Signed: Conversations with Digital Mavericks
Anita Sharma
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Hank Green: 30 Years on the Internet, the Algorithm, and the Art of Making Things (Part 2)
In Part 2 of this conversation, Anita sits back down with Hank Green to pick up where they left off, and the conversation gets more personal, more urgent, and more honest than ever. They start with the platforms. Hank has a clear-eyed view of why the algorithm puts us in silos: it's not because the technology is bad. It's because the technology is very, very good at keeping us watching. The problem isn't incompetence. It's incentives. And Hank isn't sure the platforms are going to fix it, but he does think people will eventually change, the way they did during the yellow journalism era of Hearst and Pulitzer. Newsrooms that once competed on salience eventually had to compete on credibility. He thinks something similar has to happen now. He just can't work out exactly how. From there, the conversation turns to X, and what it has become. Hank goes there to check on cancer drug research and ends up scrolling past videos of people dying. That's not a platform problem anymore. That's something else. And then: the cancer diagnosis. In 2023, Hank was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma and shared his journey publicly. He talks honestly about his first reaction (annoyance that he didn't get a choice), and how he made peace with it by realizing he actually wanted to talk about it because he cared about his audience. He also talks about the moment he stopped being afraid and started getting curious. He was taking four different chemo drugs simultaneously, each with its own discovery story. One of them can only be made from Madagascar periwinkles. Science, he says, is just cool. The conversation closes with AI: how he uses it, how he doesn't, why he hates that it gives opinions, and the AI flattery moment that made him want to put his laptop through a wall. Plus a lightning round that includes his worst internet take ever, what he would say to the algorithm if it were a person, and the retirement of 6-7. Disclaimer: I'm a lawyer, but this podcast isn't legal advice. It's for general information only. Listening doesn't make us attorney and client. Produced by Anita Sharma and Phoebe Dunn. Edited by Carmine Mattia. Social Media Strategy by Maureen Lloren Sedlak. Signed Theme Music by Carmine Mattia.
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