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Show 359: Transhumanism – Understanding Our Technological Future

Transhumanism – Understanding Our Technological Future w/ James Hughes

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Humans are inextricably linked to the technology we create, and the technology we create in turn shapes us.  In the next few decades a confluence of high technologies including nano-tech, bio-tech, info-tech, and cognitive science will bring humankind into territory previously unimagined, and largely still unimaginable.

Future technologies may empower human kind to eliminate or significantly reduce the serious existential threats we presently face such as environmental collapse, nuclear disaster, and worldwide pandemic.  On the other hand, our new technologies themselves could bring an entirely new set of challenges with which we will have to struggle.

To help us examine what our future relationship to technology might involve we will be joined by Dr. James Hughes, a scholar of futurism with the ability to discuss complex ideas about our future in a manner that is uniquely clear and accessible.  Dr. Hughes is a sociologist and bioethicist at Trinity College, and producer of Changesurfer Radio, a weekly half hour public affairs program on the impact of future technologies.  He is also the co-founder of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies and currently serves as its Executive Director.

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Show 358: Kelly McGonigal

Pain, the Brain, Compassion and Willpower: An interview with Kelly McGonigal

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How can we cope with chronic pain, and how is it tied into memory and our outlook in ways that other sensations are not? How can cultivating self-compassion help us achieve our goals and cope with life challenges? And, most important, where is the empirical evidence that shows how well, and for whom, these mind-body systems work?

This Sunday, ETFF host Michael O’Neil will interview  Kelly McGonigal, PhD, who is a health psychologist at Stanford University and a leading expert on the mind-body relationship. She teaches for the School of Medicine’s Health Improvement Program and is a senior teacher/consultant for the Stanford Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education. Her popular public courses through Stanford’s Continuing Studies program including the Science of Willpower and the Science of a Calmed Mind demonstrate the applications of psychological science to personal health and happiness, as well as organizational success and social change.

McGonigal authored Yoga For Pain Relief for New Harbinger Press and will release The Willpower Instinct before the end of 2011. She has written for Psychology Today and numerous publications, and her videos and talks can be found online.

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Show 357: Dr. Bruce Levine

Toward a Healthy Society w/ Dr. Bruce Levine

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Bonus Material Here!

Are Americans a “Broken People?” What happened to the outrage we displayed in the 1930s and 1960s?  Why are people in other nations which are considered far more regressive then the USA – like Egypt – so much more actively involved in the political and economic happenings in their nations?

What can we do about creating a healthy society if we can’t even find the inner strength to protest things like bailouts for banks and corporations, as well as stolen presidential elections and a anti-healthcare pro-insurance company “healthcare bill?”

We will be speaking with Clinical Psychologist and author of Get Up; Stand Up, Dr. Bruce Levine, as we explore these questions and more. So…

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Show 356: The Power of Nightmares

Two-Hour Special: ‘The Power of Nightmares’

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“The Power of Nightmares is a BBC documentary film series, written and produced by Adam Curtis.  The films compare the rise of the Neo-Conservative movement in the United States and the radical Islamist movement, making comparisons on their origins and claiming similarities between the two.

More controversially, it argues that the threat of radical Islamism as a massive, sinister organised force of destruction, specifically in the form of al-Qaeda, is a myth perpetrated by politicians in many countries—and particularly American Neo-Conservatives—in an attempt to unite and inspire their people following the failure of earlier, more utopian ideologies.”

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Show 355: Zeitgeist III: Moving Forward

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Is our socioeconomic system consistent with our human nature?

How do our brains make us who we are?

These are among the primary questions that we on ETFF regularly ask. On this our Spring Fund Drive Special we will be offering to our listener supporters a couple of premiums (including Zeitgeist III) that we think shed a little light on these questions.

Tune in for the usual deep discussion and call in to help us remain on the air, as we continue to examine what’s primary to the human condition, and raise some funds to sustain us.

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Show 353: Easter Day Special w/ Hector Avalos and “Normal” Bob Smith

Easter Day Special w/ Hector Avalos and “Normal” Bob Smith

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John 3:16 says “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

The gruesome, protracted, torture, and killing, of god’s son is expected to be taken by all as a sign of god’s love for humankind. This might seem as if it would be an unlikely premise on which to base a religion, yet despite its contradictions Christianity is the most popular religion on Earth.

Of course to up the ante a bit, just in case the child sacrifice wasn’t inspiring enough, John 3:18 warns:

“Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.”

And if god can treat his innocent son as he did, we can just imagine what a condemned person should expect.

Continue reading “Show 353: Easter Day Special w/ Hector Avalos and “Normal” Bob Smith”

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Show 352: Paul Kurtz: Humanist

Paul Kurtz: Humanist

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It has a long history dating back to the Renaissance, picked up steam during the Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution, and became the umbrella philosophy for atheists, agnostics, skeptics and other freethinkers during the 20th Century. Does humanism have a voice for the 21st Century? Can we trace the evolu…tion of this rich philosophical outlook to today and shape a neo-humanistic worldview which could speak to the challenges – both intellectual and spiritual – of what could be either the most disastrous or most prosperous century for human kind?  Saturday, we will be speaking to one of the founders of 20th Century humanism, and key figure in the Secular Humanist movement, Dr. Paul Kurtz.

Continue reading “Show 352: Paul Kurtz: Humanist”

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Show 351: Secular Art W/ Global Perspective w/ Aladdin Ullah

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This week, Aladdin Ullah will perform excerpts of his one-man show, Indio, which follows his travels from his childhood home in the projects of Harlem to the childhood home of his parents in Bangladesh.  This surprisingly hilarious show deals with the ache of displacement, the contrasts as well as the commonalities of oppressed people on different sides of the globe, and a unique perspective on religion as it takes shape in different cultures.

Continue reading “Show 351: Secular Art W/ Global Perspective w/ Aladdin Ullah”

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Show 350: Ian Murphy; Militant Atheist for Congress

Ian Murphy; Militant Atheist for Congress

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So you’ve heard about Ian Murphy, editor of The Buffalo Beast and the voice behind the famous “David Koch” prank call to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker? Did you know he’s running for Congress on the Green Party line to fill the disgraced Republican Chris Lee’s seat?

Murphy has outed himself as… a “Militant Atheist” and so he will join ETFF host Michael O’Neil to discuss his view of atheism, why he’s running for Congress, and much much more on the next Equal Time For Freethought!