- Economics
- Science & Technology
- Answering Challenges to Advanced Economies
- Understanding the Effects of Technology on Economics and Governance
What can Tom Cruise’s last impossible mission teach us about usefulness in the digital age? Aled Maclean-Jones argues that dangling from cargo planes, soldering hard drives, and skydiving nineteen consecutive times is really an extended tribute to embodied knowledge. Listen as McLean-Jones and EconTalk’s Russ Roberts analyze the unique concept of competence presented in Cruise's films. Along the way, they cover London cabbies who refuse to use Waze, a fatal dive at the sound barrier, solo sailing around the globe, and the small triumph of fixing a broken toilet by oneself. They conclude by exploring the possibility that physical mastery may come to matter more as computers take over the work of the mind.
Listen to the episode here.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Aled Maclean-Jones is a writer based in London. His writing has appeared in the New Statesman, Works in Progress, the London Magazine, the Metropolitan Review, the Toe Rag, the Republic of Letters, and UnHerd. Prior to his writing career, I was a special adviser in the Treasury. His Substack is Rake's Digress.
RELATED SOURCES
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