00:00 Intro 06:14 What is the Premise ot the Marcs Book about Technology, which is he writing? 07:36 What is Technology? 10:49 Genezis 32:22 Permanitazing the Conditions of Scarcity 01:04:28 Three Ages of Tools 01:23:31 Critique of Technology 01:31:20 How did Marc get rid of his Smartphone? 01:45:45 Is only answer to Omnipotence of technologic Tyrany of today becoming Catholic? 01:52:35 Data Lords 01:58:34 How do we change Ownership over Rent? 02:10:17 Turning Luxury into Necessity 02:18:37 How is today Technology striving for indefinite Profits? 02:25:54 Payment & Hiding Renting 02:32:47 How do we build alternative Reality? 03:00:20 Q&A Should Christians use Smartphones? 03:03:42 Calling for Christians to change the Culture 03:08:19 Should we get rid of Smartphones if it brings us Goods unoptainable elswer? Shouldn’t we build our Temperance?
I will say this: I admit and concede the many strong points and merits of your arguments. However, and I mean this VERY literally; if it were not for the internet, smartphones, and TH-cam, all 3, existing-- I'd never have become Catholic. I'd be either Wesleyan, Lutheran, or Calvinist, given the predominant history of my Area. But not Catholic. I'd never have been exposed to ANY pro-Catholic Apologetics, period.
I found this show on my phone, and I love it. All tools can be used for the glory of God or against. Him. Let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater. Keep on going Matt and I be listening on my phone. LOL
I think we can acknowledge the net effect of this stuff has been bad up til now. But people are learning how it’s been bad, and how it’s been good. Look, it’s not going away - full stop - so let’s learn how to use it responsibly (wise phones; covenant eyes; time management apps; a practice of deep work; etc).
@@rockanne As did I, but as Matt has often said “I think you would be better off never listening to me again, if you got rid of your smart phone”. At no point do they argue that everything involving technology is evil. Interviews like this aim to bring about whatever good they can from technology. But that still doesn’t take away or justify the bad. I became a Catholic in large part because of Matt Fradd. However, if the entire world were rid of smartphones (or even TH-cam for that matter), it would be a fallacy to claim that I would have never become Catholic. The Lord calls each of us, and provides all of us with alternate paths to His church. We mustn’t be so unimaginative to not be able to see that the world would be vastly better without certain technologies or technological practices.
This is one of the most enlightening discussions I've heard. I totally agree with Marc Barnes that we can live more freely without the trappings of technology or that we use technologies as tools and not as end in themselves. I grew up in a very rural island town in Palawan, Philippines. Up to the mid-80s, we did not have electricity - we used gas lamps and pressure lamps. We have zero electrical devices and no phones. Our major source of info are magazines which my father subscribed to and a transistor radio. We also used firewood and coconut husks for cooking. I spent my teenage days there until I have to go to college in the big city. While some families own motorcycles and tricycles (being the major means of public transport), most used bicycles in moving around. I would say that lIfe back then in that island was very pleasant because people are not asking or wanting for more. Now that I'm almost 60 years old, I actually missed that life and I don't mind going back to it. By the way, that place is predominantly Christian and Catholic. I am a cradle Catholic myself.
This was one of the most enlightening conversations I've heard in a long time. You guys are doing wonderful work. If TH-cam can deliver genuine, long-form conversations like this, then it can still be a force for good.
I feel like our Pope is getting sucked in to politics of the LGBT thing because of America bishops. He was a person of tolerance and stayed away from that topic mostly so he tolerated the Alt society. Now bishops are opposing him or stating we should oppose gender theory. I say the Church should stay out of those matters and let people think for themselves. I believe God will sort out those details. So what if we tolerate Alt society? Are we going to change people from not expressing themselves? This is America the land of self expression! If people want to kneel, let them kneel. Half the people don't put their hand over their heart during the National Anthem, although I do. We should stop them if they are disruptive, otherwise leave others alone. We make it worse when more of us get mixed up in that. There are likely bigger more important to deal with at home and with our personal lives.
The problem with indiscriminate tolerance of "Alt" behaviors and beliefs is that they created an alternative god which leads you to the alternative of heaven which is hell.
Just wanted to point out I work construction for a living and use my tools and machines all day long to help my body complete tasks quicker and more efficient. I also use my smart phone machine to grow my brain at the same time with how to videos and theology and philosophy. It's helped me be a better catholic and understand my faith better in a way that wouldn't be possible without it. I don't have time to sit down and read often so my smart phone machine has been a game changer for my faith
Please have Marc on again. He describes such a rich and robust vision of christian living, that it easy to see the poetry in it. Could listen to him for hours more.
Excellent video! If you want to detach from the worldly ways and be a radical Catholic/Christian, homeschool your children! Making the decision to homeschool my children was the best decision my husband and I ever made! When you homeschool, you take “ownership” not only of your children’s education, but of growing the family and community.
"It's a confusing day and age and confusing things need to be talked about because when they're not, I feel really isolated." - Matt Fradd Exactly how I feel about the Covid vaccines these days! I want to hear good, faithful Catholics discuss it. I really hope there will be a conversation on it on this channel.
Thanks Matt for this great podcast. Some profound insights from Marc Barnes. It was the final straw for me. I gave up my smartphone and own a Nokia dumbphone now. It is amazing how much more time I have now and how I am "forced" to actually talk to my friends instead of using messaging apps. I have been trying to use the spare time to pray the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary (a Medieval Liturgy of the Hours that is still used by the Carthusians) which I can highly recommend. God bless!
"...and a man who walks, in a world built for cars, is treated like a demon." As a 28 yr old man, who has only been able to own my own car with a license for the past 3 years, I can attest to my addendum.
Relating to the discussion on leisure vs servile work. I'm reminded of a quote attributed to JP2, when asked by a reporter what he does in his free time. "All of my time is free," he responded. We can build tree houses in a servile manner or we can build cathedrals with freedom and liberality and leisure.
This was such an amazing conversation, I feel smarter somehow after watching it. I hope you have Marc visit again! I love how charitably yet firmly he reiterated the Truth.
So this has been probably the most captivating interview I have ever seen. Looking forward to the nuggets you will extract in the coming days and weeks.
Just thought, if anyone enjoyed this read ' Obelix and Co. ' it's part of the asterix series , the plot is how the Romans undermine Gaulish society by creating and artifcial 'need' in Rome for Menhirs, Gaulish standing stones. I read it nearly 50 years ago and it's message has stayed with me.
Marc’s thorough, slow, and drawn out arguments are beautiful. There’s a part of me that gets impatient and just wants the quick hitting mic drops, but I think that’s Matt and Marc’s point exactly. We’re slaves to technology and instant gratification.
Beautiful but mythologically odd. Many assertions made yet contradicted by evidence once you dig deep. Most won’t since the easy road is digested so simply.
When you started into the description of the three ages of technology, I thought I was following, and I imagined it going like this: 1st age: Tools - man uses objects to extend his powers 2nd age: Machines - man enters a relationship of activating processes he doesn't fully understand 3rd age: Smart-tech - now the relationship is reversed, and the technology is the activator (smartphones, social media, notifications), and man is the "machine" being activated (page views, ad-clicks, purchasing behavior, collection and sale of personal information, opinion shaping) I was surprised when the line was taken in a different direction toward technology having the illusion of being a tool. Still true, but maybe less fundamental than where I took it.
My favorite episode. Currently looking to move my family to walkable neighborhood. Tired of living in a place where waling to the market is a chore and dangerous.
Sacrifice without wanting something is not sacrificial. I love that! It is easy to forget the aim of our sacrifice is for a good in this life AND the next.
Incredible talk. Really impressed with this channel. It should be noted that the system Marc describes is modern capitalism. We can personally overcome these forces, but as our society becomes more capitalistic, it will be harder and harder and especially harder to protect our children from it.
Despite it being unpopular both in Unions and the Catholic Church, I'm a libertarian, and I LOVE the line Marc delivers at 1:39:00. "If you're going to tell me what to do, at least love me." I don't think I'll ever accept at face value that Christ and God want me to be a good, obedient little citizen of any nation or kingdom outside of the Kingdom of God, and I can accept the divine authority there if only because God loves me. But to the question of smart technology. I'm torn between being a luddite and loving the good that is available from such technology. Personally, I do think I've managed to, largely, strike a balance. But I do not think this is a balance readily attained by many, if most, people. I absolutely spend a lot of time on the internet and on social media. But I do try to direct that time to good pursuits, discussions of good things, learning things I may not learn through locality. I use GPS but I don't feel I depend on it so much as a safety net. I still maintain a personal skill of navigation and mostly use GPS to give me information about WHAT is in an area and as a digital map, not unlike how you might use a physical map. I generally can navigate without it using basic skills and common sense, I often get directions from people, and I rarely need it to get somewhere I've been. This might be because I'm old enough to have lived without GPS for more than half my life and so I developed those skills, but nevertheless, it does evidence an ability to use it in ways that don't diminish your ownership of that skill. Maybe I'm rationalizing, I'm open to that, but I do know that, if I'm in company of others, I generally don't have my phone in hand, I actually tend to mock, in a friendly way, those around me who have their nose stuck to their phone while we're sitting together. I generally don't have it out while I'm eating or otherwise engaged. I get it out for specific purposes, as a multimedia device, not unlike a stereo, radio, and as an advanced communication device. I think the biggest issue is the reliance, as noted several times, and in the giving up of personal skills to that reliance. I think it takes a very specific kind of person to be able to strike such a balance that they aren't the typical digital dependent and, rather, are wielding it as a tool in so far as one can. This, of course, fails to address the issue of the ever present maker, and I do think that the lack of absolute ownership of the software, as well as the normalization of being the product, are problems that should be addressed and opposed. But I also think digital life is here to stay, barring some catastrophe leading to a global blackout. I think the real line in the sand is whether or not we abandon what is real for what is digital as they seem intent on doing with the normalization of concepts underpinning ventures such as the metaverse. I think that line is a hard line. I think once we cross the threshold from being able to use digital space as a tool(provided we have the discipline) to using it as an existence(in ways that make extricating ourselves from it all but a pipedream such as fully body immersion would undoubtedly provide), then it has crossed the boundary of being a tool that can be used strictly to good, despite how easy for it to err into evil, to a tool designed to make the good and evil inextricable from one another, at least by our own efforts. That is to say in a way that, no matter what good we might do with it, we unwittingly enable undeniable evils of one sort or another. In conclusion, yeah, you probably should smash your smart phone if you can't, with all honesty, say that you do not depend on it. And I think that ability to not depend on it is all but lost to those raised in a world where digital access was already prevalent. I think that, in all but the most rare cases, it will only be those of us that grew up in an analog world and spent a portion of adulthood not regularly engaged with the digital who can manage this balance. I think it's because those age groups, that is 35-50, depending on their childhood, were allowed to be analog children and had the choice to adopt digital tools before they became what they are today. Whereas, if you were just coming of age, say 7 and up, as the 00's hit, you were not going to really have that choice. Before adulthood, you would be dragged into an existence that would force you to be familiar with the digital world rather than allowing you to adopt it as you see fit.
Very enlightening. Those who make the newer phones, cars, refrigerators , washers, make them to expire sooner than said objects did even 20 years ago. My old refrigerator lasted almost 30 years the newer ones are only expected to last maybe 12 years.
you tube ai just delivered this to me after another pints recording, i loved this and it was just what i needed, thank you Jesus..........this guy in my far more intelligent American doppelganger...
This is an amazing episode - foundational for Christian life today. Many people (myself included) likely feel asleep to these things but after hearing this... it is really awakening to how to live a more clear Christian life.
This conversation is amazing. Has Marc read Marshall McLuhan? I would like to know his opinion on him. Matt should interview somebody that takes McLuhan to the table. People think McLuhan is like a prophet of technology but he's actually a very peculiar critic of technology... and a Catholic convert.
I listen to your podcasts, and don't mind doing the old ones too because you have never had a guest that was a waste of time, all of your guests are high quality and have had said something that is worth saying. This was not only not an exception, but this is the best online conversation that I have ever heard. Where did you get this guy Matt? I don't think you have had him back to talk about gender, but since it has been a year I think it is time to have him back on.
You guys are amazing...while there may be crummy uses of technology this is not one...to have serious conversations that are thought provoking. Good stuff
Paul warned them about this in Colossians 2:8: "Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ."
This is one area where I disagree. I think that technology is the greatest equalizer that we've ever had, in ways that are both good and bad. This is on multiple levels. First, pick any king from the 1500's or earlier, bring them into the 21st Century, teach them a basic entry level job and get them established, then ask them to rate their life here and now against their life there. They will have more consistent temperature in their home. They'll have more control over their time. They'll have better food security. On and on, for almost all of these individual measures they'll live a better life working an entry level job here and now than as a king back then. However, the reason we don't call our president "elected king" is because he simply does not have the kind of power over our individual lives as that king exercised in that time. In that time, the king could theoretically walk down the street, pick someone at random, and have them beheaded just because he was bored. There's no one that has that power over me today. (In theory. In some sense the greatest power is the power to break the rules.) Which one a person might choose would be down to temperament, but almost no one is going to choose to be a serf. One of the ways that our society has done this is by leveraging economy of scale. It turns out that population to production of something is more like an exponential growth where population to consumption is more like linear. If we've got ten people in town (a carpenter, an entertainer, a leader, two cooks, and five farmers) then everything gets done and no one has nothing to do. If at double that, we can still get by with one entertainer and one leader, only need to up it to three cooks, and eight farmers. Which means that we can actually get by with 4 people not doing anything. So we invent jobs for them: a doctor, a messenger, and two engineers. And so on and so on. Eventually you've got more people than you can figure out how to keep employed. Even the Roman Empire ran into this problem. Bread and circuses and all that. So to think that that part is a consequence of the industrial or information revolutions is naive. And in the pre-industrial revolution, the vast majority of people rented the land and equipment that they used to create. People had to be raised in their profession, because the skills were so in-depth that they took decades to learn. Educated professions are only possible when a population density and/or technology reach a level where we can afford to keep youth in a classroom not producing anything for years or even decades. You're right that we've reached a point where we are relying on the development of technology to keep people employed. And there's kind of a catch-22 there in that development of new technology also finds new ways to produce the same thing with a smaller amount of total human input. Since the industrial revolution, we've struggled trying to figure out what to do with the "excess population." The average number of hours of employment that we need to keep us all of America reasonably fed, housed and entertained comes out to less than 10 hours per week per person. Any solution you come up with has to account for that reality. We could pass a law that no one is allowed to work more than 20 hours a week, but there are drawbacks to that. We could just give everyone free food distributed by the government, but there are drawbacks to that. We could employ people developing and producing new technologies and entertainment, but there are drawbacks to that. We could just let people starve if they can't find or create work, but there are drawbacks to that. But whatever your solution you have to deal with these realities.
Sure life was harder without technology, this also gave the human something to strife for i gave him existential reasons and not only that but he was rooted in his society which gave him some security of where he should be heading. What do you want with free time, if every Man is sitting 12 hours a day in front of a screen and effectively doing nothing, What do you want with high quality Food if everyone is eating fast food. So I basically would encounter you argument with some view like Ted Kaczynski had. The modern duties don't fulfill the human being because they have no existential necessity and they are randomly chosen by the preferences of the individual and have no rootedness in history. I don't know your age but maybe you grew up in a time where the existential crisis of human beings wasn't this bad, but I can tell you that modern Man is just constructing his life into nothingness and from nothingness. I also would strongly disagree with you on monarchy because while it is true that the King had theoretically more power than the president he didn't have the technical capacities to control every individuals life. But right now the gorvernent is controlling every little aspect of the peoples life, by restricting speech, by setting the narrativ and by enforcing mandates. The bureaucratic apparatus is now bigger than ever in Mans history and reaches into every Mans household through the smartphone. As for the question what we can do about those developments and the fact that there is not much work to do? We can deliberately choose to live in smaller communities, to not engage in all technological inventions. We can provide food for our own community locally. Basically the answer to this problem would be distributism.
@@5000okok I'm 42. My son would not survive in the society you propose. If everyone needs to work, the disabled end up being sacrificed. The only way that the medications that keep him alive by controlling his seizures were researched and discovered by people who were trying to create a better treatment for asthma. It took multiple rounds of failure to produce the medication, find out that it didn't help asthma, and then to test the casual observation that people might have been having fewer seizures. That labor was freed up by through the economy of scale I discussed above. I'm sorry, I'm not willing to sacrifice my child or future examples like him to relieve your extensional crisis.
@@ShaunCKennedyAuthor But thats not what it is about. I think nobody expects disabled people to work and in a strong Christian society people would help him and everybody should have respect for you caring for him. But right now with social systems we have the same machine effect like with smartphones. We are fully disconnected from who we help and just pay into a machine like system, that further leads to the fragmentation of society. The ultimate consequence of this machine would be abortion disabled child out of comfort (even if I am not in the position to judge because I haven't yet experienced the difficulties) And don't get me wrong, it is also not the case that every medical development is bad and it is also important to make sure that not everyone starves. But it has to be a slow movement away from technology towards asking the question which technology really helps us and which makes us slaves.
@@5000okok You misunderstood me. He would be dead because the medication that is keeping him alive wouldn't have been created. Instead of researching medication, those scientists would have been farming. As I said in my initial reply, every system has advantages and disadvantages. If your concern is that the current jobs don't fulfill people because they aren't really necessary (a point I would dispute: the vast majority of people that I know get their fulfillment doing music, art, etc and find that it's the necessary things that leave them feeling existential angst, but I can enter your world for the sake of discussion) then a possible goal would be to give all of those unemployed and underemployed and superficially employed people real and meaningful jobs. How much more quickly could we save how many lives if we had an additional couple million people working in medical research? We don't lack meaningful things to research study, and perfect. The reason the COVID vaccines got out so much quicker than any other vaccine wasn't because they did less work on it, but because they had more people working on it. As to abortion, once again I think the facts work against you and we have more people choosing to have and raise disabled children now than ever before because of the surplus. But even if I step into your world, abortion is a separate topic. I'm pro life myself, but I recognize that one of the problems we have that creates abortion is a problem of our own creation. One of the reasons why someone who knows me might opt for an abortion if they had a disabled child is because they saw that it darn near killed me and my wife to have to work full time and try to keep our son alive. If we had a society that took advantage of the surplus and said, "You know what, you guys got delt a raw hand, don't you worry about housing or groceries for a few years until this is settled," then single mother that knew us and found out she was expecting a disabled child wouldn't be nearly as scared. I'm all for creative solutions to mundane problems, and I get that there's a lot of complexity there. We want to balance the 'we don't want single girls to get pregnant all willy-nilly' against the 'we don't want life with a child as a single mother to be so difficult that young girls are afraid they'll live a life of poverty and shame because they made one mistake one time.' That's an issue that would need to be addressed separately, but saying we need to reduce the surplus is going to lead to more abortions and abandonment of the disabled by my observation, not fewer. If you go back to the old way and children are your retirement package, disabled children are nothing but a burden and will be a reason you can't retire. If you are saying that we need to go into small enough groups that everyone has to work on the farm, then the disabled can't help on the farm. Add to that the medications that will never be produced to save lives, and you're losing even more disabled kids. Once again, I'm not willing to sacrifice my child and future examples like him to relieve your existential crisis.
@@ShaunCKennedyAuthor Again no one wants the full middle ages. All the very intelligent people can still research medicine and do other things. As the guest said, why does everyone need to have a phone. There are a lot of people who are not very smart or wont ever be scientists (me) and who are jusr useless in our society. The covid vaccine is more an example of the dystopian technocracy we live in than of anything else. But i don't see a reason why the development of a vaccine wouldn't be possible in a not insane society. Arts have also totally lost their meaning and the people who do them look more insane every year. "My existential crisis" is a thing of most mankind. As for abortions there have never been more abortions than nowadays and the technology is there to screen your child for all different illnesses. I am sure that in the future it will be possible to change the genes or to "design" you own child. This is going to be insanity.
@Pints With Aquinas ...Before switching to the Wisephone, you said that you would not take your laptop OR phone home with you. The other day (now that you have a dumbphone with no internet capability) you said that you now bring your Wisephone home. Have you found that the texting &/or calling is now a return to distraction you had previously cut off (to a lesser degree than internet & Apps are distractions, but a distraction nonetheless)?
I love this conversation...i don't have a TV and computer broke. I do have a cell, and "they" have made it almost impossible to get or afford a landline where I live. I would love to be living in a Christian community town...
My local Bank Branch (Ireland) doesn't deal with cash anymore, inside. There is an ATM outside, and machines inside for checking balances, looking up transactions. You can't get foreign currency. Not sure what the Staff do, apart from pointing people to the machines. I had to get on a 20 minute bus ride to a different branch to change sterling to euro after a trip. Things that were meant to serve us actually make life more complicated. My Teenager just applied online for a Passport. It took 1 1/2 hrs with all the info they wanted, and glitches, I'm guessing.
While he makes a lot of great observations, I’m not sure I get the broader point. Are we to abandon every innovation that did not fulfill a passing need only? Is he saying that start with a cell phone fast, then move to eliminate wall phones, then washing machines, dishwashers, etc. He never says. And Matt never asks. Second, even if you were to eliminate smartphones today, we would still “rent” various essential services, like water and electricity, which are provided by large corporate entities and distributed via elaborate grids / networks that we don’t control. Would he argue that we should dismantle this infrastructure? He doesn’t say. Matt doesn’t ask. It’s also worth noting that, for all of Marc’s comments about technology leaving the poor behind, these innovations have enabled the greatest population surge in human history, and the most widespread reduction in poverty. Is this bad? He doesn’t say. Nor does Matt ask.
I was thinking the exact same thing, it's incredibly frustrating when people make claims like this and then don't go into real detail. Should we all just be anarco primitivist?? I feel like if they had this conversation in the Middle ages he would find something to say is causing issues with their level of technology. I would love to try to contact either of them.
I had to pause the video halfway through to see if anybody in the comment section had raised any of these painfully obvious objections. Marc’s strong claims about political liberalism and Protestantism could have used some pushback too-I don’t think they stand up to scrutiny very well. It’s not at all clear that the creation theology proposed by Malthus was representative of the theological views held by liberals broadly, nor that this view is somehow causally connected to the spread of atheism.
Matt, have you read "The Shallows" by Nicholas Carr? He challenges the assumption that modern technology is morally neutral and also discusses how it affects the neuroplasticity of the brain.
Utterly brilliant discussion, however: it is *extremely* easy to live without a car in many places in America-to the point where it is often much more difficult and expensive to live in these places with a car than without them. The caveat is these places are almost exclusively places built before 1930 and managed to avoid the post-1950s car-centric bulldozer. Cities with 5000+ people/sq.mile are almost always quite liveable without a car.
Bill Gates isn't actually buying ALL of America's farmland. He owns about 270,000 acres of America's 900,000,000 acres of farmland, so around 0.00003%. If Bill Gates owned MOST American farmland he would own just over 450,000,000 acres....he owns 270,000. I think Marc's confusion may be because he has heard that Bill owns the most farmland, that is correct, he owns more than anyone else, but it's still a very tiny portion of all farmland.
It frightens me that Gates owns any farmland! He clearly stated he wants depopulation, so my guess is he’s pushing for more GMO’s or has starvation in mind.
The people in the mission world will tell you why the new developments are better: electric stove vs wood; plumbing vs well; iPhone vs isolation; Mass production vs expensive everything; car vs walking 4 hours to church on Sunday; computer vs not understanding the concept of a skyscraper/city/large forests/continents/mass transportation; entertainment vs boredom. Boredom throughout history led to war because war was more exciting than sitting around with nothing to do. We are standing on the shore of the future as the waves crash on our heads. Technology is the waves and they are coming so fast we don't understand their full complexity and use yet.
Not sure about the argument that all human making - technology in the broadest sense - is a response to sin and the Fall. A number of Catholic thinkers - and especially artists - would strongly disagree and argue that our human role as makers, as co- or sub-creators was ordained from the beginning as a key feature - a defining feature - of our humanity. See Tolkien on men and women as 'sub-creators' with God and the Catholic poet David Jones on man the 'maker'. I wonder if Marc's argument here veers worryingly towards a pessimistic calvinist take on human making?
Technology, whether computers and the internet or cars and such, are not bad in and of themselves, but what we DO with them and the uses to which we employ them, are what make it good or bad. Technology is a tool. Tools can be used for evil purposes and intentions, or for good purposes and intentions. It all depends on the people and their intentions that make technology good or bad. Social media is not bad, it’s the uses that people make of it that is bad or good.
Marc's points on profits would call on the closure of A LOT of Business Schools. Especially in Catholic/Christian universities and colleges. "Doing and teaching to do business for the sake of business is evil".
I’d really recommend taking a look at his good money playlist. His point, broadly I believe, is that commerce is acceptable, while the accumulation of capital is miserly, particularly in relation to billionaires having trouble spending money in meaningful ways. I don’t know enough about his views, it’s something I’m grappling with as well, but I feel like there’s something true buried in there.
So, when I use my smartphone to allow me to do liturgy of the hours multiple times a day while still working for my wages, or ditto listening to philosophical discussions by my buddies Matt fradd et al, that is not extending my physical capabilities and my knowledge and relationship with my Catholic faith? Things otherwise I cannot do because I work so many hours and so many days?
Hi Matt, I sent a communication to you at your web site regarding developments in Perth WA...a school board and principal of an independent Catholic school is being portrayed as a madman for standing up to forced vaccination of staff. You may wish to look into this as secular media is portraying him as an anti vaxxer when the school already has yearly vaccinations. I'm a parent in the school and am reaching out for prayers that God's will be done.
I once prayed to God to deliver me from viewing turkish movies on TH-cam which I realise it's becoming an addiction. The next day I lost my latest Samsung cell phone. How I lost it, I have no idea. I tried everything to remember but could not. I was thinking I got an answered prayer. But after about 7 days, I realize I can't do without a cp. So I bought a new one. Until I watch this video. This made me thinking. But I haven't decided what to do yet.
Never bought a cell phone, tossed my TV in the mid 90's. So far only use a laptop. Why.... because there is so much information. and can message individuals ....(sometimes though I hesitate.) . I never lived on the internet, Never liked twitter... when they removed me because I Followed Trump, I closed out my account and will not sign up again. I've tried to keep my usage as limited as possible.
00:00 Intro
06:14 What is the Premise ot the Marcs Book about Technology, which is he writing?
07:36 What is Technology?
10:49 Genezis
32:22 Permanitazing the Conditions of Scarcity
01:04:28 Three Ages of Tools
01:23:31 Critique of Technology
01:31:20 How did Marc get rid of his Smartphone?
01:45:45 Is only answer to Omnipotence of technologic Tyrany of today becoming Catholic?
01:52:35 Data Lords
01:58:34 How do we change Ownership over Rent?
02:10:17 Turning Luxury into Necessity
02:18:37 How is today Technology striving for indefinite Profits?
02:25:54 Payment & Hiding Renting
02:32:47 How do we build alternative Reality?
03:00:20 Q&A Should Christians use Smartphones?
03:03:42 Calling for Christians to change the Culture
03:08:19 Should we get rid of Smartphones if it brings us Goods unoptainable elswer? Shouldn’t we build our Temperance?
I will say this:
I admit and concede the many strong points and merits of your arguments. However, and I mean this VERY literally; if it were not for the internet, smartphones, and TH-cam, all 3, existing-- I'd never have become Catholic. I'd be either Wesleyan, Lutheran, or Calvinist, given the predominant history of my Area. But not Catholic. I'd never have been exposed to ANY pro-Catholic Apologetics, period.
I found this show on my phone, and I love it. All tools can be used for the glory of God or against. Him. Let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater. Keep on going Matt and I be listening on my phone. LOL
@@ambassadorsoftheflameofmer5651 the smart phone is not a tool, as is explained in the interview
@@jacobzanardi1930 I listened on my little machine.
I think we can acknowledge the net effect of this stuff has been bad up til now. But people are learning how it’s been bad, and how it’s been good. Look, it’s not going away - full stop - so let’s learn how to use it responsibly (wise phones; covenant eyes; time management apps; a practice of deep work; etc).
@@rockanne As did I, but as Matt has often said “I think you would be better off never listening to me again, if you got rid of your smart phone”.
At no point do they argue that everything involving technology is evil. Interviews like this aim to bring about whatever good they can from technology. But that still doesn’t take away or justify the bad.
I became a Catholic in large part because of Matt Fradd. However, if the entire world were rid of smartphones (or even TH-cam for that matter), it would be a fallacy to claim that I would have never become Catholic. The Lord calls each of us, and provides all of us with alternate paths to His church. We mustn’t be so unimaginative to not be able to see that the world would be vastly better without certain technologies or technological practices.
This is one of the most enlightening discussions I've heard. I totally agree with Marc Barnes that we can live more freely without the trappings of technology or that we use technologies as tools and not as end in themselves. I grew up in a very rural island town in Palawan, Philippines. Up to the mid-80s, we did not have electricity - we used gas lamps and pressure lamps. We have zero electrical devices and no phones. Our major source of info are magazines which my father subscribed to and a transistor radio. We also used firewood and coconut husks for cooking. I spent my teenage days there until I have to go to college in the big city. While some families own motorcycles and tricycles (being the major means of public transport), most used bicycles in moving around. I would say that lIfe back then in that island was very pleasant because people are not asking or wanting for more. Now that I'm almost 60 years old, I actually missed that life and I don't mind going back to it. By the way, that place is predominantly Christian and Catholic. I am a cradle Catholic myself.
This was one of the most enlightening conversations I've heard in a long time. You guys are doing wonderful work. If TH-cam can deliver genuine, long-form conversations like this, then it can still be a force for good.
I feel like our Pope is getting sucked in to politics of the LGBT thing because of America bishops. He was a person of tolerance and stayed away from that topic mostly so he tolerated the Alt society. Now bishops are opposing him or stating we should oppose gender theory. I say the Church should stay out of those matters and let people think for themselves. I believe God will sort out those details. So what if we tolerate Alt society? Are we going to change people from not expressing themselves? This is America the land of self expression! If people want to kneel, let them kneel. Half the people don't put their hand over their heart during the National Anthem, although I do. We should stop them if they are disruptive, otherwise leave others alone. We make it worse when more of us get mixed up in that. There are likely bigger more important to deal with at home and with our personal lives.
The problem with indiscriminate tolerance of "Alt" behaviors and beliefs is that they created an alternative god which leads you to the alternative of heaven which is hell.
Just wanted to point out I work construction for a living and use my tools and machines all day long to help my body complete tasks quicker and more efficient. I also use my smart phone machine to grow my brain at the same time with how to videos and theology and philosophy. It's helped me be a better catholic and understand my faith better in a way that wouldn't be possible without it. I don't have time to sit down and read often so my smart phone machine has been a game changer for my faith
Yes, I agree. Some balance to the conversation.
I love how Pints with Aquinas are hours long. Such good content.
I generally shy away from long youtube videos, but I make an exception for Pints with Aquinas. Good discussion.
Yes, love the long ones. Much better than the clips/shorts. I pass those up.
My kids absent-mindedly hum/beatbox the intro tune to Pints with Aquinas when they are playing or sketching.
Do you randomly make up lyrics to the beginning? I've thought that Matt should ask all his guests to write their own lyrics to his theme song.
That's so epic
@@aadamy😊😊😊 30:59 31:01
@@aadamy😊😊😊 30:59 31:01
Me too kids
Please have Marc on again. He describes such a rich and robust vision of christian living, that it easy to see the poetry in it. Could listen to him for hours more.
The phone call from Matt's wife, we interrupt this interview, for LIFE. Love it!
Matt, when I watch your videos, I feel less alone. Thank you for speaking truth and interviewing guest who speak the truth too.
Excellent video! If you want to detach from the worldly ways and be a radical Catholic/Christian, homeschool your children! Making the decision to homeschool my children was the best decision my husband and I ever made! When you homeschool, you take “ownership” not only of your children’s education, but of growing the family and community.
This conversation is so profound and moving! Thank you Matt and Marc
"It's a confusing day and age and confusing things need to be talked about because when they're not, I feel really isolated." - Matt Fradd
Exactly how I feel about the Covid vaccines these days! I want to hear good, faithful Catholics discuss it. I really hope there will be a conversation on it on this channel.
What questions do you have about the covid vaccines?
11:00 "Ratzinger. Our boy."
This man speaks my language
Thanks Matt for this great podcast. Some profound insights from Marc Barnes. It was the final straw for me. I gave up my smartphone and own a Nokia dumbphone now. It is amazing how much more time I have now and how I am "forced" to actually talk to my friends instead of using messaging apps. I have been trying to use the spare time to pray the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary (a Medieval Liturgy of the Hours that is still used by the Carthusians) which I can highly recommend. God bless!
The Carthusians may have the key to save us from the horrors of modernity. Have you read "The force of silence" by Cardinal Sarah?
@@mjvictoriano I agree, fantastic spirituality. I know the book, but haven't read it yet. I will plan to read it :)
I hopped in the livestream at the end, so I’m really excited to watch all the rest! This was so good! Love the guest!
"...and a man who walks, in a world built for cars, is treated like a demon."
As a 28 yr old man, who has only been able to own my own car with a license for the past 3 years, I can attest to my addendum.
The irony of Matt being distracted by his phone during the conversation and making a call.
Relating to the discussion on leisure vs servile work. I'm reminded of a quote attributed to JP2, when asked by a reporter what he does in his free time. "All of my time is free," he responded. We can build tree houses in a servile manner or we can build cathedrals with freedom and liberality and leisure.
Oh my gosh, a friend and I printed out those pictures of derpy lions YEARS ago and I've been looking for that blog entry since!
"We still you see hiding under there, pancake face." 🥰
This was such an amazing conversation, I feel smarter somehow after watching it. I hope you have Marc visit again! I love how charitably yet firmly he reiterated the Truth.
th-cam.com/video/gCvHv1SEkI4/w-d-xo.html
Truth? About what?
So this has been probably the most captivating interview I have ever seen. Looking forward to the nuggets you will extract in the coming days and weeks.
The one interview that's hard to watch till the end, cause every 5 minutes I want to turn it off and throw my computer away.
Thanks!
Just thought, if anyone enjoyed this read ' Obelix and Co. ' it's part of the asterix series , the plot is how the Romans undermine Gaulish society by creating and artifcial 'need' in Rome for Menhirs, Gaulish standing stones. I read it nearly 50 years ago and it's message has stayed with me.
Just about an hour in and I am absolutely energized by this interview.
1:31:57 comment for traction but great quote/description.
This has been the most interesting conversation I’ve ever repeatedly falling asleep to.
Marc’s thorough, slow, and drawn out arguments are beautiful. There’s a part of me that gets impatient and just wants the quick hitting mic drops, but I think that’s Matt and Marc’s point exactly. We’re slaves to technology and instant gratification.
Beautiful but mythologically odd. Many assertions made yet contradicted by evidence once you dig deep. Most won’t since the easy road is digested so simply.
Marc Barnes is based
Probably the most based guest Matt has brought on
Brilliant conversation! I learned so much of value towards living a good life. Thank you both so much.
What a phenomenal conversation, thanks so much for sharing it with us!
Two of my favourite people in the same room. Thanks for making this happen!
This was just amazing. Thats exactly what society needs.
Really enjoyed this deep discussion on this topic!
When you started into the description of the three ages of technology, I thought I was following, and I imagined it going like this:
1st age: Tools - man uses objects to extend his powers
2nd age: Machines - man enters a relationship of activating processes he doesn't fully understand
3rd age: Smart-tech - now the relationship is reversed, and the technology is the activator (smartphones, social media, notifications), and man is the "machine" being activated (page views, ad-clicks, purchasing behavior, collection and sale of personal information, opinion shaping)
I was surprised when the line was taken in a different direction toward technology having the illusion of being a tool. Still true, but maybe less fundamental than where I took it.
13:10 fits in perfectly with the way Jonathan Pageau describes technology as garments of skin.
My favorite episode. Currently looking to move my family to walkable neighborhood. Tired of living in a place where waling to the market is a chore and dangerous.
Sacrifice without wanting something is not sacrificial. I love that! It is easy to forget the aim of our sacrifice is for a good in this life AND the next.
yes I love that to... so profound.
Marc Barnes has perfected the art of a close shave
Incredible talk. Really impressed with this channel. It should be noted that the system Marc describes is modern capitalism. We can personally overcome these forces, but as our society becomes more capitalistic, it will be harder and harder and especially harder to protect our children from it.
Despite it being unpopular both in Unions and the Catholic Church, I'm a libertarian, and I LOVE the line Marc delivers at 1:39:00. "If you're going to tell me what to do, at least love me." I don't think I'll ever accept at face value that Christ and God want me to be a good, obedient little citizen of any nation or kingdom outside of the Kingdom of God, and I can accept the divine authority there if only because God loves me.
But to the question of smart technology.
I'm torn between being a luddite and loving the good that is available from such technology.
Personally, I do think I've managed to, largely, strike a balance. But I do not think this is a balance readily attained by many, if most, people.
I absolutely spend a lot of time on the internet and on social media. But I do try to direct that time to good pursuits, discussions of good things, learning things I may not learn through locality. I use GPS but I don't feel I depend on it so much as a safety net. I still maintain a personal skill of navigation and mostly use GPS to give me information about WHAT is in an area and as a digital map, not unlike how you might use a physical map. I generally can navigate without it using basic skills and common sense, I often get directions from people, and I rarely need it to get somewhere I've been. This might be because I'm old enough to have lived without GPS for more than half my life and so I developed those skills, but nevertheless, it does evidence an ability to use it in ways that don't diminish your ownership of that skill.
Maybe I'm rationalizing, I'm open to that, but I do know that, if I'm in company of others, I generally don't have my phone in hand, I actually tend to mock, in a friendly way, those around me who have their nose stuck to their phone while we're sitting together. I generally don't have it out while I'm eating or otherwise engaged. I get it out for specific purposes, as a multimedia device, not unlike a stereo, radio, and as an advanced communication device.
I think the biggest issue is the reliance, as noted several times, and in the giving up of personal skills to that reliance. I think it takes a very specific kind of person to be able to strike such a balance that they aren't the typical digital dependent and, rather, are wielding it as a tool in so far as one can.
This, of course, fails to address the issue of the ever present maker, and I do think that the lack of absolute ownership of the software, as well as the normalization of being the product, are problems that should be addressed and opposed. But I also think digital life is here to stay, barring some catastrophe leading to a global blackout. I think the real line in the sand is whether or not we abandon what is real for what is digital as they seem intent on doing with the normalization of concepts underpinning ventures such as the metaverse. I think that line is a hard line. I think once we cross the threshold from being able to use digital space as a tool(provided we have the discipline) to using it as an existence(in ways that make extricating ourselves from it all but a pipedream such as fully body immersion would undoubtedly provide), then it has crossed the boundary of being a tool that can be used strictly to good, despite how easy for it to err into evil, to a tool designed to make the good and evil inextricable from one another, at least by our own efforts. That is to say in a way that, no matter what good we might do with it, we unwittingly enable undeniable evils of one sort or another.
In conclusion, yeah, you probably should smash your smart phone if you can't, with all honesty, say that you do not depend on it. And I think that ability to not depend on it is all but lost to those raised in a world where digital access was already prevalent. I think that, in all but the most rare cases, it will only be those of us that grew up in an analog world and spent a portion of adulthood not regularly engaged with the digital who can manage this balance. I think it's because those age groups, that is 35-50, depending on their childhood, were allowed to be analog children and had the choice to adopt digital tools before they became what they are today. Whereas, if you were just coming of age, say 7 and up, as the 00's hit, you were not going to really have that choice. Before adulthood, you would be dragged into an existence that would force you to be familiar with the digital world rather than allowing you to adopt it as you see fit.
Very enlightening. Those who make the newer phones, cars, refrigerators , washers, make them to expire sooner than said objects did even 20 years ago. My old refrigerator lasted almost 30 years the newer ones are only expected to last maybe 12 years.
you tube ai just delivered this to me after another pints recording, i loved this and it was just what i needed, thank you Jesus..........this guy in my far more intelligent American doppelganger...
The difference between the two different kinds of making is the making the elves do versus the making that sauron does with the elves.
New follower. What an interesting talk! Thank you.
WOW I’m only 30 min in but this is SO GOOD.
I love this. Also, Marc is totally giving off Junior High Gym Teacher vibes.
This is an enthralling conversation. Bringing together lots of fragments of thought for me.
I want to move to Steubenville!
I wish I could live in such a Catholic community!
This is an amazing episode - foundational for Christian life today. Many people (myself included) likely feel asleep to these things but after hearing this... it is really awakening to how to live a more clear Christian life.
Awesome content Matt!!!
This conversation is amazing. Has Marc read Marshall McLuhan? I would like to know his opinion on him. Matt should interview somebody that takes McLuhan to the table. People think McLuhan is like a prophet of technology but he's actually a very peculiar critic of technology... and a Catholic convert.
One of the best talks I've ever heard!!
I listen to your podcasts, and don't mind doing the old ones too because you have never had a guest that was a waste of time, all of your guests are high quality and have had said something that is worth saying.
This was not only not an exception, but this is the best online conversation that I have ever heard.
Where did you get this guy Matt?
I don't think you have had him back to talk about gender, but since it has been a year I think it is time to have him back on.
You guys are amazing...while there may be crummy uses of technology this is not one...to have serious conversations that are thought provoking. Good stuff
Marc is a great guy and so knowledgeable. We had a great time having him on at AWAKEN Catholic.
I’ve listened to this at least three times. It reminds of some of the themes in Jeans-Claude larchet’s book “The New Media Epidemic”.
This was a beautiful conversation.
New polity - PWA conference about social ordering, money catholic education and family would be great... 🙂
Paul warned them about this in Colossians 2:8: "Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ."
Transhumanism. Metaverse. Golden calf. History repeats itself.
We need to seek, know and live in the Divine Will of God.
This is one area where I disagree. I think that technology is the greatest equalizer that we've ever had, in ways that are both good and bad.
This is on multiple levels. First, pick any king from the 1500's or earlier, bring them into the 21st Century, teach them a basic entry level job and get them established, then ask them to rate their life here and now against their life there. They will have more consistent temperature in their home. They'll have more control over their time. They'll have better food security. On and on, for almost all of these individual measures they'll live a better life working an entry level job here and now than as a king back then. However, the reason we don't call our president "elected king" is because he simply does not have the kind of power over our individual lives as that king exercised in that time. In that time, the king could theoretically walk down the street, pick someone at random, and have them beheaded just because he was bored. There's no one that has that power over me today. (In theory. In some sense the greatest power is the power to break the rules.) Which one a person might choose would be down to temperament, but almost no one is going to choose to be a serf.
One of the ways that our society has done this is by leveraging economy of scale. It turns out that population to production of something is more like an exponential growth where population to consumption is more like linear. If we've got ten people in town (a carpenter, an entertainer, a leader, two cooks, and five farmers) then everything gets done and no one has nothing to do. If at double that, we can still get by with one entertainer and one leader, only need to up it to three cooks, and eight farmers. Which means that we can actually get by with 4 people not doing anything. So we invent jobs for them: a doctor, a messenger, and two engineers. And so on and so on. Eventually you've got more people than you can figure out how to keep employed. Even the Roman Empire ran into this problem. Bread and circuses and all that. So to think that that part is a consequence of the industrial or information revolutions is naive.
And in the pre-industrial revolution, the vast majority of people rented the land and equipment that they used to create. People had to be raised in their profession, because the skills were so in-depth that they took decades to learn. Educated professions are only possible when a population density and/or technology reach a level where we can afford to keep youth in a classroom not producing anything for years or even decades.
You're right that we've reached a point where we are relying on the development of technology to keep people employed. And there's kind of a catch-22 there in that development of new technology also finds new ways to produce the same thing with a smaller amount of total human input.
Since the industrial revolution, we've struggled trying to figure out what to do with the "excess population." The average number of hours of employment that we need to keep us all of America reasonably fed, housed and entertained comes out to less than 10 hours per week per person. Any solution you come up with has to account for that reality. We could pass a law that no one is allowed to work more than 20 hours a week, but there are drawbacks to that. We could just give everyone free food distributed by the government, but there are drawbacks to that. We could employ people developing and producing new technologies and entertainment, but there are drawbacks to that. We could just let people starve if they can't find or create work, but there are drawbacks to that. But whatever your solution you have to deal with these realities.
Sure life was harder without technology, this also gave the human something to strife for i gave him existential reasons and not only that but he was rooted in his society which gave him some security of where he should be heading.
What do you want with free time, if every Man is sitting 12 hours a day in front of a screen and effectively doing nothing, What do you want with high quality Food if everyone is eating fast food.
So I basically would encounter you argument with some view like Ted Kaczynski had. The modern duties don't fulfill the human being because they have no existential necessity and they are randomly chosen by the preferences of the individual and have no rootedness in history. I don't know your age but maybe you grew up in a time where the existential crisis of human beings wasn't this bad, but I can tell you that modern Man is just constructing his life into nothingness and from nothingness.
I also would strongly disagree with you on monarchy because while it is true that the King had theoretically more power than the president he didn't have the technical capacities to control every individuals life. But right now the gorvernent is controlling every little aspect of the peoples life, by restricting speech, by setting the narrativ and by enforcing mandates. The bureaucratic apparatus is now bigger than ever in Mans history and reaches into every Mans household through the smartphone.
As for the question what we can do about those developments and the fact that there is not much work to do? We can deliberately choose to live in smaller communities, to not engage in all technological inventions. We can provide food for our own community locally. Basically the answer to this problem would be distributism.
@@5000okok I'm 42.
My son would not survive in the society you propose. If everyone needs to work, the disabled end up being sacrificed. The only way that the medications that keep him alive by controlling his seizures were researched and discovered by people who were trying to create a better treatment for asthma. It took multiple rounds of failure to produce the medication, find out that it didn't help asthma, and then to test the casual observation that people might have been having fewer seizures. That labor was freed up by through the economy of scale I discussed above. I'm sorry, I'm not willing to sacrifice my child or future examples like him to relieve your extensional crisis.
@@ShaunCKennedyAuthor But thats not what it is about. I think nobody expects disabled people to work and in a strong Christian society people would help him and everybody should have respect for you caring for him.
But right now with social systems we have the same machine effect like with smartphones. We are fully disconnected from who we help and just pay into a machine like system, that further leads to the fragmentation of society. The ultimate consequence of this machine would be abortion disabled child out of comfort (even if I am not in the position to judge because I haven't yet experienced the difficulties)
And don't get me wrong, it is also not the case that every medical development is bad and it is also important to make sure that not everyone starves. But it has to be a slow movement away from technology towards asking the question which technology really helps us and which makes us slaves.
@@5000okok You misunderstood me. He would be dead because the medication that is keeping him alive wouldn't have been created. Instead of researching medication, those scientists would have been farming.
As I said in my initial reply, every system has advantages and disadvantages. If your concern is that the current jobs don't fulfill people because they aren't really necessary (a point I would dispute: the vast majority of people that I know get their fulfillment doing music, art, etc and find that it's the necessary things that leave them feeling existential angst, but I can enter your world for the sake of discussion) then a possible goal would be to give all of those unemployed and underemployed and superficially employed people real and meaningful jobs. How much more quickly could we save how many lives if we had an additional couple million people working in medical research? We don't lack meaningful things to research study, and perfect. The reason the COVID vaccines got out so much quicker than any other vaccine wasn't because they did less work on it, but because they had more people working on it.
As to abortion, once again I think the facts work against you and we have more people choosing to have and raise disabled children now than ever before because of the surplus. But even if I step into your world, abortion is a separate topic. I'm pro life myself, but I recognize that one of the problems we have that creates abortion is a problem of our own creation. One of the reasons why someone who knows me might opt for an abortion if they had a disabled child is because they saw that it darn near killed me and my wife to have to work full time and try to keep our son alive. If we had a society that took advantage of the surplus and said, "You know what, you guys got delt a raw hand, don't you worry about housing or groceries for a few years until this is settled," then single mother that knew us and found out she was expecting a disabled child wouldn't be nearly as scared. I'm all for creative solutions to mundane problems, and I get that there's a lot of complexity there. We want to balance the 'we don't want single girls to get pregnant all willy-nilly' against the 'we don't want life with a child as a single mother to be so difficult that young girls are afraid they'll live a life of poverty and shame because they made one mistake one time.' That's an issue that would need to be addressed separately, but saying we need to reduce the surplus is going to lead to more abortions and abandonment of the disabled by my observation, not fewer. If you go back to the old way and children are your retirement package, disabled children are nothing but a burden and will be a reason you can't retire. If you are saying that we need to go into small enough groups that everyone has to work on the farm, then the disabled can't help on the farm. Add to that the medications that will never be produced to save lives, and you're losing even more disabled kids. Once again, I'm not willing to sacrifice my child and future examples like him to relieve your existential crisis.
@@ShaunCKennedyAuthor Again no one wants the full middle ages. All the very intelligent people can still research medicine and do other things. As the guest said, why does everyone need to have a phone. There are a lot of people who are not very smart or wont ever be scientists (me) and who are jusr useless in our society.
The covid vaccine is more an example of the dystopian technocracy we live in than of anything else. But i don't see a reason why the development of a vaccine wouldn't be possible in a not insane society.
Arts have also totally lost their meaning and the people who do them look more insane every year. "My existential crisis" is a thing of most mankind.
As for abortions there have never been more abortions than nowadays and the technology is there to screen your child for all different illnesses. I am sure that in the future it will be possible to change the genes or to "design" you own child. This is going to be insanity.
Who doesn’t love Marc Barnes?
great discussion ... felt this way for years... I have smashed a few phones..
This is the best video on your TH-cam channel if not TH-cam entirely.
@Pints With Aquinas ...Before switching to the Wisephone, you said that you would not take your laptop OR phone home with you. The other day (now that you have a dumbphone with no internet capability) you said that you now bring your Wisephone home. Have you found that the texting &/or calling is now a return to distraction you had previously cut off (to a lesser degree than internet & Apps are distractions, but a distraction nonetheless)?
This is beyond excellent. I will be listening to it again
I love this conversation...i don't have a TV and computer broke.
I do have a cell, and "they" have made it almost impossible to get or afford a landline where I live.
I would love to be living in a Christian community town...
I am a senior and since COVID I have been very isolated...
Marc Barnes is a leg, it's great that you finally had him on!
My local Bank Branch (Ireland) doesn't deal with cash anymore, inside. There is an ATM outside, and machines inside for checking balances, looking up transactions. You can't get foreign currency. Not sure what the Staff do, apart from pointing people to the machines. I had to get on a 20 minute bus ride to a different branch to change sterling to euro after a trip. Things that were meant to serve us actually make life more complicated. My Teenager just applied online for a Passport. It took 1 1/2 hrs with all the info they wanted, and glitches, I'm guessing.
This was hugely insightful. I don't know who this guy is but man did he have some great points
One of the best , he is great at communicating.
Marc Barnes is looking like James Joyce nowadays 😂
This is an amazing conversation. But I could do with chapters!!
th-cam.com/video/gCvHv1SEkI4/w-d-xo.html
While he makes a lot of great observations, I’m not sure I get the broader point. Are we to abandon every innovation that did not fulfill a passing need only? Is he saying that start with a cell phone fast, then move to eliminate wall phones, then washing machines, dishwashers, etc. He never says. And Matt never asks.
Second, even if you were to eliminate smartphones today, we would still “rent” various essential services, like water and electricity, which are provided by large corporate entities and distributed via elaborate grids / networks that we don’t control. Would he argue that we should dismantle this infrastructure? He doesn’t say. Matt doesn’t ask.
It’s also worth noting that, for all of Marc’s comments about technology leaving the poor behind, these innovations have enabled the greatest population surge in human history, and the most widespread reduction in poverty. Is this bad? He doesn’t say. Nor does Matt ask.
Good points, I think this conversation needed a devil's advocate
I was thinking the exact same thing, it's incredibly frustrating when people make claims like this and then don't go into real detail. Should we all just be anarco primitivist?? I feel like if they had this conversation in the Middle ages he would find something to say is causing issues with their level of technology. I would love to try to contact either of them.
I had to pause the video halfway through to see if anybody in the comment section had raised any of these painfully obvious objections. Marc’s strong claims about political liberalism and Protestantism could have used some pushback too-I don’t think they stand up to scrutiny very well. It’s not at all clear that the creation theology proposed by Malthus was representative of the theological views held by liberals broadly, nor that this view is somehow causally connected to the spread of atheism.
Fantastic! I have so many thoughts right now and will go to God with my concerns. Thank you so much.
Just when I think I listened to the best episode another one like this just tops it.. Maybe the best podcast out there.
He looks like the lead singer of okily dokily😆❤️they play heavy nedal. Also, this video was fantastically good.
This guy is awesome. Incredible insights.
th-cam.com/video/gCvHv1SEkI4/w-d-xo.html
Matt, have you read "The Shallows" by Nicholas Carr? He challenges the assumption that modern technology is morally neutral and also discusses how it affects the neuroplasticity of the brain.
Utterly brilliant discussion, however: it is *extremely* easy to live without a car in many places in America-to the point where it is often much more difficult and expensive to live in these places with a car than without them.
The caveat is these places are almost exclusively places built before 1930 and managed to avoid the post-1950s car-centric bulldozer. Cities with 5000+ people/sq.mile are almost always quite liveable without a car.
Looked recently to find a Mapsco map for my state only to find out they sold out in 2012. All their maps at least 10 years old if you can find one 😟
How would you recommend I listen to your podcast in the car or otherwise on the go if I were to switch away from a smart phone?
Bill Gates isn't actually buying ALL of America's farmland. He owns about 270,000 acres of America's 900,000,000 acres of farmland, so around 0.00003%. If Bill Gates owned MOST American farmland he would own just over 450,000,000 acres....he owns 270,000. I think Marc's confusion may be because he has heard that Bill owns the most farmland, that is correct, he owns more than anyone else, but it's still a very tiny portion of all farmland.
It frightens me that Gates owns any farmland! He clearly stated he wants depopulation, so my guess is he’s pushing for more GMO’s or has starvation in mind.
And what percentage does China own?
I don't know which is worse!
The people in the mission world will tell you why the new developments are better: electric stove vs wood; plumbing vs well; iPhone vs isolation; Mass production vs expensive everything; car vs walking 4 hours to church on Sunday; computer vs not understanding the concept of a skyscraper/city/large forests/continents/mass transportation; entertainment vs boredom. Boredom throughout history led to war because war was more exciting than sitting around with nothing to do. We are standing on the shore of the future as the waves crash on our heads. Technology is the waves and they are coming so fast we don't understand their full complexity and use yet.
Is this going to be in a book? Great show.
Not sure about the argument that all human making - technology in the broadest sense - is a response to sin and the Fall. A number of Catholic thinkers - and especially artists - would strongly disagree and argue that our human role as makers, as co- or sub-creators was ordained from the beginning as a key feature - a defining feature - of our humanity. See Tolkien on men and women as 'sub-creators' with God and the Catholic poet David Jones on man the 'maker'. I wonder if Marc's argument here veers worryingly towards a pessimistic calvinist take on human making?
I love how close he is to the mic 🎤
Technology, whether computers and the internet or cars and such, are not bad in and of themselves, but what we DO with them and the uses to which we employ them, are what make it good or bad. Technology is a tool. Tools can be used for evil purposes and intentions, or for good purposes and intentions. It all depends on the people and their intentions that make technology good or bad. Social media is not bad, it’s the uses that people make of it that is bad or good.
Marc's points on profits would call on the closure of A LOT of Business Schools. Especially in Catholic/Christian universities and colleges. "Doing and teaching to do business for the sake of business is evil".
I’d really recommend taking a look at his good money playlist. His point, broadly I believe, is that commerce is acceptable, while the accumulation of capital is miserly, particularly in relation to billionaires having trouble spending money in meaningful ways. I don’t know enough about his views, it’s something I’m grappling with as well, but I feel like there’s something true buried in there.
I will never forget the medieval lions post for what it’s worth 🙏
Almost every 50s Ad:
Wanna be a better Wife and Mom? Then buy X!
smashed my smart phone months ago and have not regretted it once!
So, when I use my smartphone to allow me to do liturgy of the hours multiple times a day while still working for my wages, or ditto listening to philosophical discussions by my buddies Matt fradd et al, that is not extending my physical capabilities and my knowledge and relationship with my Catholic faith? Things otherwise I cannot do because I work so many hours and so many days?
Wow this channel is treasure
Great conversation but this video really needs adding some chapters.
Hi Matt, I sent a communication to you at your web site regarding developments in Perth WA...a school board and principal of an independent Catholic school is being portrayed as a madman for standing up to forced vaccination of staff. You may wish to look into this as secular media is portraying him as an anti vaxxer when the school already has yearly vaccinations. I'm a parent in the school and am reaching out for prayers that God's will be done.
Feel so ancient knowing Marc from BadCatholic blog days.
Good to hear from him again. Awesome channel by the way.
I once prayed to God to deliver me from viewing turkish movies on TH-cam which I realise it's becoming an addiction. The next day I lost my latest Samsung cell phone. How I lost it, I have no idea. I tried everything to remember but could not. I was thinking I got an answered prayer. But after about 7 days, I realize I can't do without a cp. So I bought a new one. Until I watch this video. This made me thinking. But I haven't decided what to do yet.
Never bought a cell phone, tossed my TV in the mid 90's. So far only use a laptop. Why.... because there is so much information. and can message individuals ....(sometimes though I hesitate.) . I never lived on the internet, Never liked twitter... when they removed me because I Followed Trump, I closed out my account and will not sign up again. I've tried to keep my usage as limited as possible.