Escaping Screens: A Tech-Free Travel Quest, Part II

A stranded American tourist shares the story of a six-month screen-free quest through India and Nepal just as the coronavirus explodes. Part II.

By Tom Grotewohl | August 12, 2020 | Cognition, Culture, Media, Philosophy, Society, Well-Being | Acceptance, Addiction, Art, Awareness, Boredom, Boundaries, Concentration, Conscientious Tech Use, Consciousness, Convenience, Coronavirus, COVID-19, Creativity, Distraction, Dystopia, Electronic Devices, Experience, Food, Ganges, India, Jungle, Localism, Lockdown, Meditation, music, Nature, Nepal, News, Obsession, Pandemic, Peace, Photography, Presence, Renunciation, Ritual, Sacred, Screen Sabbath, Serendipity, Smartphone, Social Media, Spirituality, Superficiality, Tech-Free, Time, Tranquility, travel, Wisdom, Writing

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Escaping Screens: A Tech-Free Travel Quest, Part I

An American tourist stranded in India shares his story: six months traveling without a screen, only to pick one up again just in time for the global meltdown.

By Tom Grotewohl | July 30, 2020 | Cognition, Culture, Media, Philosophy, Society, Well-Being | Acceptance, Addiction, Art, Awareness, Boredom, Boundaries, Concentration, Conscientious Tech Use, Consciousness, Convenience, Coronavirus, COVID-19, Creativity, Distraction, Dystopia, Electronic Devices, Experience, Food, Ganges, India, Jungle, Localism, Lockdown, Meditation, music, Nature, Nepal, News, Obsession, Pandemic, Peace, Photography, Presence, Renunciation, Ritual, Sacred, Screen Sabbath, Serendipity, Smartphone, Social Media, Spirituality, Superficiality, Tech-Free, Time, Tranquility, travel, Wisdom, Writing

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WeChat: From Medium to Mediator

China’s omnipresent app regulates much of society. Will it be a blueprint or cautionary tale?

By Chris Neels | January 22, 2020 | Culture, Economics, Government, Media, Policing, Privacy, Society | Beijing, Cashless, Censorship, China, Cybernetics, Dissent, Economics, Free Speech, Freedom, Information, Mediation, Metadata, News, QR Codes, Ride Hailing, surveillance, Tracking, Virtualization, WeChat

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Podcast #24: Michael Zimmerman Gets Philosophical on Tech

In a wide-ranging conversation, philosopher Michael Zimmerman contextualizes our technological journey within the history of Western thought.

By Mo Lotman | January 9, 2019 | Artificial Intelligence, Culture, Employment, Environment, Ethics, Knowledge, Philosophy, Podcasts, Religion, Society | Acts of Enclosure, Addiction, Agriculture, Ancient World, Anger, Aristotle, Arnold Toynbee, Artificial General Intelligence, Artificial Intelligence, Authenticity, Axial Age, Behavior, Bible, Bolsheviks, Boundaries, Buddhism, Capitlism, Carolyn Merchant, Christianity, Civilization, Control, Craving, Creativity, CRISPR, David Loy, Death, Decadence, Deep Ecology, Delusion, Desire, Distraction, Earth, Ease, Embodiment, Engineering, Environment, Eternity, Exploitation, Exponential Growth, Facebook, Fake News, Fate, Finitude, Fire, Francis Bacon, Friedrich Nietzsche, Gnosticism, Golden Rule, Google, Greed, Hatred, Hegel, Heiddeger, Hubris, Human Nature, Humanness, Immaturity, Immortality, Industrial Revolution, Infantilization, Isaiah, Islam, Jaron Lanier, Karl Jaspers, Karl Marx, Knowledge, Lab-Grown Meat, Life, Loss, Martin Rees, Marxism, Master-Slave Dialectic, Meaning, Meat-Eating, Mediation, Medieval World, Metallurgy, Mind, Mining, Modernity, Money Economy, Morality, Mortality, Native Americans, Nature, Nazis, News, Nihilism, Obesity, Pain, Pascal, Peter Thiel, Philosophy, Plato, Playing God, Power, Production, Progress, Propoganda, Protestant Reformation, Ray Kurzweil, Reincarnation, relationships, Religion, René Descartes, Resentment, Resources, Respect, Sailing, Security, Self-Mastery, Silicon Valley, Smartphones, Socialism, Soviets, Spirituality, Splintering, Steve Jobs, Suffering, The Overman, The Singularity, Trade, Traditional Societies, Transhumanism, Twitter, Utopia, Wealth, Wildfires, Will to Power, Wisdom, Wonder

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Is Democracy Threatened by Chatbots?

Chatbots are becoming more sophisticated both in their ability to process language and gauge emotion. As social media increasingly influences our news and beliefs, this could be a big problem.

By Emily Ludolf | January 31, 2018 | Artificial Intelligence, Government, Journalism, Knowledge, Politics, Psychology, Security, Society | AI, Bias, Chatbots, Customer Service, Cyberbullying, Democracy, Elections, Fake News, Filter Bubble, Influence, Machine Learning, Microsoft, Natural Language Processing, News, NLP, Opinion, Oxford, Profiling, Propaganda, Psychiatry, Psychology, Russia, Social Media, Targeting, Tay, Therapy, Trolling, Twitter

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