Re: Cyborg Dreams on Background Briefing

From: Damien Broderick (d.broderick@english.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Tue Nov 06 2001 - 20:24:18 MST


To revert this thread briefly to, you know, the subject header topic. :)

Here's a quick and perhaps typical response to the discussion on that
program, which was rebroadcast last night.

I switched on the radio just before 7pm and found the announcer informing
the Australian nation that in Background Briefing following the news,
`We'll hear some whacko techno freaks...' At the end of a brief summary, he
went on in suitably jaded mode: `Back to the real world at 8...'

It put me in mind of several other great insightful moments in radio history:

1931: `We'll hear some whacko techno freaks who believe in something called
"atomic energy"... Back to the real world at 8...'

1951: `We'll hear some whacko techno freaks who believe humans will rocket
into orbit, even land on the Moon... Back to the real world at 8...'

1971: `We'll hear some whacko techno freaks who think we'll all have
computers on our desks... Back to the real world at 8...'

1991: `We'll hear some whacko techno freaks who reckon humans will create
cloned livestock... Back to the real world at 8...'

The exponential curve of scientific/technological change and its social
impacts just plain clogs up the capacity of even smart people to face
impending reality. We need to work out how to sidestep that shut-down
reaction, now, fast, before the next thunderbolt smacks the rest of world
in the face, all unprepared and jaded and yawning at the silliness of it.

I should add that yesterday I did a pleasant 30-minute interview by phone
with Dr James Hughes at Changesurfer Radio in the States, which will be
broadcast in a little while. This program will be much more effective in
giving listeners space to think seriously about the issues--but I'm not
sure how many people will hear it.

Damien Broderick



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