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Alternate Futures

presented by Tracy Fullerton

The unre­lent­ing pace of tech­nolo­gies is deeply iron­ic, giv­en the orig­i­nal intent of them to make our lives more effi­cient and give us more time. But we can all attest that the actu­al effect of this esca­la­tion of effi­cien­cy has been to increase the pace of work and play in our worlds.

The Oppenheimer Moment

presented by Alan Cooper

Where did this evil stuff come from? Are we evil? I’m per­fect­ly will­ing to stip­u­late you are not evil. Neither is your boss evil. Nor is Larry Page or Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates. And yet the results of our work, our best most altru­is­tic work, often turns evil when it’s deployed in the larg­er world. We go to work every day, gen­uine­ly expect­ing to make the world a bet­ter place with our pow­er­ful tech­nol­o­gy. But some­how, evil is sneak­ing in despite our good intentions.

…And the Disability Revolution Will be Tweeted

presented by Robin Wilson-Beattie

I do dis­abil­i­ty and sex­u­al­i­ty edu­ca­tion. And activism and advo­ca­cy around sex­u­al­i­ty and dis­abil­i­ty issues, and repro­duc­tive health issues. And I want to teach the world that peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties have the right and abil­i­ty to give and receive pleasure.

The Conversation #59 – Charles Hugh Smith

presented by Aengus Anderson, Charles Hugh Smith, Micah Saul

We’re in an era of over­lap­ping crises, and I think that’s what makes it sort of unique. We’re aware of the finan­cial aspect, which is sort of expo­nen­tial increase in debt. We’re also aware that ener­gy, the cost is going up because we’re reach­ing to deep­er and more expen­sive reserves of ener­gy, at least fos­sil fuels. So that’s anoth­er if not cri­sis then um… Well, actu­al­ly it is a cri­sis, because the world we’ve con­struct­ed is based on cheap fos­sil fuels.

Analyzing the Limits of Rational Choice in Political and Cultural Conflict

presented by Scott Atran

With our team of pol­i­cy­mak­ers, aca­d­e­mics, for­mer mil­i­tary, of play­wrights, we explore why peo­ple refuse polit­i­cal com­pro­mise, go to war, attempt rev­o­lu­tion, or resort to ter­ror­ism, focus­ing on what Darwin called ​“those virtues highly-esteemed and even sacred,” that give immense advan­tage to any group with devot­ed actors inspired to sac­ri­fice for them.

Deducing the Cognitive Basis of Attempting to Influence Others

presented by Bahador Bahrami

In the course of Donald Trump’s rise to pow­er, peo­ple have repeat­ed­ly been ask­ing, ​“Why did he tweet that? What was he think­ing about?” Our fas­ci­na­tion with his men­tal states high­lights a very impor­tant ques­tion for us: What hap­pens in our minds and brains when we try to influ­ence others?

The Conversation #58 – Jason Kelly Johnson

presented by Aengus Anderson, Jason Kelly Johnson, Micah Saul

I think our work is much more inter­est­ed in ques­tion­ing the notion that archi­tec­ture is a sta­t­ic enti­ty. Part of our think­ing in terms of archi­tec­ture is how we make a build­ing breathe. How do we give a build­ing a kind of like, almost a ner­vous system.

Geek of the Week: Marshall T. Rose

presented by Carl Malamud, Marshall T. Rose

It’s kind of like we could have the Congress of the United State pass a law with regards to time trav­el, but let’s face it you know, no one has a time trav­el machine so what’s the point of it? You can’t change phys­i­cal laws by mak­ing admin­is­tra­tive pol­i­cy. Why should you think you can stan­dard­ize com­pli­cat­ed tech­nol­o­gy with­out under­stand­ing it?

The Conversation #57 — Joan Blades

presented by Aengus Anderson, Joan Blades, Micah Saul

What I’ve seen as a founder of MoveOn is that we’ve become increas­ing­ly polar­ized. And in fact we have got­ten to the point where we have separate…realities? when it comes to a whole raft of facts. And so how can we pos­si­bly make good deci­sions togeth­er when we don’t even share basic facts? You first have to have a rela­tion­ship, and you have to have shared values.

Disposable Life: Zygmunt Bauman

presented by Zygmunt Bauman

In pre-modern soci­eties there was no idea of waste; every­thing was going back into life—recycled, as we would say today. If there were more chil­dren com­ing into the world in a fam­i­ly, then obvi­ous­ly there was room for them, and extra work some­where in the farm­yard, in the field, in the sta­ble. And of course a place around the table. So the idea of being redun­dant, hav­ing no place in soci­ety, sim­ply did­n’t occur. 

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