Making Meaning in Challenging Times — with Jamie Wheal

Your Undivided Attention

Center for Humane Technology

Center For Humane Technology, The Social Dilemma Netflix, Us Society, Cognitive Liberty, Future, Politics, Tech Podcast, Ai And Work, Privacy, Apple, Government, Techandsociety, Tristan Harris, Jon Haidt, Aza Raskin, Elon Musk, Ethical Technology, Attention Economy, Kids Phone Addiction, Tech Politics, Ai History, Screen Time, Cht, Superintelligence, Sam Altman, Silicon Valley, Daniel Barcay, Little Tech, Algorithmicbias, Infinite Scroll, New Ai Shows, Humans, Kids Tech, Meta, Aiinsociety, Machinelearning, Chat Bots, Civictech, Automation, Ai And Kids, Society & Culture, Ai Regulations, Digitalgovernance, Tech And Relationships, Us Politics, Ai Personhood, Aiaccountability, Digitaldemocracy, Tech, Societalimpact, Humancenteredai, Futureofwork, Kids Online Safety, Ai Welfare, Polarization, Disinformation, Anthropic, Claude, Breakdown Of Trust, Open Ai, Technology, Ai Politics, Ai And Happiness, Aiandhumanrights, Tech Addiction, Politicaltechnology, Tech Ethics, Dataprivacy, Google, Relationships, Politicsandai, Artificial General Intelligence, Elections, Kids And Ai, Democracy, Ai Podcast, Best Ai Shows, Responsibleai, Ai Addiction, Socialjustice, Agi, Tech Policy, Screentime, Ai And The Future, Ai And Education, Surveillance, Addiction, Asi, Llms, Ai And Relationships, Character Ai, Technopoly, Machines, Bigtech, Ai And Rights, Children And Tech, Artificial Intelligence

4.8 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 30 September 2021

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

What helps you make meaning in challenging times? As you confront COVID, the climate crisis, and all of the challenges we discuss on this show, what helps you avoid nihilism or fundamentalism, and instead access healing, inspiration, and connection? Today on Your Undivided Attention, we're joined by anthropologist and writer Jamie Wheal. Wheal is the author of Recapture the Rapture: Rethinking God, Sex and Death In a World That's Lost Its Mind. In the book, he makes the case that in order to address the meta-crisis — the interconnected challenges we face, which we talked about in Episode 36 with Daniel Schmachtenberger, we must address the meaning crisis — the need to stay inspired, mended, and bonded in challenging times. Jamie argues that it doesn't matter whether we're staying inspired, mended, and bonded through institutionalized religion or other means as long as meaning-making is inclusively available to everyone. What we hope you'll walk away with is a humane way to think about how to address the challenges we face, from COVID to climate — by enabling us to make meaning in challenging times.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Real quick, before we dive in, the Center for Humane Technology is hiring for a senior
0:04.8	producer for this show, your undivided attention.
0:07.8	To learn more, please visit humanetech.com slash careers.
0:12.0	And with that, here we go.
0:17.3	What if people subscribe to intense ideologies or conspiracy theories, whether pro-vaccine,
0:22.4	anti-vaccine, and teepha or QAnon, not only or even necessarily because they think those
0:27.5	theories are true, but because those theories give their lives meaning?
0:40.2	What if we approach the problems of misinformation or polarization by accommodating people's
0:45.7	need for meaning?
0:52.2	I'm Tristan Harris, and I'm Hazaraskin, and this is your undivided attention.
0:57.0	The podcast from the Center for Humane Technology.
1:01.4	On the show in the past, we talked about the metacrisis, the interconnected challenges
1:05.1	we face, which we talked about with Daniel Schmackenberger.
1:09.7	Part of the reason we have a metacrisis is because we have a meeting crisis, or a collapse
1:15.7	in our ability to make meaning in these increasingly challenging times.
1:20.8	Our traditional ways of making meaning are breaking down, and in the vacuum, people are increasingly
1:26.8	turning to rapture ideologies, of fundamentalism or nihilism.
1:36.0	Today in the show, we're joined by Jamie Wheel.
1:38.3	Jamie is the author of recapture the rapture, rethinking God, sex, and death in a world
1:43.0	that's lost its mind.
1:44.4	In the book, he makes a case that in order to address the metacrisis, we actually need
1:48.7	to address the meaning crisis.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Center for Humane Technology, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Center for Humane Technology and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.