On civilised urbanism

This is a transcript of Tyson Yunkaporta’s talk at Media Futures Hub, University of New South Wales, in late May 2021.

What’s the difference between good story and bad story?
You gotta have your foundational narratives right.

Let’s kick off with some story with the word smart — smart houses, smart contracts. Let’s see how clever they really are.

If you really are making sure that the foundations of your knowledge are sitting in good story, there has to be room for new ones, always.
Bad stories don’t have that.

For a start, good story has place, but also there are places for new ones. You need to look at the stack that you’re inhabiting intellectually.
Look at the different layers of abstraction that have been built into that stack, and how much of them are actually rounded in that mycelium of good story.

Placelessness is one of the landmarks of bad story, but there are other things as well. Having absolutes and having no room for nuance is one of the other things that makes your foundational knowledge not very smart.

In Melbourne there are some groundwaters around here that are still good. Some rivers have…