Human Momentum

Human Momentum is a reading group and conversation series with Dr. Russell Patrick Brown, PhD and Alex Carberry that explores systems design, choice, engineering modeling and technology through the lenses of embodiment and decolonial thought. It is a space where technical thinking meets somatic awareness: how we build systems, how we make choices, and how those choices move through time.

What it is

Together with Alex Carberry, we work through texts and problems at the intersection of technology and human experience. The conversation moves between systems thinking, engineering modeling, and the question of how technical practices carry cultural assumptions — and how those assumptions might be reimagined. It is not a technical tutorial. It is a disciplined conversation about the structures we build and the structures that build us.

Why it matters

Most technical training asks you to learn tools and repeat patterns. Human Momentum asks what those patterns do, where they come from, and whether they serve the worlds we actually want to live in. The work draws on:

• Systems design and choice architecture. How systems invite or constrain certain kinds of action, and how those invitations are encoded in technical decisions.
• Engineering modeling. The act of representing complex systems — and what gets left out of the model.
• Decolonial perspectives. How technical practices might unlearn colonial habits of control, extraction and universalization.
• Embodiment. How technical thinking feels in the body, and how bodily awareness might inform technical practice.

What you get

The Human Momentum podcast is available on all major platforms, with reading group sessions announced through the Gypsy Fires newsletter.

• Listen on Substack — the primary feed with episode notes and discussion
• Spotify
• Apple Podcasts
• YouTube

Who it is for

Human Momentum is for engineers, designers, researchers and anyone who works with systems and wants to think more deeply about what they are building. It is for people who suspect that technical practice is never neutral — and who want to practice that suspicion with rigor and care. No formal technical background is required, only curiosity about how things work and how they might work differently.

Join the conversation

New episodes and reading group announcements are shared through the Gypsy Fires newsletter.

Explore Human Momentum on Substack