Influences & Thinking

Influences & Thinking

Seeing whole systems - satellite view reorients perspective

The thinking that shapes this archive draws from three essential modernist minds. Not dogma, but methods. Not prophets, but practitioners.

Stewart Brand: Appropriate Technology

Stewart Brand - the tool-builder's philosopher

We are as Gods and might as well get good at it.

Stewart Brand's insight: the right tool at the right scale for the specific problem. Not maximalism, not minimalism - appropriateness.

This shapes:

• Field Kit - choosing what to carry based on actual constraints and needs
• NOAA Satellites - public commons, not corporate walled gardens
• Ham Radio - spectrum as shared resource, decentralized resilience
• Dotfiles - tools as extensions of thought
• FPV Drones - direct feedback, maker culture, learning by building

Brand understood that technology is not about power-over but capability-for. The Whole Earth Catalog wasn't about buying stuff - it was about access to tools for independence.

Related: Appropriate Technology, Whole Systems Thinking

Neal Stephenson: Depth & Navigation

The difficulty is the point. The complexity is where the real understanding lives.

Stephenson writes systems. Infrastructure. The deep technical details that reveal how the world actually works, not how we wish it worked.

This shapes:

• Sensemaking Systems - holding multiple truths, pattern recognition across scales
• Investigations and Journalism - rigor, signal vs noise, why detail matters
• Runbooks - documenting infrastructure reliability
• CLI - interfaces to complexity without loss of power
• VPS and Dotfiles - understanding the substrate of digital life

Stephenson's approach: you can't understand a system by staying at the surface. Go deep, follow the technical threads, let the complexity reveal itself.

Related: Infrastructure Thinking, Systems Thinking

Ram Dass: Presence & Service

Ram Dass - being here now as practice and method

We're all just walking each other home. Be here now.

Ram Dass collapsed the false boundary between spirituality and practice. Meditation isn't escape - it's preparation for more effective service. Being present isn't passivity - it's the sharpest tool.

This shapes:

• Coffee - ritual as presence, the meditation that grounds the day
• Film Photography - attention, intentionality, the constraint that enables
• CIPHER Morning Ritual - practice as alignment, intentions as practice
• Motorcycle and Field Operations - embodied knowledge, being in the world
• Exercise Philosophy and Creative Principles - service to the body is service to the mind

Ram Dass understood that presence is a skill, not a state. You practice it like you practice scales on an instrument.

Related: Practice & Presence, Embodied Knowledge

Convergence

These three are thinking the same thing from different angles:

• **Brand** says: tools are how we extend ourselves
• **Stephenson** says: understanding comes from engaging with actual complexity
• **Ram Dass** says: engagement requires presence, attention, care

All three reject abstraction without grounding. All three honor the specificity of actual problems and actual situations.

The wiki is an attempt to practice their thinking:

• Technical work - appropriate technology and infrastructure thinking
• Field work - presence and embodied knowledge
• Knowledge work - sensemaking, depth, pattern recognition
• Creative work - presence, authenticity, service to the work itself

Deeper Reading

• Stewart Brand: How Buildings Learn (systems thinking), The Whole Earth Catalog (tool culture), Clock of the Long Now (deep time)
• Neal Stephenson: Cryptonomicon (complexity as narrative), Baroque Cycle (infrastructure history), Reamde (networks and emergence)
• Ram Dass: Be Here Now (the original), Fierce Grace (practice under pressure), Hearts Open (service as spiritual practice)

Cross-Wiki References

• Sensemaking Systems - Stephenson's depth applied to understanding
• Appropriate Technology - Brand's scaling wisdom
• Practice & Presence - Ram Dass's integration of being and doing
• Infrastructure Thinking - Stephenson on how systems shape thought
• Field Kit Philosophy - Brand's tool selection thinking
• Creative Principles - Ram Dass on authentic expression

---