Podcast #30: Gail Dines on Porn Culture

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

Google’s Smart Reply: Convenience Over Connection

Gmail offers users canned responses to emails, based on AI interpretations of the contents and the user’s typical writing style. This convenience, unknown to the recipient, comes at a social cost.

By Samantha Maxwell | December 20, 2017 | Artificial Intelligence, Automation, Ethics, Relationships, Society | Automation, Communication, Connection, Connectivity, Convenience, Conversation, Email, Friendship, Gmail, Google, Love, relationships, Smart Reply, Social Interaction, Speed

Literary Twitter: Marketing, Shaming, & Censorship in the World of Publishing

Twitter has become deeply integrated into the literary world, creating a vastly different dynamic between authors and readers.

By Lucy Uprichard | December 6, 2017 | Community, Culture, Media, Publishing | Agents, Amazon, Bestseller Lists, Bestsellers, Celeste Ng, Censorship, Criticism, Cyberbullying, Donna Grant, Engagement, Fiction, Followers, Goodreads, Handbook for Mortals, Harlequin Teen, Jonathan Franzen, Lani Sarem, Laurie Forest, Literary Agents, Literary Criticism, Literary Twitter, Literature, Marketing, Pressure, Publishers, Publishing, Rebekah Fitzsimmons, relationships, Sarah Schulman, Self-Promotion, Shaming, Social Media, The Black Witch, The New York Times, Twitter, Valerie Peterson, Virginia DeBerry, Young Adult, Zadie Smith

Culturing Boundaries: The Right to be Offline

France recently passed legislation that’s being billed as a “right to be offline.” What’s behind it, and can we learn something from the French conception of work/life boundaries?