This week I’m rejoined by Jonathan Taplin, author of The End of Reality: How 4 Billionaires Are Selling a Fantasy Future of the Metaverse, Mars, and Crypto, to discuss the ways in which popular culture may be leading the public down a dark road. Mr. Taplin has previously been on the show to talk about his career in the entertainment business, from tour manager for Bob Dylan to producer of early Martin Scorsese classics Means Streets and The Last Waltz to his early efforts to introduce video streaming, so he knows a thing or two about the ways in which politics is downstream from culture. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to share it with a friend!
This may have been one of the best episodes on this podcast. Great work Sonny.
I find myself (sadly) in agreement with pretty much everything Mr. Taplin said. I always compare the path we are on to Dune. The issue is not whether AI will go sentient and destroy us a la Terminator; it is that those who control the AI tech (including soon, robots) will have such a chokehold on our economy that they will control everyone and everything. No question that this is the path that those who are spending billions on AI expect; otherwise the investments make no sense.
Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it. It's a slight departure from the usual show, a little more high level. But interesting stuff, for sure.
The Big short is on Netflix and I’m reminded of the scene where the two young traders are leaving Vegas and dancing. Brad Pitt’s character yells at them about banking reducing everything to numbers, and I think that’s a good warning for all of us. Efficiencies, scale, etc are all great, but reducing every human aspect to a number maybe isn’t the healthiest path forward.
Fascinating interview. I also think we're a lot closer to Brave New World than to 1984.
Thanks for another great episode, Sonny.
Thanks for listening!
I think Jonathan’s quote from Camus reminds us that we have gotten into the habit of misusing the word “art”: ART is work of the imagination, not just a congealed agglomeration of pixels from other stuff! The technique of re-sorting pixels may yet be used to produce ART but I’m guessing it is going to require serious application of human imagination to create something truly novel, indeed even rebellious. Norte Dame and Brunelleschi’s dome simply should not have worked but there they stand. And we still read Shakespeare and Dickenson and Eliot and e.e. cummings. I can’t even get auto-correct to let me use that last poet’s preferred capitalization without fighting with it for 6 full minutes; whatever makes me think that its progeny and even its more sophisticated AI cousins will be able to produce novel greatness? If that fundamental question requires I retain faith in some transcendent “creativity,” I’m grateful for it. I’ll take Scorsese over the Gourmet Detective any day!😁