The Dialogues

Philosophy moves slowly. As well it should. And for so much of history this pace was not so much of a problem. But change affects all, philosophical truths and norms included.

Now, sure, the world has always been changing. But it should be clear to all of us that the world is changing faster and faster, and arguably at a pace that seems beyond our control.

Philosophy moves slowly. Yet philosophy can never be resigned, as Nietzsche put it, to be merely a museum of ideas.

Today's dialogue will feature Aedrian Shaene. He has worked in the technology and Internet industry from the early days and has been a university lecturer on topics at the intersection of technology, social media, and philosophy.

But I don't invite people on the dialogues because of their resume or LinkedIn profile - I invite them on because of their ideas. An authentic philosophical dialogue, after all, is based upon on the quality of someone's thoughts, reasons, and evidence.

A couple months ago, Aedrian and I began a conversation through twitter which lead us now to the dialogue you are about to hear. While we will both be offering our critiques of social media and the internet, it should be lost on nobody that these things are the mechanism by which we will speak to you and is tool that connected us in the first place.

And although the Internet and social media has all been around for less than my lifetime and many of your lives, it has, like both weed and flower, covered the globe.

Philosophy moves slowly, but the Internet and social media do not.