After the 2016 US presidential election, many people complained that we were living in an alternative reality, a virtual torture chamber, the worst timeline. In 2020 it is time to reexamine arguments that we're living in a simulation as we wait for the votes to be cast and our new political reality to set in. In this episode Ankur Dnyanmote joins Douglas Lain to discuss Nick Bostrom's 2003 paper "Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?" ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrQTS8BMrEU

Buy the book: https://repeaterbooks.com/product/filling-the-void-emotion-capitalism-and-social-media/ It argues that social media use is often a psychological response to the need for pleasure and comfort that results from the stresses of life under postmodern capitalism, rather than being a driver of new behaviours as newer technologies are often said to be. Both the explosive growth of social media and the corresponding reconfiguration of the web from an information-based platform into an entertainment-based one are far more easily explained in terms of the subjective psychological experience of their users as capitalist subjects seeking ‘depressive hedonia’ the book argues. Filling the Void also interrogates the role of social media networks, designed for private commercial gain, as part of a de-facto public sphere. Both the decreasing subjective importance of factual media and the ways in which the content of the timeline are quietly manipulated – often using labour in the developing world and secret algorithms – have potentially serious implications for the capacity of social media users to query or challenge the seeming reality offered by the established hegemonic order. Support Zer0 Books and Repeater Media on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/zer0repeater Subscribe: https://www.patreon.com/zer0repeater Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ZeroBooks/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/zer0books, https://twitter.com/RepeaterBooks ----- Other links: Check out the projects of some of the new contributors to Zer0 Books: Acid Horizon Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/acidhorizonpodcast YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/acidhorizon Merch: crit-drip.com The Philosopher’s Tarot from Repeater Books: https://repeaterbooks.com/product/the-philosophers-tarot/ The Horror Vanguard Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/horror-vanguard/id1445594437 Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/horrorvanguard Buddies Without Organs Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/buddies-without-organs/id1543289939 Website: https://buddieswithout.org/ Xenogothic: https://xenogothic.com/ ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fz6PadS9QQ