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Speaker 1: Slightly jokingly, but not entirely jokingly. My theory is that

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the Singularity actually already happened over the period that Britney

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Spears was locked up. Roughly speaking, I don't know that

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it's connected directly to Britney Spears, but approximately the point

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where they locked Britney up was also the point when

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the first iPhone dropped, and the point where they let

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her out was also the point where the lockdowns ended.

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And between the launch of the propagation of smartphones and

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the effect of lockdowns enforcing the rump, the sort of

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residual resistant rump of the culture onto the Internet, we've

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now where decisively a digital first culture, certainly across the

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English speaking world, and I would say probably across most

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of the so called developed world and beyond it as well.

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So that's where we are now. And I think it

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was I mean that we were in the middle of

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that great upheaval in the twenty tens when I said

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my life became less crazy. And also it wasn't a

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coincidence that the world also began going crazy. Over the

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course of the Singularity, some really important things started to

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dissolve very quickly in terms of how we organize information

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and knowledge and what we think the world is.

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Speaker 2: This is Jonathan Pehel. Welcome to the Symbolic World.

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Speaker 3: Hello everyone, I'm here with the very recognizable Mary Harrington.

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You know, we just had a conversation up not that

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long ago, and Mary is going to be one of

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the speakers at the Symbolic World Summit in May, so

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May fourteenth to the sixteenth in Ohio. Will have obviously

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links to that down below. And so I thought that,

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you know, because the theme of our conference is retelling

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the cosmic epic. You know, there's a way in which

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we are part of this great story that's happening. And

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so I thought for me at least to be an

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opportunity to find out a little bit more about Mary's

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story and how it fits into some of the things

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that are happening.

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Speaker 2: So Mary, thanks for talking.

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Speaker 1: To me, Thank you for having me.

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Speaker 3: You know, I would think that, how can I say this,

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I think that like if when you started writing, you know,

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several years ago, and you started to kind of appear

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on the public in the public arena, I think people

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would have been very surprised that I would have invited

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you to come to something like the symbolic worl summit

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with like an Orthodox priest as a speaker, and you know,

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all of these types of people. But for now it

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seems like it's completely natural that you are one of

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the speakers. It was you were one of the first

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ideas that my team had for you know, to come speak.

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And I'm trying to figure out exactly. I mean, I

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have a sense of what's going on of why that's

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the case, you know, why is it that we're in

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this moment now, But I'd like to kind of hear

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it from you. That is, in the past several years,

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it feels what and I kind of watch you go,

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it feels like you've you've changed quite a bit in

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terms of you're maybe not your attitude towards life, but

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at least some of your some of your perspectives. I

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think the first time I saw you was with an

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interview with Paul kings North back in the day with

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Rebel Wisdom.

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Speaker 2: That was the first time that I saw that I

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saw you.

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Speaker 3: And so I mean, I would like to hear a

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little bit about, first of all, kind of where you

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come from, like how you first of all came to

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be a writer, What was motivating you.

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Speaker 1: I've always made a living from writing, but I kind

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of did it. I did it in the direction that

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people don't normally do it in in the sense that

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I did. But I did fifteen years in the at

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the cold face in commercial copywriting, and then accidentally became

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a journalist, and generally the trajectory goes the other way.

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But I I, yeah, I'm not completely sure how it happens.

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I think, I mean, when you say, how did I

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become a writer? I think it's it's probably more accurate

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to say that I've always composed. It's literally the only

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thing I've ever been in the good at writing. I

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can I don't know. I don't know if I don't

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think it's overstating things to say I can taste words.

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There's something very synesthetic for me about language. It's just

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it's my happy place. And then the reason the reason

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I wasn't writing in public before is I mean, I

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was writing in public before, but either the world wasn't.

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I don't know. I I in the world were too

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far apart for that really to be a mainstream thing.

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I wrote crazy stuff. I was kind of crazy. I

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was pretty unemployable.

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Speaker 2: I mean, it's it's all.

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Speaker 1: It's all the sort of classic you know, you know

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in the front covers of books you see you see

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like the little orthobiography, and they've been like a fish,

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you know, a fish gutter, and a janitor, and you know,

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a book salesman and just all of these other terrible

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jobs that they obviously all hated. I mean that was

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basically me I did. I sucked at everything I did

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and just didn't really like I worked for money and

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wrote in my spare time or blogged or actually increasingly

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on the Internet while I was supposed to be working.

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I mean, that was me sat at my desk kind

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of scrolling when I was meant to be working, or

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compulsively posting on forums or whatever.

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Speaker 2: I mean, you know, this is this is this.

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Speaker 1: Is not a not an uncommon phenomenon. But so I mean,

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in that sense, I always was. It's just that something,

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something happened in the late twenty tens that made it possible.

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I don't know if it's that I became more sane

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by virtue of having settled down, like by then I

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was in my thirties and I was a mum, and

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you know, I was married, and like the rest of

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my life was sufficiently stable that I just wasn't quite

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as crazy anymore. And I mean, you can do you

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can do the causality there whichever way you like. Either

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I became sufficiently crazy to settle down, or I settled

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down and therefore became less. I don't know. I don't

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know which one around it worked. But yeah, somehow those

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two things came together. And also the world went crazy

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at the same time, so you know, we kind of

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met each other going the other way. But also and

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the Internet, I mean, I sort of slightly, slightly jokingly,

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but not entirely jokingly. My theory is that the singularity

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actually already happened over the period that Britney Spears was

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locked up. Roughly speaking, I don't think, I don't know

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that it's connected directly to Britney Spears, but approximately the

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point where they locked Britney up was also the point

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when the first iPhone dropped, and the point where they

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let her out was also the point where the lockdowns ended.

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And between the launch of the propagation of smartphones and

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the effect of lockdowns enforcing the rump, the sort of

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residual resistant rump of the culture onto the Internet, we've

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now where decisively a digital first culture, certainly across the

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English speaking world, and I would say probably across most

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of the so called developed world and beyond it as well.

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So that's where we are now. And I think it

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was I mean that we were in the middle of

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that kind of that grate upheaval in the twenty tens

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when I I said my life became less crazy. And

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also I think not not not, I'm not it wasn't

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a coincidence that the world also began going crazy over

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the course of the Singularity, because just you know, the

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kind of some really important things started to dissolve very

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quickly in terms of how we how we organize information

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and knowledge, and how we what we think the world is.

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And and I just got lucky. Was there is the

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rest of the story. I got lucky. My daughter was

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about three, I was I was at at home mum,

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you know, and it's you know, when your your kid

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gets to about three, they don't need you quite as intensely,

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so you have more time. And I mean, there was

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a lot going on politically, and I was a real

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news junkie, and I remember thinking, you know, why shouldn't

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it be me there's all of these people publishing opinions

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on the Internet when I have I'm not short of those.

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Why shouldn't you know, I've always been okay at writing.

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I should have a go and I did, And literally

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that's just all happened, you know. I wrote a couple

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of pieces, and then Unheard got in touch with me

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to say, oh, do you know, do you want to do?

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You want to pitch? And I did, and I think

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about three columns later, they offered me a contract. And

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literally that was just sheer chance. They happened to be

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getting going at a point where so was I, and

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we we got on. You know, I've been Unheard's been

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home for me as a writer ever since, and everything

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else just fell out the back of that. It turns

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out that I really like writing and people like publishing me.

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So here I still learn so And I mean, if

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you're your opener was was sort of something. What I'm

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hearing from you is Mary's Mary's views have evolved considerably,

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or you know, Mary's Mary's Mary as an Internet persona

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has evolved considerably over the course of those eight years.

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And I think that's true. But I don't feel like mine.

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I don't feel like my basic worldview has altered very much.

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It's more, it's more that as we get further into

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whatever whatever on whatever the flip this is that's going on,

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things like things become easier to talk about because they're

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more part of everybody's familiar reality that just weren't very

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obvious to people before. And one of those things is

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what is the one of my my one of my

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current interests, which is, you know, what do means mean?

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I mean, this is something that we talked about in

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our in our last conversation over at Socrates Dialogues. You

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know what is the meaning of means? What does it mean?

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You know what's actually going on there? And this is

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but I mean, but but for me that maps like

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this is this is not a this is not a

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new interest. This is a long standing one. I was

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completely obsessed in the back in the aughts with the

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meaning of wikis and the social implications of wikis and

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the and what how because my my undergraduate degree and

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my my great love was English literature, and I was

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I was lucky to get a fairly solid grounding in

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mean canonical English literature pretty much from Beowulf to nineteen

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forty five or so, and I was just really I was.

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I was fascinated when I first met the Internet because

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it felt so so fundamentally part of that story, you know,

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and very and in ways which were radically new but

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also radically old. And so this is all stuff that

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I've been thinking about for at least twenty years. It's

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it's more if you know, if it's if I'm talking

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more explicitly and more publicly about it now, it's simply

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that we have more of a common language for doing

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that because more people are trying to figure out what

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on earth just happened. It's not just the preserve of

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crazies and occultists and you know, religious eccentrics and you know,

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people in cupboards full of books anymore. It's it's it's

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it's everybody's.

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Speaker 2: Problem, right, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean.

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Speaker 1: This is this is kind of what this is your

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and I think this is this is how you end

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up with Mary in conversation with Jonathan Paja, because this

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is kind of your project as well.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely, you know, and I think I when you

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say that the singularity happened, you know, are read, Uh,

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I'm curious, what is it that you mean, what is

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it that you mean by that? Do you mean that

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this fusion, let's say, between the human world and the

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digital world, Is that what you mean by the singularity?

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Speaker 1: Okay, So I mean there are there are competing definite

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even within the nerdosphere, there are competing definitions of what,

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you know, what we mean by singularity, And like we

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this is it's kind of boring, you know, it's like

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it's like fine fine gradations of you know, latimistic philosophy.

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It's like it's you know, you really can get into

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the weeds. But it's kind of boring. So so so

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let's not go there. But like you know, and I'll

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have a slightly slightly kind of cheeky definition of singularity,

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you know, I mean the broadest sense, it means the

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point at which we fuse, we merge with our own technologies,

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such that we can no longer understand where such as,

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such that we go through transformation in consciousness and can

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no longer comprehend that we can't comprehend from where we

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are now, and such that we will no longer comprehend

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our previous self from having gone through the looking glass.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, okay, that you mad.

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Speaker 1: I'm trying to I'm trying to be sort of technology

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tech agnostic about this, and I mean the in the

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general in the sort of tech oh sphere, what what's

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generally being referred to is something something where it's imagined

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that we're able to rewrite our bodies or embodiment or

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our capacity to think, or you know, extend consciousness throughout

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the cosmos, and you rewrite the basic building blocks of

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reality using computers and various kind of fanciful things like that.

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But it all it sort of cashes out as various

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kind of tech optimist versions of the rapture.

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Speaker 2: Right, that's hilarious. Yeah, exactly, it's a very.

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Speaker 1: It's it has a very milleneri and flavor. Yeah, will

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be taken up into this new world and nothing that

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comes after will be imaginable.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: But I think, I mean, my sense is that both

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of us, I think so in terms of politics. That's

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one of the reasons why I think that we're able

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to discuss is also we we have a a neither

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doomer vision of let's say, the technology, but definitely not

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a definitely not a kind of ideological idea or like

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a futurist notion of what's happening. So there's a sense

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in which we realize this like this is where we are,

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Like we also can't totally go back.

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Speaker 2: You know, it's very difficult.

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Speaker 3: Too, It's very difficult to disconnect from this world. I

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mean you can, but then if you do, then you'll

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have no influence over.

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Speaker 1: It, that's right.

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Speaker 3: So how it would be this this position, like how

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to navigate this place where we both like say, okay,

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hold on to your children, like, hug your kids, you know,

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get that human you need that human connection, go to church,

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participate in the world. But also it doesn't mean that

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we have to totally disconnect from this this this other world.

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Speaker 1: Marshall mccullin's advice was pray and pay attention, which I

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think is actually very deep. You know, we could talk

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about just that, just that sentence, probably for an hour

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or two. Maybe maybe we'll come.

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Speaker 2: Back to it.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, absolutely absolutely, I mean it's it would be

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it would be kind of ironic for me to be

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posting posting paid articles on substat complaining about the technology

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which is allowing me to do that, right, Yeah, I

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mean you can, you can, but you know there's a

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sort of you know that there's a layer of reflexivity there,

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which is sort of it's best to like. Technologies are

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not neutral, but there are there are as many upsides

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to these, to the digital ones, as there are potential negatives.

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I mean, for exactly, it's it's inconceivable or well, very

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much more difficult to conceive that you and I would

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be having this conversation here we are here, we ask

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many thousands of miles apart. I think, yeah, I think

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we're many thousands of miles apart right now. You know,

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certainly we're in we're in very different time zones as

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we have this conversation, and that that itself is a

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is a remarkable phenomenon which is essentially made possible by

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this digital revolution. So while while I have many I

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have many, it's a very two edged sword, right, you know,

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and it dissolves a lot of things that we take

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for granted, some which are really nice. I think it's

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not unambiguously a bad thing. It's just definitely not a

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neutral one, and the meaning of it is not exhausted

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by the things you can do with it.

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Speaker 3: One of the things, for sure, I think that what

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you pointed to is right is that there's something about

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the liquefication of these relationship where everything, all of these

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natural connections that we have, let's say, in our families

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and our communities are dissolving. And but what it does

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is that it also surprisingly creates the types of networks

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that could not have been possible before. And that's why

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you end up having these weird connections where I can

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talk to a neuroscientists, or I can talk to a philosopher,

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or I can talk to an artist, and for some reason,

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the you know, people are willing to entertain those conversations.

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People are interested in hearing how there's cross pollenization.

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Speaker 1: You know.

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Speaker 3: We let's say, up to the war, let's say, or

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even after the war, this kind of hyper specialization was

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what was leading us. And then in this moment, it

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feels like that specialization is becoming weaker, and so there's

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a possibility of a new a new you know, like

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a new renaissance or something that brings everything together. I

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said I would never do it again, but here we are.

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We are announcing the Symbolic World Summit in May twenty

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twenty six. I have so many great people around me

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that I'm just excited to do it, even though I

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thought it would be crazy to do it again.

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Speaker 4: Our summit's going to be from May fourteenth through sixteenth

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in Broadview Heights, Ohio. You can buy tickets at Symbolic

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World Summit dot com. We have early bird pricing going

326
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right now, fifty dollars off of general admission and VIP tickets.

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Kenot speakers this year are father Josiah Trenham and doctor

328
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Mary Harrington, which is a combination nobody knew that they wanted.

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But I think it's going to be absolutely incredible. And

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of course Jonathan and I will be speaking, as well

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as several people from around the Symbolic World community.

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Speaker 3: A lot of people that you like that you've seen

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are going to be there, are going to come. We're

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going to have book signings, there will be a lot

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of time.

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Speaker 2: For people to meet and to greet.

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Speaker 3: We're also doing Supra as well, and so come and

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join us. We can't wait for this and we're excited

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to meet you in person.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, a different way of a different way of framing

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that one that I was actually thinking about earlier today.

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So Walter On, who's a Jesuit literary scholar, I think

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he's I think he died quite recently, but he wrote

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he wrote in the latter half of the twentieth century

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about the transition from orality, which is to say, spoken

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world cultures, to literacy, and wrote a very very influential

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study on on that, on on how how transformative that

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is that the level of culture and consciousness and social organization.

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You've huge number of other things like that. And one

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of the one of the points he makes almost in

351
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passing and doesn't really follow it up in the in

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this book Orality in Literacy, is that the printing press

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was the first template. It was the original template of

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the industrial process as such, in that it breaks up

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words into into their constitution. I mean, the alphabet breaks

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up words into sounds, but the printing press made those

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sounds into little physical objects which you then arrange within

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a frame, and then you use that in a sort

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of duplicative process, which is in turn organized within a

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social a social assembly line process, and that then becomes

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you know, two hundred years before the Industrial revolution proper,

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that template was there in Gutenberg's printing press, which just

363
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blew my mind as a thought to think that this

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was actually as just how revolutionary that was as a

365
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concept and then when you think about it, I think

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this point has been elaborated by a couple of others. Definitely,

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that template, that industrial process then becomes the template for

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reality itself. You know, people, people, you know, so a

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few hundred years later, people are thinking of reality as

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something as little little balls that are assembled in different

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patterns in which you can rearrange, you know, with with

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with enough technicity and enough skill and enough precision.

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Speaker 2: Tool, and you can you can move around.

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Speaker 1: And yes, And I was thinking, you know, so, so

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what so what does it and so so so if

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if the if that template for manufacturing has has become

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a sort of generalized template for industrial society as such,

378
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what does it do to our anthropologies and our social

379
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organizations to have come out the other side of it?

380
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Mm hmm, because we no longer live in a world

381
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that's organized according to the template of print and industrial

382
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assembly lines. I mean, you know, the West is the

383
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West de industrialized some decades ago, and where we're kind

384
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of de industrializing, you know, where where we've come all

385
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the way to the end of that arc in the

386
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sense that where that that we're not we've we've now

387
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decisively de industrialized or posted industrialized the word in the

388
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you know, print print isn't the primary medium anymore. But

389
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it's this is not to say that we've come out

390
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in the precisely the pre modern world. We've come out

391
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somewhere new, you know, we've I mean, AI is definitely

392
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not the pre modern world. It's something it's something altogether new,

393
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and you know, that's the sort of you know what

394
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the meaning of AI is in the Marshall mccluan censors

395
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of technology is something which yeah, I think about, I

396
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think about a lot. I haven't come to any particularly

397
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snappy conclusions yet.

398
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Speaker 2: Yeah, but it.

399
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Speaker 1: Seems it seems to me that that the anthropological and

400
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the the anthropological and the social implications of embracing that

401
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as a template for for the word are immense and

402
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not nearly not nearly sufficiently well explored yet.

403
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Speaker 3: Well, for sure, I think that the AI is seems

404
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to be the the the prophecy mcclune's prophecy about the

405
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this kind of electric nervous system and how it would

406
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it would basically join together into to a kind of

407
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cosmic brain or like a you know, like a all

408
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of humanity would be joined together into this brain. It

409
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seems that AI is doing that because AI the only

410
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way they were able to make AI work is to

411
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farm intelligence. It's like the opposite of the matrix, you know,

412
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where in the matrix they're farming your bio like energy,

413
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but in AI, they're actually farming your quality, like your

414
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capacity to judge good from bad. And so humans are

415
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giving are training the AI. But it's basically humans that

416
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are telling the AI what is good and bad and

417
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then it like coalesces into this into these giant brains.

418
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But we have to also remember that mccluan when he

419
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was predicting that was saying that that's the Antichrist, like

420
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he wasn't he wasn't People always think mcclun is some

421
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like futurists and some hit futurists, but no, mclun was

422
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like a traditional ethic and he was saying, pay attention

423
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to this, like you said, you know, as humanity kind

424
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infuses together towards this this like giant brain. Uh, it's

425
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there's a very large chance that this is going to

426
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be the the nervous system of the Antichrist, you know,

427
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And so you know, even as even as a writer,

428
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you know, how do you I mean be interesting to

429
00:22:24,279 --> 00:22:27,720
know how you use AI actually, like in what what

430
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what way do you use it?

431
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Speaker 2: And what way do you refuse to use it?

432
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Speaker 1: For example, I do not don't. That's a that's an

433
00:22:34,160 --> 00:22:40,519
interesting question. I don't use it to write my sentences

434
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because I like writing sentences. I do, I do use

435
00:22:45,440 --> 00:22:47,279
I treat it. I treat it as a tool, like

436
00:22:47,319 --> 00:22:49,519
it's not it's not a thinking. It's not thinking for me.

437
00:22:49,920 --> 00:22:52,279
You know, it's an extension. It's an extension of thought.

438
00:22:52,319 --> 00:22:56,839
It's very good at you know, given given sufficiently clear parameters,

439
00:22:56,880 --> 00:23:02,799
it's very good at large scale pattern recognition or you know,

440
00:23:02,880 --> 00:23:06,359
if you you want, you want it to you can

441
00:23:06,440 --> 00:23:10,400
use it to do a sort of preliminary liter literature search.

442
00:23:10,559 --> 00:23:13,759
For example, you know, what, what are the five most

443
00:23:13,759 --> 00:23:16,960
important texts on bar and summarize them for me? You know,

444
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you won't, you know, asking the AI to summarize it

445
00:23:19,359 --> 00:23:21,759
for you is not It's different in kind from reading

446
00:23:21,799 --> 00:23:24,839
it and then drawing out you know whatever whatever it prompts,

447
00:23:24,920 --> 00:23:27,920
whatever those whatever that experience of reading would would prompt

448
00:23:28,000 --> 00:23:31,079
or delicit from your from your existing patterns of thought,

449
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and you know, mentally stored reflections and so on. It's

450
00:23:34,880 --> 00:23:37,839
a very different thing. But like you know, there's only

451
00:23:37,839 --> 00:23:39,359
so many hours in the day, and if you really

452
00:23:39,400 --> 00:23:41,119
just need, if you if you just need like the

453
00:23:41,160 --> 00:23:45,079
two page summary of what so and so said, you like,

454
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it's okay, but you have you have to as long

455
00:23:48,200 --> 00:23:50,759
as you remember that it's not thinking, it doesn't really

456
00:23:50,839 --> 00:23:54,000
know what you need, and and you really do need

457
00:23:54,039 --> 00:23:56,279
to check its work because it does frequently make things up.

458
00:23:56,359 --> 00:23:58,759
And when with all of those provisos, you can use

459
00:23:58,799 --> 00:24:02,880
it as a as a research system. M hm, Like,

460
00:24:02,920 --> 00:24:04,920
I really it's kind of well, I mean, you know,

461
00:24:04,960 --> 00:24:07,839
it's a robot, but as long as you're remember that

462
00:24:07,920 --> 00:24:12,200
it's a robot robot, you have a robot researcher system.

463
00:24:12,440 --> 00:24:14,720
And I think you know that's like I use a car,

464
00:24:14,880 --> 00:24:18,599
I don't, I don't insist on walking everywhere. And I

465
00:24:18,640 --> 00:24:20,759
think you know that's sort of and as long as

466
00:24:20,799 --> 00:24:24,480
you as long as you remember that it's an extension,

467
00:24:25,599 --> 00:24:28,880
not a substitute, I think that's that's licit. And we

468
00:24:28,920 --> 00:24:32,680
also use it in our family for language learning. You know,

469
00:24:32,759 --> 00:24:35,200
there are there are there are very very successful and

470
00:24:35,240 --> 00:24:38,000
popular language learning apps like you know, I'm not I'm

471
00:24:38,000 --> 00:24:39,920
not able to teach my daughter Italian, but she wants

472
00:24:39,960 --> 00:24:42,559
to learn Italian. She's doing it pretty well at learning Italian.

473
00:24:43,200 --> 00:24:44,079
Speaker 2: You know, this is and.

474
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Speaker 1: Again there comes provided that's oriented towards real human I

475
00:24:51,400 --> 00:24:54,799
r L interactions with Italian speakers. I feel like that's

476
00:24:54,839 --> 00:24:58,319
that that's that's a that's illicit extension of what we'd

477
00:24:58,319 --> 00:24:59,799
be able to offer educationally.

478
00:25:02,480 --> 00:25:03,160
Speaker 2: Where where I.

479
00:25:03,079 --> 00:25:05,400
Speaker 1: Think you get into sort of category category era with

480
00:25:05,440 --> 00:25:08,680
this stuff is where where you confuse it, where you

481
00:25:08,680 --> 00:25:12,480
forget that it's not sentient, or you treat it as

482
00:25:12,480 --> 00:25:17,240
a substitute for the you know, judgment or wise counsel

483
00:25:17,319 --> 00:25:22,440
or relationality or human intimacy, all of those things. You know,

484
00:25:22,480 --> 00:25:26,000
it's sort of it's okay, it's synthesizing under under certain circumstances,

485
00:25:26,000 --> 00:25:28,960
but it can go hideously wrong, and ultimately it's not sentient.

486
00:25:29,920 --> 00:25:33,279
So you know, that's that's sort of like like like mistaking,

487
00:25:33,400 --> 00:25:35,160
mistaking your hat for the cat. You know, at the

488
00:25:35,240 --> 00:25:36,440
end of the way, it really is just a hat.

489
00:25:37,359 --> 00:25:38,759
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, definitely.

490
00:25:39,039 --> 00:25:41,200
Speaker 3: And uh so I want to come back a little

491
00:25:41,200 --> 00:25:45,200
bit to to my original idea of why would I

492
00:25:45,240 --> 00:25:48,559
wanted to ask you? And so, let's say in the past,

493
00:25:48,640 --> 00:25:51,960
since you started writing publicly, and you've kind of appeared

494
00:25:52,000 --> 00:25:53,480
on the on the public. You know, a lot of

495
00:25:53,480 --> 00:25:55,960
things have changed in the culture, a lot of things

496
00:25:55,960 --> 00:25:57,839
have changed politically, a lot of things.

497
00:25:57,599 --> 00:26:00,559
Speaker 2: Have have had You know, how.

498
00:26:00,039 --> 00:26:05,000
Speaker 3: As your own personal story or your own personal thought,

499
00:26:05,200 --> 00:26:08,440
how has it tracked with the world changing, or how

500
00:26:08,480 --> 00:26:11,960
has it resisted, or how have you seen the relationship

501
00:26:12,000 --> 00:26:14,799
between the changes in your own life and the things

502
00:26:14,799 --> 00:26:17,359
that are happening around us.

503
00:26:18,799 --> 00:26:22,599
Speaker 1: Again, that's a really interesting one. I mean, it's one

504
00:26:22,640 --> 00:26:28,359
I think about a lot in the sense that I'm

505
00:26:28,400 --> 00:26:30,319
a creature of books, but I'm also a creature of

506
00:26:30,319 --> 00:26:32,839
the Internet. Like I'm not quite net native, you know.

507
00:26:33,359 --> 00:26:35,720
I think I was eighteen or maybe even eighteen or

508
00:26:35,799 --> 00:26:39,119
nineteen before I got my first email address, So I

509
00:26:39,160 --> 00:26:41,920
grew up in a world entirely without that sort of

510
00:26:41,960 --> 00:26:44,079
digital other world. But I love the digital other world,

511
00:26:44,160 --> 00:26:46,359
you know. You know this in the same way that

512
00:26:46,440 --> 00:26:49,039
somebody who's like, there's somebody who's moved to a foreign

513
00:26:49,079 --> 00:26:52,119
country and naturalized and just loves the local festivals and

514
00:26:52,160 --> 00:26:54,759
food and joins in with all of the stuff, but

515
00:26:54,880 --> 00:26:57,440
isn't quite like, you know, they were born there. That's

516
00:26:57,519 --> 00:27:02,559
kind of me on the Internet, and you know, I'll

517
00:27:02,720 --> 00:27:04,960
I'll always Internet with a with a with a literary

518
00:27:05,039 --> 00:27:09,000
with a book person's accent. Even if it's very slight,

519
00:27:09,559 --> 00:27:11,480
I can always spot. I can always spot people of

520
00:27:11,519 --> 00:27:14,839
my exact generation online in their posting style, because they

521
00:27:14,880 --> 00:27:17,119
all they all posted the same accent, you know, a

522
00:27:17,279 --> 00:27:22,319
very slight foreign accent like Zoomers on the other hand.

523
00:27:22,559 --> 00:27:24,359
Zoomer's on the other hand, they have no accent to

524
00:27:24,400 --> 00:27:25,519
talk because they just grew up there.

525
00:27:25,839 --> 00:27:27,160
Speaker 2: Yet different thing.

526
00:27:27,319 --> 00:27:29,759
Speaker 1: Yeah, they grow up online. It's a completely different sensibility.

527
00:27:30,640 --> 00:27:33,240
But but my my generation, which is the same mid forties,

528
00:27:33,279 --> 00:27:36,680
so the Internet with a slight accent, and once, once

529
00:27:36,960 --> 00:27:39,319
you're attuned to it, it's unmistakable. And I can spot

530
00:27:39,359 --> 00:27:41,400
those guys even if even if they just have like

531
00:27:41,759 --> 00:27:44,319
some random picture as a as their profile.

532
00:27:44,279 --> 00:27:45,960
Speaker 2: Right, right, even if you don't know the name, you

533
00:27:46,000 --> 00:27:46,400
can figure.

534
00:27:46,519 --> 00:27:48,079
Speaker 1: Even if I don't know their name, I'm like, you're

535
00:27:48,319 --> 00:27:50,680
you're within five years of my age. I can just

536
00:27:50,799 --> 00:27:52,519
I just know, and then eventually you know, and when

537
00:27:52,519 --> 00:27:56,200
I get an opportunity to ask, I'm always right. But anyway,

538
00:27:56,240 --> 00:27:59,880
I mean, that's a that's a slight slidebar how how

539
00:28:00,599 --> 00:28:03,720
like I or this is a really randabout way of saying,

540
00:28:03,839 --> 00:28:07,319
like what's going on on the Internet is part of

541
00:28:07,519 --> 00:28:10,799
what it means to be me, like in the sense

542
00:28:10,839 --> 00:28:14,440
of being being an extension of myself. Like Internet discourses,

543
00:28:14,680 --> 00:28:16,599
you know, inhabit me to the same to the extent,

544
00:28:16,839 --> 00:28:19,640
to the same extent as I inhabit Internet discourses. You know,

545
00:28:19,799 --> 00:28:21,839
I try and moderate that a bit these days, because

546
00:28:21,839 --> 00:28:24,960
it's all got very much more cynical and sometimes really

547
00:28:24,960 --> 00:28:27,960
adversarial there. But there's there's a sense like I really

548
00:28:28,079 --> 00:28:31,240
enjoy that sense of wandering the byways of the Internet,

549
00:28:31,279 --> 00:28:33,880
and you know, the serendipity that can occur there, and

550
00:28:33,960 --> 00:28:35,839
you know, the red the other humans you could the

551
00:28:35,839 --> 00:28:37,720
other people you can meet there, and you know, some

552
00:28:37,759 --> 00:28:40,240
of my I have extraordinary friendships that couldn't have come

553
00:28:40,279 --> 00:28:43,079
about without just moodling around there seeing what would turn up.

554
00:28:44,880 --> 00:28:47,680
Speaker 2: Like I love I really I love the Internet.

555
00:28:48,279 --> 00:28:53,039
Speaker 1: But you know, platforms don't Platforms don't last. They seem

556
00:28:53,079 --> 00:28:56,400
to have a so so far so they seem to

557
00:28:56,440 --> 00:28:59,319
have a sort of a natural lifespan, and after that

558
00:28:59,359 --> 00:29:03,599
they just start to suck. It's like Facebook was for

559
00:29:03,680 --> 00:29:06,839
a while Facebook, Facebook just began to suck, and it

560
00:29:06,880 --> 00:29:08,880
has sort of happens by degrees and everyone's like, oh,

561
00:29:08,960 --> 00:29:11,519
what's going on, And then after a while you're like, man,

562
00:29:11,559 --> 00:29:13,440
I just can't do this anymore. This is just beginning

563
00:29:13,480 --> 00:29:17,319
to suck. And then you just you know, then you're

564
00:29:17,359 --> 00:29:19,200
sort of how you feel of it, beref, but you

565
00:29:19,240 --> 00:29:21,480
know what you're going to do. It sucks, you know,

566
00:29:21,519 --> 00:29:23,039
it's just not that it's not it's not doing the

567
00:29:23,119 --> 00:29:26,559
thing anymore. And I think there's a there was a

568
00:29:26,559 --> 00:29:33,079
period from maybe twenty fifteen to twenty twenty four or

569
00:29:33,079 --> 00:29:36,799
twenty five, a ten year period where Twitter was the thing.

570
00:29:37,599 --> 00:29:40,599
Twitter now X, but it isn't anymore and I really

571
00:29:40,640 --> 00:29:44,680
miss it. And there's in the course of in the

572
00:29:44,720 --> 00:29:48,200
course of that arc, you know, subcultures have come and gone,

573
00:29:48,759 --> 00:29:51,079
some some very influential ones. I mean, Donald Trump would

574
00:29:51,079 --> 00:29:52,480
not be in the White House with that some of

575
00:29:52,519 --> 00:29:55,079
those subcultures. You know, a great many other you know,

576
00:29:55,400 --> 00:29:57,759
second and third order consequences have fallen out of that.

577
00:29:59,079 --> 00:30:01,680
But the subculture that propelled Donald Trump to the White

578
00:30:01,680 --> 00:30:05,519
House twice more or less emerged out of Twitter. I mean,

579
00:30:05,559 --> 00:30:08,119
there are there are sort of subjects, or there are

580
00:30:08,519 --> 00:30:12,319
subterranean channels that fed into Twitter channing. Yeah, there was

581
00:30:12,359 --> 00:30:14,200
four channel and all a bunch of other bunch of

582
00:30:14,200 --> 00:30:17,359
other little not so little either. There are other other

583
00:30:17,680 --> 00:30:20,599
tributary rivets that fell into that, that fed into the

584
00:30:20,599 --> 00:30:24,319
great stream of Twitter. But it was Twitter, really, yeah,

585
00:30:24,720 --> 00:30:29,079
and that's that's over now in my you know. And

586
00:30:29,119 --> 00:30:31,039
I couldn't even give you a couldn't even give you

587
00:30:31,079 --> 00:30:35,359
a clear intellectual reason. It's just you feel it, you know.

588
00:30:35,400 --> 00:30:38,000
It's Twitter is going the way, you know, the way

589
00:30:38,000 --> 00:30:40,119
of all platforms, and I don't I don't know what

590
00:30:40,240 --> 00:30:42,319
comes next. I don't even know if what comes next

591
00:30:42,400 --> 00:30:45,039
is a written form at all, you know, it might

592
00:30:45,119 --> 00:30:47,680
just be primarily short form video, which point I'm totally

593
00:30:47,720 --> 00:30:50,039
stuck because I'm a creature of I'm a creature of text,

594
00:30:50,279 --> 00:30:52,440
and I honestly don't know what happens to me at

595
00:30:52,440 --> 00:30:55,880
that point. I sort of I'm a bit kind of

596
00:30:56,240 --> 00:31:02,599
horrified by having even think about it. But I mean,

597
00:31:02,599 --> 00:31:04,640
this is a this is a slightly kind of backwards

598
00:31:04,680 --> 00:31:07,440
way of talking about, you know, the political subcultures that

599
00:31:07,440 --> 00:31:09,920
have come and gone over the last ten years. But

600
00:31:09,960 --> 00:31:12,039
I think the most the one in which I was

601
00:31:12,039 --> 00:31:17,559
probably the most involved was was the Twitter counterculture, which

602
00:31:17,559 --> 00:31:20,039
has which has you know, very much, very much taken

603
00:31:20,079 --> 00:31:23,960
its place, you know, in the public sphere now and

604
00:31:24,039 --> 00:31:26,000
as in the process, you know, as is always the

605
00:31:26,039 --> 00:31:28,960
way with these things, have sort of lost its countercultural cachet.

606
00:31:29,160 --> 00:31:29,319
Speaker 2: You know.

607
00:31:29,400 --> 00:31:32,400
Speaker 1: Most of the really funnier nons are now just like

608
00:31:32,920 --> 00:31:35,759
there for their faces in the media.

609
00:31:36,160 --> 00:31:40,279
Speaker 3: Yeah, which is hard sometimes to believe some of them,

610
00:31:40,880 --> 00:31:42,119
I know, I know, you.

611
00:31:42,039 --> 00:31:43,559
Speaker 1: Know so and some of those some of those people

612
00:31:43,559 --> 00:31:47,200
have pol aidd into you know, quite quite influential, you know,

613
00:31:47,279 --> 00:31:50,240
face posting media careers. And I mean I was, I mean,

614
00:31:50,279 --> 00:31:54,680
I wasn't a on for a while, yeah, until between

615
00:31:54,720 --> 00:31:58,160
twenty fifteen and twenty nineteen, maybe I was. I was

616
00:31:58,160 --> 00:32:02,119
a non on Twitter. I wasn't. I wasn't like a frog.

617
00:32:02,759 --> 00:32:06,519
I wasn't really part of that culture. But well no

618
00:32:06,599 --> 00:32:07,359
I was. I wasn't on.

619
00:32:08,319 --> 00:32:08,799
Speaker 2: That was just.

620
00:32:08,960 --> 00:32:13,359
Speaker 1: A I mean that I have Now that's.

621
00:32:13,119 --> 00:32:15,880
Speaker 3: We're probably on a hand, Like I'm fifty a year

622
00:32:16,039 --> 00:32:19,039
forty five, right, and for me, the idea of being

623
00:32:19,039 --> 00:32:21,759
an on is just I can't like I was never

624
00:32:21,880 --> 00:32:24,559
really I think I did the beginning of the Internet.

625
00:32:24,720 --> 00:32:26,839
Speaker 2: For a few years that was on on the like

626
00:32:26,960 --> 00:32:27,759
Yahoo groups.

627
00:32:27,839 --> 00:32:30,480
Speaker 3: This is a while ago, two thousand and two, two

628
00:32:30,480 --> 00:32:34,279
thousand and three, actually like fighting dugan Nights, which like

629
00:32:34,519 --> 00:32:38,599
really down and like down in the in the in

630
00:32:38,079 --> 00:32:42,440
the let's say, the underculture of some of those Internet things.

631
00:32:42,480 --> 00:32:44,880
But for a very long time, I'd always used my

632
00:32:45,000 --> 00:32:46,519
name in my face. I don't know why, but it

633
00:32:46,680 --> 00:32:48,119
just seems natural to do that.

634
00:32:49,119 --> 00:32:53,079
Speaker 1: Yeah, when when you think about when you think about

635
00:32:53,119 --> 00:32:57,079
English speaking Internet subcultures, functionally, what you're talking about is

636
00:32:57,119 --> 00:33:03,680
the American uh in America led Internet Empire because you know,

637
00:33:03,720 --> 00:33:06,960
English like, because of the de territorializing effect of the Internet,

638
00:33:07,000 --> 00:33:10,920
all anglosphere Internet discourse is functionally the same thing, which means,

639
00:33:11,000 --> 00:33:14,000
you know, effectively, no matter where you live, whether it's

640
00:33:14,359 --> 00:33:17,000
I believe you're in Canada, is that right? And and

641
00:33:17,039 --> 00:33:20,000
I'm in I'm in the British Isles, but we all

642
00:33:20,039 --> 00:33:22,079
speak English, which means that you know, we just get,

643
00:33:22,119 --> 00:33:23,799
we just get sort of you know, a daubed into

644
00:33:23,799 --> 00:33:26,759
the American board because there's just more Americans, and they're

645
00:33:26,799 --> 00:33:30,440
really loud, they have a lot of money, they have

646
00:33:30,519 --> 00:33:33,119
like right right, you know, and I say this without rancor.

647
00:33:33,200 --> 00:33:38,559
It's just it's just an effect of relative power and all,

648
00:33:38,599 --> 00:33:41,200
you know, also being in the words of ten sixty

649
00:33:41,240 --> 00:33:43,160
six and all that top notion, like it just is

650
00:33:43,160 --> 00:33:46,880
what it is, right. So so so when I when

651
00:33:46,920 --> 00:33:48,799
I think about when I think about the sort of

652
00:33:48,839 --> 00:33:51,759
phases of Internet subculture that I've been an active participant in,

653
00:33:51,759 --> 00:33:55,400
particularly since I stopped being a non it begins. It

654
00:33:55,440 --> 00:33:58,079
begins with the Trump presidency in twenty sixteen. And that

655
00:33:58,200 --> 00:34:00,599
was I mean, that was kind of chaotic, and I

656
00:34:00,640 --> 00:34:04,759
wasn't really a commentator then, and I think my my

657
00:34:04,920 --> 00:34:08,079
kind of you know, my face dooxing. I think, I

658
00:34:08,079 --> 00:34:10,880
think they call it roughly coincided with the end of

659
00:34:10,880 --> 00:34:15,000
the Trump presidency, the beginning of COVID, and the election

660
00:34:15,039 --> 00:34:15,519
of Joe Bio.

661
00:34:15,559 --> 00:34:18,000
Speaker 2: Okay, And there was I thought it there.

662
00:34:18,239 --> 00:34:21,199
Speaker 1: It was twenty nineteen, I think kind of I stopped

663
00:34:21,199 --> 00:34:24,960
being and early early in the lockdowns, I turned up

664
00:34:24,960 --> 00:34:26,960
on an unheard video, at which point my place is

665
00:34:26,960 --> 00:34:30,920
in the public domain and it's but then there was

666
00:34:30,920 --> 00:34:33,840
this really for for somebody who likes, you know, for

667
00:34:34,199 --> 00:34:36,039
a critic and like it's easy to be a critic,

668
00:34:36,039 --> 00:34:37,760
and it's fun to be a critic, you know, there

669
00:34:37,800 --> 00:34:39,960
was a very fruitful period where you know, there was

670
00:34:40,039 --> 00:34:42,039
just lots to poke fun at. You know, there was

671
00:34:42,079 --> 00:34:44,360
this very sort of oppressive, you know, climate of left

672
00:34:44,400 --> 00:34:48,039
wing morals censoriousness, and there were just these crazy crackers policies,

673
00:34:48,119 --> 00:34:50,480
you know, men pretending to be women, and there's all

674
00:34:50,480 --> 00:34:52,280
sorts of crazy things going on, and there was just

675
00:34:52,480 --> 00:34:53,960
there was just lots of like, there were a lot

676
00:34:54,000 --> 00:34:55,880
of there was a lot of very low hanging fruit,

677
00:34:55,960 --> 00:34:58,480
a lot of very easy targets, and a lot of

678
00:34:58,519 --> 00:35:01,920
just you know, so so transfer transparently bonkers stuff. But

679
00:35:02,039 --> 00:35:04,079
it was just it was just very fun and very easy.

680
00:35:05,000 --> 00:35:09,639
And things are now very much more ambiguous, and I

681
00:35:09,719 --> 00:35:13,519
feel like I don't like doing hot takes anymore because

682
00:35:13,639 --> 00:35:16,239
things are just very often not what they see on

683
00:35:16,400 --> 00:35:20,000
the first on the first take, and I'm I'm often

684
00:35:20,079 --> 00:35:24,880
reluctant to go off off the cuff because you just

685
00:35:24,960 --> 00:35:27,880
need a little bit more information. And also, you know,

686
00:35:27,920 --> 00:35:34,159
at the risk of sounding paranoid, you know, the such

687
00:35:34,239 --> 00:35:38,000
engines of propaganda as exist online are very much more

688
00:35:38,000 --> 00:35:40,599
sophisticated now and very much more methodical and very much

689
00:35:40,599 --> 00:35:43,920
more organized, and very much more effective. And it's just

690
00:35:45,079 --> 00:35:47,880
like you can't I can't always see it, you know,

691
00:35:47,960 --> 00:35:49,920
sometimes you can sort of smell it, you know. And

692
00:35:49,960 --> 00:35:51,559
if but if you go off, if you go off

693
00:35:51,639 --> 00:35:55,480
kind of half half cocked, then before you know, before

694
00:35:55,519 --> 00:35:57,760
you you know, before your article has been up for

695
00:35:57,800 --> 00:35:59,800
six hours, you realize you've been played. And that's just

696
00:35:59,840 --> 00:36:00,960
a really annoying feeling.

697
00:36:01,440 --> 00:36:01,760
Speaker 2: Yeah.

698
00:36:02,239 --> 00:36:05,119
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think especially since the beginning, since the beginning

699
00:36:05,119 --> 00:36:07,800
of the Ukraine War, then obviously the war in Gaza,

700
00:36:08,119 --> 00:36:13,480
and now now it's like the propaganda is so it's

701
00:36:13,559 --> 00:36:17,199
so precendent, so sophisticated, and so intense that that's why

702
00:36:17,480 --> 00:36:19,239
one of the reason why I don't talk about politics

703
00:36:19,239 --> 00:36:21,559
too much is that I honestly don't believe I know

704
00:36:22,159 --> 00:36:25,199
what's going on now with Epstein the same the same problem.

705
00:36:25,239 --> 00:36:26,639
Speaker 2: So it's very frustrating.

706
00:36:26,880 --> 00:36:29,920
Speaker 3: Yeah, uh, you know, but that's also the problem of

707
00:36:29,960 --> 00:36:34,239
the it's the problem of these these these algorithms that

708
00:36:34,280 --> 00:36:37,320
we don't really know who who holds the key to

709
00:36:37,400 --> 00:36:40,000
the algorithm, who gets things in front of you and

710
00:36:40,000 --> 00:36:40,880
and doesn't.

711
00:36:41,039 --> 00:36:45,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so I've become I've become more

712
00:36:46,039 --> 00:36:50,039
and more. Yeah, But ironically, the more the more high

713
00:36:50,079 --> 00:36:53,280
profile I've become, the more reluctant. I've become to use that,

714
00:36:53,679 --> 00:36:55,440
you know, as a sort of as a sort of

715
00:36:55,480 --> 00:36:57,840
talking head on things which I'm not completely sure. I know,

716
00:36:58,320 --> 00:37:00,480
I know what I'm talking, Yeah, I think. I mean,

717
00:37:00,480 --> 00:37:02,960
it's also it's also just a really easy temptation to

718
00:37:02,960 --> 00:37:05,320
fall into, you know, just sort of being being a

719
00:37:05,360 --> 00:37:08,719
renter gob on anything and people, you know, people want

720
00:37:08,719 --> 00:37:10,800
you to come on and spout about this all that

721
00:37:10,800 --> 00:37:13,039
that you haven't you don't actually know very much about,

722
00:37:13,119 --> 00:37:14,840
and you know, it's and it's easy to cobble together

723
00:37:14,880 --> 00:37:18,920
some kind of an opinion, but you know, yeah, it

724
00:37:19,039 --> 00:37:22,719
just feels it feels very chaotic and very confusing and

725
00:37:23,000 --> 00:37:26,880
very very much more curated in a kind of, I

726
00:37:26,880 --> 00:37:28,599
don't want to say a sinister way, but in a

727
00:37:28,679 --> 00:37:31,239
very in a very intentional way. And I can't always

728
00:37:31,280 --> 00:37:34,079
see I can't always see who's doing the curating and why.

729
00:37:34,960 --> 00:37:37,559
And I think under those circumstances, just wiser to keep

730
00:37:37,559 --> 00:37:38,599
it three quarters buttoned.

731
00:37:39,159 --> 00:37:43,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so what then, is exciting you? Like? What

732
00:37:43,800 --> 00:37:45,480
is drawing your attention? What?

733
00:37:45,480 --> 00:37:48,920
Speaker 3: What did you feel like it's worth getting engaged in

734
00:37:49,039 --> 00:37:50,239
or talking about right now?

735
00:37:50,800 --> 00:37:56,320
Speaker 1: I mean, I've finally I finally got the opportunity to

736
00:37:56,519 --> 00:37:59,360
pursue a theme which has interested me pretty much since

737
00:37:59,559 --> 00:38:03,440
pretty much since I left university or even before, which is,

738
00:38:03,599 --> 00:38:05,519
you know, trying to find an answer to the question,

739
00:38:05,559 --> 00:38:09,039
you know what, you know, if if the printing press

740
00:38:10,840 --> 00:38:13,719
was revolution was, if if the printing press was was

741
00:38:13,840 --> 00:38:16,159
really the engine that drove modernity, then what what does

742
00:38:16,199 --> 00:38:18,039
it mean to go out the other side of print

743
00:38:18,119 --> 00:38:22,639
and into this new thing? And I remember it struck

744
00:38:22,679 --> 00:38:25,360
me very forcefully, pretty much, but it's pretty much the

745
00:38:25,400 --> 00:38:28,440
moment I first met the Internet properly that that was

746
00:38:28,519 --> 00:38:31,559
where we were. We were into the in the foothills

747
00:38:31,559 --> 00:38:34,880
of something very new. And at the moment I'm writing

748
00:38:34,920 --> 00:38:39,280
a book, ironically perhaps about about the end of the

749
00:38:39,280 --> 00:38:44,119
print era and and and what it means, what what

750
00:38:44,119 --> 00:38:46,159
what what it means to try and think after the

751
00:38:46,159 --> 00:38:48,519
singularity or after the latest singularity?

752
00:38:49,000 --> 00:38:49,360
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.

753
00:38:49,920 --> 00:38:52,239
Speaker 1: I think it's my thesis is actually this is this

754
00:38:52,280 --> 00:38:54,360
is the this is the third The second was the

755
00:38:54,360 --> 00:38:57,400
printing press, and the first was the alphabet. So in fact,

756
00:38:57,440 --> 00:39:01,119
we've we've merged with our information technologies before, you know,

757
00:39:01,199 --> 00:39:03,159
and I guess this is a piece with you know,

758
00:39:03,199 --> 00:39:05,760
not wanting to be a doomer about technology, or not

759
00:39:05,760 --> 00:39:08,320
not being wanted, not wanting to be unambiguously a doomer

760
00:39:08,480 --> 00:39:11,320
about technology. You know, this really isn't our first rodeo,

761
00:39:12,159 --> 00:39:13,840
but the last one was pretty disruptive.

762
00:39:14,199 --> 00:39:17,440
Speaker 2: In a lot of war came out of the printing press.

763
00:39:17,880 --> 00:39:20,280
Speaker 1: And yeah, I mean, and you know, i'd like, you know,

764
00:39:20,320 --> 00:39:23,360
what what what? What exactly has been happening since since?

765
00:39:23,760 --> 00:39:26,880
You know, there's there's war in Ukraine, there's warring. Yeah,

766
00:39:26,960 --> 00:39:30,119
there's war in Iran now as well. You know, there's

767
00:39:30,119 --> 00:39:34,079
there's been some there's been some stuff. Yeah, there's there's

768
00:39:34,119 --> 00:39:37,360
a certain amount of war. Is indeed, you know, I

769
00:39:38,480 --> 00:39:40,599
don't know if it's a reach yet to draw any

770
00:39:40,639 --> 00:39:44,360
sort of direct cause or lengths, but I suppose, I

771
00:39:44,360 --> 00:39:46,920
suppose the links were quite indirect, you know, I mean.

772
00:39:47,239 --> 00:39:50,519
Speaker 3: Everybody talk about multiplarity, you know, everybody's you talking about

773
00:39:50,559 --> 00:39:53,719
it in different ways, whether and so this you know,

774
00:39:53,840 --> 00:39:56,880
when you talk about the industrial process and this kind

775
00:39:56,880 --> 00:39:59,559
of rational capacity to take words and make them into

776
00:39:59,559 --> 00:40:01,719
a little bit that you move around, and you have

777
00:40:01,800 --> 00:40:05,119
this this kind of top down control over what gets seen,

778
00:40:05,239 --> 00:40:09,039
what gets published, what gets distributed, And this has been

779
00:40:09,079 --> 00:40:12,159
the world we've lived in until let's say, the Internet,

780
00:40:12,239 --> 00:40:14,880
even in terms of television, in terms of it was

781
00:40:14,920 --> 00:40:21,400
all this very very direct monocultures that we were kind

782
00:40:21,400 --> 00:40:21,960
of engaged with.

783
00:40:22,079 --> 00:40:25,920
Speaker 1: Actually, I'd modify that very slightly in the sense that

784
00:40:26,000 --> 00:40:28,280
I actually think the end of the industrial era proper

785
00:40:28,559 --> 00:40:30,440
was the end of the Two World War was, you know,

786
00:40:30,639 --> 00:40:32,719
because I mean if you think about you think about

787
00:40:32,719 --> 00:40:35,159
the Two World Wars, you know, in a sense that

788
00:40:35,280 --> 00:40:37,159
was the kind of it was the ultimate sort of

789
00:40:37,199 --> 00:40:41,239
apotheosis in a really dark way of industrial manufacturing. Like

790
00:40:41,280 --> 00:40:45,599
the whole you know, the every nation, every every country

791
00:40:45,599 --> 00:40:48,079
that was that was drawn into that war ended up

792
00:40:48,119 --> 00:40:52,920
conscripting basically their entire population into an extended, incredibly complicated

793
00:40:52,920 --> 00:40:55,880
industrial process, all of which was geared towards killing the

794
00:40:55,920 --> 00:40:58,360
other guy. That was just true everywhere, you know, for

795
00:40:58,400 --> 00:41:00,440
every country. You know, it was either the home it

796
00:41:00,480 --> 00:41:02,079
was either the war effort at home, or it was

797
00:41:02,159 --> 00:41:04,400
munitions making, or it was digging for victory, or it

798
00:41:04,440 --> 00:41:06,159
was or it was actually doing the fighting, and it

799
00:41:06,199 --> 00:41:09,239
was all it was all industrialized, it was all highly mechanized,

800
00:41:09,239 --> 00:41:11,000
and it was all geared towards killing the other guy.

801
00:41:11,280 --> 00:41:15,039
And you know, the cataclysm was so total that people

802
00:41:15,039 --> 00:41:18,840
were like, we're not doing that again, and and I don't.

803
00:41:18,880 --> 00:41:21,079
I also don't think it's a coincidence that you come out,

804
00:41:21,159 --> 00:41:22,880
you come out the other side of nineteen bush five

805
00:41:22,920 --> 00:41:25,440
and you're in the era of TV and radio, which

806
00:41:25,519 --> 00:41:28,079
are you know, Carl Schmidt noticed actually not long into

807
00:41:28,159 --> 00:41:30,199
that era that this was already something new and it

808
00:41:30,239 --> 00:41:33,000
wasn't really democratic in the in the classical sense at

809
00:41:33,000 --> 00:41:35,840
all anymore. You know, in a sense it had degraded

810
00:41:35,840 --> 00:41:40,119
the idea of of electorates to something more like something

811
00:41:40,159 --> 00:41:44,880
more like entertainment. Democratic debate has sort of degraded to

812
00:41:44,920 --> 00:41:47,519
something more like entertainment. So you have something of you know,

813
00:41:47,599 --> 00:41:49,920
with in the TV and radio era, you have you know,

814
00:41:50,159 --> 00:41:52,599
Marshall McLuhan in the nineteen sixties is on about how

815
00:41:52,639 --> 00:41:56,000
he thinks electric simultaneity is already creating this sort of

816
00:41:56,039 --> 00:41:59,199
post print consciousness which is very much more emotivistic tribal.

817
00:42:00,079 --> 00:42:03,199
But the form of TV and radio is still one

818
00:42:03,239 --> 00:42:05,119
to many, it's still very top down, and it's still

819
00:42:05,199 --> 00:42:08,159
very centralized and controlled. So I think I think our

820
00:42:08,199 --> 00:42:12,039
political forms maintained something that looked a lot like the

821
00:42:12,079 --> 00:42:15,679
pre a lot like the industrial order for much longer

822
00:42:15,719 --> 00:42:19,800
because because our media was still very centralized and and

823
00:42:20,280 --> 00:42:22,400
that's just that's just you know, the the Internet just

824
00:42:22,440 --> 00:42:24,800
threw a stone through that, and so now we have

825
00:42:24,880 --> 00:42:27,719
electric simultanity. But you know, we no longer have the centralization,

826
00:42:27,840 --> 00:42:30,320
and the results are just everywhere. They're there and people's consciousness,

827
00:42:30,360 --> 00:42:32,119
they're they're in our politics, and they're there in our

828
00:42:32,360 --> 00:42:35,920
in our individual relational lives as well. Yeah, and the

829
00:42:35,960 --> 00:42:39,000
cracks and the cracks are just getting the discractle.

830
00:42:38,920 --> 00:42:41,840
Speaker 3: Like all of the alliances are up in the air,

831
00:42:41,960 --> 00:42:45,079
like nobody really knows exactly what alliances are anymore.

832
00:42:45,599 --> 00:42:47,559
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean, you know, people like to freak

833
00:42:47,599 --> 00:42:50,119
out about cancel culture. I was thinking about this earlier today,

834
00:42:50,280 --> 00:42:51,800
but I was thinking, what if, act, you know, what

835
00:42:51,840 --> 00:42:54,199
if actually canceled culture was not a leftist thing at all,

836
00:42:54,239 --> 00:42:56,159
But it's just an effect of the Internet and the

837
00:42:56,199 --> 00:42:58,880
way the way people all like and it's it seems

838
00:42:58,920 --> 00:43:01,079
to me that actually the never one assumed it was

839
00:43:01,079 --> 00:43:04,039
a left wing thing is simply because leftist like the

840
00:43:04,920 --> 00:43:09,000
left left wing communities got online sooner they were they

841
00:43:09,000 --> 00:43:10,760
were earlier adopters of the Internet.

842
00:43:13,159 --> 00:43:14,480
Speaker 2: Now that everybody because.

843
00:43:14,239 --> 00:43:17,760
Speaker 3: The right wing people. They were the resistance at that

844
00:43:17,880 --> 00:43:20,880
point in that culture. But now that things are not

845
00:43:21,000 --> 00:43:23,880
as clear, we see all the cancel culture.

846
00:43:23,880 --> 00:43:26,360
Speaker 2: Means, uh, you know, being applied on the right.

847
00:43:26,639 --> 00:43:28,960
Speaker 3: I mean the way that you know, how people are

848
00:43:29,000 --> 00:43:31,800
talking about Tucker, Candice all these people. It's like you

849
00:43:31,920 --> 00:43:33,880
have to get rid of them, like they have to

850
00:43:33,920 --> 00:43:38,639
stop speaking, and this is just and maybe it's just yeah.

851
00:43:38,840 --> 00:43:40,599
So I think that you're right that it's mostly the

852
00:43:40,639 --> 00:43:43,320
problem of everybody being able to say everything, you know,

853
00:43:43,400 --> 00:43:44,800
and that that has effects.

854
00:43:44,840 --> 00:43:46,480
Speaker 2: So people fall to ca.

855
00:43:47,840 --> 00:43:52,679
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it takes us incredibly, It takes this incredibly

856
00:43:52,719 --> 00:43:56,320
feminine form because it is structurally a very feminine mode

857
00:43:56,360 --> 00:44:00,239
of interaction in the sense I mean this this is

858
00:44:00,280 --> 00:44:02,559
possibly this is possibly a sidebark. You know, people like

859
00:44:02,599 --> 00:44:05,239
to go on about, you know, the feminization of everything,

860
00:44:05,480 --> 00:44:07,480
and I always think that that's a that's an incomplete

861
00:44:07,519 --> 00:44:10,079
analysis unless you're unless you're looking at it through the

862
00:44:10,159 --> 00:44:13,280
lens of material conditions and technology as well.

863
00:44:13,760 --> 00:44:14,480
Speaker 2: I mean, if you think.

864
00:44:14,320 --> 00:44:17,400
Speaker 1: About the way the like classically, the different one of

865
00:44:17,400 --> 00:44:19,760
the differences between men and women comes out in the

866
00:44:19,760 --> 00:44:22,280
way they manage conflict, in that men are much more

867
00:44:22,360 --> 00:44:25,719
likely to come to blows physically, but they're also much

868
00:44:25,760 --> 00:44:28,719
more likely to form in groups and compete against out groups.

869
00:44:28,760 --> 00:44:31,119
You know, this is this is the sort of evosych

870
00:44:31,239 --> 00:44:37,199
story of men's sociality and conflict model, whereas women are

871
00:44:37,239 --> 00:44:41,880
much more Women are much more on the surface conciliatory,

872
00:44:41,920 --> 00:44:44,119
and they're much more cooperative, and they're much more collaborative,

873
00:44:44,360 --> 00:44:47,960
you know, because the evolutionary pressures are different, and we're

874
00:44:48,000 --> 00:44:51,519
also physically weaker. But what that that also produces a

875
00:44:51,519 --> 00:44:54,079
different mode of conflict in that when when women fight,

876
00:44:54,280 --> 00:44:56,000
it tends not to be so overt, you know, we

877
00:44:56,039 --> 00:44:58,760
won't come to physical blows so often. And what and

878
00:44:59,039 --> 00:45:02,559
what conflict tends to to look like more is covert

879
00:45:02,719 --> 00:45:09,559
forms of hostility, you know, whispering campaigns, character reputation damaging,

880
00:45:09,559 --> 00:45:12,760
whisper campaigns, character assassination, you know, ganging up on the other,

881
00:45:13,119 --> 00:45:15,800
expelling somebody from from the in group. And if you

882
00:45:15,840 --> 00:45:18,559
think about how the Internet works, you know, it incentivizes

883
00:45:18,639 --> 00:45:22,039
endless talking and it forecloses physical violence just structurally, like

884
00:45:22,360 --> 00:45:24,079
you know, obviously I don't want to hit you, but

885
00:45:24,119 --> 00:45:25,559
even if I did want to hit you, you're you're

886
00:45:25,559 --> 00:45:27,280
s of a thousand miles away in Canada. So what

887
00:45:27,280 --> 00:45:29,519
I'm going to do? So so instead one of my

888
00:45:29,679 --> 00:45:33,159
you know, I'm forced into this classically, you know, offline

889
00:45:33,159 --> 00:45:35,360
at least much more feminine mode. You know, if I want,

890
00:45:35,480 --> 00:45:37,599
if I wanted to, you know, come at you, which

891
00:45:37,800 --> 00:45:39,760
you know, to be clear, I don't, but you know,

892
00:45:39,760 --> 00:45:40,960
if I want to, if I want to come at

893
00:45:40,960 --> 00:45:43,079
somebody on the Internet, I have to I have to

894
00:45:43,119 --> 00:45:46,960
do it through characteristic characters, assassination and smear and whisper

895
00:45:47,000 --> 00:45:49,800
campaigns and you know all and what you know when

896
00:45:49,880 --> 00:45:52,440
when people say, when people say that woke and cancel

897
00:45:52,519 --> 00:45:56,760
culture are are feminine and therefore obviously it's a it's

898
00:45:56,800 --> 00:45:58,559
an effect of too many women in public life. They

899
00:45:58,599 --> 00:46:01,559
have they have the causality completely. You're back, And actually

900
00:46:01,639 --> 00:46:03,920
I think what we're looking at is a mode of

901
00:46:03,960 --> 00:46:07,320
communication which forces everybody into these much more feminine modes,

902
00:46:07,960 --> 00:46:13,159
even of hostility irrespective of sex, and then blaming it all.

903
00:46:13,079 --> 00:46:16,920
Speaker 5: Online, which yeah, I mean, if if you've ever if

904
00:46:16,920 --> 00:46:19,440
you've ever seen a bunch of right right wing male

905
00:46:19,519 --> 00:46:22,000
and noons to a purity spiral, my god, it's like

906
00:46:22,039 --> 00:46:24,159
a sixth form girls girls school common ram.

907
00:46:26,639 --> 00:46:28,480
Speaker 1: You know, the the the the idea that this is

908
00:46:28,519 --> 00:46:30,719
somehow uniquely a female. It's not. It's an effect of

909
00:46:30,719 --> 00:46:35,280
the technology. Yeah, and perhaps perhaps that draws out, you know,

910
00:46:35,360 --> 00:46:37,960
different aspects of our of our you know, sort of

911
00:46:38,159 --> 00:46:41,719
sex natures in different ways. But the technology, the effect

912
00:46:41,760 --> 00:46:43,800
of the the effect of the technology as a form

913
00:46:43,880 --> 00:46:45,239
is incredibly powerful as well.

914
00:46:45,639 --> 00:46:49,400
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's really interesting. Definitely there. I mean there's

915
00:46:49,400 --> 00:46:53,039
probably a correlation between all of those aspects too. You know.

916
00:46:53,079 --> 00:46:56,159
It's like, we don't have a lot of time, but

917
00:46:56,239 --> 00:46:57,840
I want to ask you one last thing, which is

918
00:46:58,840 --> 00:47:00,880
you know, you're you are going to speak with us

919
00:47:00,960 --> 00:47:04,400
at s MARKROL summit, and your subject is very interesting.

920
00:47:04,440 --> 00:47:06,079
So I would like you to give us like a

921
00:47:06,079 --> 00:47:08,400
little so little taste or a little preview of what

922
00:47:08,440 --> 00:47:11,679
it is that you want to talk about.

923
00:47:13,440 --> 00:47:15,039
Speaker 1: I want to talk about I want to talk about

924
00:47:15,039 --> 00:47:17,760
rebuilding the monasteries. And I actually don't know. I'm not

925
00:47:17,760 --> 00:47:21,119
going to know until I prepare the talk. No, I know,

926
00:47:21,239 --> 00:47:23,239
I know thematically, like what the zone is that I

927
00:47:23,519 --> 00:47:25,760
don't want to but but I don't know yet how

928
00:47:26,039 --> 00:47:27,840
to what extent I mean that literally and to what

929
00:47:27,880 --> 00:47:30,199
extent I mean that figuratively. But but I want to

930
00:47:30,199 --> 00:47:31,960
talk about I want to talk about the role that

931
00:47:32,000 --> 00:47:34,400
the monastery is played after the Fall of Rome and

932
00:47:34,440 --> 00:47:37,800
before before the modern in the in the middle bit

933
00:47:38,000 --> 00:47:41,199
in if you're preserving and stewarding and keeping alive the

934
00:47:41,199 --> 00:47:48,239
flame of intellectual and scholarly life within within European cultures,

935
00:47:48,400 --> 00:47:51,400
which was it was absolutely essential. And I want to

936
00:47:51,400 --> 00:47:56,880
talk about the relationship that that that that fostered between

937
00:47:56,920 --> 00:47:59,320
the kind of things that the kind of knowledge that

938
00:47:59,440 --> 00:48:02,599
was preserved and and the and the and the means

939
00:48:02,599 --> 00:48:04,800
of preserving it, which I mean, which means I want

940
00:48:04,840 --> 00:48:07,519
to talk about the rescralization of knowledge.

941
00:48:08,199 --> 00:48:08,719
Speaker 2: And I don't know.

942
00:48:09,000 --> 00:48:10,960
Speaker 1: I don't know if that necessarily has to be literal

943
00:48:11,079 --> 00:48:12,239
or figured out. I don't know if you need to

944
00:48:12,280 --> 00:48:14,239
actually live in a physical monastery to do that or not.

945
00:48:14,320 --> 00:48:15,960
I mean, this is kind of an open question for me.

946
00:48:16,400 --> 00:48:18,440
I also want to talk about practices of memory, which

947
00:48:18,480 --> 00:48:22,400
is just a huge era of interest for me because

948
00:48:22,400 --> 00:48:25,679
this because this was so central to medieval scholarly cultures.

949
00:48:25,719 --> 00:48:28,159
Just because books were rare. You may you maybe only

950
00:48:28,199 --> 00:48:31,039
got you'd get one go on a book in your lifetime,

951
00:48:31,320 --> 00:48:33,320
and if you wanted to remember its contents, you really

952
00:48:33,320 --> 00:48:36,239
had to remember it. And there were very methodical practices

953
00:48:36,719 --> 00:48:39,639
that that entailed, which were extremely highly developed and were

954
00:48:39,639 --> 00:48:41,559
just taught as a matter of course, you know, to

955
00:48:41,559 --> 00:48:44,559
to anybody who was my table, stakes was remembered, was learning,

956
00:48:44,800 --> 00:48:47,199
was learning the entire concance, you know, which is sort

957
00:48:47,239 --> 00:48:50,559
of sort of inconceivable from from you know, five hundred

958
00:48:50,599 --> 00:48:53,760
years into print culture and now digital one. And so

959
00:48:53,760 --> 00:48:55,880
so I want to I want you know, what what

960
00:48:55,920 --> 00:48:58,880
does it mean to what what does it mean to

961
00:48:58,880 --> 00:49:02,840
to encode and transmit the material that we consider important

962
00:49:03,519 --> 00:49:06,559
through practices of memory within within a context that sees

963
00:49:06,760 --> 00:49:09,599
that sees the preservation and the transmission of knowledge as

964
00:49:09,639 --> 00:49:15,280
inseparable from from U sacred life. And what does it

965
00:49:15,480 --> 00:49:18,239
mean to have you know, what were the implications of

966
00:49:18,320 --> 00:49:20,599
losing that you know very briefly? And then and then

967
00:49:21,360 --> 00:49:22,840
what what does it mean to have come out the

968
00:49:22,840 --> 00:49:26,519
other side of print culture to a point where we

969
00:49:26,519 --> 00:49:32,159
were we're losing we're losing our paper based literary cultures

970
00:49:32,159 --> 00:49:34,800
because everybody just scrolls now. But we have we haven't

971
00:49:34,840 --> 00:49:38,840
yet we reclaimed practices of memories such as to such

972
00:49:38,880 --> 00:49:43,400
as to be intentionally constructing interior. Uh what what they

973
00:49:43,400 --> 00:49:49,000
would have called treasure houses. The thesaurus is a Latin

974
00:49:49,039 --> 00:49:52,320
word for treasure house, you know, and it's given us.

975
00:49:52,360 --> 00:49:54,800
It's given us our word for a printed dictionary of words.

976
00:49:55,079 --> 00:49:57,960
But the interim stage between thesaurus is a physical treasure

977
00:49:57,960 --> 00:50:00,800
house and thesaurus as a as a book containing verbal

978
00:50:00,800 --> 00:50:04,519
definitions was a practice of memory, which which understood the

979
00:50:04,519 --> 00:50:07,880
storing of important words and sentences and ideas as a

980
00:50:07,960 --> 00:50:10,960
kind of storing up of treasure. And we don't have

981
00:50:11,000 --> 00:50:13,159
that anymore, and I think we're going to need it,

982
00:50:14,119 --> 00:50:16,079
you know, especially if AI is going to promise to

983
00:50:16,119 --> 00:50:17,760
do all of our thinking for us and do all

984
00:50:17,760 --> 00:50:20,719
of our writing for us. I mean, what does that

985
00:50:20,760 --> 00:50:23,920
even leave us with? I would you know that? I

986
00:50:23,960 --> 00:50:26,639
think the dangers are great, but there's it also opens

987
00:50:26,639 --> 00:50:30,519
space for very much more intentional practice of memory, and

988
00:50:30,559 --> 00:50:34,280
perhaps perhaps opens open space for a kind of recycualization

989
00:50:34,320 --> 00:50:36,480
of knowledge. So that's I mean that that's kind of it,

990
00:50:36,559 --> 00:50:38,559
I think, in a nutshell, but it I mean, if

991
00:50:38,639 --> 00:50:40,239
you know, I've got some I've got a few chapters

992
00:50:40,239 --> 00:50:41,920
to write between now and then, so it'll probably know

993
00:50:43,000 --> 00:50:44,760
that's that's somewhere in that zone.

994
00:50:44,800 --> 00:50:46,079
Speaker 2: I think that's wonderful.

995
00:50:46,159 --> 00:50:49,280
Speaker 3: You know, it makes me think of really I keep

996
00:50:49,519 --> 00:50:53,599
visiting Fedris again, you know, and socrates argument about writing

997
00:50:53,719 --> 00:50:58,000
and how writing will will reduce memory, you know, because

998
00:50:58,079 --> 00:50:59,639
it was kind of he was.

999
00:50:59,679 --> 00:51:01,639
Speaker 1: Kind of a but as it turns out, he was

1000
00:51:01,760 --> 00:51:03,639
like he wasn't wrong. He was just two thousand years

1001
00:51:03,639 --> 00:51:04,440
out on his sunline.

1002
00:51:04,519 --> 00:51:07,400
Speaker 3: Yeah, well he wasn't wrong. But it's like he could

1003
00:51:07,400 --> 00:51:10,079
see a process starting that would end in what we

1004
00:51:10,159 --> 00:51:13,480
have now, which now no one can deny that. One

1005
00:51:13,519 --> 00:51:15,039
of the things that the Internet has done is that

1006
00:51:15,079 --> 00:51:17,639
it's completely externalized memory, and so you don't have to

1007
00:51:17,719 --> 00:51:20,039
actually have to remember anything, you just have to go

1008
00:51:20,079 --> 00:51:22,800
and get it online. And AI has made it even worse.

1009
00:51:22,880 --> 00:51:25,880
So I think that subject is is going to be

1010
00:51:25,920 --> 00:51:28,119
really interesting. I can't wait to hear what it is

1011
00:51:28,639 --> 00:51:30,920
that you have to say, and so so Mary, thanks,

1012
00:51:30,920 --> 00:51:32,360
thanks for talking to me, and I can't wait to

1013
00:51:32,360 --> 00:51:32,679
see you.

1014
00:51:32,920 --> 00:51:35,239
Speaker 1: It's too much treasure. I'm really looking forward to the

1015
00:51:35,280 --> 00:51:37,039
conference and thank you for having me.

1016
00:51:37,440 --> 00:51:40,320
Speaker 3: If you enjoy these videos and podcasts, please go to

1017
00:51:40,360 --> 00:51:43,039
the Symbolic World dot com website and see how you

1018
00:51:43,079 --> 00:51:46,199
can support what we're doing. There are multiple subscriber tiers

1019
00:51:46,199 --> 00:51:49,199
with perks. There are apparel in books to purchase, So

1020
00:51:49,239 --> 00:51:51,400
go to the Symbolic World dot com and thank you

1021
00:51:51,679 --> 00:51:52,440
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