As promised, Radio Worldview continues its discussion with Worldview Academy faculty member Brandon Booth about the manifesto You Are Not a Gadget by Jaron Lanier. In this episode, we further explore the meaning of the slogan “information wants to be free,” the atheistic “hope” that human consciousness can be stored on the internet after death, the Turing test and what makes a person a person, and the lack of original content on the internet. Eventually, Jeff finds a chance to talk about his one and only novel, Ian, written more than 20 years ago.
Monthly archives for August, 2011
Are You a Gadget?
Although this may come as a shock, Radio Worldview hosts Jeff Baldwin and Bill Jack don’t know a whole lot about newer technology. Fortunately, one of our camp directors, Brandon Booth, does. In this episode, Jeff quizzes Brandon about a book they both recently read: You Are Not a Gadget by Jaron Lanier. Jeff was drawn to the title because he worries about Christians blindly embracing every advance in technology — is there real danger here? While Lanier is not a Christian (he goes out of his way to mock the idea of a Creator), he is acutely aware of some of the failings of the internet, and some of the pitfalls farther down the road.
Nerds Being Nerdy
Brace yourself. When Mark Bertrand appeared on Radio Worldview to discuss his newest crime novel, Pattern of Wounds, host Jeff Baldwin was able to interview him for this second episode — but the focus of this show is shockingly nerdy (or not so shockingly, if you know Mark and Jeff). They begin by discussing novelist Henry James — long a source of contention between the two — with Jeff trying to defend his dislike of James by relying on The Art of Rhetoric by Wayne Booth. Then they abruptly switch to a lenghty discussion of Marvel comic books, triggered in part by the new Captain America movie. You’ve been warned: this show will only appeal to lit nerds and comic nerds.