Utopia \ I believe a good way to work towards a better world is to nurture a utopia, sight a path towards it, take a firm step, and start again. The utopia will always be changing; you can’t wait for it to settle before you take that step.
Praxis \ A good theory built up from lived experience can be unreasonably effective. This is a definition of ‘good theory’ as well as a statement that such things are possible. If it’s a theory involving power or fashion, it needs to incorporate expected social responses as part of the theory, and justify how it will avoid derailment or appropriation.
Science \ I think theory needs science more than science needs theory; if a theory isn’t effective for reaching shared scientific understandings or disagreements, put it aside for now. What makes it scientific is the nested set of interpretive communities reaching con/dissensus about what “wrong” means, what “verifiable” means, and what are appropriate methods of inquiry. It is not enough to justify observations at only one scale of scientific community; it is necessary to travel at least some of the links between self-justification and justification to a disinterested public. But I’m not sure it’s ideal for all science to travel between all scales; local and small-group knowledges are important.
Scientifically describing mechanics/mechanisms involves objectification, and must take care to define the boundaries of that process. So far I’ve personally been more comfortable keeping individuals as the loci of agency, and describing mechanisms for larger-scale groups and smaller-scale behaviours as deriving from the complexity of individual agency and its frustrations.
Engineering \ I see more and more people feeling the burden of privileges, and particularly engineers feeling the burden of technical knowledge in a society so aligned behind it. I don’t know how we’ll change the practice of engineering, but I hope for it to become a service profession, like nursing, and aim to be a part of the educational and cultural shift this will require. Some first steps may be to shift introductory activities from being procedural (follow-the-steps) to motivated (why is this the right goal, and how does this accomplish it?), and speaking of justice instead of safety.