#1467 No One Asked For The Next Big Thing (Metaverse)
Best of the Left - Leftist Perspectives on Progressive Politics, News, Culture, Economics and Democracy
Jay Tomlinson
4.5 • 3.4K Ratings
🗓️ 31 January 2022
⏱️ 85 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Air Date 1/31/2022
Today we take a look at the new buzz around the "metaverse" and why it is not only fairly dystopian in and of itself but also seems to require that the real world be a dystopia in order for the concept to fully succeed.
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SHOW NOTES
Ch. 1: Neil Postman Technopoly - C-Span Book TV - Air Date 7-10-92
Neil Postman, author of Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology published by Alfred A. Knopf Publishers, spoke on the theme of his book which noted the dependence of Americans on technological advances for their own security.
Ch. 2: Enter the metaverse! - Today in Focus - Air Date 11-3-21
Mark Zuckerberg changed Facebook’s name to Meta last week – and launched a vision for his company that he claims will transform the way we interact with the internet and each other. So what exactly is the metaverse?
Ch. 3: Prof. Wolff: New Metaverse, Same Old Capitalist BS - The Zero Hour with RJ Eskow - Air Date 12-3-21
Ch. 4: Why the Metaverse Must Be Stopped w/ Brian Merchant Part 1 - Tech Won't Save Us - Air Date 11-4-21
Brian Merchant discusses Mark Zuckerberg’s big plans for the metaverse, everything that’s wrong with it, the concept’s scifi origins, and why Silicon Valley is desperate to make it happen.
Ch. 5: Why Metaverse Real Estate Is Selling For Millions - Cheddar Explains - Air Date 10-29-21
How much real money would you pay for a virtual plot of land? Developing technology is introducing everyone in the real world to new, virtual worlds, like Decentraland.
Ch. 6: Why Chris Hayes thinks we're all famous now - Vox Conversations - Air Date 11-15-21
They discuss his recent essay in the New Yorker about fame and the internet, why we seek attention from strangers online, and how some German philosophers might offer guidance for our predicament.
Ch. 7: Why the Metaverse Must Be Stopped w/ Brian Merchant Part 2 - Tech Won't Save Us - Air Date 11-4-21
MEMBERS-ONLY BONUS CLIP(S)
Ch. 8: Why You Should Be Worried About Facebook's Metaverse - Vice News - Air 12-7-21
On December 6, Facebook was sued for its role in facilitating the genocide of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. The Facebook Papers revealed how the company chased profits - often at the expense of safety.
VOICEMAILS
Ch. 9: I don't want to tier people but I think I do - Nick From California
FINAL COMMENTS
Ch. 10: Final comments on the humanizing impact of examining people structurally
MUSIC (Blue Dot Sessions):
- Opening Theme: Loving Acoustic Instrumental by John Douglas Orr
- Voicemail Music: Low Key Lost Feeling Electro by Alex Stinnent
- Activism Music: This Fickle World by Theo Bard (https://theobard.bandcamp.com/track/this-fickle-world)
- Closing Music: Upbeat Laid Back Indie Rock by Alex Stinnent
Produced by Jay! Tomlinson
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Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the award-winning Best of a Left Podcast. |
| 0:06.7 | I have a full new episode for you today, but first a quick production note. |
| 0:11.3 | I've had two recent problems. |
| 0:13.0 | Well, I've had two recent production problems, more problems than that generally. |
| 0:18.2 | The first is that in episode 1465, after three days of being live and normal and everything |
| 0:24.9 | working, the audio file got swapped out for a wrong file. |
| 0:29.9 | So you may not have been able to hear that episode depending on when you tried to listen |
| 0:34.8 | to or download it. |
| 0:36.6 | All is good now, so check out 1465 if you haven't already. |
| 0:40.4 | It's there. |
| 0:41.4 | Number two, 1466. |
| 0:44.5 | The second segment in the show sounded completely fine when I was editing it. |
| 0:49.6 | And then at some point during the processing of the audio before publication, it got warped |
| 0:55.0 | and sort of ended up sounding like it was coming from the depths of hell. |
| 0:59.5 | It has also been fixed in episode 1466, if you missed that. |
| 1:04.9 | And these two problems were extremely rare technical issues, totally unrelated to one |
| 1:10.6 | another. |
| 1:11.8 | And although I basically know what happened, I was able to figure it out. |
| 1:15.7 | I had to sort of metaphorically pull out dust-yled binders from the shelf to look up the problems |
| 1:22.6 | I was having to understand what was going on, all of which is entirely indicative of |
| 1:28.0 | the past two weeks since Amanda and I learned that her uncle passed away in Portugal and |
| 1:34.6 | it became clear that the two of us would be the ones flying there to sort out all of the |
... |
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