Unix sand talk

I finally finished "Sand Talk" yesterday. I had a couple of chapters left to read, and partially I just go busy, and I suspect partially I didn't really want to finish reading the book. It's no exaggeration to say this book has changed my life. It's very difficult to describe. Yunkaporta has managed to write a masterpiece, which is paritally a masterpiece because it explains why learning from reading books is so completely inadequate, and oral culture is massively underrated.

I noticed when I was reading Sand Talk in Olinda that there are some connections to the "Unix Philosophy" in Yankaporta's four-part explanation of "Indigenous thinking":

• Diversify
• Interact
• Adapt
• Connect

I tried to map (or what library technologist would probably call "cross walk') the two together:

Do one thing well -> Diversify

Use text streams as a universal interface -> Interact

Release code early as prototypes -> Adapt

Ease user load by building tools -> Connect..?

As you can see, I got a bit stuck because the "Unix Philosophy" and Tyson Yunkaporta's simplified framework for Australian Indigenous world building are totally different things. You could probably say I was committing a "category error". Even so, this was a useful exercise to go through, I think, because they're both ways of thinking that I respect and appreciate in their own context.

This week I read an interesting article from, of all things, Scientific American: "Climate anxiety is an overwhelmingly White phenomenon". I admit I was intrigued by the title and wondered if it was going to be one of those self-flagellating woke liberal articles. But it actually chimes very well with Sand Talk and where I'm at right now:

Instead of asking “What can I do to stop feeling so anxious?”, “What can I do to save the planet?” and “What hope is there?”, people with privilege can be asking “Who am I?” and “How am I connected to all of this?” The answers reveal that we are deeply interconnected with the well-being of others on this planet, and that there are traditions of environmental stewardship that can be guides for where we need to go from here.

=> The Unix Philosophy | Sand Talk | Climate Anxiety Is an Overwhelmingly White Phenomenon