Welcome to Tech Talks

Glen Maxson

Center for Learning in Retirement

Spring 2018 – Session 8 of 8

Seniortechadvisor.com

What we have covered in 8 weeks

1) Computers & Operating Systems

2) Applications & The Cloud

3) The Internet, The Web & Social Media

4) Security & Privacy

5) Entertainment & Education

6) Blogging, Self-Publishing & Internet of Things (IoT)

7) Cryptocurrency

8) Tech Book Reviews

Reading List

2017

20142016

20162016

2011

2011

2011

20102014

Other recommended tech books

2015 2016 2017 2017 2017

2017

Sequence

• Generational differences – Palfrey & Gasser

• Conversation – Turkle

• Neuroscience – Carr

• Addiction – Alter

• Future tech – Kelly

• Innovators – Isaacson

Introduction

Urs Gasser and John Palfrey on Interop: The Promise and Perils of Highly Interconnected Systems -Berkman Center for Internet & Society ’12Urs Gasser - HLS Thinks Big ’16John Palfrey: "Born Digital“ - Talks at Google ’08 (start 3:15 – 30:45)Video of “Born Digital”, with John Palfrey and Ethan Zuckerman ‘13 (start 11:45 – 34:15)John Palfrey speaks on the topic of his book “Born Digital”, Knight Foundation ’14 (start 13:22 – 41:30)

• Urs Gasser is the Executive Director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. He teaches at Harvard Law School, at the University of St. Gallen (Switzerland) and Fudan University School of Management (China). Dr. Gasser has written and edited several books, and published over 100 articles in professional journals. Gasser Palfrey

• John Palfrey assumed the role of Phillips Academy’s 15th Head of School on July 1, 2012. Prior to joining the Andover community, he was Professor of Law and Vice Dean for Library and Information Resources at Harvard Law School. He was also co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, serving as executive director from 2002 to 2008. Palfrey has published extensively on how young people are learning in a digital era, as well as the effect of new technologies on society at large.

Born Digital

• The first generation of children born into and raised in a digital world are coming of age and shaping our economy, politics, culture, and family life.

• Palfrey and Gasser offer a sociological portrait of these young people who seem extraordinarily sophisticated and strangely narrow.

• A broad range of issues are explored including privacy, information overload, ethical issues raised by social interactions, friendships and civic activities, now mediated by digital technologies.

• Born Digital is written for adults who want to understand the digital present and help shape the digital future.

Terms

• Digital Natives - born after 1980 and with constant access to digital technology

• constitute a largely homogenous group or generation

• learn differently from preceding generations of students

• demand a new way of teaching and learning

• Digital Immigrants - not exposed to digital media at a young age but trying to learn the "native tongue“

Digital Native/Immigrant metaphors create barriers between the older and younger generation of digital users. These metaphors “tend to exaggerate the gaps between adults,

seen as fumbling and hopelessly out of touch, and youth, seen as masterful”

• Digital Settlers - pioneered the transition from analog to digital

Introduction

• Sherry Turkle (born June 18, 1948) is the Abby Rockefeller MauzéProfessor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She obtained a BA in Social Studies and later a Ph.D. in Sociology and Personality Psychology at Harvard University.

As we expect more from technology, do we expect less from each other? Sherry Turkle studies how our devices and online personas are redefining human connection and communication -- and asks us to think deeply about the new kinds of connection we want to have.

TED Talk 2012

• The Second Self: Computers and The Human Spirit ‘84• Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet ‘ 97• Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other ‘12• Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age ‘15

(19:48)

Alone Together

• We have reached an inflection point, where we can see the costs and start taking action.

• Some will seem like just reclaiming good manners:• ‘talk’ to colleagues, no cell phones at the table, in the car, or in company…

• Then there’s the more complicated stuff:• like reclaiming our privacy, reclaim our concentration…

• It’s time to look again toward the virtues of solitude, deliberateness, and living fully in the moment.

• We have ‘agreed’ to (a series of) experiments in which we are the human subjects. We deserve better. When we remind ourselves that it is we who decide how to keep technology busy, we shall have better.

Reclaiming Conversation

• Long an enthusiast for the promise of technology, the author investigates a troubling consequence: at work, at home, in politics and love, we have sacrificed conversation for mere connection.

• At the dinner table, children compete with smartphones for their parents’ attention. At work, we retreat to our screens, foregoing the water-cooler conversation that once made us more productive and engaged.

• Online, we share opinions that our ‘friends’ will agree with, avoiding real conflicts and solutions of the public square.

• When we turn to our devices instead of to one another, the cost is high; a loss of empathy.

• But the good news is: conversation cures… the time is right to reclaim conversation.

Introduction• Nicholas G. Carr (born 1959) is an American writer who has

published books and articles on technology, business, and culture. His book The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains was a finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction.

• Does IT Matter? ‘04• The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google ‘08• The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains ’11• The Glass Cage: How Our Computers Are Changing Us ‘14• Utopia Is Creepy ’16

• Is Google Making Us Stupid (The Atlantic, ‘08)• The Web Shatters Focus, Rewires Brains (Wired, ‘10)

'The Shallows': This Is Your Brain Online Audio Interview on NPR ’10The Shallows - What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, 2010The Neuroscience of Internet Addiction, 2011The Decline of Deep Thinking, 2013‘The Glass Cage: Automation and Us’ Talks at Google ‘14

The Glass Cage

• This book is about automation*, about the use of computers and software to do the things we used to do ourselves. Computer automation makes our lives easier. We’re often able to accomplish more in less time – or do things we simply couldn’t do before. But automation also has deeper, hidden effects. Automation can take a toll on our work, our talents, and our lives. It can narrow our perspectives and limit our choices. It can open us to surveillance and manipulation. As computers become our constant companions… it seems wise to take a closer look as exactly how they are changing what we do and who we are. p. 2

*The use of various control systems for operating equipment… with minimal or reduced human intervention. From the Greek αὐτόματον, automaton, (neuter) "acting of one's own will".

The Shallows

• Marshall McLuhan (Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man)

“Our conventional response to all media, namely that it is how they are used that counts, is the numb stance of the technological idiot.” The content of the medium is just “the juicy piece of meat carried by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind.”

• The computer screen bulldozes our doubts with is bounties and conveniences. It is so much our servant that it would seem churlish to notice that it is also our master.

IntroductionAdam Alter is an Associate Professor of Marketing at New York University’s Stern School of Business, with an affiliated appointment in the New York University Psychology Department.

Adam is the New York Times bestselling author of two books: Irresistible (March, 2017), which considers why so many people today are addicted to so many behaviors, from incessant smart phone and internet use to video game playing and online shopping.

What are our screens and devices doing to us? Psychologist Adam Alter studies how much time screens steal from us and how they're getting away with it. He shares why all those hours you spend staring at your smartphone, tablet or computer might be making you miserable -- and what you can do about it.

2017 TED Talk

What makes tech so ‘irresistible’?

By design,

- Goal setting, perfectionism – time and numbers (e.g. FitBit)- Classic reinforcement – provide small doses of positive feedback (work)- Uncertainty - Facebook, Instagram… (social media)- ‘Loss as motivation’ – the gambler’s paradox (slots)- Mobile access – iPad and iPhone enabled (mobile devices)- Ludic loops – complete one challenging element, then the next… (video games)- ‘Flow’ - proximal (skill) development – skill vs. challenge (video games)- Zeigarnik effect – incomplete experiences (e.g. cliff-hangers) (TV shows)- MUDs & MMOs - immersion, achievement, social (connection) (video games)- Absence of Stopping rules (all)

Bottomline: Every technique imaginable is used to get and keep us hooked!

How can we resist irresistible tech?

- Assume ‘abstinence + will power’ are not enough- Better is ‘suppression + distraction’ – need to replace one behavior with something else- Habits include cue, routine, and reward – change the routine but not the cue or reward

- Establish ‘healthier’ habits – nail-biting example- Replace “I can’t” with “I don’t” to hasten habit formation- Establish ‘behavioral architecture’

- Time for work and tech, time for vacation and social interaction- Make ‘environmental’ changes – create distance between you and temptation- Design a world that coaxes, cajoles, and compels your future self to do the right thing

- SNUZNLUZ - https://www.wired.com/2008/01/snznlz-alarm-cl/- Pavlok - https://buy.pavlok.com/products/pavlok-1

- Establish ‘stopping rules’ that work- Seek ‘Digital Tech Sustainability’

IntroductionKevin Kelly (born August 14, 1952) is the founding executive editor of Wired magazine, and a former editor/publisher of the Whole Earth Review. He has also been a writer, photographer, conservationist, and student of Asian and digital culture.

• Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World ‘95• New Rules for the New Economy: 10 Radical Strategies for a Connected World – Wired ’97• What Technology Wants ’10• Cool Tools: A Catalog of Possibilities ‘13• The Inevitable ’16

• The Next Fifty Years of Science – Google Talks ‘06• TED Talks: How technology evolves ‘05, The next 5,000 days of the web ‘08,

Technology's epic story ‘10, How AI can bring on a second Industrial Revolution ’16• Technium Unbound - Long Now Foundation ’14 (start at 10 min – 63 min)• People Are Not Ready for the Future, Observer ’16• The Future of Tech – Commonwealth Club ’16 (start at 2 min – 34 min)• The Inevitable: The Next 30 Years in Tech with Kevin Kelly ‘16 (start 9:35 -• 12 Inevitable Tech Forces That Will Shape Our Future - SXSW Interactive ‘16• The Future According To 'Wired' Editor Kevin Kelly - Forbes ’17

2010

2016

What Technology Wants

• We humans are obliged to obey nature, except that sometimes we are forced to thwart it. While we bow to nature’s beauty, we also frequently take out a machete and temporarily hack it back.

• The Technium is now as great a force in our world as nature, and our response to the Technium should be similar to our response to nature. We can’t demand that technology obey us any more than we can demand that life obey us.

• We don’t have to do everything that the Technium demands, but we can learn to work with this force rather than against it.

• We first need to understand technology’s behavior… to decide how to respond to technology, we have to figure out what technology wants.

The Inevitable

• “Inevitable” is a strong word. In this context, it refers to a bias in the nature of technology that tilts it in certain directions and not others. Examples:• Internet – network of networks spanning the globe

• Telephony – long distance, electronically transmitted voice messages

• Automobile – 4-wheel vehicles traveling on roads at break-neck speeds

• Instant messaging – but not teens tweeting every 5 minutes…

• Inevitability doesn’t govern specifics or particular instances.

• Inevitability is the result of momentum – of an ongoing technological shift.

• Change is inevitable. Emerging technologies follow these 12 trajectories:Becoming, cognifying, flowing, screening, accessing, sharing, filtering, remixing, interacting,

tracking, questioning, and then beginning.

Introduction

Walter Isaacson, a versatile and workmanlike author, has never sounded as excited by his material as he does in “The Innovators.” It may be that he has the same basic qualifications as many of the people he writes about here: “My father and uncles were electrical engineers, and like many of the characters in this book, I grew up with a basement workshop that had circuit boards to be soldered, radios to be opened, tubes to be tested, and boxes of transistors and resistors to be sorted and deployed.”Mr. Isaacson, who is 62, sounds as if he required no hindsight to know what thrilling times he grew up in. With the strain of romanticism that unites so many of the scientists that this book celebrates, he equates the postwar era with Wordsworth’s description of those who witnessed the start of the French Revolution: “Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive.”

Walter Isaacson: "The Innovators“, Talks at Google The Innovators: How a Group of Inventors Hackers Geniuses and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution, UCTV (10:29 - 44:35)Walter Isaacson on the Innovative Genius, 92Y PlusWalter Isaacson talks about Steve Jobs, The Aspen Institute

Walter Isaacson (born May 20, 1952)[2] is an American writer and journalist. He is the President and CEO of the Aspen Institute, a nonpartisan educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, D.C. He has been the chairman and CEO of Cable News Network (CNN) and the Managing Editor of Time. He has written biographies of Steve Jobs, Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein, and Henry Kissinger. Video 8min

The Innovators

• The computer and the Internet are among the most important inventions of our era, but few people know who created them.

• Most innovations of the digital age were done collaboratively.

• There were a lot of fascinating people involved, some ingenious and a few were even geniuses.

• This is a story of pioneers, hackers, inventors, and entrepreneurs –who they were, how their minds worked, and what made them so creative.

• It’s also a narrative of how they collaborated and why their ability to work as teams made them even more creative.

Full Presentations

Tech Talks 2017• TechTalks_Fall17_intro (for 9/15 - first class)• Born Digital by Urs Gasser & John Palfrey• Alone Together by Sherry Turkle• Reclaiming Conversation by Sherry Turkle• The Shallows by Nicholas Carr• The Glass Cage by Nicholas Carr• What Technology Wants by Kevin Kelly• The Inevitable by Kevin Kelly• Irresistible by Adam Alter• The Innovators, by Walter Isaacson

Extra Credit

Introduction

Walter Isaacson, a versatile and workmanlike author, has never sounded as excited by his material as he does in “The Innovators.” It may be that he has the same basic qualifications as many of the people he writes about here: “My father and uncles were electrical engineers, and like many of the characters in this book, I grew up with a basement workshop that had circuit boards to be soldered, radios to be opened, tubes to be tested, and boxes of transistors and resistors to be sorted and deployed.”Mr. Isaacson, who is 62, sounds as if he required no hindsight to know what thrilling times he grew up in. With the strain of romanticism that unites so many of the scientists that this book celebrates, he equates the postwar era with Wordsworth’s description of those who witnessed the start of the French Revolution: “Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive.”

Walter Isaacson: "The Innovators“, Talks at Google The Innovators: How a Group of Inventors Hackers Geniuses and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution, UCTV (10:29 - 44:35)Walter Isaacson on the Innovative Genius, 92Y PlusWalter Isaacson talks about Steve Jobs, The Aspen Institute

Walter Isaacson (born May 20, 1952)[2] is an American writer and journalist. He is the President and CEO of the Aspen Institute, a nonpartisan educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, D.C. He has been the chairman and CEO of Cable News Network (CNN) and the Managing Editor of Time. He has written biographies of Steve Jobs, Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein, and Henry Kissinger. Video 8min

Summary

• Steve Jobs• Co-founder of Apple with Steve Wozniak• Creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive

revolutionized six industries:• Personal computers – Apple computers• Animated movies - Pixar• Music – iPod, iTunes• Phones - iPhone• Tablets – iPad• Digital publishing

• Jobs stands as an icon of inventiveness and applied imagination• He knew how to connect creativity with technology• He built a company where imagination was combined with feats of engineering• RIP - Steven Paul Jobs, businessman, born 24 February 1955; died 5 October 2011

Introduction

From Beirut to Jerusalem (1989; expanded edition 1990) – winner of the National Book Award in its first editionThe Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization (1999; revised edition 2000)Longitudes and Attitudes: Exploring the World After September 11 (2002; reprinted 2003 as Longitudes and Attitudes: The World in the Age of Terrorism)The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century (2005; expanded edition 2006; revised edition 2007)Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution—And How It Can Renew America (2008)That Used to Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back (Co-written with Michael Mandelbaum 2011)Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations (November, 2016)

Thomas Friedman: Thank You For Being Late | Chicago Humanities FestivalThomas L. Friedman: "Thank You for Being Late" | Talks at GoogleThomas L. Friedman - Globalization and Education | The Brainwaves Video Anthology

Thomas Loren Friedman (born July 20, 1953) is an American journalist and author. He is a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, and currently writes a weekly column for The New York Times. He has written extensively on foreign affairs, global trade, the Middle East, globalization, and environmental issues.

Summary

• Thank You for Being Late exposes the tectonic movements that are reshaping the world, explains how to get the most out of them and how to lessen their impacts

• His thesis: to understand the 21st century, you need to understand that the planet’s three largest forces:• Moore’s Law, the Market, and Mother Nature

are accelerating all at once!• These accelerations transform the workplace, politics,

geopolitics, ethics and community• We can overcome the multiple stresses of the an age of

accelerations, if we slow down, if we dare to be late and use the time to reimagine work, politics and community…

IntroductionMichael Monroe Lewis (born October 15, 1960) is an American non-fiction author and financial journalist.

•The Undoing Project: A Friendship that Changed Our Minds. 2016. ISBN 978-0-393-

25459-4.

•Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt. 2014. ISBN 978-0-393-24466-3.

•Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World. 2011. ISBN 0-393-08181-8.

•The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine. 2010. ISBN 0-393-07223-1.

•Home Game: An Accidental Guide to Fatherhood. 2009. ISBN 0-393-06901-X.

•Panic: The Story of Modern Financial Insanity. 2009. ISBN 0-393-06514-6.

•Michael Lewis, ed. (2008). The Real Price of Everything: Rediscovering the Six

Classics of Economics. New York: Sterling. ISBN 1-4027-4790-X.

•The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game. 2006. ISBN 0-393-06123-X.

•Coach: Lessons on the Game of Life. 2005. ISBN 0-393-06091-8.

•Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game. 2003. ISBN 0-393-05765-8.

•Next: The Future Just Happened. 2001. ISBN 0-393-02037-1.

•The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story. 2000. ISBN 0-393-04813-6.

•Trail Fever. New York: A. A. Knopf. 1997. ISBN 0-679-44660-5.

•The Money Culture. 1991. ISBN 0-393-03037-7.

•Pacific Rift. Knoxville, Tennessee: Whittle Direct Books. 1991. ISBN 0-9624745-6-8.

•Liar's Poker: Rising through the Wreckage on Wall Street. 1989. ISBN 0-393-02750-3.

•Michael Lewis in conversation with Malcolm Gladwell at Live Talks Los Angeles•Michael Lewis with Malcolm Gladwell: The Undoing Project

Summary

• #1 New York Times Bestseller — With a new Afterword"Guaranteed to make blood boil." —Janet Maslin, New York Times

• In Michael Lewis's game-changing bestseller, a small group of Wall Street iconoclasts realize that the U.S. stock market has been rigged for the benefit of insiders. They band together—some of them walking away from seven-figure salaries—to investigate, expose, and reform the insidious new ways that Wall Street generates profits.

• If you have any contact with the market, even a retirement account, this story is happening to you.

(source)

Books I Didn’t Read Yet

IntroductionStephen McConnell "Steve" Case is an American entrepreneur, investor, and businessman best known as the co-founder and former chief executive officer and chairman of America Online (AOL). Since his retirement as chairman of AOL Time Warner in 2003, he has gone on to invest in early and growth-stage startups through his Washington, D.C. based venture capital firm Revolution LLC. Case authored The Third Wave: An Entrepreneur's Vision of the Future which became a New York Times bestselling book in 2016.

R.E.S.T.A.R.T. America – The Third Wave by Steve CaseSteve Case: "The Third Wave" | Talks at GoogleCommunicators Steve Case, May 12 2017 | Video | C-SPAN.orgSteve Case on the coming 'third wave' of technologyTalking D.C. Innovation With Former AOLers Steve Case and Ted Leonsis (Video)

Summary

• One of America’s most accomplished entrepreneurs—a pioneer who made the Internet part of everyday life and orchestrated the largest merger in the history of business—shares a roadmap for how anyone can succeed in a world of rapidly changing technology.

• Paying homage to the futurist Alvin Toffler, Case explains we’re entering a new paradigm called the “Third Wave” of the Internet. The first wave saw AOL and other companies lay the foundation for consumers to connect to the Internet. The second wave saw companies like Google and Facebook build on top of the Internet to create search and social networking capabilities, while apps like Snapchat and Instagram leverage the smartphone revolution.

• Now we’re entering the Third Wave: a period in which entrepreneurs will vastly transform major “real world” sectors like health, education, transportation, energy, and food—and in the process change the way we live our daily lives. Success in the Third Wave will require a different skill set, and Case outlines the path forward.

• Case offers advice for how entrepreneurs can make winning business decisions and strategies—and how all of us can make sense of this changing digital age.

(source)

Introduction

Franklin Foer is a staff writer at The Atlantic and former editor of The New Republic, commentating on contemporary issues from a liberal perspective.

Videos:Franklin Foer in conversation with Hanna Rosin – YouTube Sep 15, 2017The dark side of Silicon Valley: Franklin Foer - CNBC.com Sep 18, 2017World Mind, Sep 14 2017 | Video | C-SPAN.org Oct 8, 2017The Existential Threat of Big Tech | Franklin Foer Oct 17, 2017 How Tech STEALS Your Attention with Franklin Foer – YouTube Nov 6, 2017 Franklin Foer: The Existential Threat of Big Tech – YouTube Nov 15, 2017

Summary

• To many Americans, large technology firms embody much of what's good about the modern world. Google holds the key to new depths of knowledge. Amazon is the white-knight savior of impulse shopping. Facebook builds the connective tissue to old friends and colleagues.

• Franklin Foer has a different perspective. In his new book, "World Without Mind," the veteran journalist lays out a more ominous view of where Big Tech would like to take us — in many ways, already has taken us.

• Investigating the practices of these digital gatekeepers, he has crafted an anti-Silicon Valley manifesto that makes a cogently scary case against the influence of U.S. tech firms (but not, crucially, technology itself). Silicon Valley, he argues, may say it wants to improve the world. But its true endgame is the advancement of an ideological agenda. And it's a terrifying one.

• By introducing addictive new features, the book says, these companies have made us hopelessly dependent. Once hooked, consumers are robbed of choice, milked for profit, deprived of privacy and made the subjects of stealth social engineering experiments. "We are," Foer writes, "the screws and rivets in their grand design."

Introduction

Scott Galloway is a Clinical Professor at the NYU Stern School of Business where he teaches brand strategy and digital marketing. In 2012, Professor Galloway was named “One of the World’s 50 Best Business School Professors” by Poets & Quants. He is also the founder of Red Envelope and Prophet Brand Strategy. Scott was elected to the World Economic Forum’s Global Leaders of Tomorrow and has served on the boards of directors of Urban Outfitters (Nasdaq: URBN), Eddie Bauer (Nasdaq: EBHI), The New York Times Company (NYSE: NYT), and UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. He received a B.A. from UCLA and an M.B.A. from UC Berkeley.

Scott Galloway: Big tech is avoiding taxes and destroying jobs“The Four Horsemen” – An Interview with Scott GallowayWhy is it so hard to ditch Apple, Amazon, Google and Facebook?

Videos:Scott Galloway - The Four - What To DoTED Talk with Scott Galloway

Summary

• Worth more than $2.3 trillion combined, the Big Four (Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google) continue to grab share from media companies, brands, and retailers. Scott Galloway, Professor of Marketing at the NYU Stern School of Business and Founder of L2, will showcase how the traditional rules of business don’t apply to the Big Four and identify ways that brands and companies can fight back.

• In his new book, NYU professor Scott Galloway explains how Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook have succeeded in exerting influence over our attention, our loyalty — and our personal information.

• "These companies avoid taxes, invade privacy, and destroy jobs to increase profits because ... they can," Galloway writes.

• Galloway tells CNBC about his new book: "We think these companies are progressive, when their behavior is more like Darth Vader crossed with Ayn Rand."

IntroductionTom Nichols is a professor at the Naval War College and at the Harvard Extension School, as well as a Senior Associate of the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs in New York City and a Fellow of the International History Institute at Boston University. He received his PhD from Georgetown, an MA from Columbia University, and the Certificate of the Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union (today called "the Harriman Institute") at Columbia.

If Tom looks familiar, it's because he's also a five-time undefeated Jeopardy! champion. He played in the 1994 Tournament of Champions, is listed in the Jeopardy! Hall of Fame.

No Use: Nuclear Weapons and U.S. National Security, 2013Tactical Nuclear Weapons and NATO, 2012Eve of Destruction: The Coming Age of Preventive War, 2008Winning the World: Lessons for America's Future from the Cold War, 2002

Videos:The problem with thinking you know more than the experts – YouTube, 2017Tom Nichol's Inspiration behind "The Death of Expertise" – YouTube, 2017

Summary

• People are now exposed to more information than ever before, provided both by technology and by increasing access to every level of education. These societal gains, however, have also helped fuel a surge in narcissistic and misguided intellectual egalitarianism that has crippled informed debates on any number of issues.

• Today, everyone knows everything: with only a quick trip through WebMD or Wikipedia, average citizens believe themselves to be on an equal intellectual footing with doctors and diplomats. All voices, even the most ridiculous, demand to be taken with equal seriousness, and any claim to the contrary is dismissed as undemocratic elitism.

• This rejection of experts has occurred for many reasons, including the openness of the internet, the emergence of a customer satisfaction model in higher education, and the transformation of the news industry into a 24-hour entertainment machine. Paradoxically, the increasingly democratic dissemination of information, rather than producing an educated public, has instead created an army of ill-informed and angry citizens who denounce intellectual achievement.

• When ordinary citizens believe that no one knows more than anyone else, democratic institutions themselves are in danger of falling either to populism or to technocracy - or in the worst case, a combination of both.

• The Death of Expertise is an exploration of a dangerous phenomenon and a warning about the stability and survival of modern democracy in the Information Age.

• Good read: http://thefederalist.com/2014/01/17/the-death-of-expertise/