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Post by Gilberto on Aug 1, 2010 13:55:51 GMT -5
Brooks returns and joins Andrew, Sean & Greg to talk about the future of mankind and what we need to do to fix it. They also discuss the new Christopher Nolan movie Inception, Cormac McCarthy's apocalypse epic The Road, and the Vanilla Ice classic, Cool As Ice. Looks like the future is in good hands... media.libsyn.com/media/darkcrazy/TVAMD_future.mp3 |
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Post by Scary Gary on Aug 7, 2010 14:06:12 GMT -5
Welcome back, Brooks. nice to hear from you again. There were a couple of things I wanted to comment on, but I've forgotten some of them. The first one that comes to mind is about Lynn's mushrooms. On Skeptic's Guide to the Universe podcast, they mentioned that someone is testing mushrooms as a substitute for packing material. The idea is that they can grow the mushrooms to a predetermined shape and that they are biodegradable. They replace synthetic packing material and the raw materials (all petroleum products) can be conserved. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100727121933.htmI am not, nor do I foresee myself ever being a member of Facebook. My personal thoughts are that if I want/need to communicate with someone; I will call, email, or write them. Nor do I have a desire to find people of my past. The people back then that I liked, I kept in my life. As far as Mark Zuckerberg and his views on privacy, that is fine for him. He should go about his life with his open book philosophy. But, just like any other philosophical belief; not everyone is going to want to have it pushed on them. As a self-proclaimed atheist, he should understand this. I, for one, hold my privacy close to the vest and would rather withdraw from society instead of opening myself fully. As with many things, competition can be beneficial or it can be unhealthy. I think that it is in our nature to compete against others and nature, so I don't see it going away anytime soon. Lastly, you guys hinted on politics in your discussion. I think that you are right on. Our political systems are all corrupt and flawed. In America, as well as other nations, they are too often focused on the good of the party over the good of the people. I think this is the one area that could have a major impact on fixing the future. |
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gretl
Robot Monkey
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Post by gretl on Aug 9, 2010 16:13:02 GMT -5
Yes, welcome back Brooks!! And it's awesome to hear all four of you together. More, please.  You've probably already recorded the follow-up, but my prescription for fixing the future/healing the human spirit/increasing fellowship is higher education. Not because people will know more stuff, but because they'll know how much they DON'T know and they'll have a more universal experience. It seems to me that the people I run across with the most to prove - the strongest opinions and the most need to inflict them on others - haven't been to college (or made the effort to self-educate.) |
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Post by Gilberto on Aug 9, 2010 16:44:11 GMT -5
Welcome back, everybody! I was starting to worry that no one was on the forum anymore.
I'm really pleased that Brooks is back and hopefully we'll be hearing a lot more from him and Andrew. We will also be having Lynn back on the show very soon.
We cover Facebook in much greater detail in part 2, Gary, doing our best to explore both its merits and its flaws. We run the entire spectrum: Greg loves it, Brooks won't do it, and I'm somewhere in the middle.
We have recorded part 2, Gret, but we will be recording part 3 tonight, so you're not too late in weighing in. I also couldn't agree more about the college experience. Sometimes I think you and I are psychic blood brothers.
We do dance around politics a bit on this topic, because it will have an impact on the future, but I think in both politics and religion people let themselves get mired in ideology and forget how to share ideas in a rational way. I think if there's any hope for the future we have to work on making the world better in ways that we are able to accomplish ourselves on a personal level instead of backing some master plan that promises to make everything better all at once.
I think the trick to competition is to push yourself. You should be challenging yourself to do better instead of making it the goal to take someone else down. I like the way you put it, Gary: "It's in our nature to compete with nature". That pretty much sums us up. But if that's true, we have it in us to defy our nature too.
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Post by drivebyluna on Aug 9, 2010 22:36:11 GMT -5
Yes, welcome back Brooks!! And it's awesome to hear all four of you together. More, please. You've probably already recorded the follow-up, but my prescription for fixing the future/healing the human spirit/increasing fellowship is higher education. Not because people will know more stuff, but because they'll know how much they DON'T know and they'll have a more universal experience. It seems to me that the people I run across with the most to prove - the strongest opinions and the most need to inflict them on others - haven't been to college (or made the effort to self-educate.) I would like to see a system like that of Russia or Japan, where college is free but very rigorous to get into. The only problem is that this disadvantages a lot of people. |
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gretl
Robot Monkey
Posts: 121
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Post by gretl on Aug 11, 2010 11:21:05 GMT -5
Yeah, like all our pie-in-the-sky remedies, the devil's in the details, eh? State-funded with rigorous admission standards would be a good start but truly comprehensive change would require educating the people who DON'T want to work hard. ;-) Welcome back, everybody! I was starting to worry that no one was on the forum anymore. Sorry 'bout that. It's not that I don't WANT to be here. Life seems to keep cycling from busy to crisis mode and back to busy. "Having a life" is really overrated. Yay more Lynn! -------------------------------- Further thoughts on the episode: Telecommuting really only works if an employee's productivity can be quantified in something other than hours clocked. As it is, it's amazing how many people who actually go into the office are goofing off on the Internet during the day. Greg, I'd like to hear more about the thinking behind the alternative models of classroom seating. Aside from the need to focus on the whiteboard, it seems like organized desks help the teacher maintain control over the classroom (and most of 'em need all the help they can get in that department.) I've been homeschooling my two girls for the past year and a half and I have a whiteboard on an easel that I set up in front of the couch. To be honest, I kinda wish we had desks! Although just as often, they can accomplish their work like this:  |
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Post by lynn on Aug 14, 2010 0:46:14 GMT -5
Hello all,
I don't know that anybody really understands my great love of the mushroom. And farming. I think for me it's about reconnecting people with nature, a passion I share with Tolkien, among others. I think if Sean's word for the future is Fellowship, mine will be Empathy. If everyojne tried to understand each other a little better the world would be a better place. Maybe facebook, for all its trivialities, by letting us into each others lives a little bit more is helping with that.
I don't want to clear big tracts of land to farm, but I do think it would be helpful if everyone had a nice little farmy garden to reconnect with animals and nature and where things come from. In fact if we all worked from home like Brooks wants we'd have more time for that.
As for the classroom there's good and bad in letting kids roam free like goats. Ben is a teacher sometimes, and he finds the biggest enemy in his quest for command is the laptop. The school where he was teaching brought in laptops for everybody, soon the kids thought the teachers didn't matter. Then was the biggest shock to their little systems, when they got caught doing something naughty with their laptops (probably porn) and they were impounded for a day, they all decided that they could do no work. Ben produced pens and paper, they were astounded, what is with this new devilry? So I think sometimes we need to take a few steps back in some areas to reestablish connections, and in other areas we need to steam foreward.
Also, promoting my great love of Top Gear, people should watch James May's show for some enlightened look at where the future of technology is going... not the one where he drinks wine all the time, that's just a sotto Brit and while funny not pertinent to my point. Watch the one where he looks at robot technology and why we don't all have flying cars. I'll have you all watching my silly car show if it's the last thing I do...
Oh, also, as for university, we have a good system in Australia i think, where pretty much anyone can go to university. It's called HECS-HELP, and basically the government gives you a interest-free loan to cover the cost of your education that you pay back automatically when your income goes over a certain amount, they just take it out like tax. So if I never end up earning a decent salary I'll never have to pay for my many wasted years learning how to criticise the way other people write...
But I am a fan of higher education... for some people. Maybe I also think that education should be more practical though, for everyone. We got to college and some of us had to teach some of them how to wash their clothes. Silly. Less working more parenting, that's something that concerns me about the future.
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