Questions We Should Have Asked about Technology.
Welcome. Thanks so much for joining us at this Teach-In—maybe we should really call it a marathon rather than Teach-In. It’s going to be 50 speakers over 22 hours on two days in a steady stream, covering as many nuances and aspects of this question as we could manage to fit.
I believe this meeting is extremely urgent given the state of the climate and of the skies; the state of the oceans which are rapidly acidifying, corals disappearing, sea life disappearing. And now the news of the imminent Sixth Great Extinction—the expected loss of 30-50% of all wildlife species on the Earth by mid-century. This is not to mention disappearing fresh water, disappearing fertile lands, forests, food supply, and much more, as we will be reporting. This is definitely one of the gravest moments in history right now. And we’re here to explore the role of technology in making this happen, and our attitudes and acquiescences that have contributed to it.
Producing this event has actually not been easy. We live in a techno-dazzled world, and there is considerable resistance to the very idea of challenging technology. In fact, as we were planning this weekend, I got a call from a well known reporter at the New York Times, a very friendly supportive guy who has written beautifully about our anti-globalization events in the past.
He said he found the event extremely exciting. But he also said, “the program seemed too biased against technology. Weren’t we going to invite the other side?” I had to tell him, “no, we weren’t.”
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