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Team Human: Optimizing Technology for Human Beings (Instead of the Other Way Around)
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Doug Rushkoff
Doug Rushkoff

CUNY Queens

Team Human: Optimizing Technology for Human Beings (Instead of the Other Way Around)

Abstract

There is an anti-human agenda embedded in our markets and technologies, which has turned them from means of human connection into ones of isolation and repression. Our corporations and the culture they create glorify individualism at the expense of cooperation, threatening the sustainability not just of our economy but our species. In this talk, Rushkoff will reveal this agenda at work and invite us to remake society toward human ends rather than the end of humans. He will discuss how the intentional repression of humanity impacts diverse sectors of society, explaining how money went from being a means of transaction to a means of extraction and how education transformed from the ideal of learning into an extension of occupational training. Digital age technologies have only amplified these trends, making our systems more brittle and presenting the greatest challenges yet to our collective autonomy: robots taking our jobs, algorithms directing our attention, and social media influencing our votes. Rushkoff will argue that there’s still time to think before we hit the switch and automate ourselves out of existence. We must reconnect with our essentially social nature, assert a place for humans in the emerging landscape, and forge solidarity with the others who understand that being human is team sport.

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