Hope in Source
Hope in Source

Hope in Source

Henry Zhu

Overview
Episodes

Details

What are the parallels between faith and open source software? Join Henry Zhu for an off-the-cuff conversation between friends. Check out hopeinsource.com and nadiaeghbal.com/public-faith for the backstory!

Recent Episodes

Sacred Charity (Austin Chen)
AUG 28, 2024
Sacred Charity (Austin Chen)

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
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33 MIN
Right Feeling (Sonya Mann)
AUG 9, 2024
Right Feeling (Sonya Mann)

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
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47 MIN
Artificial Physicality (Drew Austin)
AUG 7, 2024
Artificial Physicality (Drew Austin)

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
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50 MIN
Everyone is "Protestant" Online (L.M. Sacasas)
SEP 27, 2022
Everyone is "Protestant" Online (L.M. Sacasas)

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
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50 MIN