Listen: Former Googler Talks About How Close We Are to 'Brave New World'

Technology gives us constant distractions and lets us create our own content to distract others with Facebook posts, tweets and Snapchat exchanges. But will constant distraction be our undoing?

Tristan Harris, former design ethicist at Google, joined Tuesday’s “The Glenn Beck Radio Program” to talk about how technology is affecting our lives – possibly to our ruin.

He analyzed how distraction is affecting us. With only a finite amount of attention in the world, everyone is competing for it.

“It’s this race to the bottom of the brain stem for whatever works at getting attention,” Harris said.

He and Glenn discussed a potential way to rein in technology, with Harris posing a theory that the energy industry’s practice of decoupling could be helpful.

Glenn was concerned about the implications of government control in that idea.

“It starts to roll into the Big Brother, ‘Brave New World,’” he said. “We’re just in this weird place that I don’t know if mankind has ever been in before, that if we don’t do this right we’re really going to screw ourselves.”

Listen to the full segment for more on our “Brave New World” danger and why media theorist Neil Postman predicted the risk of today’s social media.

This article provided courtesy of TheBlaze.

GLENN: Tristan Harris, he is the founder of Time Well Spent. He is a former Google design ethicist. Gave a great -- a great talk on, how do we change this?

Tristan, how are you?

TRISTAN: Glenn, it's great to be here. I'm great. Thank you for having me.

GLENN: So I'm so happy to see that I'm not the only one feeling this way and not the only one trying to figure a way out. But it's almost impossible, at least at my level to -- to even talk to people who are even thinking this way. No, I want to design the website in a way that it gets people back to their own life, faster.

TRISTAN: Right. Yeah. Completely. Well, I have to say, Glenn, I was also really moved by your interview with Dave Reuben, talking about how the race for attention -- when you were on television, and the race for good ratings affected, you know, your own life. And I think this is the thing people miss about the tech industry is that no matter what good intentions, Facebook, Google, you know, Snapchat has, to improve people's lives, they're cut in this race for attention.

And as I said in the TED talk, and as you know so well, it's this race to the bottom of the brainstem, for whatever works at getting attention. And there's no escaping that. Because there's only so much attention. There's only so much time in people's lives, only so many hours in a day.

And it's not growing. So, you know, that the race is only going to get more competitive. And as it gets more competitive, it becomes this race for figuring out what pushes the buttons in people's brains. And so we have to get out of this race for attention.

And like you said, you can't ask anyone who is in the attention economy to not do what they're doing.

You can't tell YouTube, "Hey, stop getting so much of people's attention." You can't tell Facebook, "Hey, stop making your product so addictive." You can't tell Snapchat, "Hey, stop manipulating the minds of teenagers to get them sending messages back and forth and hooking them because they're all caught in this race for attention," which is why we need to reform the system one level up. You have to go outside the system. And I'd love to talk to you about that.

GLENN: So what does that even mean? How do you go one level up? What is one level up?

TRISTAN: Well, it's sort of like the tragedy of the common. So you can't ask any one of the actors to do something different than what they're doing. They need to be able to coordinate their rates for attention.

So, you know, one way to go one level up is to go to the government, which is not very pleasant of an idea. Another way to go one level up is to actually go to Apple. So Apple is kind of like the government of the attention economy. Because they create the device upon which everyone else is competing for attention.

And Google is also sort of a mini government of the attention economy. Because they create kind of the government of who gets the best results, when -- when you search for something.

And Facebook is kind of the government of the attention economy too because they choose who is at the top of your feed. And, currently, they're locked into their own race for attention.

So one of the things is we have to decouple profit from attention. Because as long as those two things are one to one connected, it becomes this race to the bottom. And we actually did this with energy, where there's only so much energy available to sell people. And energy companies used to have this incentive of, I make more money, the more energy you use. So I actually want you to leave the lights on. Leave the faucets on.

And, you know, that created a problem, where -- where, you know, we -- we waste more energy. We waste -- or we pollute the environment, the more money the companies make.

And in the US, we went through a change called decoupling, which decoupled through a little bit of self-regulation among the energy companies, where they basically capped how much money energy companies pocketed directly from the more energy people used. And then the remaining energy -- when you use a lot of energy, all that extra energy, they priced it higher to disincentivize it. And then they actually used that extra profit, not to capture it for themselves, but to collectively reinvest it into renewable energy infrastructure.

And so I'm wondering whether or not something like that couldn't happen for attention, where companies could profit from some amount of attention were that relationship to exist. But then beyond a certain point, what if everyone was reinvestigating in the greater good of the attention company?

Because, you know, right now, 2 billion people's minds from the moment they wake up in the morning -- you know, they're jacked into this environment -- this digital environment that's controlled by three technology companies, like Apple, Google, and Facebook.

GLENN: Tristan. Go ahead. I'm sorry. Go ahead.

TRISTAN: No. Go ahead.

GLENN: Does it -- does it -- does it -- I mean, A, I'm really glad somebody is thinking about this. Because I think about this stuff all the time, and I don't hear anybody really talking about it.

TRISTAN: Yeah.

GLENN: And it's a little hair-raising because what you're even saying starts to roll into the, you know, big brother, Brave New World. I mean, it could so easily go into -- we're just in this weird place that I don't know if mankind has ever been in before, that if we don't do this right, we're really going to screw ourselves.

TRISTAN: No. You know, you're so dialed into this, Glenn. You're totally right. And, you know, I studied this for three or four years. I was a design ethicist at Google, where literally the way I spent every single day studying, what does it mean to ethically steer people's attention?

And it really, like you said, it's the Brave New World scenario combined with the Big Brother scenario. Because whether we want to admit it or not -- you know, again, 2 billion people from the moment they wake up to every bathroom break, to every coffee line, to going to bed, to every back of the Uber or public transportation, you know, people are glued to their phones. We check them 150 times a day.

And, again, because of this race for attention, these technology products are not neutral. Each one, in trying to do whatever it can to get attention.

So they deploy these different persuasive techniques, and it becomes this, you know, amusing ourselves to death, you know, Brave New World scenario.

If you've seen the movie WALL-E, it's like a race to put people with a screen in front of their eyes for as many hours as possible.

GLENN: Yes.

TRISTAN: Consuming for as much as possible, because that's what's most profitable. So it does start to resemble something like the Matrix.

I don't know if you know the book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, but in the beginning, he -- Neil Postman, the author contrasts Orwell's vision of the future, which we're all, you know, really ready to oppose. Because it's a form of tyranny. We don't want Big Brother. But then there's this subtler vision of Brave New World that people forget to oppose because there's no face of it. There's no Big Brother.

GLENN: Yes.

TRISTAN: And here's this great line that's -- you know, Orwell was worried about a world where we would ban books. And it says Huxley was worried about a world where no one would want to read a book.

You know, Orwell was worried about the world in which the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley was worried about a world where the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. And, you know, it goes on.

And the point is --

GLENN: We're there.

TRISTAN: Yeah.

GLENN: We are there.

STU: Tristan Harris is with us. Quickly, you had mentioned the manipulation that these companies do for your attention.

And you had a really great example with snap streaks. I don't know Snapchat very well, but can you kind of explain that?

TRISTAN: Absolutely, yeah.

So one thing that I think everybody who uses smart phone in a family is aware of is how this is affecting their kids, especially if they're teenagers.

So Snapchat is the number one way that teenagers in the United States communicate. This is very important. So if you're like me -- you know, I'm 33. You're an adult. You probably use text messaging as your number one way to communicate.

So you live in Texas. And you can imagine living in Snapchat. This is like your dominate way to communicate. And Snapchat figured out a way to hook kids called streaks.

And what that means is they show a number next to every single person that you chat with. And that number is number of days in a row that you continually sent a streak, a message back and forth.

So if you sent a message back and forth 150 days in a row, it shows the number 150 with a higher ball. And it might sound totally innocuous, but it actually causes kids to send all of these empty messages back and forth. They're literally sending photos.

GLENN: Just not to break the streak.

TRISTAN: Just not to break the streak.

GLENN: Wow.

TRISTAN: Just not to break the streak. And they give their password to five other friends when they go on vacation, just because they don't want to lose it.

And so it's like tying two kids -- you know, legs together on a treadmill, on two separate treadmills, and then hitting start. And watching them run like chickens with their heads cut off, passing the football back and forth, just so they don't drop the -- the streak.

And this is, by the way, you know, from a playbook of persuasive techniques that people in the industry know are good at getting people to do things. And you can use it for good.

Like, you can set up a streak for the number of days to the gym that -- the numbers of days you read five pages in a book, that you wanted to make sure you do that habit. So you keep up a streak. It's a powerful motivator.

But what they did is they took this powerful technique, and then they applied it to a vulnerable population. And they applied it to children's sense of belonging with each other. Because now kids define the terms of their friendship, based on whether or not they have a streak or not. It becomes the currency of their friendship.

And so that's what's new about this. People often say -- you know, back in the 1970s, we used to gossip on the telephone all the time. And now if I look at my teenage kids, they're just gossiping on the telephone a different way with Snapchat. There's nothing new or alarming here.

And what's different about this is that your phone in the 1970s didn't have thousands of engineers on the other side of the screen who knew how to -- how to strategically tap two people on the shoulder and make them feel like they're missing out on each other's lives. And to show you -- you know, to have a phone light up and appear in your life exactly when you're most vulnerable.

I mean, for example, it's never been easier to find out that you're missing out on what your friends are doing if you're a teenager.

You know, Snapchat or Instagram benefit if they put that at the top of the feed, not at the bottom, in the same way that Facebook benefits by putting outrageous news at the top of the newsfeed because it's better at getting attention. And so -- go ahead.

GLENN: No. Please, finish.

TRISTAN: Well, so as you said, I don't want to be here dwelling on the problem. I first want to do this because it's important people understand the problem.

And it's honestly one of the biggest problems of our time because it's infrastructure for solving every other problem.

You know, every other problem, health care, climate change, all these things require us to be able to sustain attention and talk about a complex topic.

And if we're just running around distracted all the time and if the entire next generation is hooked and addicted to their devices and we can't -- you know, we don't develop the capacity for patience or complexity or sitting with each other -- sometimes that's uncomfortable, you know -- you know, it's a delicate thing to be a human being.

POLL: What DARK government secrets will Trump uncover?

Mark Wilson / Staff | Getty Images

Will the dark secrets of the Deep State finally see the light of day? Or will they slip back into darkness, as they have many times before?

The Trump administration is gearing up to fulfill one of Trump's most anticipated campaign promises: to make the contents of the JFK files, along with other Deep State secrets, available to the public. Kash Patel, who has promised to publicize the highly anticipated files, is expected to be confirmed next week as Trump's director of the FBI. Moreover, the House Oversight Committee created a new task force headed by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna called "Task Force on Declassification of Federal Secrets," which is tasked with investigating and declassifying information on the JFK, RFK, and MLK assassinations, UFOs, the Epstein list, COVID's origins, and 9/11. This all comes after the FBI found 2,400 "new" records relating to the assassination of President Kennedy following Trump's executive order to release the files.

Glenn discussed this topic with the cast of the Patrick Bet David podcast. Glenn expressed his confidence in Trump's radical transparency—on the condition that Kash Patel is confirmed. The cast was not as optimistic, expressing some doubt about whether Trump will actually unveil all that he has promised. But what do you think? What files are likely to see the light of day? And what files will continue to linger in the dark? Let us know in the poll below

Do you think the JFK, RFK, and MLK files will be unveiled?

Do you think the 9/11 files will be unveiled?

Do you think the COVID files will be unveiled?

Do you think the UFO files will be unveiled?

Do you think the Epstein list will be unveiled?

Transgender opera in Colombia? 10 SHOCKING ways USAID spent your tax dollars.

MANDEL NGAN / Contributor | Getty Images

The government has been doing what with our tax money!?

Under the determined eye of Elon Musk, DOGE has rooted out the corruption that permeates USAID, and it turns out that it's worse than we thought. Glenn recently read a list of atrocious causes that were funded by USAID, and the list was as long as it was shocking.

Since the January consumer index report was published today, one thing is clear: eggs are bearing the brunt of inflation. That's why we illustrated the extent of USAID's wasteful spending of YOUR taxpayer dollars by comparing it to the price of eggs. How many eggs could the American people have bought with their tax dollars that were given to a "transgender opera" in Colombia or indoctrinating Sri Lankans with woke gender ideology? The truth will shock you:

1. A “transgender opera” in Colombia

USAID spent $47,000 on a transgender opera in Colombia. That's over 135,000 eggs.

2. Sex changes and "LGBT activism" in Guatemala

$2 million was spent funding sex changes along with whatever "LGBT activism" means. That equates to over 5.7 million eggs!

3. Teaching Sri Lankan journalists how to avoid binary-gendered language

USAID forked over $7.9 million to combat the "gender binary" in Sri Lankan journalism. That could have bought nearly 23 million eggs.

4. Tourism in Egypt

$6 million (or just over 17 million eggs) was spent to fund tourism in Egypt. If only someone had thought to build some impressive landmarks...

5. A new "Sesame Street" show in Iraq

USAID spent $20 million to create a new Sesame Street show in Iraq. That's just short of 58 million eggs...

6. Helping the BBC value the diversity of Libyan society

$2.1 million was sent to the BBC (the British Broadcasting Corporation) to help them value the diversity of Libyan society (whatever that means). That could have bought over 6 million eggs.

7. Meals for a terrorist group linked to Al-Qaeda

$10 million worth of USAID-funded meals went to an Al-Qaeda linked terrorist group. That comes up to be just shy of 29 million eggs.

8. Promoting inclusion in Vietnam 

A combined $19.3 million was sent to two separate inclusion groups in Vietnam inclusion groups in Vietnam (why where they separated? Not very inclusive of them). That's over 55 million eggs.

9. Promoting DEI in Serbia's workplaces

USAID sent $1.5 million (4.3 million eggs) to “advance diversity equity and inclusion in Serbia’s workplaces and business communities.”

10. Funding EcoHealth Alliance, tied to the Wuhan Institute of Virology's "bat research"

EcoHealth Alliance, one of the key NGOs that funded the Wuhan lab's bat virus research, received $5 million from USAID, which is equivalent to 14.5 million eggs.

The bottom line...

So, how much damage was done?

In total, approximately $73.8 million was wasted on the items on this list. That comes out to be 213 million eggs. Keep in mind that these are just the items on this list, there are many, many more that DOGE has uncovered and will uncover in the coming days. Case in point: that's a lot of eggs.

POLL: Should Trump stop producing pennies?

SAUL LOEB / Contributor, Chip Somodevilla / Staff | Getty Images

On Sunday, February 9th, President Trump ordered the U.S. Mint to halt the production of pennies. It costs the mint three cents to produce every penny, which Trump deemed wasteful. However, critics argue that axing the pennies will be compensated by ramping up nickel production, which costs 13 cents per coin.

In other news, President Trump promised on Truth Social that he would be reversing a Biden-era policy that mandated the use of paper straws throughout the federal government. From potentially slashing entire agencies to saying farewell to pennies and paper straws, Trump is hounding after wasteful spending of taxpayer dollars.

But what do you think? Was Trump right to put an end to pennies? And should plastic straws make a comeback? Let us know in the poll below:

Should Trump stop the production of pennies? 

Do you agree with Trump's reversal of the plastic straw ban?

Was this the most PATRIOTIC Super Bowl yet?

CHANDAN KHANNA / Contributor | Getty Images

The 2025 Super Bowl demonstrated Trump’s vision of a new America.

On Sunday, February 9th, the Philadelphia Eagles defeated the Kansas City Chiefs in the biggest sporting event of the year. But this wasn't just a victory for Eagles fans. For those watching, it became apparent that American culture has changed, the zeitgeist has shifted, and America has become cool again. While remnants of woke culture lingered, they felt out of step next to the parade of American Flags and patriotic messaging that dominated the national event. The message was clear: America is back.

Everybody knows that the commercials are the best part of any Super Bowl, and last night's game was no exception. As Glenn has pointed out, while some of the ads still carried woke messages (like Nike's), many more captured the newly kindled patriotism felt nationwide. Here are four of the best commercials from last Sunday that make this the most patriotic Super Bowl yet:

1. Rocket: "Own the Dream"

This touching commercial by the financial services company, Rocket, states "Everyone deserves a shot at the American dream," while showing images of people returning home and building families. The ad included a cover of John Denver's iconic song "Take Me Home, Country Roads" and featured an in-stadium sing-along, live from the Super Bowl.

2. Secret Service: "A History of Protection"

Donald Trump made history by being the first sitting president to attend a Super Bowl, which required the efforts of hundreds of Secret Service agents to ensure his safety. The Secret Service boasted of this feat during their minute-long commercial, which lauded American values and achievements and featured iconic American imagery.

3. Brad Pitt: "Huddle Up"

The Super Bowl introduction celebrated snapshots of American achievement accompanied with a powerful commentary about unity narrated by Brad Pitt. The message is clear: Americans can achieve great things when we work together. The ad conjures up American ideals such as hard work, ingenuity, self-sacrifice, and teamwork.

4. Jeep: "Big Game"

Movie star Harrison Ford appeared in Jeep's Super Bowl commercial to promote freedom and to remind us that "freedom isn't free." Ford treks through the mountains while ruminating on what freedom means in America and the opportunities and responsibilities that come with it.