Technology and the Good Life

 In this eleventh episode of the Wisdom for Life radio show, hosts Dan Hayes and Greg Sadler examine what role contemporary technology – particularly mobile technology, the internet, social media, and AI/robotics – can play in “the good life”.

 

They discuss several ideas drawn from philosophers such as Aristotle, Gabriel Marcel, Martin Heidegger, and Michel Foucault as well as from speculative fiction authors such as Iain Banks, Isaac Asimov, and William Gibson, that bear upon the technology that we use everyday.  What are the dangers, temptations, and problems brought about by our technology, and how can we employ philosophical insights and practices to use what’s good in technology without getting sucked into what’s bad about it?

They end the show by discussing whether apps on one’s phone are compatible with genuine philosophical practices or not, and suggest ways that “technologies of the self” drawn from virtue ethics and wisdom traditions, and external technologies can support each other within the scope of intentional living.

 

Show Music is by Scott Tarulli