{"version":"https://jsonfeed.org/version/1","title":"Aaron Gustafson: Content tagged philosophy","description":"The latest 20 posts and links tagged philosophy.","home_page_url":"https://www.aaron-gustafson.com","feed_url":"https://www.aaron-gustafson.com/feeds/philosophy.json","author":{"name":"Aaron Gustafson","url":"https://www.aaron-gustafson.com"},"icon":"https://www.aaron-gustafson.com/i/og-logo.png","favicon":"https://www.aaron-gustafson.com/favicon.png","expired": false,"items":[{"id":"https://www.aaron-gustafson.com/notebook/what-are-keys-to-success/","title":"✍🏻 What are keys to success?","summary":"What makes me feel successful? The Golden Rule.","content_html":"
The other day I got a message from someone I’ve been mentoring via email. His question was one I think a lot of folks in our industry struggle with:
Can you please tell what are keys to success and what should I do to become a successful programmer and software engineer? Anything is appreciated.
That’s a tough one. “Success” can be defined in so many ways. Is success making truckloads of money? Is it having 100,000 Twitter followers? Is it getting invited to speak at conferences in exotic locations? Those are very external notions of success, perhaps it’s more personal: Feeling like you’ve accomplished what you set out to do. Feeling like your life has meaning. Finding joy in both your work and your play. With so many ways to define success, there’s no magic formula for achieving it.
Unsure how to answer this perplexing question, I decided to answer by sharing what makes me feel successful—the Golden Rule. I used the Islamic version in my response:
No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself.
That I chose the Islamic version had more to do with where my protege resides than anything else. This concept is universal, cropping up in nearly every faith and philosophy as well as in numerous cultural proverbs:
Blessed is he who preferreth his brother before himself. (Baha’i)
One should seek for others the happiness one desires for one’s self. (Buddhism)
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. (Chrisitianity)
Try your best to treat others as you would wish to be treated yourself and you will find that this is the shortest way to benevolence. (Confucianism)
He sought for others the good he desired for himself. Let him pass on! (Egyptian)
Don’t go around hurting people, and Try to understand things. (Hopi)
Humanists acknowledge human interdependence, the need for mutual respect and the kinship of all humanity. (Humanism)
In happiness and suffering, in joy and grief, we should regard all creatures as we regard our own self. (Jainism)
One going to take a pointed stick to pinch a baby bird should first try it on himself to feel how it hurts. (Nigerian)
Do as you would be done by. (Persian)
Then there’s my personal favorite, from Judaism:
What is hateful to you, do not to your fellow man. That is the entire law; all the rest is commentary.
The Golden Rule is a wonderful tool for helping maintain balance in your life, business, and relationships. And so, I followed this recommendation proverb with a bit more detail on how I feel we can embody this philosophy:
My twelve years of Catholic schooling drummed the proverb “to whomever much is given, much will be required“ into my head, which accounts for my emphasis on sharing. I know that my “success”—as I define it at least—has been made possible by the generosity of others. And so I think it’s my duty to “pay it forward” and I look for every opportunity to create opportunities for others.
In my experience, living life this way—or at least improving on it a bit each day—makes me feel successful. Perhaps it will work for you as well.
Note: Passing along this tiny bit of wisdom made me feel successful today :-)
","url":"https://www.aaron-gustafson.com/notebook/what-are-keys-to-success/","tags":["society","personal","philosophy"],"date_published":"2016-06-01T15:18:31Z"},{"id":"https://www.aaron-gustafson.com/notebook/offline-first-love-the-idea-hate-the-name/","title":"✍🏻 Offline First: Love the Idea, Hate the Name","summary":"With the rise of Service Workers as a simple, usable means of making our content available offline, I thought it worth revisiting the idea of “offline first”, if only to address its core fallacy.","content_html":"Back in 2014, I had the great pleasure of listening to Ola Gasidlo of Hood.ie discuss the importance of offline at Beyond Tellerrand in Düsseldorf, Germany. Her excellent talk was my introduction to the “Offline First” movement and, while I can get behind the idea, I’ve had some serious issues with the name. And with the rise of Service Workers as a simple, usable means of making our content available offline, I thought it worth revisiting the idea of “offline first”, if only to address its core fallacy.
First, the good stuff: The “offline first” movement clearly recognizes the current dilemma of our time:
We live in a disconnected & battery powered world, but our technology and best practices are a leftover from the always connected & steadily powered past.
App Cache, Web SQL, Web Storage, Indexed DB, Service Workers, and a handful of other specs and ideas were all created to address this core limitation of the Web. They also make it possible to compete with traditional software experiences. I am 100% on board with this move. It sucks to open Chrome on my mobile and switch to a tab that’s been tucked out of view for a while only to have the page fail to load because I happen to be traveling abroad without a data plan. If that site was made to work offline, the fact that Chrome had recycled the RAM and CPU that tab had been consuming would be less of a problem and the page would load instantly from the cache.
Tunnels… hotel wifi… high latency mobile networks… expensive roaming data plans… these are all reasons we need an offline Web. I’m incredibly thankful for all of the hard work the smart folks working on solutions like these are contributing.
Also inline with the “offline first” movement, I think it’s important to consider the offline experience early in a project, so it isn’t forgotten or haphazardly bolted on. We need to make deliberate choices about what content and assets we are caching. We need to plan for offline, maybe not first, but certainly early.
All of this is to say I don’t have an issue with the philosophy of “offline first”, but I do take issue with the name. As a term, it’s a bit disingenuous. Looking at other “firsts”—“mobile first” or (to go back little further) “content first”—these terms work on multiple levels: They remind us to keep the core purpose of a page or interface central to our planning. They also support an experience that begins and ends with that core.
A “mobile first” experience starts with a distraction-free central message or content, optimized for a small screen and (often) a single, narrow viewport. It can be enhanced for larger screens and more capable devices, but that core experience may be all some users get, and that’s ok. Users will have an experience (and a site that works) no matter what. The same is true with a “content first” approach; its experience remains available regardless of device or access mechanism. Sure, both “mobile first” and “content first” require the network, but guess what: "Offline first" requires network connectivity too! You don’t see many websites delivering their content on USB drives, so all of the code required to make the offline experience possible in the first place requires an initial (and stable) connection to the Web. In other words, offline can’t be first.
You may be wondering Why is that important? It’s important because, historically, a “first” approach (as I mentioned) sets an expectation of that experience always being available. Offline can’t provide that.
Moreover, offline has another core dependency beyond the network: JavaScript. Without JavaScript, none of your fancy offline stuff—except App Cache, which few folks are using these days—will work. And yes, I know, everyone has JavaScript support… but the reality is that not everyone will get your JavaScript enhancements, even if that were actually the case.
Please don’t misunderstand the purpose of this post: I applaud the ideas behind the “offline first” movement and the amazing work that community is doing. And you should absolutely incorporate offline into projects you are building for the Web. Users with capable devices and browsers will thank you for it. Just try not to use the term “offline first” or at least be prepared for me to cringe a little when you do. Maybe I’m the only one who feels this way; if so, I’m okay with that. But, then again, semantics matter. Maybe we need a different rallying cry. Sadly “Offline Too” doesn’t have the same ring to it.
","url":"https://www.aaron-gustafson.com/notebook/offline-first-love-the-idea-hate-the-name/","tags":["philosophy","web design"],"date_published":"2016-03-28T12:25:26Z"},{"id":"https://www.aaron-gustafson.com/notebook/egalitarianism/","title":"✍🏻 Egalitarianism","summary":"Today is Martin Luther King Day in the United States, so I thought I’d take a moment to reflect on one aspect of equality I think is incredibly important: egalitarianism.","content_html":"Today is Martin Luther King Day in the United States, so I thought I’d take a moment to reflect on one aspect of equality I think is incredibly important: egalitarianism.
According to Merriam Webster, egalitarianism is:
- a belief in human equality especially with respect to social, political, and economic affairs;
- a social philosophy advocating the removal of inequalities among people.
It’s a simple philosophy inspired by the Golden Rule, an ethical code which is central to most major religions:
Heck, even Confucius said “Never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself”.
With so much emphasis on treating others with the sort of respect that we would like to be given, you’d think that inequality would be a non-issue. Obviously that’s not the case.
For centuries, we humans—even those of us who ascribe to these and the other countless Golden Rule abiding religions and philosophies—have failed to recognize ourselves in others and have erected barriers (both physical and societal) to their ability to lead the sort of happy, fulfilled life that we want for ourselves and our families.
Almost every way we mistreat others—from rude or snarky comments to genocide—stems from our inability to empathize with another person or group of people. It’s hard to connect with people who are different than us—people who have different life experiences, people who have different perspectives, people who are challenged in ways we have never been—and when we struggle to create a connection, it becomes easy for us to view them as “the other”. And when we begin to look at other people this way, we lose sight of their humanity and we lose sight of all of the things that make us similar.
While it is completely true that I have a very different life than a woman growing up in Dharavi, I have to believe that we have a lot in common too. We both want a good life for our families. We both want to feel safe. We both crack jokes. We’re both human. Our respective societies may view us very differently, but she is no less valuable than I am.
And this is why I am so passionate about the philosophy of egalitarianism. It grounds us in the notion that we are all equally valuable and should be granted equal opportunity to all that life has to offer.
John Rawls has a great thought experiment that I often cite in my talks on empathy. In it, he would ask you to imagine your ideal society. It could be a monarchy, anarchy, capitalist, or communist. It could be ruled by people of one particular gender or color. It could be governed by people of a particular tribe. It could be Panem. It could be Erewhon. It could be Brobdingnag. The choice is yours.
Once you’ve been ruminating on this a bit, he drops the bombshell: You have no control over or knowledge of where you fit in this society. This is called the Veil of Ignorance, a creation of John Harsanyi (an economist and early father of game theory). Rawls found that, with the Veil of Ignorance in play, people who participated in this thought experiment gravitated toward creating the most egalitarian societies possible.
It makes complete sense: What rational human being would create a society that enslaves people if they themselves could turn out to be a slave? Who would create a society that excludes women if they might be female? Who would build a world full of stairs if they could be in a wheelchair?
I love this exercise because it makes it easy to create at least basic connections between you and a wide variety of people who are different than you. It helps you realize that we are all equal and all worthy of consideration.
What is interesting about egalitarianism, as opposed to similar sounding philosophies like modern communism, is that it recognizes that equality of opportunity does not necessitate equality of outcome. In other words, while pushing for equality, it simultaneously recognizes that we have differences in capability, capacity, and interest.
We are different. We are similar in more ways than we are different, but to ignore our differences is to deny us our individuality, our personhood, our true selves. But recognizing differences is not the same as assigning a value to those differences. That’s an incredibly important distinction and bears repeating: Just because you recognize that someone is different does not imply you should view or treat them as any more or less human on account of what makes them different. That said, recognizing differences is the first step towards being able to create equality of opportunity.
This is such an important concept in life, but I was not a philosophy major, so I’ll stick to discussing it in terms of what I know a lot about: The Web. Specifically, Web accessibility.
For a great many of us, ensuring our websites are accessible is an afterthought. We talk a good game when it comes to “user centered” this or that, but often treat the word “accessibility” as a synonym for “screen reader”. It’s so much more than that. “Accessibility” is about people. People consume content and use interfaces in many different ways, some similar and some not so similar to how we do it.
Sure, people with visual impairments often use a screen reader to consume content. They might also use a braille touch feedback device or a braille printer. They probably also use a keyboard. Or they may use a touchscreen in concert with audio cues. And yes, visual impairment affects a great percentage of people, but they are only part of the “accessibility” puzzle.
The dimensions of interactive elements—links, buttons, etc.—and their proximity to one another is an important factor in ensuring an interface actually registers our intent (i.e. it helps us avoid fat fingering). Design is an accessibility concern.
The color contrast between text and the background is an important factor in ensuring content remains readable in different lighting situations. Color is an accessibility concern.
The language we use on our sites and in our interfaces directly affects how easy it is for our users to understand what we do, the products we are offering, and why it matters. It also affects how we make our users feel. Language is an accessibility concern.
The size of our Web pages and their associated assets has a direct affect on how long our pages take to download, how much it costs our customers to access them, and (sometimes) even whether or not the content can be reached. Performance is an accessibility concern.
I could keep going, but I’m sure you’re starting to get the point. “Accessibility” is ultimately about ensuring people have equal opportunity to access your content while simultaneously recognizing that we all have special needs—physical limitations, bandwidth limitations, device limitations, etc.—that lead us to have different experiences of the same Web page.
Accessibility is egalitarianism.
We are all different, but we all human. We all deserve respect. We all deserve to be treated equally. To be treated fairly.
We need more egalitarianism in this world and the good news is that we can make it happen.
","url":"https://www.aaron-gustafson.com/notebook/egalitarianism/","tags":["philosophy","accessibility","web design","inclusion"],"date_published":"2015-01-19T15:32:20Z"},{"id":"https://www.aaron-gustafson.com/speaking-engagements/finding-empathy-and-the-golden-rule/","title":"📢 Finding Empathy and the Golden Rule","summary":"I gave this PechaKucha talk on how empathy came to be a central part of my work and life.","content_html":"I gave this PechaKucha talk on how empathy came to be a central part of my work and life.
","url":"","tags":["accessibility","career","empathy","equality","inclusion","inclusive design","mentoring","personal","philosophy"],"image":"https://www.aaron-gustafson.com/undefined","date_published":"2013-12-13T23:00:00Z"}]}