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

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Aug 13, 2025

Reggie James, a designer and entrepreneur known for his work on Hardware 2024, shares his innovative perspectives on technology as a reflective mirror of our values. He discusses how friction in design can enhance meaning and the ties between technology and our software cultures. Reggie delves into the narratives shaping cryptocurrency and critiques the accessibility issues in tech. The conversation wraps up with reflections on personal myths, American idealism, and the vision needed for radical innovation that challenges the status quo.

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INSIGHT

Technology As A Reflective Force

Technology acts as a mirror that reflects and prompts human identity and behavior.
It trends toward ubiquity and intimacy, drawing closer to human bodies and minds over time.

ADVICE

Make Tech Less Scary And More Reachable

De-fang loaded technologies by making them accessible and expanding distribution.
Remove gatekeeping and fix policy barriers so communities get benefits sooner.

INSIGHT

Writing As Design Foundation

Writing helps designers clarify values before visualizing solutions.
Reggie writes to discover what he truly believes and avoid wasting design energy.

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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