Leave our phones behind. We live here in california. And so its an station might be to take it to the beach. We live here in california and so the temptation might be to take that phone to the beach but isnt that supposed to be a time away, a time apart, time to think, time to not be interrupted, time to wander. Theres a need for space in our lives, too i guess make room to be surprised by whats in front of us rather than this thing that is sort of telling us whats next. Host is setup to do . Guest oh its hard to separate ourselves from technology. I have an assignment in class where i asked the students to put it away for 24 hours, to have no cell phone use, put away their computers in their laptops in a Television Set and it almost drives them crazy. They are like how can i possibly do this . My parents will wonder what am i doing, where am i . Get what they discover is they might begin that activity feeling very hairy but as they turn off they actually have more space and they suddenly get a little more clear and focused. They might do a weeks worth of homework in one afternoon because they suddenly are able to concentrate on one thing rather than being fragmented and distracted. Host are there students who can do it . Guest well all the students are supposed to do it. Some of them confess how hard it is that they mightve sneaked a peek and kind of picked up a little bit of an update when i heard that click but what i find is that they end up kind of remarkably relieved, a little bit freed by this thing thats always beckoning them and i think they start to wonder if theres the possibility of recovering a bit of an electronic set up, putting a pause on our lives. Host Craig Detweiler is it possible to be a good and also tech focused . Guest i am. Im on facebook and im on twitter. Nobody interacts with social media more than i do and yet im just trying to help us to refocus, to appreciate the genius of the igods. They have redefined our world in amazing ways. They have helped to solve the problems of abundance, of too much information, of too many songs into many friends. They have helped us i think bring order to the chaos of our world and yet life still feels a little chaotic. I guess im trying to challenge all people not necessarily just people of faith but all people to question to what degree we may technology and idle and perhaps to realize the limits of what he can and cant do for us. Host you point out here and i want to know the significance that steve jobs and jeff bases didnt know their real fathers. Bring that up . Guest its an interesting thing. You have such talented, in a sense superior and driven people to find these companies. Why is it that apple and amazon, the visionary behind these companies were so relentless and restless in their pursuit. Its interesting that both bezos and jobs didnt know their fathers. I feel like in a sense they have all become our fathers now in a sense the fathers of technology and just had this relentless pursuit to be at the top, to be number one. I respect them but i also wonder at what point they will be satisfied and at what point will they be happy . Host you have the subject in your called the problem with like, the Facebook Like. What is the problem . Guest one thing with the Facebook Like his theres really not a dislike button so even if you have bad news to share peoples only option is to like it and say yes, i agree you lost your job. We are not supposed to like that. What do i do so at sort of forces you to make all your news positive or even if its something bad you have to frame it in a way that people say oh i like that and i think thats a little bit of a problem on a limited Human Emotions and possibilities in a certain kind of way. Perhaps thats the power of the hashtag that allows us to comment on the thing that might be bad into sort of play with it. The Software Facebook itself forces you to be positive. And share something that deserves a thumbs up and deserves a light. Host is a College Professor here at pepperdine is technology interfering with teaching . Guest every teacher i think wrestles with what to do with technology in the classroom. The students if they are taking notes on their laptops they are also getting those updates, they are getting that twitter feed. And so you are constantly competing for their attention. Even an exam situation the possibility of students accessing their information via their cell phone is very high. The temptation to cheat is everpresent. Wonder why i have dealt with it, im teaching media and yet i allowed no media in the classroom. No laptops, no cell phones. They have to be fully present both to the discussion and to each other. I might use media on the screen. I might have a laptop thats bringing a powerpoint slides and showing videos but i dont want them fragmenting themselves out there. When it comes time for exams they are allowed to have all media access possible. Host why . Guest because there will never be a time in their workplace where they are cut off from those resources so detest them by saying what can you remember from your head or what have you memorized is not actually real test. The moment kids are in they have access to all information so the question is how can you sort through too many options and limited timeframe . Isnt that the challenge of the workplace now . Given all the options how do you see through things . How do you analyze . How do you make wise decisions given almost too many options. Host Craig Detweiler you close igods with the question is technology enslaving us . What is the answer . Guest i guess we will come to see Technology Like smartphones is something every day. Its already moving into glass, google class. I think we will come to see it like a fork, like a spoon, like a pair of glasses. It wont be anything special but at this point its so captivating and so magical that i think we can give ourselves to it a little too boldly and uncritically so my book igods is an effort to push pause long enough to just think and gain a little perspective, gain a little distance, make sure that those tools designed to serve us are not enslaving us. Host so the book is kind of a warning shot across the bow . Guest i think igods is a deep appreciation for the people who have created these technologies. I appreciate how they have helped us to manage abundance and too much but its a chance to say, be careful. You have them placed too much faith in technology and ascribes too much magic to something that is really meant to serve us rather than to drive us. Host igods is the name of the book how technology shapes our spiritual and social lives. Craig detweiler of pepperdine is the author. The up next on booktv after words with guest host Siva Vaidhyanathan author of the googlization of everything. This week bestselling authors Jeremy Rifkin and his latest book, the zero Marginal Cost Society. In that the European Union advisor argues that capitalism is on its way out with combined Communications Energy and logistics internets will lead to its demise by increasing production and distribution and effectively eliminating corporate profits. The program is about an hour. Host hello. Jeremy rifkin is with me today. I am Siva Vaidhyanathan from the university of virginia and we are going to discuss his newest book, the zero Marginal Cost Society. Its also his 20th book which is quite a feat in and of itse itself. This book takes the entire world as its subject but has a tremendous amount of focus on the current state and perhaps the immediate future state of the u. S. Economy as well and so it ranges across so many topics. Im sure well have a very rich set of discussions that will link together quite nicely. Jeremy i was hoping you could explain the title. Thats a good way to start, the zero Marginal Cost Society. What do you mean by zero marginal cost . Guest let me put it in context. I think what is happening is we are just beginning to glimpse the outline of a new Economic System entering onto the world stage stage, at collaborative commons. This is the first Economic System to emerge since the advent of capitalism and socialism in the early 19th century so its a remarkable historic event with longterm implications for all of us around the world. The triggering agent with this great Economic Transformation is something called zero marginal cost. Let me explain. There is a paradox deeply embedded in the heart of the capitalist market which has been responsible for the Great Success of the invisible hand over two centuries. The irony is this paradox is now leading the triumph of capitalism but that triumph will lead to primary Economic System in the world. Heres the paradox. In a capitalist market, sellers are continually probing for new technologies. They can increase productivity. Reduce marginal cost of a can put a cheaper products, win over consumers and market share and bring back profits to their investors. Marginal costs are the cost of producing an additional unit of a good or service after your fixed costs are covered. People have always wanted to reduce marginal cost. They simply never anticipated a Technology Revolution is productivity was so extreme that it could actually reduce those marginal cost of producing and distributing goods and services to news near zero making goods and services nearly free abundant and no longer subject to market forces. That is what is beginning to happen in a major way across the world economy. You know because of what you teach. You spend a lot of time with special media. We saw the zero marginal costs for mama affect the information industry over the last 10 years. Devastating for businesses. First we saw young people began to find ways to create software to share music files bypassing the capitalist market in the Recording Industry and didnt pay any royalties. They brought the Recording Industry to its knees. Then the zero marginal cost for mama started to affect the newspaper magazine and Book Publishing industry. Millions of consumers became prosumers and they began to produce and share their own knowledge of information. Wikipedia, people shared knowledge, news blogs people shared in his together in the publishing people started pointing out their own ebooks for free in this meant newspapers went out of business, magazines bellied up the Book Publishing industry has been devastated by free ebooks and most recently and of course you can speak to this from the University Point of view massive open on line courses. We have now six or 7 Million Students that are taking these free on line courses that operated at a near zero marginal cost top by some of the best professors in the world than they are receiving credit. This is now forcing universities to rethink their business model. In the last 10 years the zero cost phenomena has devastated an entire information industry but economists thought it would be a firewall. They thought okay the zero marginal cost would affect information but it would not move from the Virtual World to the physical world to the brickandmortar world of energy and manufactured products so that firewall wouldnt be breached. Its now being breached because the internet is now expanding to an internet of things, and more expensive internet that will know what allow us to produce more energy and products as zero marginal cost. Host the idea of internet of things in itself sounds paradoxical to many people. The internet to our general way of thinking is about the flow of information, the flow of data, a distributive noncontrolled flow of data that seems to touch everybody in new and interesting ways every day and structures the whole world. How would this apply to cars, two airplanes, two collections of everyday materials that you would buy at walmart . Guest the information internet which we are all very familiar with is just now beginning to converge with the nascent Energy Internet in europe and now in china and also beginning to converge with a fledgling automated transport and logistics so the internet is expanding to three internets, the information internet, the Energy Internet and the automated transport and logistics internet. They are creating one superintendent called the internet of things in these three internets are placed in sensors across the entire Economic System to monitor the flow of data. So we have sensors now connecting resource flows. We have sensors feeding data in from production lines, warehouses, distribution centers. We have sensors on smart roads, sensors connecting the electricity grid so we know what the appliances are doing at any moment. We have sensors connecting vehicles and offices and stores. That big data coming in across the economy to these three internets, Communication Energy and logistics internet is providing a wealth of data about what goes on at any given moment across the economy. We now have 14 billion sensors out there now and ibm says in 2,050,000,000,000 systems and by 2030 perhaps 100 trillion sensors connecting everything with everyone. I know later on we talk about Data Security so its exhilarating and frightening at the same time. Theres a lot of possibilities and challenges that was interesting from the opportunity perspective millions of prosumers can now do with physical things they can do with information things. They can expand the internet of things in the years ahead and mind that big data coming to run their own multiples with their own apps and with the data coming through the system they can use analytics and craig their own algorithms like google and facebook and dramatically increase their own productivity reduce marginal costs and produce their own energy in their 3d printed products just like they now have reduce marginal cost of information goods on the traditional internet. Its a tremendous shift in the economy. You have used the term prosumer. Guest 25 or 30 years and now it has come into practice. Thats thats consumers only say consumers become prosumers, prosumers produce, consume and or share their goods and services. Let me give you two examples of how this internet of things affects the physical world and turns all of this from consumers to prosumers. Renewable energy, 3d printed products. We now have millions and millions of early adopters in europe who are actually producing their own Green Electricity with solar panels on the roof or Wind Turbines on their property and they are producing at a near zero marginal cost. The technology for harvesting solar and wind is still a Little Pricey but its on an exponential curve just like we saw with computer chips in the computer industry we have had a 20 twentyyear exponential curve with solar and wind. A solar watch cost 60 per one watt. 66 cents a walk today and continues to go down. Even before the fixed costs are paid back for these harvesting technologies for solar and wind the marginal cost are producing a unit of solar electricity and wind is near zero because the sun is free. The wind coming off the side of your building is free. You just have to capture it. We have millions of people who are now producing their own electricity at near zero marginal costs and they are sharing it with each other on the emerging Energy Internet in europe. To show you how fast this is moving china has taken up the plan that ive outlined in my last book and now we are working on the new book. I visited the chinese leadership last year and after my visit they announced 80 billion, fouryear commitment to begin to lay out the Energy Internet of the internet of things the millions of Chinese People can reduce their own solar wind and electricity and distributed across china. By contrast the u. S. Is putting up 3. 5 billion for its Energy Internet which is centralized and distributed over a twentyyear period. Europe and china are quite far ahead on this. Tesco people and making their own stuff and making their own energy apparently. How are they able to find markets . How are they able to find consumers for their products and how are they able to Work Together collaboratively to forge new works . Wikipedia comes to mind for instance. Guest a good example is 3d printed products. This has hit us as a storm in the last few years. We now have hundreds of thousands of hobbyist and thousands of social and prices that are printing out their own physical product just like we use printers for software and increasing our information grids. If you are a small 3d printer you can go up on the expanded internet of things and Download Free software to print out your product. Then you can use cheap recycled material is your feedstock using recycled recycled plastic they can find around the neighborhood. Recycled paper paper and even sand and gravel is being melted down for feedstock. Then you can power your 3d printer with your own Renewable Energy from the emerging Energy Internet, at least in europe and then you can take your product and transported in the future on the logistics internet with electric and fuel cell vehicles that operate at near zero marginal cost and soon with driverless vehicles that operate at a low marginal cost. This is an example where everyone can become a prosumer and not only consume their own goods that shar