Thanks to @Max on LinkedIn, I found the following MUST-SEE Wired interview with Tristan Harris (CHT co-founder) and Yuval Noah Harari:
https://video.wired.com/watch/yuval-harari-tristan-harris-humans-get-hacked
This is a very important video to watch, not only because… well, you are a member of the CHT community, but it highlights the biggest challenges we are facing in our quest towards Humane Technology.
The video starts by focusing on the problem space - how the ‘human animal’ can be hacked by technology, and that this has become the way that (internet) technology works. A problem where the lure of technology - which increasingly knows us better than we know ourselves - is very hard, if not impossible, to resist for us humans. Our pre-conditioned biological systems have evolved every more slowly.
A problem that will only grow worse as technology progresses, gets ever more advanced.
Then the interview continues, stressing the need to raise awareness. Not just awareness at the individual level (the Time Well Spent focus), but universal awareness, society-wide, at global scale.
And then the solution space is investigated. How technology is here to stay, and how it could be applied in ways that are very beneficial to humanity. But at this time you’ll also see how humongous the challenge is, how big the problems we are facing. In the solution space it essentially boils down to the fundamental ethics and morality that underlies our technology and technology choices. At a scale that impacts our economic systems, and how we interact with each other.
Tristan and Yuval see glimmers of hope in the tech sector, where very, very slowly awareness is coming, and there is a true will to change. But they see a negative spiral - a zero-sum game - at the global and political levels. A move towards dystopia.
They conclude in a positive note by saying that “in the end no one wants to end up in a dystopic future” (something I am not too sure about, but this at least applies to the vast majority of humanity, and that gives solace).
Finally - I feel obliged to say - this video also makes clear and understandable why the organization, the core team, found themselves so occupied and busy - working at highest levels of government and corporations - that until now they couldn’t give this community the attention it deserves.
If you watch the video closely, you will realize that this will change in the future. That we are needed. We are the foot soldiers, the army, in an important movement. So let’s organize ourselves and make us stronger: We have a long march ahead of us!
