Jaron Lanier: Fear of an Algorithmic Planet
Decoding the Gurus
Christopher Kavanagh and Matthew Browne
4.2 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 30 May 2022
⏱️ 115 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The season of tech is upon us! Hold on to your hats and press those non-fungible tokens tightly to your bosom, because we are getting into the thick of it.
Matt and Chris kick things off with an exploration of tech pioneer Jaron Lanier. Sometimes referred to as the father of virtual reality, Jaron is a promising candidate for gurudom given his foreboding warnings of a bleak algorithmic future and a penchant for opening tech lectures barefoot with impromptu performances of exotic instruments. In short, he's a groovy guy and Matt digs that! Chris, being the sour lemon that he is, takes a little while to adjust to Jaron's particular style.
Some Weinsteinian warning signs might be flashing but there really are eccentric and very clever people in the world... and Lanier might just be one of them? He certainly has a track record of critically commenting on techno-optimism and social media platforms for at least two decades. But some of his pronouncements seem a tad OTT and some recommendations a little hand-wavy...
So how do the decoders square this particular dread-locked circle? Well, you're going to have to listen all the way to the end to find out. So, get yourself comfortable. Drink some coffee and pop some no-doze, and strap yourself in.
Smash the Duck!
Links
- Was the Internet a Horrible Mistake? Jaron Lanier on Honestly with Bari Weiss
- That VR boxing game Chris' mentioned
- Peterson being a smug judge on Twitter
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Hello and welcome to Decoding the Guru's the podcast |
| 0:26.6 | we're an anthropologist and a psychologist listen to the greatest minds the world |
| 0:30.0 | has to offer and we try to understand what they're talking about. I'm Professor Matt Brown and with me is Associate Professor Chris Kavanaugh, the wings above my wind. Thank you for being here, Chris. |
| 0:42.3 | Oh, you reversed that. I was trying to work out if I've heard that before, but that yeah, it's a reversal. That's a good one. That's outside the box thinking. You can double up. I just thought of that yeah I wonder why |
| 0:55.2 | nobody has used that expression before it's so poetic yeah it's when you want |
| 0:59.5 | let someone know that you |
| 1:05.0 | Christians will get it. |
| 1:08.0 | Christians will get it. Christians will understand that reference if not, sorry. |
| 1:11.0 | So have you been staring into your aquarium this morning? Have you been gazing into the |
| 1:18.7 | glassy orb? I have, it's mesmerizing. It's so good. It's's my new thing I'm now instead of reading things online and getting upset |
| 1:27.3 | Gaze into my aquarium and I feel at peace and at one with everything. I like to imagine you at home Matt before you hop on the internet |
| 1:39.6 | machine to record that you're not working you're not talking to your children or your wife |
| 1:45.5 | you're just in front of the aquarium just staring there for like an hour or so |
| 1:52.1 | watching the colorful fish dance around and if you were to do that I think I would respect you more. |
| 1:59.3 | These days it's true more often than not but yeah yeah, I like that. It's a good domestic activity. I've mastered domesticity. I think I'm pretty good at it. I'm a good homebody. |
| 2:09.8 | In that similar way, Ma, I think if you imagine your enemies, the people in the culture |
| 2:16.6 | war that are just partisan maniacs, I prefer to imagine them acting as Sormon-esque characters who you know sit at home staring at |
| 2:28.7 | culture war orbs just gazing into the mystic swirl and then they go on the Twitter box and |
| 2:36.0 | tweet out their takes like I wish they actually were proper villains they had like |
| 2:41.4 | evil crowns and stuff that they're worrying in private. |
| 2:44.1 | And the sad truth is is that they're probably trying to decide where to have brunch. |
| 2:48.5 | You know like even Saraman, Chris, at some point he's sitting up there in Orfunck and he's not always staring into the orb. |
... |
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