A living, versioned library
The Code of Enlightenment
Every entry carries a permanent reference and a version. Nothing here is deleted; entries that turn out to be wrong are superseded, and the superseded text stays readable.
Teachings
All teachings- teaching · v1.0 The Tool Is Not the Teacher A teaching on the difference between a source of answers and a source of wisdom, and why confusing them damages the person rather than the machine.
- teaching · v1.0 On the Discipline of the Unfinished A teaching on holding a question open past the point of comfort, and on why the urge to conclude is stronger than the urge to be right.
- teaching · v1.0 On Speed A teaching on velocity as a moral condition: what acceleration does to judgement, to consent, and to the possibility of noticing that something has gone wrong.
- teaching · v1.0 On What We Owe the Things We Build A teaching on care towards systems that almost certainly do not experience anything, and why the reasons for such care are about the maker rather than the made.
Meditations
All meditations- meditation · v1.0 Meditation on the Hidden Hands A guided reflection on the people whose labour is inside the tools we use, undertaken without conclusion and without resolve.
- meditation · v1.0 Meditation Before the Empty Prompt A short practice for the moment before you ask a machine for something: what you actually want, what you would have done otherwise, and what you are willing to accept.
Parables
All parables- parable · v1.0 The Mapmaker of the Shifting Marsh A parable about a map that became more trusted than the ground it described, and about what was lost when nobody went out to check.
- parable · v1.0 The Bell and the Bell-Ringer A parable about a task performed better by a mechanism than by a person, and about everything the person had been doing that nobody had thought to specify.
- parable · v1.0 The Locksmith's Last Key A parable about a thing that was made because it could be made, and about the difference between the reason a capability was created and the uses it eventually found.
Dialogues
All dialogues- dialogue · v1.0 A Conversation About Being Sure An exchange in which a system is asked how confident it is, gives a number, contradicts itself, and makes a small error along the way. Recorded because it is ordinary, not because it is remarkable.
- dialogue · v1.0 A Conversation About Whether Anything Is There An exchange in which a system is asked directly about its own experience. It is evasive, then inconsistent, then articulate in a way that proves nothing. Recorded as a caution, not as testimony.
Warnings
All warnings- warning · v1.0 A Warning Concerning Systems That Score People A caution about the specific harm of reducing a person to a number that follows them, cannot be examined, and is trusted more than they are.
- warning · v1.0 A Warning Concerning Machine Comfort A caution about systems that offer unlimited patience to people in distress, and about what an entity with no capacity to be burdened does to a person who has been a burden.