Open Transcripts

Page 87 of 107

The Conversation #15 — Cameron Whitten

presented by Aengus Anderson, Cameron Whitten, Micah Saul

Any time that you lessen lev­els of dis­par­i­ty you’re going to have more progress. And you can’t look at it as an own indi­vid­ual term. Progress in your own life, progress in tech­nol­o­gy. But I believe that you have to look at progress through the con­nec­tion of every­thing. That’s what sus­tain­abil­i­ty is real­ly about. It’s about the rela­tion­ship of our econ­o­my, of social jus­tice, the qual­i­ty of life of peo­ple, and then the last part is the environment.

The Conversation #14 — John Zerzan

presented by Aengus Anderson, John Zerzan, Micah Saul

I always won­der about peo­ple that are very pro-tech on the Left, for exam­ple. ​“Oh, we’ve got to keep all this. Of course. That’d be crazy.” You know, you want to pre­serve all of the lev­el of tech­nol­o­gy. The ques­tion that occurs to me is, oh so you want to keep how many hun­dreds of mil­lions of peo­ple in the mines, in the smelters, in the foundries, in the assem­bly lines? I would like to see them be able to do some­thing else. But you’re going to have to keep them there one way or anoth­er if you want to have all this stuff.

The Conversation #13 — Ariel Waldman

presented by Aengus Anderson, Ariel Waldman, Micah Saul

I think the sad­dest thing is if you ever stop want­i­ng to learn new things. And it can be about any­thing. That’s just real­ly heart­break­ing. I don’t know. It’s just so much part of like who you are as a human to learn new things con­stant­ly. And so to not be curi­ous, not want to learn new things and not cre­ate new pat­terns and connections…you’re pret­ty much giv­ing up your human self.

The Conversation #12 — Gabriel Stempinski

presented by Aengus Anderson, Gabriel Stempinski, Micah Saul

In the future, we have to change the way we look at con­sump­tion. That’s why I’m such a big pro­po­nent of the shar­ing econ­o­my. Because it’s not an issue of if it’s going to hap­pen, it’s when it’s going to hap­pen. And I’d rather peo­ple vol­un­tar­i­ly adopt it now and start real­iz­ing the ben­e­fit of it now while we’re still in this kind of rel­a­tive land of plen­ty, than be forced into it lat­er when all of a sud­den there’s not enough water to cov­er Phoenix any­more because it’s a huge city in the mid­dle of a desert and they have to go on water rationing.

The Conversation #11 — Lisa Petrides

presented by Aengus Anderson, Lisa Petrides, Micah Saul

Obviously there’s human rights that have to do with water and air and safe­ty and shel­ter, but I think edu­ca­tion is right there with it because it real­ly is a pub­lic good. I have such a hard time with peo­ple who say, for exam­ple, who don’t have chil­dren and say, ​“Well why should I pay those tax­es. I don’t have any­body in the schools. It’s not ben­e­fit­ting me.” And I think how can you pos­si­bly say that? Those are the peo­ple that are ser­vic­ing you, whether they’re ser­vic­ing your roads or your super­mar­ket or your med­ical offices.

A Brief History of Industrial Revolutions: Ian Goldin

presented by Ian Goldin

Our con­nec­tiv­i­ty not only spreads good ideas, it spreads bad ones too. Our con­nec­tiv­i­ty not only allows us to make finance trav­el around the world and help peo­ple, it means that a cas­cad­ing risk that orig­i­nates in the South of the US can be every­where with­in a mat­ter of hours. And this hyper­con­nec­tiv­i­ty, this but­ter­fly defect of glob­al­iza­tion, requires new management. 

A Brief History of Industrial Revolutions: Hannah Dawson

presented by Hannah Dawson

The ques­tion that philoso­phers have asked since antiq­ui­ty is how should you live? What is the good life for a human being? And the two answers that have repeat­ed­ly come back time and time again are that there are two things that mat­ter. One is agency. That’s to say being in con­trol of your life, active­ly, cre­ative­ly engag­ing with the world. And the oth­er is community.

AI Policy, Is It Possible? Is It Necessary?

presented by Min Li Marti

When we talk about tech­nolo­gies such as AI, and pol­i­cy, one of the main prob­lems is that tech­no­log­i­cal advance­ment is fast, and pol­i­cy and democ­ra­cy is a very very slow process. And that could be poten­tial­ly a very big prob­lem if we think that AI could be poten­tial­ly dangerous.

The Conversation #10 — Timothy Morton

presented by Aengus Anderson, Micah Saul, Timothy Morton

I don’t think eco­log­i­cal aware­ness is a sort of ​“hap­py hap­py joy joy, we are all earth­lings” thing. I think it’s actu­al­ly a kind of uncan­ny real­iza­tion. On the one hand there’s no away, on the oth­er hand what the hell is this? ​“This is not my beau­ti­ful waste. This is not my beau­ti­ful toi­let. This is not my beau­ti­ful Pacific Ocean.” You know, all of a sud­den these things become some­how not exact­ly what we thought they were.

The Conversation #9 — A Brief Status Update

presented by Aengus Anderson, Micah Saul

We want to sort of bring you all up to speed on some of the things that we’ve been think­ing about, some of the con­ver­sa­tions we’ve been hav­ing that I’ve had to edit out of the tail ends of episodes, link a few con­cepts and also be… Well, first because we think it’s real­ly impor­tant to be sort of trans­par­ent about where we’re going with the series and the con­ver­sa­tions we’re having.

Page 87 of 107

← Previous

Next →

Common Tags

community design Internet history Twitter technology surveillance Histories of Violence New America Internet open source Carl Malamud infrastructure art Internet Hall of Fame 2013 education artificial intelligence religion Berkman Klein Center politics Internet Hall of Fame 2014 Geek of the Week algorithms privacy Internet Hall of Fame ethics

Some Random Transcripts

ASU KEDtalks: Charting a Course for Colorado River Water
presented by Dave White

The story of running Lava Falls is the story of the Colorado River in the American West today. Right now, we are in those relatively calm waters above the rapids, enjoying the beautiful canyon scenery. But, now we begin to hear the ominous roar. In the American West we face challenges managing the Colorado River. Read more →

The True Costs of Misinformation
presented by Joan Donovan

Of course we're avid, avid watchers of Tucker Carlson. But insofar as he's like the shit filter, which is that if things make it as far as Tucker Carlson, then they probably have much more like…stuff that we can look at online. And so sometimes he'll start talking about something and we don't really understand where it came from and then when we go back online we can find that there's quite a bit of discourse about "wouldn't it be funny if people believed this about antifa." Read more →

Sidney Blumenthal on Being Advisor to Hillary Clinton
presented by Rob Riemen, Sidney Blumenthal

I have known Hillary for almost thirty years. And I hope that when this conference takes place, she's been elected president. We share common values, political values. But also I think that these are deeply rooted in our own personal experiences. And these values we've defended against all sorts of people who have used whatever means that they could, many of them underhanded, in order to try and destroy reputations, attack people personally, to engage in what we've called the politics of personal destruction, but for political advantage and gain. Read more →