In the interest of sharing my favorite podcasts of the previous year with my friend Shane, I thought I might open the recommendations to all. While on the drive home to turkey day, these are three “world changing” conversations you should consider listening to:
Howard Bloom on “The Global Brain” – IT Conversations
Howard talks with Jon Udell about collective consciousness and self-organizing species, and why the mass collaboration we think is emerging right now isn’t really all that unique. Shane, DJ, and I did discuss the episode on a Fertile Ambition call a month or so ago, but we ran into a headlock about the multi-tasking theory Howard presents.
“Is Aid to Africa Doing More Harm Than Good?” – Intelligence Squared U.S.
Brilliant arguments both for and against, and listening to the entire debate lends a better understanding of what the difficulties are in helping to bring basic needs to Africa.
Daniel Suarez on bot-mediated reality – Long Now Foundation/ FORA.tv
So thought-provoking I’ve listened to it twice. The first time put me in a trance for part of a train ride back down from Seattle. In short, the premise is this: we’re creating untold numbers of automated bots, or narrow artificial intelligence, on the web for specific purposes. When left unchecked, as many are, these bots have the potential to cause very messy situations which could have negative real world implications. One of the author’s proposals is to build a second, secure network of only verifiably human entities.
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I look forward to listening to these on my future car trips.
Sam Harris’ SALT talk, “The View from the End of the World”, was the most memorable podcast of the last few months for me. The topic (the dangers of religious dogma) is so polarizing that it unfortunately causes people on both sides of the debate to repeatedly reiterate the same *ahem* dogmatic arguments. Harris, however, points out several subtleties that I had not encountered before.
Sweet DJ, I’ll check that one out. I’m subscribed to the podcast, but I don’t remember listening to that particular episode.