EF40 (S2-E1): Dehumanized: The Search for Self in the Devil’s Looking Glass

Podcast, Season Two / By /
Dehumanized: The Search for Self in the Devil’s Looking Glass

EF40 (S2-E1): Dehumanized: The Search for Self in the Devil’s Looking Glass

PLAY | DOWNLOAD Finding your place in society can feel like being forced to replicate the movements of others in a mirror. Does our technology buy us freedom from conforming, or dehumanize us? And do individuals really need society and culture anyway? More...

The big question driving Episode EF40 is … Do we need society and culture?

EPISODE EF40 SUMMARY

Sam, a 16-year-old from the South, organizes a school walkout to protest the technological trends leading society towards an AI-run government-owned by corporate tech royalty. Will this lead to a near future of radical inequality between the transhuman haves and have-nots? Facing backlash from the previous generation which refuses to look itself the mirror to see the truth, Sam learns that social conformity hasn’t changed since at least the 14th-century witch hunts. Instead of getting burned on a stake, will Sam get devoured by cultural pressures where everyone is expected to wear their given mask and mimic one another in the social mirror?

To understand if humanity needs society and culture, we must first understand your ties to society as an individual. Using Edmund Burke’s theory of Social Contract, and what sociologist Émile Durkheim sees as the difference between laws and norms, we will hope to dissect the core of what it means to live in society. More importantly, what are your possibilities, if any, for rewriting the terms of the contract you’re given at birth?

Into The Rabbit Hole

SHOW NOTES: This episode is dedicated to Greta Thunberg. See the EF40 Show Notes for details of the dedication, inspirations, references, selected quotes and more. 

ABOUT THE EVOLVE FASTER PODCAST: Everything is changing, yet the questions that drive us remain the same. Will humanity face the absurdity of our collective existential crisis in time? Join Scott Ely as he takes us deep into the rabbit hole with philosophical tales to reboot your mind, upgrade your life and explore your soul. To Evolve Faster is to see the fact that you will die someday as a formidable challenge, instead of a source of immense fear. Create your reality…before it creates you. Isn’t it time for an upgrade? More episodes…

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