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A new book by the Pulitzer Prize finalist Nicholas Carr is always a major event. And today's release of SUPERBLOOM: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart offers a prescient critique of our social media age. As Carr explains, our assumption that more communication leads to better understanding is fundamentally wrong. Instead, he suggests that excessive communication through digital platforms actually tears people apart. Carr's use of the “Superbloom” metaphor refers to an actual 2019 event in Southern California where people flocked to photograph wildflowers for social media, trampling the actual flowers in pursuit of the perfect image. Carr uses this as a metaphor for how we increasingly experience reality through online media rather than directly. Carr challenges the idea that new communication technologies automatically bring people together, noting how previous innovations like the telegraph and telephone came with similar utopian promises that were never fulfilled. He argues that modern smartphones and social media have created an unprecedented environment where we're constantly connected and socializing, which conflicts with how humans evolved to interact in bounded, physical spaces. Rather than offering simple solutions, Carr advocates for more mindful technology use and speculates that future generations might reject constant digital connectivity in favor of more meaningful direct experiences.Nicholas Carr writes about the human consequences of technology. His books, including the Pulitzer Prize finalist The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains and the forthcoming Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart, have been translated into more than twenty-five languages. He has recently been a visiting professor of sociology at Williams College, and earlier in his career he was executive editor of the Harvard Business Review. In 2015, he received the Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity from the Media Ecology Association. He writes the Substack newsletter New Cartographies. A New York Times bestseller when it was first published in 2010 and now hailed as “a modern classic,” Carr's The Shallows remains a touchstone for debates on the internet's effects on our thoughts and perceptions. A second edition of The Shallows, updated with a new chapter, was published in 2020. Carr's 2014 book The Glass Cage: Automation and Us, which the New York Review of Books called a “chastening meditation on the human future,” examines the personal and social consequences of our ever growing dependency on computers, robots, and artificial intelligence. His latest book, Utopia Is Creepy, published in 2016, collects his best essays, blog posts, and other writings from the past dozen years. The collection is “by turns wry and revelatory,” wrote Discover. Carr is also the author of two other influential books, The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google (2008), which the Financial Times called “the best read so far about the significance of the shift to cloud computing,” and Does IT Matter? (2004).Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe
Nicholas Carr has been amongst the most persistently prescient observers of the digital revolution over the last quarter century. Take, for example, his 2012 essay "The Arc of Innovation Bends Towards Decadence," which, in many ways, foresaw our current technological and social predicament. Carr's thesis was that technological innovation increasingly moves toward fulfilling self-indulgent desires rather than addressing fundamental human needs, following a pattern similar to Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Carr accurately predicted the shift from idealistic views of technology as tools for self-actualization to their current role in feeding narcissism and anxiety. The timing of his essay proved particularly significant, as 2012 marked a crucial turning point when smartphones became dominant and social media reached mass adoption. This period coincided with what social psychologists like Jonathan Haidt identify as the beginning of a sharp rise in anxiety and decline in self-confidence, especially among young people. Carr's insights extend to current debates about AI, where he sees a potentially "decadent" trend of outsourcing fundamental human activities like writing and thinking to machines. He frames this as part of a broader pattern where technology, instead of enhancing human capabilities (in the manner of Steve Jobs' "bicycle for the mind"), increasingly substitutes for them entirely. Most notably, Carr recognized early on that digital technologies, while promising connection and democratization, often trigger "our worst instincts." His analysis helps explain why, despite growing awareness of social media's negative effects, we remain unable to disentangle ourselves from these technologies - a phenomenon he describes as "mis-wanting." Essential stuff, as always, from the great Nick Carr.Nicholas Carr writes about the human consequences of technology. His books, including the Pulitzer Prize finalist The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains and the forthcoming Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart, have been translated into more than twenty-five languages. He has recently been a visiting professor of sociology at Williams College, and earlier in his career he was executive editor of the Harvard Business Review. In 2015, he received the Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity from the Media Ecology Association. He writes the Substack newsletter New Cartographies. A New York Times bestseller when it was first published in 2010 and now hailed as “a modern classic,” Carr's The Shallows remains a touchstone for debates on the internet's effects on our thoughts and perceptions. A second edition of The Shallows, updated with a new chapter, was published in 2020. Carr's 2014 book The Glass Cage: Automation and Us, which the New York Review of Books called a “chastening meditation on the human future,” examines the personal and social consequences of our ever growing dependency on computers, robots, and artificial intelligence. His latest book, Utopia Is Creepy, published in 2016, collects his best essays, blog posts, and other writings from the past dozen years. The collection is “by turns wry and revelatory,” wrote Discover. Carr is also the author of two other influential books, The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google (2008), which the Financial Times called “the best read so far about the significance of the shift to cloud computing,” and Does IT Matter? (2004).Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe
If there's a Marshall McLuhan for our digital age, then it might be the much published media theorist Douglas Rushoff. One of the founding evangelists of the digital revolution, Rushkoff then became one of the earliest critics of its increasingly market-driven and monopolistic forces. But now, as the zeitgeist has sharply shifted against the digital revolution, Rushkoff has become cautiously optimistic about the potential of AI to improve the world. As he told me when we talked recently in New York City, AI might be what he called “the first native app for the internet”. I'm not exactly sure what this McLuhanesque message means, but it does suggest that today's AI media revolution might not be quite as dismal as most of us fear.Named one of the “world's ten most influential intellectuals” by MIT, Douglas Rushkoff is an author and documentarian who studies human autonomy in a digital age. His twenty books include the just-published Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires, as well as the recent Team Human, based on his podcast, and the bestsellers Present Shock, Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus, Program or Be Programmed, Life Inc, and Media Virus. He also made the PBS Frontline documentaries Generation Like, The Persuaders, and Merchants of Cool. His book Coercion won the Marshall McLuhan Award, and the Media Ecology Association honored him with the first Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity. Rushkoff's work explores how different technological environments change our relationship to narrative, money, power, and one another. He coined such concepts as “viral media,” “screenagers,” and “social currency,” and has been a leading voice for applying digital media toward social and economic justice. He serves as a research fellow of the Institute for the Future, and founder of the Laboratory for Digital Humanism at CUNY/Queens, where he is a Professor of Media Theory and Digital Economics. He is a columnist for Medium, and his novels and comics, Ecstasy Club, A.D.D, and Aleister & Adolf, are all being developed for the screen.Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe
Nora Bateson, is an award-winning filmmaker, research designer, writer, educator, international lecturer, as well as President of the International Bateson Institute based in Sweden. She is the creator of the Warm Data theory and practices. Nora's work brings the fields of biology, cognition, art, anthropology, psychology, and information technology together into a study of the patterns in ecology of living systems. She wrote, directed and produced the award-winning documentary, An Ecology of Mind, a portrait of her father Gregory Bateson.Her first book, Small Arcs of Larger Circles, is a revolutionary personal approach to the study of systems and complexity. In her latest second book Combining, Nora invites us into an ecology of communication where nothing stands alone, and every action sets off a chain of incalculable consequences. She challenges conventional fixes for our problems, highlighting the need to tackle issues at multiple levels, understand interdependence, and embrace ambiguity.She was the recipient of the Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity in 2019.In this engaging conversation, we delve into the dangers of certainty and the pursuit of fixed answers, exploring how moving beyond polarities can lead to mutual learning and understanding. We discuss the weaponisation of language, the impact of divisive discourse, and how more generative and sacred communication can guide us toward deeper connection and shared presence.This conversation invites you to engage more fully with life as it is—its beauty and its horror, its creativity and its destruction. It's a call to hold life's complexity with openness, to embrace it, and to let it go as the flow of life continues to unfold.For further content and information check out the following:- Nora's Warm Data work: https://www.warmdata.life/ - Nora's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nora-bateson-b4a2456/- The International Bateson Institute website: https://batesoninstitute.org/nora-bateson/ - For the What is a Good Life? podcast's YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/@whatisagoodlife/videos- My newsletter: https://www.whatisagood.life/- My LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-mccartney-14b0161b4/Contact me at mark@whatisagood.life if you'd like to explore your own lines of self-inquiry through 1-on-1 coaching, take part in my weekly free silent conversations, discuss experiences I create to stimulate greater trust, communication, and connection, amongst your leadership teams, or you simply want to get in touch.00:00 Teaser01:43 Introduction04:50 How not to get caught looking for answers09:43 A quest for systems change13:30 Holding possibility open17:50 Taking a stand and taking a stance20:15 The significance of how we communicate 24:50 Belonging, certainty, and polarity30:50 The problem of grabbing answers37:23 Generative and sacred communication42:35 Paying attention to moment and context48:20 Practice of improvisation55:30 The implications of concrete answers01:02:58 What is a good life for Nora?
Abby E. Murray won 2024 Neil Postman Award for Metaphor for her poem "Supermoon." But who was Neil Postman, and where did this award come from? Katie, Tim, and friends are joined by Abby Murray and Erik Campbell, who conceived of the award way back in 2004. At the table: Katie Dozier Timothy Green Erik Campbell Abby E. Murray Dick Westheimer Brian O'Sullivan Joe Barca
Jim talks with Douglas Rushkoff about the ideas in his podcast monologue/Substack post "Why I'm Finally Leaving X and Probably All Social Media." They discuss Douglas's history with social media, the early social internet, Facebook's parasitism of legacy news, the decontextualization of content, The WELL, owning your own words, leaving Facebook in 2013, Jim's social media sabbaticals, the opportunity to create an info agent, the number of daily interruptions, attention-deficit disorder as an adaptive strategy, books versus articles, effects of long-term social media use, the quest for nominal identity, how careful curation improves X, using social media as a professional writer, the organic in-between, strong vs weak social links, the ability of strong links to hold & metabolize, how the internet spawns billionaires, airline subsidies, Girardian mimesis, liberal universal humanism, rebuilding embodied life at the Dunbar number, John Vervaeke's "religion that is not a religion," starting where you are, and much more. Episode Transcript "Why I'm Finally Leaving X and Probably All Social Media," by Douglas Rushkoff Team Human, by Douglas Rushkoff Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus: How Growth Became the Enemy of Prosperity, by Douglas Rushkoff The WELL JRS EP30 - Nora Bateson on Complexity & the Transcontextual JRS EP 184 - Dave Snowden on Managing Complexity in Times of Crisis JRS EP 190 - Peter Turchin on Cliodynamics and End Times JRS EP 170 - John Vervaeke and Jordan Hall on The Religion That Is Not a Religion Named one of the “world's ten most influential intellectuals” by MIT, Douglas Rushkoff is an author and documentarian who studies human autonomy in a digital age. His twenty books include the just-published Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires, as well as the recent Team Human, based on his podcast, and the bestsellers Present Shock, Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus, Program or Be Programmed, Life Inc, and Media Virus. He also made the PBS Frontline documentaries Generation Like, The Persuaders, and Merchants of Cool. His book Coercion won the Marshall McLuhan Award, and the Media Ecology Association honored him with the first Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity. Rushkoff's work explores how different technological environments change our relationship to narrative, money, power, and one another. He coined such concepts as “viral media,” “screenagers,” and “social currency,” and has been a leading voice for applying digital media toward social and economic justice. He is a research fellow of the Institute for the Future, and founder of the Laboratory for Digital Humanism at CUNY/Queens, where he is a Professor of Media Theory and Digital Economics. He is a columnist for Medium, and his novels and comics, Ecstasy Club, A.D.D, and Aleister & Adolf, are all being developed for the screen.
EPISODE 1639: In this KEEN ON episode, Andrew talks to the prolific futurist and tech critic, Douglas Rushkoff, about the false promises of social media and our need to engage with what he calls "reality reality" Named one of the “world's ten most influential intellectuals” by MIT, Douglas Rushkoff is an author and documentarian who studies human autonomy in a digital age. His twenty books include the just-published Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires, as well as the recent Team Human, based on his podcast, and the bestsellers Present Shock, Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus, Program or Be Programmed, Life Inc, and Media Virus. He also made the PBS Frontline documentaries Generation Like, The Persuaders, and Merchants of Cool. His book Coercion won the Marshall McLuhan Award, and the Media Ecology Association honored him with the first Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity. Rushkoff's work explores how different technological environments change our relationship to narrative, money, power, and one another. He coined such concepts as “viral media,” “screenagers,” and “social currency,” and has been a leading voice for applying digital media toward social and economic justice. He serves as a research fellow of the Institute for the Future, and founder of the Laboratory for Digital Humanism at CUNY/Queens, where he is a Professor of Media Theory and Digital Economics. He is a columnist for Medium, and his novels and comics, Ecstasy Club, A.D.D, and Aleister & Adolf, are all being developed for the screen. Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The song you just heard at the top of the show was 'Last Gasp of the Dinosaurs' by Arthur Loves Plastic. You can find more of Arthur Loves Plastic's music on Soundcloud at soundcloud.com/arthurlovesplastic This is Part II of our discussion with Douglas Rushkoff author of the must-read Team Human and Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires. Rushkoff is an author and documentarian on the frontlines of understanding how technology and tech billionaires are impacting our lives and the world. His twenty books also include the bestsellers Present Shock, Throwing Rocks and the Google Bus, Program or Be Programmed, Life Inc, and Media Virus. His films include the PBS Frontline documentaries Generation Like, The Persuaders, and Merchants of Cool. He won the Marshall McLuhan Award for his book Coercion, and the Media Ecology Association honored him with the first Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity. For more on his indispensable work visit his website. In our bonus episode, Rushkoff takes the Gaslit Nation Self-Care Q&A. To submit your own answers and give inspiration for ways to recharge as we run our marathon together to protect our democracy, leave your answers in the comments section or send an email to GaslitNation@gmail.com. We'll read some of the responses on the show! And don't forget that Andrea will join comedian Kevin Allison of the RISK! Storytelling podcast for a special live event at Caveat in New York City on Saturday August 5th at 4pm to celebrate the launch of the new Gaslit Nation book Dictatorship: It's Easier Than You Think! To get a ticket to that event in person or to watch the livestream, visit this website. Signed copies of the book can be ordered at the event! Gaslit Nation Self-Care Questionnaire What's a book you think everyone should read and why? What's a documentary everyone should watch and why? What's a dramatic film everyone should watch and why? Who are some historical mentors who inspire you? What's the best concert you've ever been to? What are some songs on your playlist for battling the dark forces? Who or what inspires you to stay engaged and stay in the fight? What's the best advice you've ever gotten? What's your favorite place you've ever visited? What's your favorite work of art and why?
Billionaire Bunkers are a stunning exercise in self-delusion, as the books of our next guest show. In this inspiring conversation with Douglas Rushkoff, author of the must-read Team Human and Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires, the topics range from how to be a respectable prepper to how to raise good humans and whether A.I. is coming for our jobs and our minds. Rushkoff is an author and documentarian on the frontlines of understanding how technology and tech billionaires are impacting our lives and the world. His twenty books also include the bestsellers Present Shock, Throwing Rocks and the Google Bus, Program or Be Programmed, Life Inc, and Media Virus. His films include the PBS Frontline documentaries Generation Like, The Persuaders, and Merchants of Cool. He won the Marshall McLuhan Award for his book Coercion, and the Media Ecology Association honored him with the first Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity. For more on his indispensable work visit his website. In our bonus episode, Rushkoff takes the Gaslit Nation Self-Care Q&A. To submit your own answers and give inspiration for ways to recharge as we run our marathon together to protect our democracy, leave your answers in the comments section or send an email to GaslitNation@gmail.com. We'll read some of the responses on the show! And don't forget that Andrea will join comedian Kevin Allison of the RISK! Storytelling podcast for a special live event at Caveat in New York City on Saturday August 5th at 4pm to celebrate the launch of the new Gaslit Nation book Dictatorship: It's Easier Than You Think! To get a ticket to that event in person or to watch the livestream, visit this website. Signed copies of the book can be ordered at the event! Gaslit Nation Self-Care Questionnaire What's a book you think everyone should read and why? What's a documentary everyone should watch and why? What's a dramatic film everyone should watch and why? Who are some historical mentors who inspire you? What's the best concert you've ever been to? What are some songs on your playlist for battling the dark forces? Who or what inspires you to stay engaged and stay in the fight? What's the best advice you've ever gotten? What's your favorite place you've ever visited? What's your favorite work of art and why?
EPISODE 1365: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to the artist Tiffany Shlain about her new "Human Nature" exhibit which views the history of women within the expansiveness of nature and time through the lens of feminism, neuroscience, ecology and philosophy. Honored by Newsweek as one of the "Women Shaping the 21st Century,” Tiffany Shlain is an artist, Emmy-nominated filmmaker, founder of the Webby Awards, and author of the national bestselling book 24/6: Giving up Screens One Day a Week to Get More Time, Creativity, and Connection, which won the Marshall McLuhan Outstanding Book Award. Shortly before the pandemic, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City premiered her one-woman show, Dear Human, about the relationship between humanity and technology. When the world shut down during COVID, Shlain spent the time walking in the redwoods and began working in large-scale sculpture, photography, and mixed media, exploring themes of scale, perspective, and time. She was selected as artist in residence by SHACK15 at the San Francisco Ferry Building, and began creating an exhibition, which debuted on the top floor of the Ferry Building, called Human Nature. The exhibition was presented by The National Women's History Museum based in Washington D.C. and Women Connect4Good. Working across film, art, and performance, Shlain's work explores the intersection of feminism, ecology, neuroscience, and philosophy. She has had multiple films premiere at Sundance, was selected by the Albert Einstein Foundation as one of the people carrying on his legacy, and received the Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity. The US State Department has used Shlain's films to represent the U.S. at embassies around the world. She has held artist residencies at the Headland Center for the Arts, the American Museum of Jewish History, and the Da Vinci Museum, which created an exhibit of all of her work on gender and society. In addition to bringing the Human Nature exhibition to new locations in 2023, she is working on a new exhibition that will open in Los Angeles in 2024. Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Named one of the “world's ten most influential intellectuals” by MIT, Douglas Rushkoff is an author and documentarian who studies human autonomy in a digital age. His twenty books include the just-published Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires, as well as the recent Team Human, based on his podcast, and the bestsellers Present Shock, Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus, Program or Be Programmed, Life Inc, and Media Virus. He also made the PBS Frontline documentaries Generation Like, The Persuaders, and Merchants of Cool. His book Coercion won the Marshall McLuhan Award, and the Media Ecology Association honored him with the first Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity. Rushkoff's work explores how different technological environments change our relationship to narrative, money, power, and one another. He coined such concepts as “viral media,” “screenagers,” and “social currency,” and has been a leading voice for applying digital media toward social and economic justice. He serves as a research fellow of the Institute for the Future, and founder of the Laboratory for Digital Humanism at CUNY/Queens, where he is a Professor of Media Theory and Digital Economics. He is a columnist for Medium, and his novels and comics, Ecstasy Club, A.D.D, and Aleister & Adolf, are all being developed for the screen.
Jim talks with Douglas Rushkoff about the ideas in his essay series, "What's a Meta For?" They discuss Facebook's renaming to Meta, the semantic web, ChatGPT, a Turing test recalibration period, Rocco's Basilisk, the conversion of the real world into a meta-world, Elon Musk as techno-monarch, the limitations of his understanding of free speech, returning Twitter to the people who use it, Zuckerberg's Caesar obsession, Rushkoff's criticisms of GameB, the dangers of an abstracted "omega point," understanding the complex binding energies of GameA, dominant political isms as a result of industrialism, GameB's schism over personal vs institutional change, the need to actually deliver, coherent pluralism, what being a member of GameB will mean, dangers of a totalizing narrative, not knowing what GameB is, cultivated insecurity, rejecting the metaverse, GameB's resilient response to critiques, and much more. Episode Transcript Douglas Rushkoff (website) "What's a Meta For?" by Douglas Rushkoff (part 1 and 2) Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires, by Douglas Rushkoff Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus: How Growth Became the Enemy of Prosperity, by Douglas Rushkoff JRS Currents 051: Douglas Rushkoff on the Once and Future Internet Character.AI "If I Were CEO of Twitter," by Douglas Rushkoff "The Liminal Web: Mapping An Emergent Subculture Of Sensemakers, Meta-Theorists & Systems Poets," by Joe Lightfoot Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior, by Christopher Boehm The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, by David Graeber & David Wengrow Doomer Optimism JRS Currents 049: Ashley Colby & Jason Snyder on Doomer Optimism Named one of the “world's ten most influential intellectuals” by MIT, Douglas Rushkoff is an author and documentarian who studies human autonomy in a digital age. His twenty books include the just-published Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires, as well as the recent Team Human, based on his podcast, and the bestsellers Present Shock, Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus, Program or Be Programmed, Life Inc, and Media Virus. He also made the PBS Frontline documentaries Generation Like, The Persuaders, and Merchants of Cool. His book Coercion won the Marshall McLuhan Award, and the Media Ecology Association honored him with the first Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity. Rushkoff's work explores how different technological environments change our relationship to narrative, money, power, and one another. He coined such concepts as “viral media,” “screenagers,” and “social currency,” and has been a leading voice for applying digital media toward social and economic justice. He is a research fellow of the Institute for the Future, and founder of the Laboratory for Digital Humanism at CUNY/Queens, where he is a Professor of Media Theory and Digital Economics. He is a columnist for Medium, and his novels and comics, Ecstasy Club, A.D.D, and Aleister & Adolf, are all being developed for the screen.
In conversation with Kevin Werbach Acclaimed for their intersectional explorations of cyberculture, religion, currency, and politics, Douglas Rushkoff's 20 bestselling books include Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus, Program or Be Programmed, Present Shock, and Media Virus. He also is the host of the Team Human podcast, writes a column for Medium, and created the PBS Frontline documentaries Generation Like, The Persuaders, and Merchants of Cool. A professor of media theory and digital economics at City University of New York, Queens College, he was selected as one of the world's 10 most influential intellectuals by MIT, was the first winner of the Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity, is a recipient of the Marshall McLuhan Award, and has received many other accolades. In Survival of the Richest, Rushkoff reveals the flawed mindset that has led out-of-touch tech titans to prepare for a societal catastrophe they could simply avert through practical measures. Chair of the Department of Legal Studies and Business Ethics at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, Ken Werbach is the author of For the Win: How Game Thinking Can Revolutionize Your Business and The Blockchain and the New Architecture of Trust. He served on the Obama administration's presidential transition team and helped develop the Federal Communications Commission's approach to internet policy. (recorded 9/20/2022)
On this episode, Author and Professor Douglas Rushkoff joins Nate to discuss how human behavior interacts with technology and how we have arrived at a place with enormous wealth and income inequality just as society is rapidly approaching biophysical limits. Rushkoff unpacks parts of his new book, Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires, on the need to collectively break away from a top-down mindset to embrace circularity and resiliency. About Douglas Rushkoff: Named one of the “world's ten most influential intellectuals” by MIT, Douglas Rushkoff is an author and documentarian who studies human autonomy in a digital age. His twenty books include the upcoming Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires, as well as the recent Team Human, based on his podcast, and the bestsellers Present Shock, Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus, Program or Be Programmed, Life Inc, and Media Virus. He also made the PBS Frontline documentaries Generation Like, The Persuaders, and Merchants of Cool. His book Coercion won the Marshall McLuhan Award, and the Media Ecology Association honored him with the first Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity.
Mike White has published two poetry collections, How to Make a Bird with Two Hands (Word Works, 2012) and Addendum to a Miracle (Waywiser, 2017). His work can be found in magazines including Ploughshares, Poetry, The New Republic, The Threepenny Review, and The Yale Review. His is winner of the Anthony Hecht Prize, the Washington Prize, and Rattle's 2010 Neil Postman Award for Metaphor. Originally from Canada, he now lives in Salt Lake City and teaches at the University of Utah. Find his most recent book here: https://waywiser-press.com/product/addendum-to-a-miracle/ As always, we'll also include live open lines for responses to our weekly prompt or any other poems you'd like to share. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins. For links to all the past episodes, visit: https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/ This Week's Prompt: On the elevator, a stranger says something unexpected. Next Week's Prompt: Your earliest childhood memory. The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.
Rattlecast #89 features 2013 Neil Postman Award winner Eugenia Leigh and her book Blood, Sparrows and Sparrows. Eugenia Leigh's Blood, Sparrows and Sparrows (Four Way Books, 2014), was winner of the Late Night Library's 2015 Debut-litzer Prize in Poetry as well as a finalist for the National Poetry Series and the Yale Series of Younger Poets. Her poems and essays have appeared in numerous publications including The Rumpus, Ploughshares, Waxwing, Pleiades, North American Review, the Academy of American Poets' Poem-a-Day, the Best New Poets 2010 anthology, and the 2017 Best of the Net anthology. Eugenia received her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College, where she was awarded the Thomas Lux Scholarship for her dedication to teaching, demonstrated through her writing workshops with incarcerated youths and with Brooklyn high school students. Since her time at Sarah Lawrence, Eugenia has served as a teaching artist with a variety of organizations including the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund's undocumented youth group, RAISE. For more info, visit: https://www.eugenialeigh.com/ As always, we'll also include live open lines for responses to our weekly prompt or any other poems you'd like to share. For details on how to participate, either via Skype or by phone, go to: https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/ This Week's Prompt: Write a poem that begins with the following sentence: Pull over at the next stop. Next Week's Prompt: Write a poem that starts and ends with the same line. The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Periscope, then becomes an audio podcast.
Rebecca Starks is the author of the poetry collections Time Is Always Now, a finalist for the 2019 Able Muse Book Award, and Fetch, Muse, forthcoming from Able Muse Press. Winner of Rattle‘s 2018 Neil Postman Award for Metaphor, and past winner of Poetry Northwest‘s Richard Hugo Prize, she is a co-founder of Mud Season Review and a former director of the Burlington Writers Workshop. She works as a freelance editor and workshop leader; teaches in the Osher Institute of Lifelong Learning program at the University of Vermont; and is on the board of Sundog Poetry. In her spare time she takes her dogs for runs in the woods and plays violin in the Me2 Orchestra, in support of its mission to reduce stigma surrounding mental illness. She and her family live in Richmond, Vermont. Find more here: https://rebeccastarks.com/ As always, we'll also include live open lines for responses to our weekly prompt or any other poems you'd like to share. For details on how to participate, either via Skype or by phone, go to: https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/ This Week's Prompt: Write a poem about a chance encounter with a stranger. Next Week’s Prompt: “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost is arguably one of the most famous poems in the English language. Write a poem that imagines a scenario in which the speaker takes the road more traveled. The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Periscope, then becomes an audio podcast.
With all our systems – economic, political, healthcare, and more – crashing all around us, how do we even begin to imagine change? Where is the change? How do we think about it; talk about it; take part in it? Is there such a thing as systems change anymore? Or are we kidding ourselves with abstract formulas that cannot possibly keep up with the changes happening all around us? Right now, everyone is trying to figure out how to live in a worldwide pandemic. We have been in pandemics before, but never in such a radically interconnected world—with high-speed air travel and even faster electronic communication, rampant environmental pollution, nuclear weapons, and emerging autocracies, among other complicating factors. What have we learned? Do we know how to deal with uncertainty in a productive way? Or are we on a downward spiral due to humankind's inability to create balance among other humans and the more-than-human world? We all want to rebuild a more coherent and beautiful world. But we cannot move too fast. We must first learn to dance with trickster energies. It may be preemptive to propose replacement forms of order in the midst of such chaos – instead, we might need to learn a new language, a new mode of being in the world that is more creative and flexible. What stance and mindset will help us adapt to the rapid and radical changes of the present? With our systems unraveling, this is our opportunity to go beyond symptoms to root causes that unite seemingly different events. What are the openings that Trickster is making known to us? What are the resources, stories, lessons, opportunities, and wisdom we can draw from uncertain times? Join us as we delve into Dancing with Uncertainty. Guest Bios Alfonso Montuori has been a long-time professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies. He has also been Distinguished Professor in the School of Fine Arts at Miami University, in Oxford Ohio and at the University of Rome, and in 1985-1986 he taught at the Central South University in Hunan, China. Alfonso was born in Holland, and lived in Lebanon, Greece, England, and China before coming to the United States in 1986. His father was Italian and his mother Dutch, and he grew up speaking several languages. An active musician and producer, Alfonso has performed with or recorded artists such Joe Henderson, Roy Hargrove, Aztec Camera and his wife, noted jazz singer Kitty Margolis. His research has focused on creativity, transdisciplinarity, complexity, leadership, education, and social change, and has been translated into Chinese, French, Italian, and Spanish. Alfonso is also a consultant in the areas of creativity, innovation and leadership development whose clients have included Fortune 500 companies, non-profits, and artists. Nora Bateson, is an award-winning filmmaker, research designer, writer and educator, as well as President of the International Bateson Institute based in Sweden where she has put together a team that works on an innovative form of inquiry Nora calls Transcontextual research and a corresponding new form of information she calls “Warm Data.” An international lecturer, researcher and writer, Nora wrote, directed and produced the award-winning documentary, An Ecology of Mind, a portrait of her father, Gregory Bateson. Her work brings the fields of biology, cognition, art, anthropology, psychology, and information technology together into a study of the patterns in ecology of living systems. Recipient of the 2019 Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity. Her book, Small Arcs of Larger Circles released by Triarchy Press, UK, 2016 is a revolutionary personal approach to the study of systems and complexity, and the core text of the Harvard University LILA program 2017-18. Her next book, Warm Data, also will be published by Triarchy Press with a publication date that is still to be determined. The post Dancing With Uncertainty appeared first on WebTalkRadio.net.
Named one of the “world’s ten most influential intellectuals” by MIT, Douglas Rushkoff is an author and documentarian who studies human autonomy in a digital age. His twenty books include the just-published Team Human, based on his podcast, as well as the bestsellers Present Shock, Throwing Rocks and the Google Bus, Program or Be Programmed, Life Inc, and Media Virus. He also made the PBS Frontline documentaries Generation Like, The Persuaders, and Merchants of Cool. His book Coercion won the Marshall McLuhan Award, and the Media Ecology Association honored him with the first Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Episode #30 features Kelly Grace Thomas and her new book Boat Burned. Kelly's poem "And the Woman Said" appeared in Rattle #51 and won the Neil Postman Award for Metaphor. Kelly Grace Thomas is a 2018 finalist for the Rita Dove Poetry Award. Her first full-length collection, Boat Burned, released with YesYes Books in January 2020. Kelly’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in: Best New Poets 2019, Los Angeles Review, Redivider, Nashville Review, Muzzle, DIAGRAM, and more. Kelly currently works to bring poetry to underserved youth as the Director of Education and Pedagogy for Get Lit-Words Ignite. Kelly is a three-time poetry slam championship coach and the co-author of Words Ignite: Explore, Write and Perform, Classic and Spoken Word Poetry (Literary Riot), currently taught in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Kelly has received fellowships from Tin House Winter Workshop, Martha's Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing and the Kenyon Review Young Writers. Kelly and her sister, Kat Thomas, won Best Feature Length Screenplay at the Portland Comedy Film Festival for their romantic comedy, Magic Little Pills. Kelly lives in the Bay Area with her husband, Omid, and is currently working on her debut novel, a YA thriller, titled Only 10.001. For more information, visit: https://www.kellygracethomas.com/ Prologue: "The Girls on Josephine Street" by Melissa McEwen Prompt Responses: Tim Megan Brenda Komarinski Kris Beaver Richard Chetwynd David Cooke This Week's Prompt: An undiscovered constellation. Must be no longer than 280 characters (“Twitter length”.) Next Week’s Prompt: President Trump goes to the arcade. Bonus suggestion: Villanelle.
In this podcast, Kelly Grace Thomas discusses how she uses poetry to explore issues that nobody talks about. Her latest book focuses on issues of the body, femininity, and changing conceptions of what it means to be a woman. A poet who has won Rattle's Neil Postman Award, Kelly discusses how she comes up with metaphors, and how she uses them, not just in one poem, but as a way to hold an entire collection together. Rewrite Technique: Listen to many poems. Listen to them being spoken out loud, or else read them, in large groups, in a row. Then go for a walk, preferably on a beach or somewhere in naturem and let the language continue to wash over you until you feel it in your body. Then rewrite the poem you're stuck on again, from scratch.
Francesca Bell was born in Spokane, Washington, into a family with deep, hardscrabble roots in the Northwest. Her poems and translations appear in many magazines including ELLE, Mid-American Review, New Ohio Review, North American Review, and Prairie Schooner. She’s also appeared in many issues of Rattle, was the featured conversation in issue #56, and won the 2014 Neil Postman Award for Metaphor. She is the co-translator of Palestinian poet Shatha Abu Hnaish’s collection, A Love That Hovers Like a Bedeviling Mosquito (Dar Fadaat, 2017), and the author of Bright Stain (Red Hen Press, 2019). For more information, visit her website: https://francescabellpoet.com Prologue: Amy Miller Ruth Bavetta Caitlin Gildrien Epilogue open mic: Melinda Jane (The Poet Mj) Joy Colter Stephen Roberts Kevin Lemaster James Snay Emilio Peurta Elizabeth S. Wolf
Sam Harris speaks with Douglas Rushkoff about the state of the digital economy. Douglas Rushkoff is the host of the Team Human podcast and author of Team Human as well as a dozen other bestselling books on media, technology, and culture. He is a research fellow of the Institute for the Future, and founder of the Laboratory for Digital Humanism at CUNY/Queens, where he is a Professor of Media Theory and Digital Economics. He made the PBS Frontline documentaries Generation Like, The Persuaders, and Merchants of Cool. His book Coercion won the Marshall McLuhan Award, and the Media Ecology Association honored him with the first Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity. Website: rushkoff.com Twitter: @rushkoff
We're telling stories. Kelly Grace Thomas, is our guest today. We are discussing body image, how it is passed down through the generations, and what we're teaching our kids about it, especially in our silent moments. We also explore when it is that parts of us begin to die. All because of the 2 poems that Kelly Grace reads for us today. Kelly Grace Thomas is the winner of the 2017 Neil Postman Award for Metaphor from Rattle, a finalist for the Rita Dove Poetry Award, a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee and Best of the Next nominee. BOAT/BURNED, her first full-length collection, is forthcoming from YesYes Books. Kelly’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in: The Los Angeles Review, DIAGRAM, Tinderbox, Nashville Review, Sixth Finch, Muzzle, PANK and more. . Kelly currently works to bring poetry to underserved youth as the Manager of Education and Pedagogy for Get Lit-Words Ignite. She is also the co-author of Words Ignite: Explore, Write and Perform, Classic and Spoken Word Poetry (Literary Riot). She lives in the Bay Area with her husband. For more please visit www.kellygracethomas.com If it's not 1 Thing, explores the topic of mother from every angle imaginable and some you have not thought of. Each week, we share a new story and have great conversations with the writers, many of whom are in fact not writers by trade. We have excerpts from best selling novels, memoirs, poetry award winners, songwriters, stay at home moms, insurance brokers, teachers, actors, college students and beyond. Some famous. Some not at all. But they all have incredible tales to tell. Story is in our DNA. It's how we make sense of the world around us. We have so much to teach each other. We welcome you to rate and review us. www.ifitsnot1thingitsyourmother.com
Author Nicholas Carr writes about technology & culture. His latest book, “Utopia Is Creepy” (http://a.co/7dwlAjY), collects his best essays, blog posts, & other writings from the past dozen years for an alternative history of our tech-besotted time. His previous work, 2014’s “The Glass Cage: How Our Computers Are Changing Us”, examined the personal & social consequences of our ever growing dependency on computers, robots & apps. His 2010 book, “The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains” was a 2011 Pulitzer Prize finalist & New York Times bestseller. In 2015, he also received the Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity from the Media Ecology Association. Since 2005, he has written the popular blog “Rough Type” (http://www.roughtype.com/). Nicholas Carr is a former member of the Encyclopedia Britannica’s editorial board of advisors, was on the steering board of the World Economic Forum’s cloud computing project & a writer-in-residence at the University of California at Berkeley’s journalism school. Earlier in his career, he was executive editor of the Harvard Business Review. He holds a B.A. from Dartmouth College & an M.A., in English & American Literature & Language, from Harvard University. Find more info on Nicholas Carr at http://www.nicholascarr.com/. On each episode of the Technology For Mindfulness Podcast, Robert Plotkin, co-creator of the “Hack Your Mind” series at MIT, explores the intersection between the practice of mindfulness & the use of technology in the modern age. Show notes can be found at TechnologyForMindfulness.com/, & you can also follow the show at Twitter.com/TechForMindful & Facebook.com/TechnologyForMindfulness/. Come back often & feel free to subscribe in iTunes or add the Technology For Mindfulness Podcast to your favorite podcast application. Follow us on: Twitter.com/TechForMindful Facebook.com/TechnologyForMindfulness Subscribe to the Technology For Mindfulness Podcast via: iTunes: apple.co/2opAqpn Stitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/robert-plotkin/technology-for-mindfulness SoundCloud: @technologyformindfulness TuneIn: http://tunein.com/radio/Technology-For-Mindfulness-p963257/ YouTube: www.youtube.com/channel/UCadmsqRjuiilNT5bwHFHDfQ RSS: feeds.feedburner.com/TechnologyForMindfulness Music courtesy of Tobu - Colors [NCS Release] https://youtu.be/MEJCwccKWG0 http://www.7obu.com http://www.soundcloud.com/7obu http://www.facebook.com/tobuofficial http://www.twitter.com/tobuofficial http://www.youtube.com/tobuofficial See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Part 1 of the IAH and Team Human Podcast episodical swap! Next week Part 2 will be over at Douglas' podcast Team Human. Really exciting. Douglas is one of my oldest friends, mentors and inspirations. I've looked up to a great deal over the years on a variety of issues. Douglas was way ahead of the curve in interpreting the effect that digital media and cyberspace would have on the human condition. Through his books Media Virus, Present Shock and Throwing Rocks and The Google Bus - Douglas has given astonishing views into the color of our new world. On this podcast we talked a lot about what Team Human (the concept) means, looking back on the past and our experience in it and how our the very nature of our consciousness is changing right before our very eyes. Douglas is one of the great thinkers of our time, enjoy. INTRO RANT: The quality of action within love Douglas Rushkoff is a writer, documentarian, and lecturer whose work focuses on human autonomy in a digital age. He is the author of fifteen bestselling books on media, technology, and society, including Program or Be Programmed, Present Shock, and Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus. He has made such award-winning PBS Frontline documentaries as Generation Like, Merchants of Cool, and The Persuaders, and is the author of graphic novels including Testament and Aleister & Adolf. Rushkoff is the recipient of the Marshall McLuhan Award for his book Coercion, The Jacques Ellul Award for his documentary The Merchants of Cool, and the Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity. Named one of the world’s ten most influential intellectuals by MIT, he is responsible for originating such concepts as “viral media,” “social currency,” and “digital natives.” Today, Dr. Rushkoff serves as Professor of Media Theory and Digital Economics at CUNY/Queens, where he recently founded the Laboratory for Digital Humanism and hosts its TeamHuman podcast. @rushkoff