In this edition of Thinking with the Church: a conversation with Philip Larrey, priest, professor and author of Connected World: from Automated Work to Virtual Wars – the future, by those who are shaping it (320 pages, Penguin, 2017).
Connected World is a collection of interviews – conversations, really – with industry giants, entrepreneurs, academics, innovators, consumers, and thought leaders in fields of science, technology, research, private and public security, military hardware development, advertising, public relations, and information.
Larrey’s subjects are, quite literally, creating the space and defining both the contours and connections within the weave of the world we inhabit, as we speak.
He had extraordinary access to figures such as: Eric Schmidt of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, and Jared Cohen of Alphabet’s Jigsaw program, as well as Carlo d’Asaro Biondo of Google Europe; Maurice Lévy of Publicis Groupe; the neuroscientist, Anders Sandberg and philosopher Johan Siebers; Sir Martin Sorrell of WPP; and several others, including Vocaris Media co-Founder and host of TwtC, Chris Altieri.
Even though several of the major players had teams of lawyers vetting the transcripts before publication, the interviews are quite frank, and often frankly unsettling: waking and sleeping, technology is affecting every area of life, from how we make what we need and want, to how we decide what we want and need to make, to what is ours to know about ourselves and others, to what’s worth knowing at all, to how we educate our children to how and why we fight our wars.
That is where we pick up the thread of the conversation, with a brief explanation from our friend, the author, about how he got his subjects to open up.
Prof. Larrey spent Easter Week in and around Boston, Massachusetts, talking about his book – and the ideas it addresses – with students and faculty at Harvard University and MIT.
Those conversations took place behind closed doors, and were not open to the press, though we’ve been promised a report from the author on how things went – a report to which we are very much looking forward.
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Sean Beeson composed our theme. Hear more of his musical stylings at www.seanbeeson.com.
St. Gabriel Archangel, pray for us!
Praised be Jesus Christ, now and forever!
Thinking with the Church 