Flowchart for maintaining a digital infrastructure in line with Aristotle's principles
[ does it have a clear purpose? ]
┃
┏━━━━━━━┻━━━━━━━┓
┃ ┃
yes no > discard or redefine
┃
[ is the purpose well-defined? (no excess) ]
┃
┣━━━━━━━no━━━━━━━> refine scope & remove bloat
┃
yes
┃
[ does it promote self-sufficiency & order? ]
┃
┣━━━━━━━no━━━━━━━> reduce dependencies
┃
yes
┃
[ does it rely on centralized control? ]
┃
┣━━━━━━━yes━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
┃ v v
┃ [ is the control necessary? ] restructure for independence
┃ ┃
no ┣━━━━━━━no━━━━━━━> decentralize or remove reliance
┃ ┃
┃ yes
┃ ┃
[ does it encourage virtue? (mastery, security, stability) ]
┃
┣━━━━━━━no━━━━━━━> restructure for resilience & self-mastery
┃
yes
┃
[ does it respect moderation? (no excess, no waste) ]
┃
┣━━━━━━━no━━━━━━━> simplify & remove unnecessary features
┃
yes
┃
v
system is in line with Aristotelian pirinciples
You can use this flowchart to evaluate your digital systems, and refine them to be more inline with Aristotelian principles.
If you want digital systems that actually serve you, Aristotle's guidance is quite useful. His principles, commonly considered only for philosophy, have significant merit when applied to digital systems.
- Technology needs a purpose. If a system does not have a clear function, it's clutter. Every part of a system should exist with a clearly defined purpose.
- Balancing usability, security and privacy is paramount. None should come at the total expense of the others. Extremes in either direction make bad tools.
- Digital systems should empower and strengthen you. If a system ends up making you more passive, dependent or more easily manipulated, it's not serving you.
If something fails on these points, it's safe to assume it's designed to serve itself, not you.
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