So I recently wrote about the importance of crisis for sustaining an active ethical life. Since then, I have finished the section using a real life Debian example (many to choose from, thanks Debian!) but since it is too long to post here, I only want to provide a description of the paradox that crisis induces: a state of unity in disunity.

Below is a short description of the crisis I describe in the chapter (perhaps later I will tell the full strory here but for those Debian developers that read, they I am sure will know I am talking about the infamous Vancouver Prospectus). I have also included a *very* accurate and *scientific* figure of the emotional state of the crisis. Unlike sociologists, economists, and psychologists, anthropologists ar WIMPS, we just don’t exploit frequently enough the force of representational data like charts and pictures. I say we should. I say let’s assert our right to point to “figure 1″ and represent the social world we write in a glossy picture or a chart with lots of arrows of causation and attribution. Ok, let’s see how.

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….. I was awed by the cascade of responses that emerged from one email. Before addressing its content, it is first worth describing the emotive and social atmosphere of utter paradox that arose, in which synchronicity sat alongside unsettling discordance. The project was in one of the most pronounced moments of synchronicity that I had seen in a long time. Hundreds and hundreds of developers gave their due attention in the form of voluminous writings