Podcasts · Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas
341 | Stewart Brand on Maintenance as an Organizing Principle
· 1 h 13 min · Episode 341
Episode 341 | Stewart Brand on Maintenance as an Organizing Principle
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold," wrote W.B. Yeats. I don't know about the centre, but the tendency of things to fall apart is pretty universal, ultimately due to the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Anyone living in a society or involved with technology must therefore be interested in the concept of maintenance -- keeping systems working. In his book Maintenance: Of Everything, Part One, Stewart Brand looks at the challenges and rewards of this concept.
Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2026/01/19/341-stewart-brand-on-maintenance-as-an-organizing-principle/
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Stewart Brand received an undergraduate degree in biology from Stanford University. He was the founder, editor, and publisher of the Whole Earth Catalog, which won a National Book Award. He founded the journal CoEvolution Quarterly and the WELL electronic community, and was a co-founder of the Long Now Foundation. He has been called "the 20th century's top influencer."
• Web site • Amazon author page • Wikipedia
Links in the notes 9
- https://press.stripe.com/maintenance-part-one
- https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2026/01/19/341-stewart-brand-on-maintenance-as-an-organizing-principle/
- https://www.patreon.com/seanmcarroll
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whole_Earth_Catalog
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_WELL
- https://www.npr.org/2025/07/11/g-s1-76555/from-hippies-to-techies-stewart-brand-is-the-20th-centurys-top-influencer
- https://sb.longnow.org/SB_homepage/Home.html
- https://www.amazon.com/stores/Stewart-Brand/author/B000AQ4GYA
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stewart_Brand
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