Nature & Nurture

Dr. Webb Keane is the George Herbert Mead Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Michigan. He is an expert in the anthropology of religion and ethics; semiotics and language; material culture; gifts, commodities, and money; and media. He is the author of Animals, Robots, Gods: Adventures in the Moral Imagination.
In this episode we discuss Webb’s central argument that ethical dilemmas posed by interactions with non-humans and near-humans, including animals and AI, share common themes reflected in narrative and mythology cross-culturally. We discuss these findings in relation to cultural anthropology, evolutionary psychology, AI and large language models, and video games.

[@demilitarization]

There are infinite possible social worlds we can live in. There are limitations. Yes. Many worlds are terrible or will kill us off. That is we would not select them.
But we are reflective agents. We can select wildly different worlds and selves. There are infinite ways to organize our social institutions. Or near so.