Tristan Harris: The Knight of Honest Technology
“The closest thing Silicon Valley has to a conscience”—that is how Tristan Harris is known. His name made headlines with the notorious film The Social Dilemma, which drew plenty of attention but never led to much real change. His work embodies everything that is “broken” in today’s online life: the manipulative practices that have become a threat to our future as a species. Tristan Harris is not only the most recognizable champion of a free and democratic internet. Not only a thorough researcher who draws attention to the ways we are manipulated. He is also the man who warned a decade ago that the path technology was taking would lead us into a world of mammoth companies more powerful than the largest states. Into a time when we can no longer hold our attention while reading. Into filter bubbles that grotesquely distort the way we get our information. Does he think we can reverse these trends? Can the internet become a free place without monopolies, where information is delivered democratically, with respect for the personal data and views of every user… What are his ideas for the future of the web?
02Brain Blast! Dr. Hansen's 10 Ideas for Surviving the Digital Tsunami
Our brain evolved slowly, gradually getting used to a changing environment… and then came Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, and suddenly our most important organ found itself in a world it was entirely unprepared for. Swedish psychiatrist Anders Hansen is not afraid to raise the big questions of today's technological age, and his book is a reason to stop, think and pay attention to what truly matters for every one of us.
03“You Think You Know. Until Something Else Decides What to Show You”
“A minimalist style, repetitions, deceptive simplicity, the sound of a world that is changing, industrializing; the quiet tones can be read both as the last moans of a humanity surrendering to the machines and as the first timid songs of newborn machines.” Vladimir Poleganov published his novel Drugiyat san (The Other Dream) almost a decade ago, and some of its strokes now ring prophetic: how we delegate more and more to machines—our memories, our knowledge, ourselves. Today's guest is a writer, translator, screenwriter and teacher, and a conversation partner worth talking to about books and the future, about words and machines, and about whether literature will arrive too late to remind us what it means to be human and what we must never delegate to machines…
04MrBeast: What If… I Gave You $1 Million?
You’re sitting at work when suddenly… an unremarkable young man with a scruffy little beard walks up and asks: “Would you quit your job if I gave you $100,000 for it right now?” How would you react? Would you say yes? Would you like an island of your own? Or your very own Lamborghini? Just like that, as a gift, no strings attached? Nothing is impossible online, and sometimes meaning is born on the edge of provocation. Mr. Beast—MrBeast—is a fascinating influencer who has gathered more than a hundred million subscribers by simply… giving the money away! He stages a surreal candid camera that isn’t even hidden. He piles up advertising money only to hand it out spectacularly, sometimes with a provocative challenge, sometimes… just because. Is this madness?!
05Facebook → Instagram → TikTok… What Comes Next?
Social networks keep evolving as technology advances, generations change and countless other forces come into play. So what comes next? What will the social networks that rule after today's giants fade look like, what kind of content will they offer, and how will they win us over? Social networks have become the greatest technological and social phenomenon of our time, and they still promise more than a few surprises…
06Alone Among Facebook Friends
We surround ourselves with “friends” on more and more social networks. And, all too often, we stay alone. When does the supposedly so social online world make us feel lonely? Are we really raising generations that will lose normal human contact? When does loneliness become a problem?
07The Meme: The Next Step in Evolution
Technology has exploded and we have access to an unthinkable ocean of information, yet what makes us laugh most often these days is… the same dozen pictures. Is there any logic to this phenomenon at all… or is it the art of our time? What is a meme? A descendant of the joke, anonymous online folklore? Or… a phenomenon that marks a new stage in the evolution of humankind? We'll look into the philosophy behind it and try to explain how it came about, and to have some fun along the way, we'll tell the stories of some of the most recognizable meme heroes.
08Digital Minimalism: How to Break Free from Information Addiction
Imperceptibly, gradually and seemingly irreversibly, we have become dependent on technology. Or more precisely, on the information it floods us with, much of which we don't need and which is toxic and draining. The system known as “digital minimalism” offers a way to rein in this creeping dependence. But is it the universal solution?
