Extinction of Experience: Being Human in a Disembodied World | Christine Rosen

Hidden Forces

Demetri Kofinas

Government, Business

4.8 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 6 January 2025

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In Episode 396 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Christine Rosen about her book, “Extinction of Experience: Being Human in a Disembodied World,” which explores the cultural and emotional shifts that accompany our embrace of technology and its effects on our experience of life as embodied human beings.

Christine is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where she focuses on American history, society and culture, and technology and human behavior. Rosen is also a monthly columnist for Commentary Magazine, one of the cohosts of the popular Commentary Podcast.

Demetri and Christine spend the first hour of their conversation focused on the philosophical and moral questions that arise from our unreserved embrace of virtual realities and mediated experiences. They explore questions about the nature of reality, how embodiment shapes experience, and whether the virtualization of our lives is the natural progression of our interplay with technology or if it represents something fundamentally different and profoundly immoral about the world we are building.

In the second hour, Kofinas and Rosen discuss the effect that these technologies and the logic that animates them have on our sense of self, agency, and freedom. They explore how time spent inside virtual spaces hosted on large tech platforms may be contributing to the rising levels of depression, anxiety, antisociality, and other mental and personality disorders that we may or may not recognize in each other and in ourselves. They also discuss what can and should be done, both at an individual and societal level, to begin to address the problem.

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Episode Recorded on 12/17/2024

Transcript

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0:00.0	What's up, everybody? My name is Demetri Gaffinus, and you're listening to Hidden Forces,
0:06.2	a podcast that inspires investors, entrepreneurs and everyday citizens to challenge consensus
0:13.1	narratives, and learn how to think critically about the systems of power shaping our world.
0:18.9	My guest in this episode of Hidden Forces is Christine Rosen.
0:22.8	Christine is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where she focuses on American
0:27.7	history, society and culture, and technology and human behavior. She is also a monthly
0:34.0	columnist for Commentary Magazine, one of the co-hosts of the very popular commentary
0:39.2	podcast, and the author of a phenomenal new book titled The Extinction of Experience,
0:46.0	which investigates the cultural and emotional shifts that accompany our embrace of technology
0:51.0	and its effects on our experience of life as embodied human beings.
0:56.0	Christine and I spend the first hour of our conversation focused on the more philosophical
1:01.0	and moral questions that arise from our unreserved embrace of virtual realities and mediated spaces.
1:08.0	We explore questions about the nature of reality, how embodiment shapes experience,
1:12.6	and whether the virtualization of our lives is the natural progression of our interplay with technology,
1:18.6	or if it represents something fundamentally different and profoundly immoral about the world we are building.
1:24.6	In the second hour, Christine and I discuss the effect that these technologies and the logic
1:30.1	that animates them have on our sense of self, agency, and freedom.
1:35.3	Is there a causal relationship that we can draw between time spent inside virtual spaces
1:40.2	hosted on large tech platforms and the rising levels of depression, anxiety, anti-sociality,
1:46.8	and other mental and personality disorders that we may or may not recognize in each other
1:52.0	and in ourselves. We also discuss what can and should be done, both at an individual and societal
1:58.3	level, to begin to address the problem. If you want access to that part
	...

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