[inaudible] [laughing] >> what that has to do with why we're here today is, it transitions that the ax which is commercialized as the pdp which created the internet that fill the whole minicomputer industry. the founder said nobody needs a computer at home. this happens happened so consif realized i was asking how to do digital fabrication turning data into things but not why, and they were showing the killer app of digital fabrication like

digital computing is personal fabrication. products not for massmarketing but for marketable in person. she didn't do this to start a business because you wanted because she wanted a device for screening. >> you can watch this and of the programs online at booktv.org. [inaudible conversations] >> good evening, everyone. welcome to lemuria books. we are delighted to be hosting eric motley this evening as he shares his story with us in "madison park: a place of hope." before we get started because one but please silence their cell phones. we are also very glad that c-span booktv is here to film this event, and so introducing eric this evening is donna barksdale and bill bynum, their

instrument in setting up this event and our tireless advocate for getting erickson story out there. we'll give them a a warm welco, please. [applause] >> thank you. thank you all so much for coming at our invitation tonight. we are thrilled to have eric visit with us and we're calling it is first visit. [inaudible] >> i think she said use both. is that better? >> both. >> okay. well, as the super thrilled to have eric visiting with us and hope this is just his first visit. bill and are lucky enough to be board members of the aspen institute, and that's have got to know eric and his leadership there. he is, we should call him the number two person? willie the number one person.

>> i would say that. i've had the privilege of knowing eric for about 20 years. we were henry brown fellows at aspen institute, and aspen institute recently has gone through a transition of leadership. walter isaacson, probably the premier biographer of our time, to step down as president of the institute, and eric shepherded that process with kind of wisdom and diplomacy that which used make, you know, just make you just shake your head. it was a very desired position, and no one could've handled it as well. many of us think that eric should and could've been the president. we expect them to be there at some point, but we're really proud to have been here with us today, a fellow southerner and tells an amazing start in his book. >> is too is a compelling we're going to let him tell it himself. thank you, eric.

[applause] thank you. i thought you're going to do i do for a second between the two of you. what a real pleasure. what a pleasure being here, lemuria books, this independent bookstores one of the great bookstores in the country and it's a wonderful reminder of really from its latin origins of the importance of ideas and how ideas bring us together and kind of really shaped community. i would want to thank the park sales, jim and donna barksdale, bill, for your hospitality. i that incredible day in jackson and i see some of you have been tagging along. i was at tougaloo and then i was at bailey magnet this morning and was the most incredible experience with the most interesting and interested of students. you should feel very proud about the investment you are making in education here in the city. they were wonderful.

to be a and to celebrate the cd with you is absolutely incredible. i had a mentor who once said to me in a very nice note towards the end of his life that is your very fortunate, the sum total and culmination of life is rem. you're probably thinking rapid eye movement, or you're probably thinking of the group, but really its relationships, experiences and memories. i've had the most good fortune of having wonderful relationships with people like the park sales and hope and bill common experiences that they've afforded me on this journey has just been unforgettable. i have the book to sell and have book for you to read, and is called "madison park" and there are really two stories. it's a memoir and you think, a memoir, what you to tell us about your life? you were only 40 something useful.

but it's a memoir about place and the intersection of my own life, my own odyssey of grace and gratitude with a very special place. so i tell you two stories very briefly. the first is about a place called madison park and how it came into being, and in 1880 a group of freed slaves with nothing except the shirts on the back and a little money they had saved, and hopes and aspirations of what it could be for them to create community and to realize the jeffersonian ideals of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness here they were led by the life you could read and write comedy by seven of the friends to join in this great venture. my grandfathers grandfather was one of those. they purchased a plantation in 1880 called the maze plantation. the first two structures they develop on that plantation or a church to express their gratitude to our god to a delivered them to this new promise land, and the school.

they felt that true liberation was realize to the opportunity that only an education could afford. that was true liberty. in that place and evidence in gods grace, those individuals put all of the hearts and minds and all the efforts to get the two great community. martin luther king once wrote we're all a part of an inescapable network of mutuality. we are tied in a single garment of destiny. what impacts you impacts me. that is the story of a group of people who had the highest ideals and wanted to live in the american legacy. the second story involves an individual named george washington motley. he was a grandson of the founder, john wesley motley. george washington motley remembers two things about visiting his grandfather in those early years as a little boy. that in the shotgun house on this plantation over the front

door was a cross that you develop with his own hands, just a simple wooden cross. a reminder that in his, he was created by something much larger than itself. but over the back door was a picture of abraham lincoln that his great-grandfather had extracted from a newspaper to remind him in his going that god uses individuals to bring about change and transformation in society. so my story intersects with this very interesting place because in the 1960s a little girl was adopted by george and amy motley there choose one of 14 kids, the mother discovers she is dying of cancer. she asked the neighbors if they would consider adopting one of her 14 and how you choose to select what a 14 i have the slightest idea but they chose her. she had promise in and potentil and the thought that perhaps if nurtured and trained along the

lines of things eternal, she might realize her own aspirations. so little barbaro became barbara motley. she was nine and at age 19 she gave birth to a bundle of unformed possibility. that's me. [laughing] >> and george and maybe decide not only to embrace her all the more that you embrace this child and hopes and aspirations of all these people in this community became manifested in their dreams and hopes for this little baby. there are three great desires, one, that this little child could realize that he was no less than the trees and the start. he had a right to be here and that he was created by a god who attended all things in nature on earth. the second is i was realize that i was part of the community can something much larger than the motley household, that i was a member of the madison park

community and with that came rights and responsibilities but i was also a citizen of this great country. their last great as or for me was that i might have the opportunity of enlightenment that only an education could provide. and so everywhere they went they made it noted neighbors and friends that we have little boy that we want to get a good education. we want to go to college. my grandmother could meet a guy in the grocery store looking at tomatoes and he could have university of wisconsin sweatshirt on it to go over and take did you go to university of wisconsin? i want mike rancho to go to college. could you talk to them? man, , i did not go to college. i haven't the slightest idea where it is. just talk to him. [laughing] >> very in touch with and all of the lights that would look back and would remember and remember them all the more mobile look through the rearview mirror of life. madison park i tell a couple of stories about individuals who were there at every twist and turn along the way. in first grade teacher sent a

note home to my grandparents informing them of my academic failure. in madison park i was not as the precocious, interesting, interested kid. they designated as a designated university kid, duke. everywhere i went people call me little einstein. i'm not sure many people knew einstein was but it sounded pretty good. that i i go off to first grade. the teacher writes a note home to my grandmother informing her that i been demoted from the ravage to the turtles. my grandmother is not one to discriminate but she knows the difference between rabbits and turtles. she phones one division and account that she thought could help remedy the situation. she called in the madisonville, the great granddaughter of eli madison, the founder of madison park. we called her and shined because it was she went, like politics she was a muscular baby both infoseek and principles, and she came over to our house, a

retired teacher already some 45 years come in the early '80s as you talk the note and all he could hear her say from the kitchen is, we believe in resurrection. she excuse me from the realm and she and my grandmother started to talk. they invited me back in africa for moment and and shine looked at me she said we believe in resurrection. you're going to be a rabbit again i promise. a couple days later in church the missa recognize aunt shine and she stood up for the entire congregation she looked at and she said brothers and sisters, little eric motley over here with his grantors, one of our bright stars is going just a bit dim. he was a rabbit but now he's a turtle, but we believe in resurrection. >> amen, sister. we believe in resurrection. and were going to restore him to rabbit status. i tell you this story because it's a story about community.

two things changed my life. looking across at congregation she said, i'm going to be at their house this afternoon and i've committed to building him a library to help him with his reading. and whatever reading matter you have, i want you to bring it by the motley household this afternoon. and for two hours, aunt shine émigre prince and i sat on the back porch and you would've thought that a a paper drive ws taking place at our house. someone brought by a 1945 almanac predicting the weather for that year. in 1972 life magazine and jet magazine, volume l of encyclopaedia britannica, only volume l but everything much of the begins with the letter l, i'm your guy. some also brought by an wonderful volume of english verse, minus its table of contents or index but richly so

with the versa shakespeare and tennyson in keats and gates and wadsworth. the first column on the first flyleaf was a poem that i committed to memory. there was a time when meadow grows in stream and in every cn sight to me that the scene, apparel and the freshness of a dream. as it were it is no more, and this i know where ever i go there is past the weight a from earth. aunt shine and her sisters all retired in their \70{l1}s{l0}\'70{l1}s{l0} came by the motley house every day for two years to tutor a little turtle back into rabbit hood. every session began with four basic precepts. this is the house that your grandfathers grandfather built. he was a slave who believed in the american dream.

you have to memorize the american constitution and the declaration of independence. the whole thing? will start with the preamble. and every day at the beginning of every tutorial session i had to stand and recite from memory and heart the preamble to the declaration of independence. we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. that they are endowed by the grid with certain unalienable rights that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. your precept. it's your country. it's yours. you own it. then i would recite the apostles creed because we were methodist and then james weldon johnson lift every voice and sing as reminder of where i was coming from. and for two years these retired teachers put nothing except love in their hearts and beauty in the minds and wisdom, social

security, mathematics, history and the basic precepts of american had. i tell you that story because it underscores the basic essence of this memoir, that we're all a part of of that inescapable network of mutuality and in madison park we were tied with a single garment of destiny people is a place evidenced by by those wet dreams and aspirations to make america work and who believed that making individual sacrifices, one sacrifice at a time for the good of entire community, was far better than individualism. i tell you this story because there are a lot of little eric monthlies in the world. little eric turned your desire to grow into the own personhood to realize their own aspirations and it's only through community that we can experience the fullness of who we are collectively. we live in a very politically polarized, culturally confusing and fragmented society where we are told daily what's wrong with

america and what doesn't work. but madison park reminds us that at best there are things that work in that community is one of those beautiful institutions that bind us together get it reminds us that there are principles and values in precepts that undergird our own sense of civic cost and own sense of community. it reminds us that each of us have part in being the bearers of light in creating community wherever we go. i tell you one last story. my grandfather had a great desire of ideas to be exposed to book so it's a very fitting place for me to be speaking to you. after the books that were delivered at 34 motley drive i just had at but if anything that had a page to be turned. he organized all of our neighbors to weekly take me to the montgomery public library, some 20 minutes outside ever lived in the country, so that i

could experience the joy of being surrounded by books and all of its truths developed in its pages. my grandfather would sit in the parking lot for two hours and he would just wait. emotionally and psychologically unable to go into place that he had been for forbade to go intr so long. later turn on his radio for fear it would run down the battery. we had no air conditioning and so he would just sit scribbling in his notebook. i would go in like i was going into that great library of alexandria and i would throw myself with books. all the librarians newbie. but on this one occasion, peering from the pyramid of books that surrounded me, i looked up and i saw a very elderly white man in a wheelchair. there was a black valet stand at his side and attended turning pages for him. i would look up and he would look down. and i would look down and he

would look up. we can't each other's gaze one or two times and then at the very end of the day the librarians that you can okay, little motley boy, it's time to go. as i gathered my books and i got my satchel, i looked up in the elderly gentleman was staring at me. and with a long pause he nodded, as in affirming something. as i raced out of the library too eager to tell my grandfather just to i admit, i said daddy, daddy, you will never, never guess who i just met in the library. wanting to intrigue me to the guessing game, he said who, just telling you. george wallace himself. history has a long arc. my grandfather wanted me to live in the realm of hope. an understanding of history for

sure, an understanding of the complexities of history for sure, but to live in the promise of things that could be. and then that library experience in 1982 while sitting there, i realized that history does have a long arch. the great social philosopher said nothing that is worth doing could be accomplished in a lifetime. therefore, we are saved by hope. nothing that is good or beautiful makes complete sense in its immediate context of history. therefore, we are saved by faith. nothing, no matter how beautiful and good and virtuous could be accomplished alone. therefore, we are saved by love. we are saved by community. life is filled with incidents, accidents, and providence. and all along the way at every turning i've been fortunate enough to meet teachers and

preachers and local philanthropists, and people who cared and teachers who stayed after school to help me to realize my own potential who want to nurture, as faulkner said, the human material of life to sit through to its execution. and for that mine has been a tremendous odyssey of grace and gratitude. thank you so much for being here, and i hope you enjoy reading the book. thank you. [applause] >> and and i would just remind i'm supposed to read something, but i will take any questions if anyone has questions, and then i will just read you a paragraph or so if i will. any questions from the floor? i'll tell you -- yes, sir? [inaudible] >> i knew very little about

george wallace but you can't grow up in montgomery, alabama, not knowing something about george wallace. very iconic. i knew that he embodied everything that prevented me from going into that library. and my grandfather upon telling them that i just encountered george wallace come in a very thoughtful and measured way, and my grandfather who i try to capture in this memoir was a very edwardian type of individual. his sensibilities which is remarkable. the sense of decorum something that still inspires and the forms the way i engage with people today, and my grandfather not wanting to incite anger but always wanting to create a frame around every photograph of hope began to explain to me the complexities of history around george wallace, and told me who he was and helped me to understand what had occurred, and framed it in such a way that i could appreciate that in 1880 these individuals who are nothing but these dreams and

hopes who created this place, their descendents were still living to the challenges of american history, the formation and we are as a people, as the country. and my grandfather wanted me to realize that much had changed. progress had been made. oftentimes slow but progress had been made and that was worthy of acknowledgment. he also won me to see myself beyond that particular moment in the library, all that that woman moment held for me in the future. and for that i will always be grateful. when my grandmother, my grandmother was a housekeeper for a white family in montgomery and the family happened to be the scott fitzgerald. she lived right next door. she cleaned house for a sum that lived right next door to the fitzgeralds, got to know that inasmuch as housekeeper to get to know the fitzgeralds or anyone else. one of the daughters of the sound went to washington, d.c.

on a trip and she brought my grandmother back a gift. the gift was a snow globe, and it was a snow globe of the white house. my grandmother kept the snow globe on her dressing table, and like every seven woman my grandmother dressed up on sundays before church, on saturdays before weddings and funerals, and there were no bar mitzvahs so those with the principal locations for us. i would always stand at her side as she put under lipstick and told me stories. i would always fumble this little so-called and should always say to become one day you could be in that snow globe. my first day of going into the white house, every now and then dream and fantasy meets reality. all i could think about was going into the white house and thinking of my grandmother in standing at her side holding the snow globe. my grandmother also was very fortunate to work for a woman who always seem think so.

your little boy needs to learn to read, since in the "new york times." i think i was really cute second-grade reading the "new york times", or trying to. but on one occasion she sent out a crate of albums. and in this great of albums maybe 15, 20 longplaying records and there were all albums that wonderful pictures on the front. and i never will forget my grandfather pulling up and going in to the trunk and taking out this vegetable crate and bringing the crate of albums on the back porch, and my grandmother telling me about mrs. peabody cindy does. mrs. peabody said take these records on, i'm cleaning out the attic. give your little boy something to listen to. my grandfather said choose an album, anti-wind site and it brought the record were out on the back porch. and i chose an album because the woman in the photo on the front page of the album was in this glorious costume of color and great array. and we put on the album and the

sand was anything like anything at ever heard before. it was jesse norman singing the last four songs of strauss. absolutely divine. when voice performing somersaults in midair. it was my first introduction to opera and i turn up the volume so loudly that the kids next door, never having expect anything like this, at most the church choir singing amazing grace at one or two high octaves, but nothing like this come at the kids across the street and next-door rant over asking what are you listening to? to curious to ridicule, to open to ideas to poke fun, and theres one of those wonderful defining moments when you're introduced to a new idea that is beyond your comprehension that changes

your life forever. mrs. donna has heard me tell some of these stories. i had teachers all along the way. i went to stanford university in birmingham, alabama, because i high school teacher who believed that i had the great potential to study literature and she stayed after school everyday to help me with my applications. i got a scholarship. i went away to center. the university president talked me under his arms and assured my grandparents unbeknownst to me that he would take care of me during my time there. i got a rotary ambassador of scholarship to go anywhere in the world to study. i choose scotland at little did i know that there were no black people in scotland save tiger woods, one who is all -- always mistaken for, and i showed up in scotland on a rotary and pastoral scholarship and i've a lifetime of pleasure and learning. the president of the university polls pulls the side towards the end of that first year and he challenges me.

we have developed a beautiful relationship. he said to me what he going to do when she leaves? i said well, i haven't really decided just yet. he looked at me totally amazed, knowing my story and knowing the sacrifice and the commitment of all these people in this little place who believed in me, and he said, this is the first time i think i've ever encountered you not knowing what was next. why don't you think about it and come back tomorrow and meet me for tea in the gazebo in the garden? i left. i returned, and he looked at me and he said, if you're serious about your future, then i will provide you a full scholarship to stay here in scotland for four years to do a phd. because i want you to go back and not accept a job or an opportunity to fill in a quarter blank, but because you feel that you will intellectually just as

capable of everyone else who is applying for the opportunity centered -- that are before you i stayed at saint andrews for another three years until i completed my degree. that wonderful experience, on one occasion a classmate asked me if i would go home and spend we can because he thought i wanted to experience another part of this countryside in scotland and he thought his mom and i would hit it off. he was a smoker prick he was not three secrets of human and i thought this would just be a nightmare going home. he picked me up clean-shaven. we got into his car and we started to drive to the countryside of scotland. i knew very little about his parents, except his parents worked in london but had a house in scotland, and every three weeks they would come back to the family home. that's all i knew. so we were driving to the countryside, breathtakingly beautiful scenic hillsides with

sheep grazing peculiar thought that handle composed the messiah there. we passed by this castle, the queen mothers birthplace, and then we go round the great band and around another hill and to become to this great drive and we start down the drive, and i look at him and i said patti, where i'm from it's against the law to trespass. and he looked at me and said no, no, no this is my home. this is your home? it's one of those godly moments and he says no, that's the ground keepers cottage. [laughing] and there we go down this windh for another ten or 15 minutes and sitting majestically is this great castle, sheep, cattle, a moat, everything that disney has informed you to believe that a council should look like. there are flags flying. i recognize one or two. he gets out of the car in runs

in, and ballet comes out and helps me with my luggage. and i turned to the valet, and, trying to maintain a sense of composure dignity like this was normal stuff for me, i turned to the king and i said, i recognize the union jack, but what isn't the other flag? he said gosh, that is lord patrick. lord patrick? you mean patty? that's lord patrick's fathers like. -- flag. and the other flag? that is his office, and his office being -- don't you know he's lord chamberlain to her majesty, the queen? and his mother is a lady in waiting to her majesty, the queen? oh, , yes, the lady in waiting. and so about three or four weeks later, because when not at the castle that buckingham at st. james as they invite me to

be the guest at the queens annual garden party. i am at the queens annual garden party and it's a white-hot affair with tales and the arm in with arrows and bows and swords. i'm standing in line this great receiving line, british the corn at its best. and the trumpet sounds and all of a sudden everyone starts to sing what i think is my country tisza become i did is god save the queen the queen comes out with the ladies in waiting. and patrick's mom. and they draw near me. she comes over and she says a couple words and untold with the protocol is when introductions about to be made. and with a sense of seven decorah i stand and i take it all in and this woman standing to our side was most curious as

to who i was. at the very end of the ceremony after greece had been made and i've been given an introduction, the ladies in waiting following the queen back from the castle stops and says to me, why don't you come in for a cup of tea before you go back up to scotland? and a lady standing to the side turns and after having had too much to drink said, who is he? and my date having it too much to drink sikkim don't you know the ambassador of nigeria when you see him? [laughing] all i remember been saying is pretty neat, your excellency. [laughing] i let scotland that they came to the white house and i worked for president bush. it was an incredible experience and i met incredible people who were committed to public service. president bush on one occasion all sitting in the oval office turned me and he i know your

story. i know the places you come from. i know that your grandparents gave up everything they had to wear you. it's an honor to have you here and i know you've heard it before but to whom much is given, much is required. and throughout my life mantle is been a constant refrain, to whom much is given, much is required. on one occasion sitting in the oval office and i was transfixed looking at a painting on the wall and president bush as only president bush could say, hey, motley, what you looking at? why are you looking at and abraham lincoln? all i i could think of was to l him the story that my grandfather had told me about his early visits to his great grandfathers house, that over the front door was a cross, and over the back door was a picturf

abraham lincoln. and for a moment i realized how far i have come from madison park. the day that i was leaving to go to scotland is one that i will forever remember. i was packing my suitcase is a bit heavy apart knowing that perhaps, just perhaps this opportunity, as great as it was, would not allow me to see my grandparents live out their lives. that one of them surely would probably die while i was away. could i abandon this couple that it meant so much to me and made such a sacrifice for my own development and growth? thinking those thoughts and hurrying in the house to finish packing, my grandmother came in and she said to me, you need to come out. there's a lot of noise outside. and i went up to the back porch, and i swear all of madison park was there.

all the people that given the little jobs on the side to let me to save money for college, the retired teachers who had tutored me every day after school, the minister of the baptist church in my own methodist church where there come and my ministry came up and he gave me an envelope. it was a very thick envelope. i later learned that it was about $150 that the congregation had collected in a special offering just to support me as i went away to school. he gave me the envelope, another lady gave me as if she is making a sacrificial claim to god a cool whip container of collard greens, just in case they didn't have collard greens in scotland. someone started to sing. the minister said a prayer, and after the prayer was said, aunt shine took out a map it she went over to the head of the car and she laid out the net and she said, show me scotland.

and proudly i approached the car ready to show her scotland. i looked at the map and the map was of montgomery, alabama. she had never been outside of montgomery, alabama. let alone alabama, let alone the united states. and it dawned on me that my going to scotland, too many of these people, was like sending an astronaut to outer space, and that with me were going that only their prayers but their hopes and their aspirations and the dreams and imaginings of the unknown and the wondrous world that was before me. and yet again i was reminded that to whom much is given, much is required. a washington d.c. friend recently found himself at a

conference, and in the company of a very successful white attorney from montgomery, alabama. my friend immediately attempted to play the name and place game. do you know eric motley? he is from madison park. the attorney politely replied no, i don't know man, and where is madison park? my friend was taken aback because he assumed after hearing me talk about madison park so much over the last decade, everyone in alabama, let alone montgomery, new of madison park. i'm telling you this story come he incredulously added, the guy looked at me as if madison park did not exist, as if it were invisible. i guess in many ways madison park does not exist on the radar of many navigational systems or printed maps, except for those who work in the municipal government and public schools in montgomery or who know the people or know the story of our community. madison park no doubt for them

is invisible, and an invisible madison park is an incredible idea for me because for those who hail from the place, madison park is as much an idea as it is a living, breathing organism. to those of never heard of our little community, it may not exist. but to the founders who bought the land, cleared the brush and laid the cornerstones, and to their descendents who still care for it, whether they live there or not, it is as large as america. the seeds of america were planted and nurtured in the hearts and minds of madison park citizens over 135 years ago, and the people have been trying ever since to make america work for them. the same as people do in the list obscure places where light shines bright and all the roads are paved. eli madison station of the stuff of life and sustaining community where people could come and work to improve their state of life

remains the vision of its inhabitants today. over the last decade as i i publicly share the story of madison park and washington dinner parties and rotary meetings, at church, work and with friends, others have affirmed that they once lived in a similar place. so in many ways madison park has become a metaphor of places that can see invisible or nonexistent. these places still exist, but are there days numbered? are they at risk of becoming extinct in the face of the increasing atomization? i can only hope not. despite the changing landscape and encroaching city, the same strong pride and commitment to community remains among the people of madison park. it is planted deep in the earth, carefully and partly cultivated by my great, great grandfather, and the freed slaves who began the community and gave it its name. the history of madison park is tied inextricably to my sense of

leanne, and is a spiritual locus that continues to offer in a refuge, solace, and most importantly meaning in the very ever-changing flux of daily existence. where ever i go, madison park goes with me. when i reflect on the roadblocks that i faced him i'm so grateful the madison park community. they set me on a different path than the extra features in my life, my race, relative poverty, rural southern roots, and absence of biological parents that seemed to predict. the people of madison park the stowed the gifts of grace in which i can never repay. life is like that. blessings come at us relentlessly. we are forever in it that other position. we never get the thank yous quickly said which leads us each one living with the burden of

gratitude. for as long as i can remember, my indebtedness to others has been a prism through which my life experience has been filtered. that awareness has served to keep my sanity at bay and my concern for others. from my first day i i was taugt by example to count my blessings, though their total now runs so high i can no longer named them one by one. the composites since having been blessed is my most cherished possession. the abundance i found in life, thanks to everyday mentors, serve students -- fortuitous circumstances and providence far outweighs what i might have earned or what i deserved. thank you very much. [applause] thank you. [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] >> this week facebook founder and ceo mark zuckerberg testified before congressional committees on the companies use and protection of user data. a spoken of the tech companies have been the topic of many books covered by booktv in recent years. >> the central argument of this book is the world is no longer expressed in terms you can understand. this will does become data find so they can never say i am john with full combination of what that means. john can't really exist. however john can be controlled. this paradox fits the same logan that the fine 1984, who controls the past controls the future, who controls the present

controls the past. to control the present it to control everything that comes before us was everything that happens after. what happens when you don't control the present also constructed? on office supplies as an answer in overview with a 20 cannes film about facebook, the social network. she writes, when human being becomes a set of data can he or she is reduced. everything shrinks. if the individual character, friendship, language, sensibility. in a way it's a transcend experience. we lose our body. our messaging our desires our fears. reminds me those who turn the discussion will be considered an overplayed it liberal bourgeois sense of self should be careful what you wish for. on facebook our cells are not more free. they are not were owned and their own because we're now made of data. >> let's talk about facebook because facebook is confusing example, like on the one hand,

so facebook set an algorithm. the algorithm was supposed to be neutral and it wasn't supposed to favor one thing or another, right? but didn't facebook sort of lose control? like didn't what happen with facebook is it under its nose this kind of attempt to control their universe led to chaos? likely to chaos -- mark zuckerberg didn't want donald trump to win election. >> probably not. preferably not. >> and he didn't want like fake russian, you know, fake idaho falls site run by russia. >> when you saw the news about the second work there's a story about how facebook was selling, facebook algorithm is neutral. if you want to go on to their te and purchase anti-semitic ads you type in you hate her and get the goodly to that. there's no policing of the speedy why did you pick that

example? [laughing] >> well speedy i'm just curious. >> no. what's wrong with that example? >> nothing. >> let's just talk about facebook in general for a minute. because facebook on the surface looks like it's your friends sharing things and that's what gets put in your newsfeeds. but if you just had all the stuff your friends were sharing it which is be this massive information because your friends share a hell of a lot. into facebook created a set of rules for sorting that information, or making some things rise to the top of your newsfeeds. those rules are algorithms, procedures that they have for sorting things out. amazon set a series of rules and so it decides that when you take a picture of your family, that people will like that, , so ill make it higher. with a whole facebook system about, needless to say, is about

getting you to stay on their site for as long as possible because that's how they make money. so there's this feedback loop that they're trying to create where they're trying to give you what you want. and so if you are a jew hater for instance, it would give you all -- >> are there jew haters here? >> rager have left expert so they will give you what you want. >> that's what happened in this last election. >> doesn't that create more universes? doesn't that create less of a monopoly? like it could be if you're a jew hater but it could be if you like transgender and 11 idaho falls. it could be a lot of different things. not necessarily come or could be if you wanted to start the air spring and to make it with other people who want to start the air spring. it's not just the jew haters. it's just this giant chaos of speeders there's a couple problems.

the problems are that when it comes to politics we get lumped not in a million different constellations. we're lumped into primarily to constellations that politics are incredibly polarizing. you have two warring tribes and those two tribes get what they want. so that, you could information that confirms their biases and that drives them further and further into the corners. and in the and makes an even more susceptible to take think that you're just seeing things you to hear, that's a problem. the other problem is that in facebook everything is about the headline. if you're in journalism you know that there's a total art to writing headlines for facebook. and so your you're clicking on headlines can looking at headlines, not looking at the sources of information. it all becomes this giant stew here and in that giant stew it's hard to know what to trust and

what not to trust and what has authority and was it doesn't have authority. and over time the effect of facebook and google for that matter has been to erode the distinction between media companies which erodes the authority media and ultimately erodes truth. >> you can watch all of these programs and more by visiting booktv.org and typing technology book in the search bar at the top of the page. >> here's a look at some authors recently featured on both tvs afterwards, our weekly author interview program that includes best-selling nonfiction books and guest interviewers.

>> think about what is offering. he's not just offering information to democrats pick is offering information to putin. you have to expect or so it's going to go elsewhere. starting in june 14, 2016, is is the day that "washington post" reveals that the dnc has been hacked and right away the news reporting is that the russians are behind it. so at that point in time, any point from that point on, if you're talking about getting information to the russians come

if you're meeting with the russians, if you're reaching out to the russians the way george papadopoulos was, you are working with or agreeing to help people who, there's a lease strong evidence if it's not conclusive yet, who are attacking our campaign, our election. it's not just giving information to a business associate of your spigots giving information that can go right through the russian intelligence into the top. ..