MILFORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE, 1971: As the '60s end, the Environmental Ecology Lab finds new purpose at Avery Johnson's secluded woodland quarry. Here, Ecology, Tool & Toy emerges—a cybernetic commune blending hippie ideals with cutting-edge tech. Warren Brodey seems driven by an enigmatic quest, but what is he truly seeking?

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BOSTON, 1968: Evgeny digs deeper into the enigmatic Environmental Ecology Lab, a high-tech operation shrouded in mystery on Boston's waterfront. Funded by a Rockefeller and featuring an eclectic team alongside two colossal, costly computers, the lab's activities evoke the air of a covert CIA operation. Was this simply an avant-garde experiment, or a crazy mission to infiltrate the counterculture movement?

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PARIS, 2014: A serendipitous visit to a quaint Parisian bookstore sends renowned tech critic Evgeny Morozov down an unexpected rabbit hole. He stumbles upon the mystifying legacy of Warren Brodey, a 1960s psychiatrist whose path intertwines with shadowy CIA operations and radical Maoist movements. Is Brodey a visionary tech pioneer lost to history, a modern-day shaman, or a cunning charlatan?

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A Podcast Series by Evgeny Morozov.

Forget the military or Silicon Valley: we owe our smart technologies - from toothbrushes to beds - to a band of eccentric 1960s hippies. Hidden away in a secretive, privately funded lab on Boston’s waterfront, these visionaries developed intimate, personal technologies a decade before Steve Jobs.

But their rebellion was fraught with obstacles: the military-industrial complex, corporate resistance, and the founders’ larger-than-life personalities. As Silicon Valley adopted their ideas, the lab's vision for more humane and diverse technologies was twisted into something entirely different.

A decade in the making, this podcast unravels their captivating and often tragic tale. It's all here: Cold War psychiatry, Maoism, LSD, the Rockefellers, Scientology, CIA’s forays into extrasensory perception, and even the advent of tech libertarianism.

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