How much damage has the internet caused humanity? Plenty in ways both personal and universal. Peter Katcoff, with a slew of degrees, teaching experience and as current president of the Marin Philosophical Society, has a solid feel for societal changes and what they mean for us. The news, of course, is not all bad even though it becomes clearer and clearer day by day the dangers the internet has brought into our lives. The internet, even doing as much good as it does for so many and with heartening speed, has embedded in it a potential for real damage. Alas, we have opened it as eagerly as Pandora opened that box.
Have we traded being effortlessly connected to each other with losing much of the warmth that makes life so dear? Is the benefit of how we use the internet worth the detriment of how it uses us? Listen to Peter who, with remarkably good humor, an unmistakable twinkle in his eye, open-heartedness and open-mindedness, talks about the delightful and the dangerous.
Have we been fooled into accepting an image as the real thing? Personally I am deeply grateful to email, texting and Zoom, but I know when I get a voice mail that says “You have reached Lauren…” I have not reached her at all. I have reached something that promises to deliver a message to her so I forge right ahead although I would not bet the farm that it will get to her.
Watch Peter talk about all this and more, face to face, (oh, is it really face to face?) and see what you think. I’m keeping my seatbelt fastened for the bumpy ride ahead. You?