Episode 280: Imagining the Digital Afterlife

The animated TV series Pantheon (streaming on Netflix) asks what if you could upload your mind to the Internet? Would still be human? Would we create a virtual paradise where everyone got to live forever? Or would we find new and more sophisticated ways to destroy each other? I talk with Pantheon showrunner Craig Silverstein and Ken Liu, the author of The Hidden Girl and Other Stories, which the TV show is based on. We discuss how they adapted a series of loosely interconnected stories into a tightly plotted two-season arc, and all the ways in which society would change if uploading our minds becomes a viable technology. Featuring readings by actress Eunice Wong. 

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Imagining the Digital Afterlife transcript

MUSIC LIST

• Life Upon Us by Alan Carlson

• Signal to Noise by Scott Buckley

• Minister Creek by Blue Dot Sessions

• impervious by Dorian Pinto

• Interlude by Clemens Ruh

• Cold and Hard by Blue Dot Sessions

• Waves of Time by Amber Glow