The multiverse is upon us! Everywhere you turn in popular culture these days, it seems like the world is not enough: From hit TV shows to blockbuster films, plot lines run through multiple parallel realities, a cosmic cornucopia that invites us to feast on “what-ifs” and “if-thens.” . . . . Continue Reading »
In the first, surreal weeks of the lockdowns of 2020, we all marveled at how COVID had hit at just the right time. Thanks to our Silicon Valley saviors, we had the perfect technologies to shift all “nonessential” activities and gatherings into virtual space. Zoom, which few of us had heard of in . . . . Continue Reading »
This isn’t about turning the cultural clock back to 1995. It’s about sustained flourishing in a digital age, which is only possible if we both test the spirits of the age and guard our hearts. Continue Reading »
About ten years ago, I acquired a deep suspicion of smartphones and social media. Riding a late-night L Train back to my Brooklyn apartment, I looked up from my book and observed about a dozen fellow riders, all in their twenties or early thirties, all hunched over, the blue light of their handhelds . . . . Continue Reading »
A traffic jam, a shoe that pinches: It takes very little to ruin a nice day. Nothing can please you then, and your judgment is affected. At first glance, unpleasantness and the resulting peevishness have no political or economic significance. These experiences are commonplace, part of the . . . . Continue Reading »
Musk is not any kind of conservative, and so the tentative cheers that have greeted his apparent routing of the Twitter board might more wisely have been postponed until we see what the new Twitter may look and sound like.
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Ronald Dworkin joins the podcast to talk about how SSRIs, cognitive therapy, and virtual reality have transformed our lives and our politics.
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Michael Toscano joins the podcast to talk about the work of cultural critic Neil Postman. Continue Reading »
Jared Knott joins the podcast to discuss his book Tiny Blunders/Big Disasters: Thirty-Nine Tiny Mistakes That Changed the World. Continue Reading »
Humans have always avoided painful conditions, but today our instinct to recoil has been institutionalized. Continue Reading »
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