Episode description

“Everyone wants to be a cowboy, but no one wants to ride the range.” A dream of unraveling the mystery of the birth of universe led astrophysicist and author Brian Keating to "saddle up" and head to a frozen ocean of snow at the bottom of the world. Keating joins Rushkoff to talk about science, religion, questions that lead to more questions, and the "background noise” of the cosmos that may just be the key to understanding how this all began.

Rushkoff begins today's show commemorating the 50th Anniversary of Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece, 2001: A Space Odyssey. Are we suffering the effects of HAL computer-like programming on Facebook? "I know everything hasn't been quite right with me, but I can assure you now, very confidently, that it's going to be all right again. I feel much better now. I really do." HAL 9000 or Mark Zuckerberg?

Learn more about our guest, Brian Keating:

Professor Brian Keating is an astrophysicist with UC San Diego’s Department of Physics. He and his team develop instrumentation to study the early universe at radio, microwave and infrared wavelengths. He is the author of over 100 scientific publications and holds two U.S.Patents. He received an NSF CAREER award in 2006 and a 2007 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers at the White House from President Bush for a telescope he invented and deployed at the U.S. South Pole Research Station called “BICEP". Professor Keating became a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2016. He co-leads the Simons Observatory Cosmic Microwave Background experiments in the Atacama Desert of Chile, and is the author of Losing the Nobel Prize: A Story of Cosmology, Ambition, and the Perils of Science's Highest Honor, selected as one ofAmazon.com’s Ten Best Nonfiction Books of the Month.

This show features music thanks to Fugazi and Dischord Records as well as a sample of Throbbing Gristle by TH 68 guest Genesis Breyer P-Orridge.

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