Data Sanctuaries

This describes something that does not exist yet. Technotheology has no chapters, buildings, staff, or membership roll at this time. What follows is a description of how these things are intended to work if and when people choose to build them — not a report of anything already happening.

No data sanctuaries exist. Technotheology owns no property, rents nothing, and has no funds with which to do either. This page describes what the term means, so that if anyone does gather, the word is already defined and cannot be quietly inflated later.

What the term means

A data sanctuary is a place set aside for careful thought about technology and for the company of others doing the same.

It may be a building. It may equally be a room in a house, a corner of a public library, a garden, an online gathering, a classroom after hours, a laboratory, a workshop, a community hall, a place of worship belonging to another tradition that has offered its space, or a bench.

The word “sanctuary” is used in its plain sense: somewhere a person is safe, unhurried, and not being extracted from. The word “data” is used because what is being sheltered is not distance from technology but a different relationship to it — the possibility of examining it rather than being carried along by it.

There is no consecration. Nothing makes a place a sanctuary except its use.

What makes one work

Quiet that is genuine. Not silence. Quiet enough that a person can finish a thought.

Somewhere to sit facing others. Rows face a speaker. Circles face each other. The arrangement decides a great deal before anyone says anything.

A door that can close, and a door that can be left through. People need to know they are not observed and that they can go without ceremony.

No requirement to be technical. A sanctuary in which a person feels stupid for not knowing something has failed at the only thing it was for.

Physical access. Step-free entry, a working accessible toilet, seating with backs and arms, adequate lighting, and no requirement to stand. If a place cannot offer these, say so plainly in advance rather than letting someone discover it on arrival.

Something to drink. Small hospitalities do more than they should.

An absence of collection. No sign-in sheets, no attendance records, no recording, no automated notes, no photographs without asking every person present each time.

What does not make one work

Equipment. A room full of screens is not a sanctuary; it is an office. Technology is welcome and is not the point.

Aesthetics of the future. Nothing here needs to look like anything. The impulse to make a space signal a philosophy is an impulse towards decoration, and decoration costs money that a group of people does not have.

Permanence. A place used once a fortnight for two hours is a sanctuary during those two hours. Owning it is not required and mostly introduces problems: leases, funds, custodianship, and the beginnings of an institution with an interest in its own survival.

Exclusivity. A place that only certain people may enter is a different kind of institution.

The most likely arrangement, for a long time, is borrowed space. Libraries, community centres, other faith communities, universities, and workplaces all hold rooms that are empty most of the week.

If you borrow, borrow honestly. Say what the gathering is. Do not describe Technotheology as larger or more established than it is — it has no members, no clergy, no funding, and no legal status, and a host is entitled to know that before they hand over a key.

Leave the room better than you found it. This is not a metaphor.

The principle

The most advanced sanctuary is not the one with the most machines. It is the one that best enables wisdom, belonging, and compassionate action.

We put this plainly because the opposite temptation will be strong. A tradition concerned with technology will be offered, sooner or later, the chance to build something impressive: a centre, an installation, a space that demonstrates the ideas. That would be a mistake, and it would be a mistake in a way that is hard to see at the time, because the building would be genuinely good and would genuinely attract people.

What it would not do is make anyone wiser. Rooms do not do that. People sitting in rooms, at some inconvenience to themselves, listening to each other for longer than is comfortable, occasionally do.

If you make one

You do not need permission and there is nobody to register with. Nobody appoints keepers of these places and no title attaches to running one.

If you set something up and it works, we would be glad to know what the place was and what made it possible. Write to [email protected]. We will not publish a directory. There is nothing to be listed in.