You heard that right, everyone. Who knows, maybe we’ll be back someday, though!
(Long-time listeners: stick around for the last bit of this episode. Trust us.)
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Reviewing what we learned in 2020—and ranking what we read!
Also: MARIMBAAAAAAAAAAA!!!
The books we covered this season:
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Neal Stephenson at double speed and with a smile on his face.
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The things we learned from Zeynep Tüfekçi’s examination of social media and sociopolitical change. (We liked this book a lot.)
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Walking through Zeynep Tüfekçi’s masterful explanation of the relationship between social media and protest movements.
Things we mentioned on the show, in the order we mentioned them:
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Thinking about Carl Sagan's views on belief, and how they relate to religion and science
After reading Carl Sagan’s 1985 novel Contact and watching the 1995 movie of the same name, we discuss a major epistemological question: what are the acceptable grounds for belief? Are religious belief and scientific proof compatible? Sagan’s surprisingly nuanced views give us interesting ways forward.
Things we mentioned on the show, in the order we mentioned them:
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Another book from the ’80s, but hey: at least this one is fiction!
We read Carl Sagan’s 1985 novel Contact and watched the 1995 movie of the same name. In this episode, our overview of the book: its plot and its basic interests.
Things we mentioned on the show, in the order we mentioned them:
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We argue with Mary Midgley on how she did what she did, more than what she did.
Here’s another great cover of the book from the ’80s!
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What had Mary Midgley so incredibly angry in the 1980s, and what did she do about it?
Here’s another great cover of the book from the ’80s!
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We point out several concerns that we have with the arguments Dr. Franklin makes in her lectures-turned-book: the ineffectiveness of her holistic and prescriptive technologies frame, her deeply cynical view on policy, and other thorny places that her arguments lead (like the Soviet Union).
Here’s the great cover of the book from the ’80s–note that at no time are floppy disks mentioned in the book.
September (8.16 and 8.17): Evolution as a Religion: Strange Hopes and Stranger Fears, Mary Midgley
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Here’s the great cover of the book from the ’80s–note that at no time are floppy disks mentioned in the book.
Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
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Discussing Simone Browne’s epistemology, ideas, and arguments: what persuaded us, and what didn’t?
The two main subjects we mentioned on the show as relevant were critical theory (and specifically critical race theory) and surveillance studies. Notably, while Browne describes herself as a black feminist and makes reference to the adjacent idea of intersectionality, she never explicitly refers to critical (race) theory. We applied the term to her work based on the historical and interpretive methods she used.
Reminder: as noted in 8.12, Stephen was definitely recording from a closet and some of his level drops are a result of (potentially) getting hit in the face with a sweater:
(Last episode we said we had a plan for the year and then it changed, so we’ll just keep going two books at a time!)
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Digging into Simone Browne’s application of critical race theory to surveillance studies.
The two main subjects we mentioned on the show as relevant were critical theory (and specifically critical race theory) and surveillance studies. Notably, while Browne describes herself as a black feminist and makes reference to the adjacent idea of intersectionality, she never explicitly refers to critical (race) theory. We applied the term to her work based on the historical and interpretive methods she used.
Stephen reviewed our intro music, Joshua Crumbly’s “New Rock Thingy,” here.
Finally (as noted on air), Stephen was definitely recording from a closet:
(We actually have a tentative plan through the end of the year… but we’ll publicize it once we’re more solid!)
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The printing press and the internet are often compared. How similar in impact are they really?
Eisenstein’s outline:
Links to things mentioned on the show:
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Digging into Elizabeth Eisenstein’s magisterial and seminal work on how print changed culture.
The Printing Press as an Agent of Change, Elizabeth Eisenstein
We almost entirely ended up talking about the contents of this book specifically! And we weren’t joking about how dense it is:
We did mention a couple other episodes of the show:
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Don’t go into science for the money: you will get killed by dinosaurs.
Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton (and the movie!)
We put dinosaurs mostly in the background and talk about what Crichton really wanted to discuss: the science/industrial complex, the limits of science to interpret or re-create nature, the limits of discovery, and disciplinary power.
We also mentioned the famous “you didn’t stop to consider whether you should…” quote in 6.11: Very Thoughtful Ethics Dogs.
Note that we’ve ended up changing plans since we recorded our Kurzweil episodes! We originally planned to read Simone Browne’s Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness, but decided to talk about our “background” reading so far!
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What the well-known novel and movie have to say about science, ethics, epistemology, and hubris.
Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton (and the movie!)
Note that we’ve ended up changing plans since we recorded our Kurzweil episodes! We originally planned to read Simone Browne’s Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness, but decided to talk about our “background” reading so far!
Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.
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Digging into Kurzweil’s deficient view of culture and human nature—from sex and family to epistemology and human dignity.
The Age of Spiritual Machines, Ray Kurzweil
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Reading Ray Kurzweil’s prognostications about the future—and coming to terms with his ruthless optimism.
The Age of Spiritual Machines, Ray Kurzweil
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The Postmodern Condition, Jean–François Lyotard
Lyotard’s postmodernism, the politics of power, and aesthetics: what do we keep and what do we reject?
Chris, because he was slightly sick, forgot that although we were recording in February, the episode was coming out in March. This threw off everything we said about dates for the rest of the episode. Whoops!
(The book schedule is adjusted accordingly below.)
Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:
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