About Ports

What kind of mature information societies do we want to build? What is our human project for the digital age?

—Luciano Floridi, 2018

Ports are where different elements meet: land and water, earth and air, one computer and another. Ports are where we exchange not only goods and people, but also ideas. That was true even long before computers. And in the age of digital connectivity, our ports are more active than ever.

Ports explores design and ethics in our time of transformation, with a focus on emerging technologies: the most transformative ports we have.

There are plenty of scary stories out there about emerging technologies. But the truth doesn't have to lead to paralysis. Ports presents tech news, research and analysis to help you feel a spark of possibility, not helplessness. I hope you’ll find some ideas to plug into as we navigate this world.

Topics of major interest include: AI ethics, human-centered design, virtues for the 21st century and more.

What sort of future do we want to build? That’s what we’re exploring here.

Why Subscribe?

Subscribe for free and get a new missive in your inbox every Friday at noon Eastern. Each one is a 5–10-minute read, along with Ports of Call, a list of links and ponderings.

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Why Go Paid?

Ports is free to read and always will be. After a month, articles go behind a paywall.

Becoming a paid subscriber:

• Gives you access to the full archive of Ports posts.

• Provides you with a monthly Book Report, a list and some reflections on the books I read in the past month, as well as occasional paid-only posts.

• Shows your support of my work and gives a vote of confidence.

• Affirms your belief that the internet can work without an advertising–surveillance business model.

About Ports

Ports was started at the dawn of 2023. Prior to that, author Tim Gorichanaz wrote scattered posts on Medium, essays for various outlets, and blog posts at ScratchTap. Where possible, those prior pieces have been collected here.

Note that ScratchTap was originally envisioned as a blog about written language (particularly what happens when writing goes online), so the further back you go into the archives, the greater the focus on that topic. Have fun.

About the Author

Ports is written by Tim Gorichanaz, Ph.D., a professor at Drexel University. Tim teaches a variety of courses in UX design and tech ethics and conducts research on how to live a good life in the digital age. Prior to his time in academia, he worked in digital at a full-service advertising agency in Milwaukee.

Tim’s work has a philosophical bent—his major traditions are phenomenology, virtue ethics, and philosophy of information.

When he’s not writing Ports, Tim writes fiction, runs long distances, and practices classical guitar.