Prot Asks: Christian about indie dev, philosophy of experiences, Zettelkasten

In this ~2.5-hour video, I talk to Christian Tietze about a wide range of topics, from his indie and freelancing programming, to topics of practical philosophy, and ultimately to note-taking with the Zettelkasten method. I have known Christian from the Emacs community, having interacted with him on several issue trackers (e.g. my `modus-themes`). He also has a blog where he posts articles about Emacs.

Throughout our chat, we make connections to matters of productivity, focus, and commitment. Christian has a young daughter and this is a fact that informs many of the issues we comment on.

In terms of philosophy, we explore the theme of what exactly do we value in somebody's work. Is it the result or the work that goes into developing the necessary skillset for such a result? This has wide applications on everyday affairs. In this context, we also consider the idea of experiencing as much of the world as possible, where we comment on psychedelics and having the right attitude to do things long-term.

With regard to Zettelkasten, Christian is one of the two people behind the website zettelkasten.de, which is a high quality resource on Zettelkasten. Christian shares information about the life of Niklas Luhmann, the genius behind Zettelkasten, and expounds on how one's notes contribute to a continuous process of discovery. We comment on how the interplay between the person and their notes can give rise to new thoughts.

Links from Christian Tietze

Some references I mentioned:

Ronald Dworkin (2011): Justice for Hedgehogs, p 197: performance value and paintings of chimpanzees
Niklas Luhmann (1984): Soziale Systeme. (engl.: "Social Systems", e.g.: https://www.sup.org/books/sociology/s...)
Niklas Luhmann's "Kommunikation mit Zettelkästen", engl. translation on our page: https://zettelkasten.de/communication...
Lumann's 30 year research announcement is mentioned also in the English Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niklas_...

Links to my stuff:

https://christiantietze.de -- more technical blog, apps, Emacs
https://zettelkasten.de -- all things Zettelkasten since 2013
Mastodon: @[email protected]

About "Prot Asks"

In this new video series, I talk to anybody who is interested to have a video call with me (so do contact me if you want!). The topics cover anything related to Emacs, technology, and life in general. More here: https://protesilaos.com/prot-asks/.