In this episode, I speak with writer, documentarian, and lecturer Douglas Rushkoff. Douglas has authored numerous best-selling books, including ‘Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus: How Growth Became the Enemy of Prosperity,’ ‘Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now,’ ‘Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age,’ and the yet-to-be released ’Team Human.’ Douglas’s lifetime of work has focused primarily on human autonomy in the digital age.
We start this episode by discussing Douglas’s widely shared article, published on Medium and picked up by CNBC, ‘Survival of the Richest: The wealthy are plotting to leave us behind.’ In the article, Douglas describes a situation in which he was invited to a private meeting with several ultra-wealthy men to go over their questions regarding technological trends in cryptocurrency, quantum computing, and artificial intelligence, as well as their deep-seated concerns regarding “The Event” — a reference to the portending threat of abrupt climate change, nuclear war, social unrest, and economic collapse looming on the horizon of our collective future. Douglas provides a practical and humanistic response to these concerns regarding this future “Event” — emphasizing the inherent value of fostering human relationships with others outside of the logic of Capital and monetary transactions. From there, we discuss the corporate capitalist take over of the Internet, the (de)colonization of human attention, and the value of treating social media and digital communication as an adjunct to direct human relationships and experience. In the later part of this interview, I ask Douglas to share his thoughts on WikiLeaks, the precarious situation of Julian Assange, and the value of whistleblower organizations like WikiLeaks shedding a light on the internal dealings of corporate and government entities in the digital age.
Douglas Rushkoff is the host of the ‘Team Human’ podcast and author of ‘Team Human’ as well as a dozen other bestselling books on media, technology, and culture, including, ‘Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus: How Growth Became the Enemy of Prosperity,’ ‘Present Shock, Program or Be Programmed,’ ‘Media Virus,’ and the novel ‘Ecstasy Club.’ He is Professor of Media Theory and Digital Economics at CUNY/Queens. He wrote the graphic novels ‘Aleister & Adolf,’ ‘Testament,’ and ‘A.D.D.,’ and made the television documentaries ‘Generation Like,’ ‘Merchants of Cool,’ ‘The Persuaders,’ and ‘Digital Nation.’ He lives in New York, and lectures about media, society, and economics around the world.☽
☽ Source: http://bit.ly/2Muiupl
Episode Notes:
- Everything you would ever need to know about Douglas and his work can be found at his website: http://www.rushkoff.com
- Pre-order Douglas’s upcoming book ‘Team Human’ here: http://bit.ly/TeamHumanPreorder
- Read ‘Survival of the Richest: The wealthy are plotting to leave us behind’ here: http://bit.ly/SurvivalOfTheRichest
- Listen and subscribe to Douglas’s podcast ‘Team Human’ here: https://teamhuman.fm
- Follow Douglas on Twitter: https://twitter.com/rushkoff
- The song featured in this episode is “Queen Persephone” by Dirty Art Club from the album Basement Seance.
