Talks That Interrupt

Jason doesn’t deliver keynotes. He delivers wake-ups.

Human After Friction

A poetic and piercing blueprint for staying human in a system built to erase us.


Friction as a Design Principle

Friction isn’t a flaw in the system - it’s what makes it real.

Key Takeaways:

  • Why friction is not failure - but the foundation of meaning

  • How to reclaim agency, authorship, and awe in a predictive world

  • A five-part ethical framework for designing (and living) with intention

Key Takeaways:

  • The role of struggle, surprise, and resistance in ethical design

  • How removing friction removes feeling

  • Practical ways to build “intentional drag” into experiences, culture, and product


The Automation of Identity

You are not your data. You are not your pattern.

Key Takeaways:

  • The moral implications of predictive systems on identity

  • Why narrative, contradiction, and authorship matter more than ever

  • Tools for resisting flattening and reclaiming self-definition in the AI age


Designing for Agency

Systems either return power - or extract it. There is no neutral.

Key Takeaways:

  • Why agency is the new intelligence

  • How to design systems that clarify, not confuse

  • A call to rewire environments for selfhood, not surveillance


Wonder as Disruption

Awe is not a luxury - it’s the architecture of the soul.

Key Takeaways:

  • Why prediction kills wonder, and how to bring mystery back

  • How to design moments that interrupt numbness and restore aliveness

  • The power of surprise, imperfection, and pause as sacred design tools


The Ethics of Optimization

Optimization may serve machines - but it flattens humans.

Key Takeaways:

  • The hidden cost of seamlessness and speed

  • Why ease can be a quiet form of control

  • A moral reframe for technologists, leaders, and builders