthier ways. Political discourse around military attacks and violent action was not so forthright. Some people may say, as has been said about Trump, “at least they’re being honest now, showing their true colors.”

However, I disagree. I think that the fact that a full-scale war was “unthinkable” for many people was a good thing. The fact that we have mental red lines is important, even if humanity does not always live up to these standards. To me, the goal should be to denounce and expose the ways governments, businesses, and individuals get around what is deemed just or right, and the ways in which hypocracy takes shape. We should hold leaders accountable for lofty speech promoting peace and tolerance, make them meet the standard, instead of giving in and making war and violence an “acceptable” and “inevitable” part of our everyday in the name of "honesty."

For a long time, I’ve felt a natural pull towards pacifism. However, I understood well the people who critiqued it, we need to defend ourselves from those who commit harm after all, don’t we? We need to be able to fight back, right? What’s the alternative?

While I don’t have any answers, I have realized I need to listen to that instinct that protests against violence, conflict, and war. It is an instinct that has been coupled with a life-long interest in literature and art that expresses and describes the ravages of systematized violence: from Primo Levi, Tim O’Brien and Harper Lee to Maryse Condé, Alain Resnais, and Isabel Allende. It was first the memoirs from Holocaust survivors followed by the accounts of the military dictatorships in South America and then the testimony of the brutality of slavery in the Caribbean that have over time constructed my conviction in justice, freedom, and accountability, but also at the same time, for nunca más.

“Never again” is always associated with World War II, but in Colombia, never again continues to be called for even as Colombians continue to suffer and die every day due to ongoing violence. Our “armed conflict” is unique in the way that the categories of victims and victimizer are not always so neatly separated. It is as the writer Rodolfo Celis Serrano describes in his autobiographic short text on life in the Usme neighborhood of Bogotá: there are things that he did while living under the threat of violence that still bring him shame and guilt. Celis was displaced from his home, a victim of the armed groups that took over the territory, and yet he himself complicates the category of “victim” by highlighting his own guilt. In Colombia, we have to reckon with reintegrating combatants and civilians of all types into peaceful communal living, while at the same time trying to balance this with the pursuit of justice and accountability.

And there are so many Colombian thinkers, artists, and activists that have been working through the inherent paradoxes of prolonged systemic violence for years.

One of them was Javier Darío Restrepo, who I am currently reading. For my next log entry, I want to reflect on Restrepo’s writing along with the work of Jean Giono, another author who I also read and rediscovered this month.

Their writing has given me much to think about what peace means, as real action and not just a “utopian” concept. In their writing, I’ve found that same visceral rejection to war and violence that I feel—that war is senseless at its core, even with all the justifications that we try to dress it up with. In their writing, I’ve also confirmed that this rejection of war does not entail sacrificing strong convictions about rights and wrongs, it doesn’t equal apathy or “neutrality” in the face of cruelty, injustice, and inhumanity.

“El carácter del conflicto, su prolongación en el tiempo, la complejidad y multitud de los elementos en juego, el constante juego de la desinformación—que no es accidental sino parte de la táctica guerrera—, crean una atmósfera de confusión tal que la gente muere todos los días sin saber por qué muere”. – Javier Darío Restrepo, Pensamientos (p. 221)

« Il faut sinon se moquer, en tout cas se méfier des bâtisseurs d’avenir. Surtout quand pour battre l’avenir des hommes à naître, ils ont besoin de faire mourir des hommes vivants. » – Jean Giono, Refus d’obéissance (p. 14)

- Andrea

One of the most beautiful ideas behind the original Unix, that I think has unfortunately gotten lost and is now underrated, is the idea of a form of collective computing. People would gather as a group and collectively build tools. The way Dennis Ritchie described it:

"What we wanted to preserve was not just a good environment in which to do programming, but a system around which a fellowship could form. We knew from experience that the essence of communal computing, as supplied by remote-access, time-shared machines, is not just to type programs into a terminal instead of a keypunch, but to encourage close communication."

Using a collection of simple tools, users would then be able to bring these together on time-shared machines and build solutions to meet the needs of their communities.

Another obvious advantage to collectively owned computers is that you retain ownership from the bigger companies, while at the same time still unlock better optimization permitted by scale. For instance, these collective computers can live in geographically advantageous regions. For example, Solar Protocol directs users to whichever server has the most sunlight.

There are a lot of advantages to empowering users to fix issues themselves, rather than someone fixing their problems for them. I wrote about it extensively in my essay The Curse of Convenience. I also see with the new LLM models a resurgence of this idea in Maggie Appleton's essay about home-cooked software. Personally, I am skeptical that LLM's will enable this revolution, but I think her essay is still worth a read!

Today, there is a communal computing system that exists, it is the SDF. It has been around since the 1987, and it is definitely marketed towards a technical audience. It hosts a set of collective computers that any member can use for any purpose (within reason). With it, people have set up a Lemmy instance and a Mastodon instance. It also comes with a free email account and a shell you can SSH into and do any kind of programming that you want.

Personally, I use SDF to host my notes with git. Doing that was as simple as ssh user@tty.sdf.org -t mkdir notes && cd notes && git init. Once done, I am able to access these notes from my phone or my laptop, wherever I happen to be. To clone it locally, I just run git clone user@tty.sdf.org:~/notes. I also hang out at their Lemmy instance.

- Marc