25: Reggie James - Our Infinite Mirrors (Live at FWB Fest)

Reggie James (Substack, X) is a designer, writer, and entrepreneur. Reggie previously founded Eternal and recently edited and published Hardware 2024, a book highlighting recent attempts at creating a different hardware future. This conversation happened live on stage at FWB Fest 2025 in Idyllwild, CA. We explored Reggie's frame of technology as a mirror and the Kevin Kelly-inspired notion that technology has an agenda of its own. Reggie has a fresh perspective on brand and "feel" as they relate to technology products, why friction can create meaning, and a Naoto Fukasawa-influenced view that design is about communicating values. The latter, for Reggie, originates with writing. We dipped into a discussion about how hardware and how it shapes our software cultures, and what a world with more basic luxuries like the iPhone might look like. We also discussed "loaded" technologies and the current narratives that are working in crypto vs. what might be idealized. The conversation concludes with a zoomed out meditation on myth, American western idealism, personal history, and what type of vision is required to create something radically new. This episode is shorter than usual given the live nature, but it's jam packed and I'm thrilled that we were able to cover a lot of ground across many of the ideas that are representative of Reggie. Full transcript and all links: https://dialectic.fm/reggie-james Video version from FWB livestream available here. Timestamps 3:05: Technology as Mirror 8:04: De-fanging Loaded Technologies 12:43: Writing's Role in the Design Process 16:13: Affordances, Software, Hardware, and Values 22:53: Universal Luxuries 25:46: Friction and How Technology Can Make us Feel 30:16: The Role Brand Plays in Technology Today 34:30: Successful Narratives in Crypto 41:30: Crypto as a Mirror 44:39: American Myth & West 47:56: Personal Myth 54:16: Vision References What Technology Wants - Kevin Kelly Crying in the Garden ~ Closing Eternal - Reggie James Joan Didion on writing to think Universals & Luxuries - Reggie James Naoto Fukasawa: Embodiment - Naoto Fukasawa THE TOKYO TOILET ‎Perfect Days (2023)