How Do You Think About Brand in This Moment?

3min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

Markov: The counterculture is this very tricky group, partly because they've written a lot of their own history. And so the depiction of the counter culture as equivalent to the anti war movement more equivalent to the hippies is just misleading and doesn't reflect the actual struggles that animated the period. Markov: If you actually look at what the relationship was between the techmile in the bay counter culture allined and the new left and the communist left,. At the time they were fighting, they were literally engaged in fights.

Paris Marx is joined by Malcolm Harris to discuss the legacy of Stewart Brand and why the myth we’re often told about him overstates the reality of his impact.

Malcolm Harris is the author of Kids These Days, Shit is Fucked Up and Bullshit, and his forthcoming book Palo Alto. He also writes for New York Magazine. Follow Malcolm on Twitter at @BigMeanInternet.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.

Find out more about Harbinger Media Network at harbingermedianetwork.com.

Also mentioned in this episode:

Malcolm Harris wrote a critical review of John Markoff’s Whole Earth: The Many Lives of Stewart Brand.
Benjamin Kunkel also wrote a critical review of Whole Earth.
The Stewart Brand documentary We Are As Gods about his quest to bring back wholly mammoths to solve climate change is slowly being rolled out after two years of delay and seeming lack of sales interest.
Brand’s Long Now Foundation is building a 10,000-year clock in Texas that’s funded by Jeff Bezos.
We also mention Fred Turner’s From Counterculture to Cyberculture.

Support the show