The Christian Transhumanist Podcast

Ep 18: Self-Driving Cars & Animated GIFs save the world

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Amy and Micah tackle self-driving cars, the rise of nomadic culture, how stories create technology, and why animated GIFs are saving the world.

  • The challenge and danger of a networked world, now becoming part of our driving experience!
  • The sad admission that Micah has not yet seen Battlestar Galactica
  • Tesla autopilot and Tesla Summon, which is basically like Knight Rider
  • Tesla driver caught sleeping at the wheel of self-driving car. Unrelated: The first self-driving car crashes.
  • Personality “paleo” — Micah and Amy’s weird reversion to primordial state
    • Filmstrip projectors, Betamax, and renting VCRs
    • How Micah grew up watching black&white TV while thinking it was in color
    • Being really ticked off when watching wide-format movies on TV
    • How Micah’s dad’s bedtime stories foretold TiVo decades before it showed up
    • How stories provoke technology, as told by Mark Hamill in a gold velour suit
      • Disney’s Tomorrowland makes another appearance
      • Why the scientific process and the creative process are the same thing. A scientific hypothesis comes from creative leaps, just like experiments in art. Einstein was an artist.
      • The Unwritten — the only comic series Micah reads
        • “Just a story? Tell that to the Greeks who fought at Troy. Tell the women burned as witches. Tell the martyrs of all the religions... Stories are the only thing worth dying for!” - quote from The Unwritten
        • Fascists are terrible artists, but they’re great designers
        • Extemporaneous interpretation of John 1. Who is the Word? Hint: it’s not the Bible.
        • Technology is a way we engage our creative process, as beings made in the image of God, and partakers of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4)
        • Successful people, psychopaths, and creative individuals
        • Self-driving cars and the return of the nomadic lifestyle:
          • Long Long Trailer, Lucille Ball’s attempt at a self-driving car lifestyle
          • Instead Of Renting An Apartment, Sign A Lease That Lets You Live Around The World
          • Digital mailboxes let you get mail online
          • Micah’s experience growing up as a nomad
          • How we’re actually living in the 1500s
          • Amanda Palmer, the art of asking
          • How animated GIFs are changing the way we communicate
          • Star Trek, Darmok episode about metaphors and how we communicate
          • Greg Egan’s Diaspora about a translation project to bridge the worlds
          • Paul’s speech on Mars Hill, to unify humankind
          • Fundamentalism is a new invention
            • ...more
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            The Christian Transhumanist PodcastBy Micah Redding
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