Thanks Jerry. :)

Hi Mark,

For those that contributed a $100 or more to the kickstarter, we'll be sending out links to those videos next week. For those that didn't, they'll be released on the site over the following several months progressively.

I hope this helps. :)

Hi All,

After considering where the direction of this comment thread seems to be going, I've decided to go ahead and shut down the comment thread at this point. My sense is that this conversation has been had on the internet a number of times, and I'd prefer for Buddhist Geeks to not become the next battle-ground for this particularly charged discussion.

On a personal level, my own feelings are quite mixed here, but I see enough sanity and good-will on the various sides to feel that things are not as a clear-cut as they appear (from any direction) and it's best to have these kind of dialogues and debates in other contexts, ideally in person. At least not on Buddhist Geeks. ;-)

Hi Jim,

Yes, there is some choice involved (right now) but think about how technology progresses over time. How many people do you know in the world that don't take advantage of some form of modern technology? Even the Unibomber would take a bike into town and buy food at the local Walmart, had tons of modern tools in his cabin, etc. And this was the most committed Luddite around.

My point is that you can be a late-adopter, but at some point the technologies become so ubiquitous and such an invisible part of the environmental and cultural fabric of our lives, that they become indistinguishable from what we might call "the natural world." I think it's pretty clear that we're headed in that direction with information technologies (we're already nearly there). Given that, I think we often over-estimate how much choice we actually have. Whether it's Facebook, or some other form of internet-based social networking, our communities (practice and otherwise) are going to change drastically.

Hi Kate,

Sorry to be a tease. But don't worry, she really goes into the specifics in the next part. :)

Thanks G. :)

Yeah, I think Kenneth is defining the tipping point as quite a bit further along than stream entry. For him the tipping point is 4th path in Daniel Ingram's model. I tend to agree with him, because while stream-entry is a type of tipping point, it pales in comparison to the change that he's talking about where you know that "you've got this." My personal feeling is that keeping the bar high is good.

Awesome reflections Duff, thank you!

I especially like the idea of doing UX testing... :)

Hey Mel,

Thanks for the 2 cents. :)

I think the question you bring up about defining the aims, of what we're optimizing for, is incredibly important. And I don't think it's safe to assume that there's a universal answer to that question, so my current sense is that this is part of the design process, and what I'd LOVE to see is also being willing to be open to changing these core design aims (to a certain degree), based on continued learning.

I think people do that anyway (ex. their understanding of dharma or enlightenment changes), but to do that consciously would be pretty interesting, and to formalize it as part of the unfolding of their teaching or community, would be a whole layer of abstraction up, in my mind. That might even be the start of an actual post-modern dharma, which is not to say there aren't folks out there doing this already. Pretty exciting!

Hey Justin,

I'm not a designer, nor have I studied much design theory (of which there must be many, not just one), but I do know that Steve Jobs doesn't necessarily ascribe to what I'm laying out here, as he has said many times that it's not the customers job to know what they want. Jobs, and Apple, don't necessarily try to meet people where they're at in designing products. It appears, instead, that he tries to meet people where they aren't yet. I think that's one of the strongest possible flaws of thinking that agile can be blended with dharma teaching, and that was echoed by Casey, in the comments above. Interesting stuff.