up guys i'm out tomorrow welcome to breaking the set so about a month from now israel will host its annual presidential conference the event will comedy at least five thousand people including some big names like bill clinton and tony blair even barbra streisand but there is one famous academic will not be in attendance cambridge university stephen hawking in a letter the organizer of the of the conference talking stated i accepted the invitation to the conference with the intention that this would not only allow me to express my opinion on the prospects for a peace settlement but also because it would allow me to lecture on the west bank however i received a number of emails from palestinian academics they were unanimous that i should respect the boycott and view of all this i must withdraw from the conference had i attended i would have stated my opinion that the policy of the present israeli government is likely to lead to disaster yet despite criticism from israeli leaders and academics hawking has come forward stating that he will be boycotting this

prestigious conference to protest israel's occupation of palestine wow i wish more famous intellectuals would take such a bold stand so today i want to give kudos to hawking for doing what most people in the us spotlight are too afraid to do but hey he is one of the most intelligent does in the world so maybe we should all take a cue. it's time to break the set. a little want to or should i mean like. the digital space of networks social media and technology of revolutionize communication and interaction worldwide however with this new age of information there's a dark side to be seized upon by governments and corporations who will always use and abuse the information so the advancements that a facility did so much progress today have the ability to hold us back in the future it's a question addressed by my next. guest in his recent book who owns the future his

name is jaron lanier and although is not a household name probably should be you see many consider him to be the father of virtual reality having coined the term he's also regarded among tech circles as a futurist wizard and a computer age philosopher and as information and technology become ever more energy wind i often wonder where the human element will fit into the equation i first asked jaron if he sees a point in time where reality could be completely merged with the virtual world and here's his response. emerge you're not quite because anytime you see something artificial you notice the amazing thing that is reality i mean a reality is a special thing when you see virtual reality even if it's really good and then you look at the real world while you see the difference you know so i don't see the merging exactly i see virtual reality teaching us how to appreciate reality. but i think we can kind of mix them up a little bit but they will emerge what about sexual experiences because i've heard

you talk about how it's an inevitability to have sexual automation or have robots help is this really russian influence nobody in american media has ever you know ok well there's some there's some cool things you can do and this goes way back for me because like i'm i'm in my fifty's and i'm a dad and i very very boring that right now but but when i was a younger man. one of the coolest things to play with was to trade ice with the partner so you'd see out her eyes and she'd see my eyes and learn to coordinate as a sort of a figure eight sensory motor loop is really weird at first and then you start well it'll become a whole thing you'll see. that it kind of leaves the human element out of the equation if we go that route no no no that's totally human see the way we perceive the world is. in our motor organs we were constantly interacting with the world to perceive it. is just an art form place with that. interaction it's all about

reality it's all about people. and one of your prescriptions for a healthy society in the future is that information should be something it shouldn't be free up but we already pay to use the internet so are you saying that we should be paying to access everything that we do on the internet. you should be paid for the value that you offer and the means that sometimes you'll pay other people for the value they offer here's the metaphor of make in the opening up of america there was a period where we displaced native americans quite cruelly and then there was free land you could go out and just take a claim in their free land for everybody but to get to the land you had to go through monopolized railroads and you know so it was like a weird combination of monopoly and free and then once you're out there it was kind of a world for the gunslingers so we kind of romanticize the wild west but actually it was kind of a cruel place and actually quite unfair and gradually evolved into

a place with three ways you could get your land without going through somebody else's business and where you could buy and sell which might not be the perfect system but at least you're not totally beholden so to think about free is always fake whenever something's free something else is a monopoly there's no such thing as free is always a way to pull you into somebody else's scheme and that's exactly what's happening online but where does that leave education i guess because if we were to put the value back on information i mean kids are already mired in trillion dollars of student debt how can we. really get this education online with this information that is available if we were to attribute a value and have people pay taxes ok. i love online education i love the idea of making education work so simple the problem is not doing that the problem is doing that in an economic context where the people who are in the biggest computers will make all the money and gather all the power so right now if we make education more accessible. the way we're doing it will be

a short term benefit of some people being educated which is the beautiful benefit when i totally support within in the slightly longer term you'll start to see a winner take all distribution in the education market just like you see in every other market that gets computerized in this particular way so harvard and yale will become like brands that everybody flocks to and advertisers or somebody will benefit from that and then all the other schools will start to fall apart and what that does is it carves out the middle of the economy you start to lose the middle class and you start to lose job prospects for most people you turn into a winner take all society and that's not viable in the long term well you've also said that socialism would be off the table in an information age and so can you elaborate on what needs to happen because i didn't marry a functional democracy to an automated society in an information economy well here's what i think society needs society needs to have a broad middle of people whose wealth and clout can outspend and outmuscle believe

tip ok and that's a magical thing that's very hard to get it doesn't happen in states that are dependent on oil like the persian gulf states or russia it must be said but when it does happen you can get these incredible benefits you can get a sustainable democracy and also you can get a sustainable market because there actually are customers right and. america has had that we didn't get it naturally in a way it came about because of a natural impositions of little. little mechanisms unions pensions. doctors licenses tenure for professors cosmetology licenses all these little things. what we have to wonder is as our technology gets better and better and we have cars that are driving themselves and trucks and the robots are in the minerals all that stuff. what are people going to how are they going to have word.

either we suddenly move to a socialist paradise which generally comes to tears or we acknowledge that all of this new automation is actually based on all the information that everybody is giving away for free right now that when a robot can do something it's because it's taking information from times of people who do it and it's regurgitating it and if we can just set up a situation where people can be paid for the information they provide then we could actually have a persistent middle class once information becomes the majority of the economy which will happen sometime this century and so you're talking about the bell curve right now we have the curve where the elite are kind of getting peak but with the bell curve even you have the inevitability of the very small portion of the poor who are going to remain poor and that's an inevitability it's not going to provide for that end of the bell curve well this is this is this kind of nasty dilemma that nobody has ever really solved so here's the problem if you. we have to find some balance if you want to enforce sort of a narrow range of outcomes for nobody does too badly then you have to in some way

prescribe how of people's lives are going to turn out if you want a world where people invent their own lives will be some distribution of outcomes and that means that some people will fail i don't think in absolute pinning it one way or the other is the right solution and i think somewhere in the middle is the right spot i think i'm willing to accept a little bit of constraint on my life planning to live in a world that's not treacherous right but finding that sweet spot is hard but in a way that's a separate problem and you know that's the eternal problem of how we govern ourselves the problem the immediate problem is really simply that by making information free we've guaranteed that they'll be super hyper wealth and income concentration for whoever owns the very biggest computers because they have to spy on everybody with the same open information about other people can't process as much how do we get to that level playing field because we see things legislation trying to be pushed that creates that two tiered pay to play thing on the internet and we also have the rich that have better act. information technology and

supercomputers how do we get to that level playing field where that the middle class can produce and get value for the information that it's so simple just make information cost something if information cost something then let me give you the example that i use a lot when you upload some english and it's translated to russian and how does it work it's not that there's some artificial intelligence in the sky that super smart what it is is a bunch of real examples from real translators were taken pattern matched against your example and then a mash up of all that stuff turned into a usable translation that's how it actually works so the only question left is do the people who provided the samples get paid or not and if we say it's like this fancy big brain in the sky then they don't get paid because we're pretending that people didn't do it but actually people did do it ok so if we just put a value on information that people provide to make all the magic happen then you can't just use computing with impunity to sort of prop up your hedge fund or or

whatever you can just out computer everybody else because there's a price to be paid and then you can get the middle class back what about surveillance because obviously the information age is accompanied by a massive surveillance rate and growth and data mining how do we maintain privacy when this is obviously the inevitability of the information age well this is exactly the same problem just talking about whoever has the biggest computer can gather information and then compute ways of subtly manipulating people we can call it a social network or a search engine company we can call it a hedge fund or a high frequency trading firm or we can call it a national intelligence agency or an insurance company or a modern election for that matter all of these schemes gather all this information and then use it and once again the answer is to make the information cost something the government should not be able to do anything for free when the police the police have to pay for their cars they have to pay for their guns and the reason we don't issue them free things. is that the budget is

a constraint on their power. we couldn't it's funded by taxpayer dollars right and but there's a budget we have legislatures that decide how much budget they get so we pay them and we decide how much to pay them we can decide how much of our budget to send to the police and if we give them a time and money they can do more and we might give them some kind of balance sorts itself out politically the same thing has to happen with information or else we'll never get surveillance under control because there's no way legislators will stay ahead of programmers you know absolutely and i want to ask you also just to wrap it up you know we've all seen the matrix we've all seen terminator we've all seen these movies you see zero point in the future i mean really nothing surprises me anymore but where where we are creating technology to the point will become self-aware revolutionizing it to the point where it can be the my is of humanity anytime somebody shows me a self-aware computer it's all and i know this world extremely well it's always a mash up of real people's data so there's no difference between artificial

intelligence and economic fraud two words for the same thing so we can enter those words but it will be based on accepting an economy except in a bunch of lies and it might happen but i think we're smarter than that there you know yeah i mean not only are they also well thank you so much for coming in are very conservative down here who owns the future of one check it out for shit. stick around after the break we're going to take a closer look at some of the most contentious supreme court cases in america and find out how some of the justices personal interest might have affected them. the civilized world produces more food than needs. while people die of hunger in other countries. millions of victims every. where in the bill is the most.

is flood or droughts to blame. that it was a bad year without a train that we couldn't find anything but that one who would it all there was great hunger and sam. what was it that help comes too late and without good intentions. charity diplomacy and business going out to. the world of. science technology innovation all the least developed mints from around russia we've got this huge earth covered.

by now many of you are probably familiar with hydraulic fracturing better known as fracking but it's not let me give you a quick rundown it's a practice that consists of pumping a mixture of chemical sand and water high pressure in the show rock for the purpose of exploring and mining natural gas deposits while this relatively new industry has

its financial perks it's not without side effects and this is a contaminating the environment fracking is thought to be linked to all kinds of health ailments asthma disorders even cancer and it's because of these dangerous trade offs that the people of dried in a small town in upstate new york decided to form the dry to no resources awareness coalition the groups purpose was to rally behind one goal to distribute information about the dangers caused by fracking and how the industry could negatively transform their city and guess what it worked the people came together collectively put their foot down and said no so fracking making their town one of the first in the state to push the practice out shortly after of course potential drillers filed a lawsuit and the town became entangled in a year and a half long legal battle but just last week the city one the battle in arguably the war of dryden officially becoming the first town in the state of new york to win a fracking ban lawsuit so what does that mean well it means

a lot because it says that you and i can beat corporate interests we should have to withstand the making of impacts of these poor practices while in our communities and we won't because the people of dryden showed us that although the power of one can be ignored the power of many simply cannot so thank you the community of dryden for not only being an inspiration for being a pioneer for showing us the way to when you my friends are my heroes today they're the heroes who is the villain. well as one state takes a step forward in protecting the environment fortunately nother has taken two steps back to north carolina bill designed to clean energy standards has passed the state senate committee despite loud objections wrote republicans and democrats the chair of this committee was republican north carolina state senator bill reagan the managed to push the bill through without get this even counting the votes and somehow we call this a democracy back to the bill itself which would end the state policy of requiring

utility companies to buy green electricity from renewable sources all this despite the fact utility companies support the state standards so why would senator reyburn in his coat hearts even care to change the legislation of electricity companies have no qualms with it well if we take a look at the special interest behind the bill become crystal clear first on the list alec the american legislative exchange council why am i not surprised these are the same folks responsible for a wide range of so-called model bills that negatively impact the lives of average americans while benefiting the big greedy corporations some of the other backers of the green energy legislation include none other than the oil giant koch brothers industries american conservative union and americans for tax reform so i'm sure that could explain how senator reyburn despite overwhelming opposition still chose

to move this bill forward but i guess it's not that hard to bypass the stand as a democracy when you've got the rich and famous to back you up so for your cronyism and utter disregard for the interest of the environment and your constituents you republican state senator bill reagan are my villain today. so i talk about congress and i talk an awful lot about obama but i seem to have neglected the third branch of government the supreme court see while our so-called democracy is based upon our decisions as voters to choose congressional representatives and even the president the truth is that we as citizens have zero say in the appointment of the nine people who serve life terms as the end all be all decision makers on what determines the law of the land these nine people have

defined the landmark decisions that have changed the course of the u.s. history including cases like roe v wade which interestingly enough was ruled in favor of the right to privacy said in this stone a woman's right to choose or about brown v board of education which ruled that separate but equal racial segregation in public schools is unconstitutional see without the supreme court ruling on the unconstitutionality of certain discriminatory policies this country will be set back decades behind where it is now but sadly as much as their decisions can move us forward they can also set us back generations sometimes undermining the very principles of democracy case in point to bush v gore you may remember this infamous case back in two thousand when gore won the presidential election with the popular vote but florida was still up for grabs until full recount was made so essentially the supreme court dictatorially ruled in favor of the archaic institution of the electoral college

over the popular vote when george w. bush the presidency and a more recent history we can point to the most controversial ruling of all citizens united the federal elections commission which granted corporations the same rights as individuals essentially equating money with speech now while we may not have a say in who was chosen to the supreme court at least worth noting who these people are and what interests may be motivating some of those who weren't decisions to define this country. so who are the cans and queens of the court well i'm going to go over a few of the most controversial first as mr lehrer instalments was appointed by george bush sr and nineteen this man has been referred to as our rock but no not first steadfast terminations but rather because he spent a full five years on the court saying nothing at all literally nothing two thousand and eleven shortly before he ruled in favor of citizens united thomas attended

a four day retreat with the wealthiest corporate barons in the country hosted by none other than the good old koch brothers then there's an scalia who was appointed by president reagan in one thousand nine hundred six scalia was also at the koch brothers soiree shortly before ruling on the side of money citizens united there's no conflict of interest there guys don't worry but other than this seeming a violation of ethics scalia is probably the most rigid old school extreme right wing hawks that in the court today he's consistently called to strike down roe v wade he voted overturn miranda vieira zona and he's called the voting rights act quote an embedded form of racial prefer meant according to the wall street journal . schoolies also against minority rights why because he posits that if minorities are given rights that could give free reign to child molesters who

according to him can be considered a minority group too but that's not all perhaps the most absurd is the sexually repressed logic to uphold state bans on oral and anal sex because in his eyes arguing that lifting the ban on sodomy would open the door to bigamy incest prostitution and beastie ality unsurprisingly scully is also a staunch opponent to gay marriage disagreeing that animosity toward homosexuality is bad while publicly stating bigoted opinions as a supreme court justice is bad. moving on next on the chopping block is samuel anthony alito nominated by george w. bush he's also no stranger to conflicts of interest he's attended multiple fundraisers and events for republican candidates the fact that doing so stands in violation of the code of conduct for u.s. judges and of course he too staunchly support citizens united he's been quoted as saying surely the idea that the first amendment protects only certain privileged

voices should be disturbing to anyone who believes in free speech doesn't get more well in that folks because he's saying that corporations should be just as privilege as you and i despite the fact that they're disproportionately more privileged to be getting whipped so now we know a little bit more about the justices on the court that talk about our current court a little more as well some cases you might expect to see in the upcoming months with manual rapido b.t.s. producer what's going on what's up so what are well let's go i just one of the most controversial supreme court justices do you think that the court today is more subject to special interests than it was before i don't know if it's more subject to special interests now that it was say one hundred years ago fifty years ago but the the minnesota law review published a report of thirty six justice is over the last sixty five years looking specifically at their voting records in terms of how they vote and when they vote pro-business for example so what they found is actually pretty shocking they found that over the last sixty five years five of the most conservative justices. that

the court has right now the supreme court house right now make that top ten list two of those the most conservative two would be a leader in chief justice roberts are both bush appointees so whether you want to say that they are more subject to special interests you know that part's arguable but the current court that we have right now is definitely more pro-business than any than any court that we've had in the past and the what you get as a result of this is legislation like citizens united like you pointed out a second ago but also what you're seeing is that the court itself is evolving it's . you know up with the times able to know how to manipulate not manipulate but maneuver around media and and in speculation of a case in point is earlier this month you were hearing oral arguments about gay marriage all the while you were seeing the case against comcast which is this is a print court the highest court of the land it's you know it's got to be a big deal for a case to actually make it to the supreme court so this was a case against comcast overcharging customers the supreme court completely threw out that case while they were hearing these oral arguments for gay marriage and and

there was no media coverage over it and that just goes to show this is one example of many and how the court kind of sides with corporations signs with big big business and we just don't hear about it so i think that you could argue that it's more subject to special interest but more so than anything else it's very clear and very blatant that they're very pro pro corporations more so than any time in history yeah and you mentioned you know the gay marriage case that they're hearing but it's also overshadowing a lot of things that they're ruling on every day i mean the monsanto act that the farmer brought all the way to the supreme court what other cases can we expect to see coming out well you know what two thousand and twelve was probably was actually a record breaking year for the amount of people that were paying attention to what was going on in the supreme court and this was specifically to order here in fact it is all about obamacare two thousand and thirteen it should be just as important as a lot of really big cases that are going on i think at the very top you could argue

that it's immigration and gay marriage which seem very different but really are very intertwined especially if you take into account one case which is united states versus windsor which is the defense of marriage act of along with gene patenting and of course which could very well come up to the supreme court so there's a lot of cases that need need attention yeah let's hope that the end is brought all the way to the supreme court does hope that they rule in the right favor or not want to and a lot of things to pay attention to we definitely be paying more attention to this body of people who are really making some monumental decisions that affect millions . thank you so much and hold it up at zero percent. so if you like what you see head to our you tube channel check us out breaking the set subscriber channel so you don't miss a single episode you guys that's it for our show today have a great i will see you back here tomorrow. modern russia was built on coal. fuel for its factories and coke for

its steel. gold is it more than heat for its people. join me james brown to meet them and spend their lives under ground and work in one of the world's most dangerous professions. would loads. of coal on l.t. .

plus. live. live live. live

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a. serious crisis tops the agenda as president putin has a british prime minister cameron but the true leader seeking to hammer out a common approach to getting peace through talks. meanwhile washington to reaffirm its reluctance to back syria's radicalised rebels a bit further off to russia and the u.s. agreed to set up an international conference to bring about an end to the escalating conflict. and a blood so to democracy pakistan braces for saturday's historic general election the middle wave of brutal attacks and kidnappings by the taliban.