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