Free Forum with Terrence McNally

My 20-minute commentary calls for Millennials and Boomers with shared values to forge a movement large enough, creative enough, diverse enough, and powerful enough to successfully confront the critical problems we face. 60s.2.0 - 21st century tech in the service of the best of ‘60s values - meets OK Boomer - the impatience of the young with the failures of the old. “If the challenges we face are big enough to turn us against each other, then they must be big enough to bring us together.”

In his latest book, THEY DON’T REPRESENT US: Reclaiming Our Democracy, Harvard Law School professor LAWRENCE LESSIG points out big problems the U.S. is NOT solving, and adds, “The crisis in America is not its president. Its president is the consequence of a crisis much more fundamental…The core problem with our democracy today is that it is essentially unrepresentative. We should secure, finally, a representative democracy…let’s just try it for once… and see if things get better.” We talk about how democracy is broken and how we can fix it.

The impeachment hearings have started and we're a year away from the 2020 election. Who better to talk to about how to get impeachment right and how to beat Trump in the Rust Belt states next year than JOHN NICHOLS. He's National Affairs correspondent for The Nation and associate editor of The Capital Times in Madison, Wisconsin. Not only that, he also wrote the book, THE GENIUS OF IMPEACHMENT: The Founders' Cure for Royalism. Join us we talk about all this and more.

The documentary FOR SAMA - airing on PBS Tuesday 11/19 - takes us inside Aleppo during the brutal siege by al Assad and the Russians. Waad al-Kateab began shooting graffiti on university walls and a revolution rose around her - followed by an overwhelming response. Best Doc, Cannes Film Festival, Doc Grand Jury Prize, SXSW. I talk with directors Waad al-Kateab and Edward Watts, and with Dr. Hamza al-Kateab, who ran the last hospital in East Aleppo. Listen. You’ll get a unique feel for life - and death - in Syria. Learn more at forsamafilm.com

I talk with EMMANUEL SAEZ, UC Berkeley economist, about his newest book, THE TRIUMPH OF INJUSTICE: How the Rich Dodge Taxes and How to Make Them Pay - co-authored with Gabriel Zucman. The pair grabbed headlines when their book reported that in 2018, for the first time in history, America’s richest billionaires paid a lower effective tax rate than the working class. Their solutions include a wealth tax, and they’ve advised Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders on their proposals. You can learn more at taxjusticenow.org

I talk with JEREMY RIFKIN, advisor to China and the European Union, and author of 20 books about the impact of scientific and technological changes on the economy, society, and the environment. In his newest book, THE GREEN NEW DEAL: Why the Fossil Fuel Civilization Will Collapse by 2028, and the Bold Economic Plan to Save Life on Earth, he draws on successful lessons from bold initiatives in Europe and China to flesh out what it will take to pull it off in the US.

Whistleblowers are in the news. And Trump’s not the first to attack them. Here’s my 2013 show on the documentary, WAR ON WHISTLEBLOWERS: Free Press and the National Security State. I speak with producer/director, ROBERT GREENWALD, and with THOMAS TAMM and FRANZ GAYL, two of the four whistleblowers in the film, punished under Bush and Obama for standing up to demand accountability and defend the constitution.

In his documentary SEX, DRUGS & BICYCLES, high-tech entrepreneur JONATHAN BLANK asks, “How scary is life in a social democracy?” Beyond windmills, cannabis “coffeeshops”, and the red light district, Holland has one of the best economies in the world, is top 5 in almost every quality of life index, #1 for work-life balance. Dutch kids are the happiest in the world, the healthcare system is #3, and the government runs a budget surplus. Boo!

With impeachment hearings starting, let’s listen to a couple of past heroes, men of principle, including one whose electoral opponent resigned rather than face his own impeachment. In the first half, I talk with longtime Senator and 1972 Democratic presidential candidate, GEORGE MCGOVERN, followed by my conversation with HOWARD ZINN, a leader of the anti-Vietnam War movement and author of A People's History of the United States. Both were recorded in 2005.

Episode Summary:

Welcome to Free Forum, a show that features conversations with people who offer pieces of the puzzle of “a world that just might work” -- provocative approaches to business, environment, health, science, politics, media and culture. 

In this episode, Terrence welcomes Emmy-nominated filmmaker, speaker and Webby Awards Founder Tiffany Shlain to the podcast. Terrence and Tiffany discuss her career path, the societal impact of technology, and the inspiration for her book, 24/6: The Power of Unplugging One Day a Week. They share their thoughts on how the digital age has impacted not just the way we live our lives, but how we think, feel and communicate with one another. Tiffany expounds on her family’s decade-long transformative practice of turning off screens one day each week for what she calls her Technology Shabbat. Finally, Terrence and Tiffany explore what the future could look like for our world if we act swiftly and resist the addiction that technology has inflicted on us as a people. 

What We Covered: 

03:05 – Introducing today’s guest, Tiffany Shlain 

05:52 – Tiffany’s career path 

09:10 – Two seminal events that shaped Tiffany’s life 

10:29 – The origin of the Webby Awards 

13:02 – A simple practice Tiffany has implemented in her life 

15:27 – Is technology our doom or deliverance? 

21:00 – Character Day 

23:51 – Breaking down the relationship between technology and society 

26:11 – How screens have become a 24/7 addiction 

30:49 – The stress that smart phones induce 

32:59 – The Five-Minute Journal 

34:20 – Brain science 

35:55 – Terrence speaks to his own usage of technology 

38:04 – Tiffany encourages the audience to participate in unplugging for a full 24 hours for four straight weeks 

40:52 – The beauty of the text Shabbat 

43:17 – Terrence and Tiffany speak to the newness of this technological phenomenon

46:45 – Terrence poses an interesting thought experiment to Tiffany 

55:01 – Terrence leaves the audience with one big idea 

Tweetables:

“You could say that I’ve really been focused on this issue of technology – what does it mean to be human, when does technology amplify us and when does it amputate us?” (08:39) 

“When you’re this distracted, it’s really hard to do big picture thinking.” (10:13) 

“I never expected, I never ever expected, that everyone would be just staring at screens all the time and not being present in the real world.” (11:49) 

“It is clear that what was begun as a mission to connect and unite mankind has mutated into a pernicious distortion machine that has disconnected mankind and put us at each other’s throats and, in doing so, has destroyed and is destroying institutions and knowledge that have taken centuries to develop.” (18:56) 

“It takes twenty-three minutes to regain your flow when you’ve been interrupted and just seeing someone else’s smart phone go off on the table will distract you.” (30:07) 

“It’s our favorite day of the week. We’re not giving up something. It’s literally our favorite day because we’re doing all things that you don’t really do anymore because you’re on your phone.” (39:37) 

“It’s such a liberating feeling when you realize you don’t need permission to tell everyone in your life, ‘Ya know, I’m gonna take twenty four hours completely off just to recharge.’” (42:52) 

“It’s not healthy. It’s just not healthy do be this available to everything and everyone at every moment.” (52:27) 

“I often say that civilization is going to die by convenience.” (53:32) 

Links Mentioned:

Terrence’s LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/terrencemcnally/ 

Terrence’s Website – https://aworldthatjustmightwork.com/ 

Terrence’s Email – temcnally@mac.com 

Tiffany’s Websites – https://www.letitripple.org/about/tiffany-shlain/ & http://24SixLife.com

Tiffany’s Twitter – @tiffanyshlain https://twitter.com/tiffanyshlain 

Tiffany’s Instagram – @tiffanyshlain https://www.instagram.com/tiffanyshlain/?hl=en 

Tiffany’s Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=623232620 

Tiffany’s Book – 24/6: The Power of Unplugging One Day a Week

Websites Mentioned:

https://front.moveon.org/ 

https://www.letitripple.org/character-day/ 

http://couragecampaign.org/ 

https://5calls.org/ 

https://350.org/ 

https://www.waituntil8th.org/ 

Books Mentioned: 

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power

24/6: The Power of Unplugging One Day a Week

Documentaries Mentioned: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iX8GxLP1FHo 

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