June 15, 2007
The Garden of Technological Delights
A co-founder of the top website Ars Technica, Jon "Hannibal" Stokes may not be Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, but in immediate, critical ways he's making technology accessible to the rest of us. Plus which, as a theologian-in-training at the University of Chicago, Jon's insights into the nature and history of the relationship between technology and society go well beyond what we expect from the technologically adept. To me, Jon's a fascinating character, and I'm very grateful to him for shooting the breeze. This conversation wanders all over the place — kick back, take a moment to appreciate what imagination is all about. Total runtime, an hour and thirty six minutes. Enjoy!
Comments
Hi George — very interesting conversation. It is nice to get the perspective of intelligent people, even when they talk outside their field.
I just thought I would add in regards to the surveillance culture in Britain, that you are not allowed into drinking establishments wearing a hat, not due to dress code, but because in case of incident, a hat would block a cameras view of your face.
Mike
Posted by: mike | June 17, 2007 1:54 PM
Was Jon using some sort of audio filter or does he have the best voice ever?
I also liked how Jon rightly stated that mass surveillance is an inherent drive of any government and is only useful to spy on dissenters and the common people, whilst being mostly ineffective at tracking the real baddies (maybe that's because the real baddies are doing the tracking...).
Posted by: Kevin M. | June 19, 2007 6:52 AM
I enjoyed this conversation very much. It is indeed rare to hear from a progressive pentecostal!
I kept thinking about Jon's conjecture that more conservative Christians are more likely to support strong right-wing leaders who seem like one of them because of the prevalence of the strong pastor in these churches.
I don't necessarily disagree that this is a factor, but I think that education and social class also play a factor. If we could wave a magic wand and dramatically improve American education and drastically reduce the wage and wealth inequities in this country, my guess is that we would have many fewer sheep responding to the right-wing wolves in shepherd's clothing.
Posted by: Charley | June 21, 2007 7:02 PM
I agree with Charley's observation. If one reads the book "The Child, The Parent, And The State" by James Bryant Conant (1948) it even seems that the education factor was planned to do just that. baa baa baa
Posted by: Pandabonium | June 21, 2007 10:54 PM