the u.s. state of alabama looks into whether a pro democratic party operation involving thousands of fake russian bots violated campaign laws and influenced the last year's election result. here in forces enters the northern city of beach at the request of civilians and kurds in the area amid fears of a turkish offensive. and france plans to expand its riot control arsenal despite a number of serious injuries among the yellow vest protesters caused by rubber bullets. for the latest on the stories you can head to our t.v. dot com stay with us now for the big picture. what happened in twenty eighteen and what clues does this past year offer about twenty nineteen on this week's show the top ten topics we talked about on top radio this year but first donald trump

won the presidency promising to revive coal mining and otherwise take us back in time before technology disrupted business as usual should we fear the future i'm holland cook in washington this is the big picture on our team america. that driverless car we are told is just several years younger sounds like a wondrous technology breakthrough but don't tell that the tax. drivers there are

still fuming over over in lift a.t.m.'s automated your bankers several decades ago in your supermarket cashier is now likely a robot too but with convenience comes next because it's human nature to resist change how fast are things changing and how well are we coping let's ask dr deborah johnson olson professor emeritus of applied ethics at the university of virginia she has also taught at rensselaer polytechnic and georgia institute of technology she published one of the first textbooks on computer ethics back in one nine hundred eighty five and she has published on a whole range of topics related the ethical social and policy implications of technology especially information technology deborah welcome. thank you i'm glad to be here we mentioned the autonomous robo car which is forecast to cost four and a half million jobs does that number ring true to you and is change as seismic

likely to ripple through many or most job descriptions. well i would tell those taxi drivers not to worry too much. it's hard to say how seismic would be it'll be depending on the time frame but i don't think we're anywhere near to having them take over from cars and driver cars and trucks. there's so many challenges that have to be in that both technological and social. i just don't see it happening soon and one of the biggest issues is safety we just it's not at all clear we're going to be able to make them safe enough and we don't even know what criteria to use to determine safety in the case of an autonomous car sure and that seamless nationwide five g. network is a long way off from kiplinger's list of worst jobs for the future assembler and fabricator shoe machine operator and textile machine operator are easily automated

and with wrist watches gone digital in the time on our smartphones and romans are down at tick tock tech and from the kiplinger ten best jobs for the future number one app developer typically requires just an associates degree pays a median salary of about fifty eight thousand dollars you'll need a bachelor's degree for a number six computer systems manager and you would make a median one hundred thirty eight k. number seven on the list information security analyst pays about ninety five thousand none of these people will ever learn what my plumber makes deborah during the eight hundred forty nine gold rush the guys who made the big money were those who are sold. the maps and the pics and the shovels and of course levi strauss could this tech tsunami end up an employment net plus and even if not what sort of support jobs will be increasingly opportune. it's

a great question because when i was around when computers came on the scene everyone thought computers would also take away jobs and just the opposite happened because of the developed the way the technology developed we got more and more jobs of course who the nature of the job shifted we needed more and more people who understood and could work with computers so i don't know if it's the same thing will happen in the case of autonomy as vehicles. certainly there are going to be new jobs created but i don't know if the new jobs created will be at the scale of of the jobs that are taken away but again i don't think this is i think the timeline for this is really far into the future it wouldn't hurt to train to be the person who is repairing the stuff that's replacing the tough though well that's

certainly true i mean it's certainly true that jobs having to do with technology are going to continue to be needed her and well paid. those skills but it's because i think we often we forget that it's not just that it takes people not just to build these machines but to maintain them and monitor them and and then you have to manufacture the you have all these new manufacturing. skill jobs so so there's yeah it's hard to imagine it's hard to think about what the. you know what the equivalence of sowing the shovels in the gold rush but certainly there will be some of that i mean one thing i could think about is signage so for autonomy as cars to work they have to be able to sense signs so all the signage in the country would have to change so that the sensors would be able to read the

signs so that might be. i think to think about a job category to think about that good point is not will we have more fewer jobs will we have different jobs but as a different jobs as things stand today deborah is technology adapting to us or are we people and companies adapting to technology great great question of course the easy answer is both we adapt to technology technology adapts to us but it's a complicated it's a really complicated question because of the us it's you know who accommodates and who gets served and it seems like there are it depends on the technology so for example google will tell you that they don't want you to accommodate in any way they want you just to do what you do so that they can see for example that when you do a search they want you just to search the way you want to search they don't want you to kind of learn their system because if you do that then they'll be able to figure

out how to. you know bring bring you the answers that you're looking for better or better interpret what you're looking for on the other hand there are. companies like facebook for example where you're actually not the customer you may think you're the customer but in fact as we've learned recently in the news we're you're the prada being supplied to the customers who are the advertisers so. facebook is going to design it software and its interface to help its customers so it it's a mix it depends on the particular technology i'm glad you mentioned facebook because these recent revelations should chase on us and you made a good point that i want the viewers to remember when something seems free you are the product thank you professor and author deborah johnson. let's now move to the

intersection of artificial intelligence and human intelligence and emotion with psycho therapist and author of among other books the power of off the mind full way to stay sane and a virtual world. nancy collyer is a popular speaker on the issue of wellbeing and she joins us from our t's new york bureau welcome back nancy when a bill clinton ran for president the loudspeaker was blasting don't stop thinking about tomorrow and if fast forward to donald trump's make america great again campaign where he bear hugged the past and vowed to revive coil mining and pump up manufacturing the easiest jobs to automate which feed his rust belt voters talk about the psychological appeal of resent meant and this fear of the future a narrative well resentment is one that everyone can jump on board with and

he has been working that hard. people are resenting things they don't even know they they resented before but suddenly they feel anger towards an america that was but when you spoke to them then the problems that he had created didn't exist yet in their minds so there is an incredibly powerful psychological tool of milking grievance you know where we all have a tendency to grab on to who did what to us that was wrong the mind the love that place it loves to recreate that and many successful leaders throughout history have war just that angle of feeling the victim and most importantly feeling that there's someone to be angry about in that way we don't have to be responsible and the deeper more challenging solutions don't really have to be looked for we

have and they are we have a grievance was justified and we have someone to blame it on right so so that's very high of course now about fearing the future are have we become less curious are we less adventurous some people now. i think what's happened in part because of technology really is that the natural curiosity of the human being is being replaced by easy answers quick fixes curiosity is something that is just a way of life and now we can google anything and have an answer in a moment we don't really have to explore things deeply we just want easy answers and unfortunately curiosity is a joy it's one of the great joys that we we get to have as

a human being and i think it's far as adventuresome nys goes there's a lot of fear there's fear of the world there is fear of the future as you said and so we tend to sit at home and adventure things through our screens more and more there it we're less likely to as young people for example to go grab a bicycle and trek across the world we might be more inclined to watch it through some some entertainment source right we can get to anywhere we want to in a flash by just turning our computer so our natural sense of adventure of taking risks real risks out in the world needing people in person looking them in the eye that that is not as prevalent right now well what advice do you offer people who come to you anxious about. the right change is

part of the human condition change is really the only thing that doesn't change so one thing that i encourage people to do is for one thing not create a narrative about the terrible things that are going to happen in the future there will only be robots human beings won't matter there will be no jobs for. humans whatever the narrative that they're creating right let's stay for one thing right here right now with what's true we don't need to go into our minds to create these terrifying concepts of change and what's coming the truth is we don't know can we be right here can we be present with what's happening right here what's working what's not working but we don't need to go even five minutes into the future to formulate something terrifying which our mind is tremendously gifted at doing i appreciate your context and perspective on this cycle therapist and author nancy

collyer thanks again for joining the big picture my pleasure. what a year and it's not over yet coming up the top ten topics we talked about on talk radio and twenty eight team and what to expect in twenty nineteen this is the big picture on our tree america.

when our mind when the content of our mind is changed there are fees ico to ratio of the level of the physiology that is at the level of the brain the brain as a form of plasticity can rewire itself and not just the brain but also the rest of the body respond to. the same wrong why don't we all just don't all. get to shape our disdain comes to advocate and engagement equals betrayal. when so many find themselves worlds apart. just to look for common ground.

what happened and what next and we'll past the prologue does twenty eighteen offer clues about twenty one thousand let's ask michael harrison publisher of talkers magazine the trade publication of talk media radio t.v. pod casting and each year end michael's magazine publishes its talkers ten the list of the ten most talked about topics of the year michael welcome back thanks for joining us great to be with you holland thank you for having me let's dive right in moving briskly in radio countdown style talkers magazine top topics of twenty eighteen the tenth most talked about story of the year north korea new

six and the trump kim summit michael that you will listen to talk radio as much as i do and we're both accustomed to hearing no minds change but on this one i heard lots of trump supporters where the president elevating him by this meeting and lots of trump detractors applauded the gesture and for a story that was little more than a photo op this played well on radio didn't it. yeah for a while people were saying hey trump and kim are going to be co recipients of the nobel peace prize. it started out like it was very very tense with rocket man and doctored if you remember being thrown around and everybody thought that kim is a madman and the north koreans thought trump was a madman and we were sort of on the brink of this nuclear war and then they somehow became friends now we're in a whole different era of the aftermath of that it's not talked about much anymore

and that story is a tribute to how quickly stories come and go these days and we saw a lot of that in twenty eighteen dumpling mesut story number nine the dow jones roller coaster and world markets you and i tend to typecast a topic like this is more of a c n b c story than a rush limbaugh story how did this cross over. oh it crosses over because donald trump who is the epicenter of all conversation has made the successes that the stock market has enjoyed during his first two years his own so every movement of the stock market has become politically charged and is used as a weapon for or against trump depending upon which side you happen to be so it's been playing out on talk radio is a major topic every time the stock market hiccups it's all about donald trump of

similar appeal twenty eight teams number eight story of the usa china trade war and number seven is no surprise the stormy daniels case michael true or false this story is now closer to the end than the beginning. well i think it is but who knows the the michael cohen connection to that story. ties into the mole or investigation and therefore it has a whole political aspect to it that takes it beyond just scandal it now involves the law and legality we're talking with talkers magazine publisher and w.-o. r.-k. o. boston. hartford host michael harrison who is counting down his magazine's annual talkers ten the ten most talked about news stories of the year topic number six often seems like number one michael call me a skeptic call me a media insider but i think that this might be the most mis understood story of the

year trump and the media doesn't trump the master of distraction secretly a lot of the adversarial press that always seems to take the bait. well i'll tell you i'm not his psychiatrist so i can't really say for sure what's going on in his head but i suspect observing him closely that he loves a fight and he uses his battle with the media to. to solidify his base and his supporters to galvanize them and he just loves attention he's thin skinned on one level but thick skinned on another very hard to read him that way he still mysterious in that regard and his battle with the media was custom made for his personality he's turned life into one big gigantic political reality show and you have met the president in person since mr trump became president he knows you to be an influencer but in person he's perfectly cordial right a very cordial i had

a fun little moment with him. stick to with him if you understand what i mean yes i'm from brooklyn he's from queens and if you talk outer borough with you know with a man who's not from the bronx but he's from the outer boroughs of new york there's a certain language and a vibe and he's real good at it but in fact a lot of people misunderstand trump because he talks queens but kid from brooklyn understood him very well and we had a nice time topic number five for the year and we knew this would crack the top five that kavanaugh supreme court confirmation hearings for which lots of talk radio stations interrupted regular programming and not just any story will bump rush limbaugh story of the year number for the midterm elections no surprise when as historically the party on the outs made gains and democrats took back the house speedo wrote gave ted cruz a scare and he's already met with president obama asking his advice about a twenty twenty presidential run story number three reappears after

a rare year off and twenty seventeen mass shootings and the second most talked about story of the year propelled donald trump to the white house immigration michael it's who's who of talk radio every year here in washington at that annual federation for american immigration reform event fare with most of talk radio leaning. i find this conversation one sided. well it is for the most part one sided the immigration reform issue has been kept alive for the past fifteen years plus on talk radio there's been times there been times when it was considered to be a cold subject times when it gets hot but it has always been a major subject on talk radio and then of course when trump made it made it his own it was evident that there is a lot of people around the country concerned about it but basically the feeling is

that this nation needs immigration reform and the controversy comes as to how it is to be implemented the conversation lately to with the government shutdown and all seems to have been amped up and ironically the master negotiator of the art of the deal author or ghost author mr trump now seems to be negotiating with himself mitch mcconnell recess the senate trump holed up in the white house until his fly by in iraq but it now sounds like did i say wall let's make it a fence that i see five billion he's got people on fox news saying well maybe a little less than that do you sense that the tide is turning on this story. i hope the tide is turning so that the democrats who are being true to their base and trump who is trying to be true to his base are each able to save face so that they

could negotiate some type of a way forward trumps problem is the conservative media particularly talk radio has been really holding his feet to the fire sure about maintaining his promises so this is a matter of nuance diplomacy and both sides face a problem if they can't get out of this without being without one being seemed. weak and bludgeoned into a pulp yeah you're absolutely right about talk radio by many yardsticks a couple of years ago you could have called rush limbaugh a mature act but he turned the president on a dime over the wall a topic number one on talk radio during twenty eight team is likely to buzz a plenty and twenty one theme the trump russia investigation so michael i'm not surprised to see these two talk to top your separate talkers list of the year's most talked about people number one donald trump number two

robert muller is or is not donald trump the best thing that ever happened to talk radio and cable news from a standpoint of being something to talk about a reality show lots of drama lots of controversy lots of fascination the public is addicted to trump whether they love them or not so yeah from that standpoint from a standpoint of material of content donald trump is the best thing that ever happened to talk media and all of our brothers in the talk radio family are loving the tune in factor because stories can change hour to hour to hour throughout the day now we've listed the most talked about topics of the year to your trained ear what issues are being under discussed on talk radio and cable news what's not getting enough air time. what's not getting enough air time is the problem of cyber war of the grid of things that are going on in china right now in terms of their

development of cyber digital era espionage that is something that's not being talked about problems with clean water not being talked about problems imposed by the digital era and computers that are infringing upon privacy not enough talk about that in my opinion these are topics that are extremely important and the psychological changes. that people are going through adjusting to the rewiring of our nervous systems in this new era i think that that is palpable and we don't talk enough about that magazine publisher and w.-o. r.-k. o. boston. hartford host michael harrison thank you and happy new does year. and that is the big picture new news in the new year r t america is now streaming live at youtube dot com slash r t i'm holland cook in washington back

here same time next week next year and in the meantime i am at holland cook on twitter where if you follow me i'll follow you question more. i've been saying the numbers mean something they matter the u.s. has over one trillion dollars in debt more than ten white collar crimes happen each day. eighty five percent of global wealth he longs to be ultra rich eight point six percent market stock thirty percent from last year some with four hundred to five hundred trade per second per second and bitcoin rose to twenty thousand dollars. china is building

a two point one billion dollar. mark but don't let the numbers overwhelm. the only numbers you need to remember is one one business show you can afford to miss one can only. come to russia no one's ever no one has ever heard of and never even heard about most.

close to. her. my son doing drugs my nephew dylan drugs my sister just with doing drugs it was like an epidemic of drug abuse america's public enemy number one in the united states. he sort of the users in the prison population who are we started treating sick people people who are addicted to these drugs like criminals while i was on the hill we became convinced that the war on drugs was a mistake there are countless numbers of people who are in prison for inconceivable sentences for minor minor offenders in the drug trade it's a lot watching your children grow up in issue in waves and say by daddy as you're

walking out of this it's just it doesn't get easier. hello welcome to sophie and sophie shevardnadze and for as long as humans can remember them selves they have been trying to push the boundaries of their own nature and even now everywhere from south america to siberia people are embarking on a spiritual journey so this is. fantasy i ask a man who has been studying and practicing spiritual practices for the past twenty five years anthropologists author explorer. who likes to put it david that is he. has long been irresistible.