Beep boop - this is a robot. A new show has been posted to TWiT…
What are your thoughts about today’s show? We’d love to hear from you!
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Amy Webb raises the quality of the conversation on any show she’s on. She could be reading the chemicals on a bottle of shampoo and it would have more credibility than 99% of people out there.
More to follow as I listen to the show.
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Please don’t stop talking about the current issues. I know some people think that a tech show shouldn’t have non tech talk but I wholly disagree. I like hearing the thoughts and solutions that don’t come from the usual political pundits and commentators and the angry masses.
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Great show! I like the conversation about big tech and their role in society. I do wonder why so many people believe some sort of rabbit hole exists on youtube. The only time i have heard a story claiming a rabbit hole was the article from the NYTs where the guy actually became more liberal not more extreme. How stupid do you think people are? How many people do you know that are active on the internet that have become more right wing? The fact that the activists are forcing these companies to suppress independent creators that go against the mainstream is what is steering people to think its ok to abolish the police and to think we can lock down forever because the government can just continually print more money forever. When these platforms wont allow opinions that different from large organizations like the WHO we have an enormous problem. It’s like people think that the “experts” put on the MSN can never be wrong. It is dangerous.
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I wholeheartedly agree.
It’s nice to see some positive commentary here about Amy compared to the negative comments she tends to unfortunately garner on YouTube and elsewhere.
She’s one of my favorite regular guests; her insights always give me thought-provoking pause.
I know @JeffJarvis has expressed disdain about her purely because of her “Futurist” title (perhaps because he misinterprets what she actually does based on it), but I, for one, would love to see him and Amy engaging in a healthy debate together on TWiT or TWiG. @Leo, take note. 
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Just wanted to post to let @Leo know that I appreciate the inclusion of politics into the show. As he’s brought up many times, tech is no longer about camera megapixels or GHz, it’s about its intersection into our daily lives. Topics like privacy, surveillance, speech and so forth are more important than ever and will often overlap with politics of the day.
Additionally, it’s not possible to do only ignore what is happening in the world and just talk about the latest iPhone. Companies are holding launches because they recognize the severity of what’s happening and I’m glad Leo and TWiT do the same.
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Funny thing is I remember a TWIT a long time ago when Leo argued somewhat against that with Nilay Patel. Nilay’s point was that The Verge would cover tech as more of a lifestyle - which is probably why they were so heavy Apple focused. But now tech has so ingrained itself that it’s affecting everything including politics. These companies have become so big and influential that it’s hard to not have a tech podcast that doesn’t touch on politics.
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I agree completely that you can’t take politics out of technology. I think they do an awesome job tying tough issues into the show without being polarizing. I am sure this kind of dialogue is very influential in the tech sphere as many tech outlets don’t dive as deeply into divisive issues. These kinds of discussions need to be had.
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Let’s put politics aside for a moment. Most of the flat-earthers out there have become believers in that conspiracy theory because of videos they’ve watched on YouTube. They watch one…and then another…and then another… It’s unfortunately possible for people to actually reject everything they’ve ever known about Earth and start actually believing that Earth is flat. With this in mind and how easily people are willing to reject reality based on someone shouting at a camera, it’s a lot easier to understand how someone’s political views could be influenced one way or the other based on YouTube videos that they get suggested to them and by weighted search results.
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Don’t you find it funny how so many people know about flat earth believers but don’t actually know any in person? If ideas are contagious like a disease you would expect everyone to start believing in a flat earth. Instead it has remained fringe. If a youtube video presents information that influences peoples opinions how is that a bad thing. It is a persons responsibly to do their own research and come up with their own conclusions of what is reality. If we censored peoples ability to hear ideas that counter what some people believe is “settled science” we would have never started using medicine because it was considered witchcraft. If youtube was around 100+ years ago slaves would have been running it and youtube would have suppressed any conversation that pushed for the freedom of slaves because they are a private company. It is Orwellian the lengths we are going to to limit ideas and shrink the overton window.
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I suppose it feels like it’s a fringe that’s growing much faster than it should. Getting a nitro-boost from the psychologically-engineered engagement algorithms that batter viewers with more and more that normally would not have been consumed as fast. There’s certainly a balance to be found.