Philosophy

BLACK MIRROR REFLECTIONS, Ep 17: “White Bear” with Charles Mills

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Black Mirror, Black Mirror Reflections, Blog, Blog 2023+, Justice, Philosophy, Public Philosophy, Race and Racism, RMWMTMBM Archive, Technology, Technology and Human Values, Women and Gender Issues 0 Comments

For Episode 17, I am joined by Dr. Charles Mills to talk about punishment, non-ideal theories of justice, why philosophers love science fiction, and “White Bear” (Season 2, Episode 2 of Black Mirror), which first premiered in 2013. Listen/Download BLACK MIRROR REFLECTIONS podcast episodes  Subscribe to BLACK MIRROR REFLECTIONS podcast Support/Donate to BLACK MIRROR REFLECTIONS podcast I’ve been…

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BLACK MIRROR REFLECTIONS, Ep 19: “Metalhead” with Roman V. Yampolskiy

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Artificial Intelligence, Black Mirror, Black Mirror Reflections, Emergent Tech, Ethics, Philosophy, RMWMTMBM Archive, Technology, Technology and Human Values 0 Comments

  For Episode 19, I am joined by Dr. Roman V. Yampolskiy to talk about killer robot dogs, poker playing AIs, the control problem, how long we have left before the rise of the machines, what it would be like to be a superintelligence’s pet, and “Metalhead” (Season 4, Episode 5 of Black Mirror), which…

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BLACK MIRROR REFLECTIONS, Ep. 18: “Rachel, Jack, and Ashley Too” with Karen Tongson

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Black Mirror, Black Mirror Reflections, Blog, Blog 2023+, Music, Philosophy, Pop Culture/Film/Literature, RMWMTMBM Archive, Technology, Technology and Human Values, Women and Gender Issues 0 Comments

For Episode 18, I am joined by cultural critic and superstar podcaster Karen Tongson to talk about teenage angst, celebrity, what makes pop music “popular,” and “Rachel, Jack, and Ashley Too” (Episode 2, Season 5 of Black Mirror), which first premiered in 2019. Listen/Download BLACK MIRROR REFLECTIONS podcast episodes  Subscribe to BLACK MIRROR REFLECTIONS podcast I have…

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BLACK MIRROR REFLECTIONS, Ep11: “USS Callister” with David Gunkel

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Artificial Intelligence, Black Mirror, Black Mirror Reflections, Emergent Tech, Ethics, Philosophy, Politics, Pop Culture/Film/Literature, RMWMTMBM Archive, Technology, Technology and Human Values, Television 0 Comments

  For Episode 11– our first Christmas episode!– I am joined by Dr. David Gunkel to talk about the possibility of virtual moral agents, the seriousness of online games, science fiction’s bad politics, and “USS Callister” (Episode 1, Season 4 of Black Mirror), which first premiered in 2017.  Listen/Download BLACK MIRROR REFLECTIONS podcast episodes  Subscribe to BLACK…

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BLACK MIRROR REFLECTIONS podcast, Ep10: “Nosedive” with John Danaher

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Black Mirror, Black Mirror Reflections, Emergent Tech, Ethics, Philosophy, Politics, Public Philosophy, RMWMTMBM Archive, Technology, Technology and Human Values 0 Comments

  For episode 10, I am joined by Dr. John Danaher to talk about social credit systems, the ubiquity of ranking metrics, whether or not its possible to go “off the grid,” and “Nosedive” (Season 3, Episode 1 of Black Mirror), which first premiered in 2016. Listen/Download BLACK MIRROR REFLECTIONS podcast episodes  Subscribe to BLACK MIRROR REFLECTIONS…

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Hotel Bar Sessions podcast: A brief history

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Hotel Bar Sessions, Philosophy, podcast, Public Philosophy, RMWMTMBM Archive 0 Comments

I can’t be sure who’s still regularly checking in on this blog, but those of you who are have surely noticed that I’ve shifted my energies from blogging to podcasting over the last year. Beginning in November 2020, I did a 22-episode run of my first podcast BLACK MIRROR REFLECTIONS, in which I interviewed philosophers,…

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BLACK MIRROR REFLECTIONS, Ep1: “15 Million Merits” with Shannon Mussett

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Black Mirror, Black Mirror Reflections, Emergent Tech, Ethics, Philosophy, Pop Culture/Film/Literature, Public Philosophy, RMWMTMBM Archive, Technology, Technology and Human Values, Television 0 Comments

  I’m sooooo excited to announce the release of our first episode of BLACK MIRROR REFLECTIONS podcast! As you may have heard– from my endless self-promoting on FB and Twitter– this podcast will be structured as a series of conversations between myself and some very smart people as we talk/think through the technology, philosophy, morality,…

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Black Mirror Reflections podcast

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Black Mirror, Black Mirror Reflections, BMR podcast, Ethics, Philosophy, Politics, Pop Culture/Film/Literature, Public Philosophy, RMWMTMBM Archive, Technology, Technology and Human Values 0 Comments

  I’m in the process of recording the first few episodes of a (limited series) podcast entitled Black Mirror Reflections, which will be released next week. I’ve written a lot about Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror on this blog over the years, I regularly teach a course entitled “Technology and Human Values,” and I incorporate Black Mirror episodes in several…

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A Conversation with Your Past Self

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson coronavirus, Online Learning, Open Source Pedagogy, Philosophy, Public Philosophy, RMWMTMBM Archive 0 Comments

This semester, I’m giving my students the option to submit a video “Conversation with My Past Self” in lieu of taking the Final Exam. I was inspired by this video that I saw on Julie Nolke’s YouTube channel, in which she sits down at the breakfast table and chats with the January 2020 version of herself….

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What If You Were Gerald McGrew?: A “Rebuild the Internet” Thought Experiment

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Anonymity, Big Data, Ethics, Internet, Open Source Pedagogy, Philosophy, Privacy, RMWMTMBM Archive, Technology, Technology and Human Values 0 Comments

You may remember the story by Dr. Seuss (né, Theodore Seuss Geisel) from 1950 entitled If I Ran the Zoo, in which the pint-sized protagonist, Gerald McGrew, imagines the amazing creation he could bring about if he were allowed to run the zoo. If I Ran the Zoo is not only a great story about the never-before-seen exotic animals…

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