benallen

Ben Allen

Ben Allen is a traveller, a millennial and a Brit. He worked in the London startup world for a while but really prefers commenting on it than working in it. He has huge faith in the tech industry and enjoys talking and writing about the social issues inherent in its development.

Business

Oracle breaks with tech industry to back sex trafficking legislation

Ben Allen5 years ago

2.05K

Cloud computing behemoth Oracle has broken off from the standard tech sector line and decided to back a bipartisan proposal...

Business Social Media Technology

Has technology broken the media? How valuable content can triumph over fake news

Ben Allen5 years ago

2.12K

Since the Great Fake News Elections of 2016, the media has often been said to be in crisis, but it’s...

Gaming Technology

VR Games need to be fun if they’re going to catch on

Ben Allen5 years ago

6.29K

Virtual Reality (VR) gaming is a big question mark looming in the future, and it needs to take the right...

Technology

The FCC loves dealing with net neutrality so much it’s going to discuss it all by itself

Ben Allen5 years ago

2.4K

This is becoming tedious. Obama introduced net neutrality so no telecoms companies could tier service by device, consumer contract size...

Technology

3 Reasons the new iphone speculations are dull

Ben Allen5 years ago

1.97K

I always get incredibly bored at this time of year at the amount of speculation over what the new iPhone...

Business

LinkedIn survey says tech is home to some of the biggest wages, what does this say about skills gaps and valuations?

Ben Allen5 years ago

1.69K

LinkedIn releases a survey which shows that the tech sector has some of the highest paying wages around at both senior and entry-level...

Social Media Technology

3 Tech platforms that are improving our social lives

Ben Allen5 years ago

1.52K

It’s easy to find articles written about how technology makes us less sociable or less social, and millennials, in particular,...

Mobile Social Media Technology

Action sports are continuing to take tech in their own direction

Ben Allen5 years ago

1.85K

Action sports have always been early adopters of new tech. Quick to capitalize on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and the like,...

Technology

EdTech: Should tech really teach our kids?

Ben Allen5 years ago

3.13K

The roots of tech and AI are extending deeper into every industry, what should we expect from the way our...

Business Technology

US self-driving car council in jeopardy, does this set a trend for trying to legislate intelligent machines?

Ben Allen5 years ago

1.69K

The US self-driving car council is falling apart; with the technology set to be introduced soon it’s possible that this...

Business

Millennials who only stay with a company for a few years are not flaky, they’re sensible

Ben Allen5 years ago

2.33K

Paysa recently published a survey in which it pointed out that within the big tech companies, employees only tend to...

Technology

Do we want to kill all the mosquitoes? Tech company develops 3 new pesticides

Ben Allen5 years ago

1.68K

A tech company in Riverside, California develops three new pesticides, which could help eradicate mosquitoes. Is that something we want to...

Web

Sir Tim Berners-Lee wins another award, but did so much more than invent World Wide Web

Ben Allen5 years ago

5.89K

The Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council announces it is awarding Professor Sir Tim Berners-Lee the 2017 Commonwealth Award. This man has so many awards and...

Business

How to deal with corporate bullshit

Ben Allen5 years ago

25K

Have you ever noticed how the business world, including tech which is the cool part of the business world, is never...

Technology

Global effects of technology will not reduce inequality: report

Ben Allen5 years ago

4.26K

Talk of artificial intelligence (AI) taking away our jobs and the need for universal income have abounded of late, but...

Technology

The tech company with an entirely different view of health care: Preventative medicine for the tech generation

Ben Allen5 years ago

2.61K

For the last couple of decades, technology has tackled industry after industry turning each on its head, but healthcare is...

Business

Tech and troubles in the cannabis industry

Ben Allen5 years ago

2.26K

VC fund Canopy announced recently that they’d be investing $1 million in eight cannabis startups in Boulder, Colorado. The startups...

Instagram Tweaks “Free Speech”, but for Money or for Progress? - The Sociable

Business Social Media

Instagram tweaks “free speech”, but for money or progress?

Ben Allen5 years ago

1.88K

Instagram CEO, Kevin Systrom, is using technology to play around with the concept of “free speech” in his 700-million-user strong...

Technology

The problems of using diagnostic AI in medicine and healthcare

Ben Allen5 years ago

11.4K

The medical profession has been working very closely with machines for some time now, so what can previous introductions of...

Web

Diversity, Privacy, Immigration and White House Councils: Charlottesville is Nexus Between Rocks and Hard Places Tech CEOs Sit Among

Ben Allen5 years ago

1.87K

The tech community has been entangled in plethora of political issues including diversity, immigration, data privacy and security - Charlottesville...

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Brains Byte Back

We explore how our brains, psychology, and society are impacted by the ever-evolving technology that surrounds us. If you want to be better prepared for the new information age, have a healthier relationship with technology, and get more out of life using top technology and psychology hacks, this is the podcast for you! Every other Friday we bring you interviews with leading experts in the fields of technology and psychology combined, with past guest speakers such as New York Times journalists, MIT Professors, and C-suite executives of top tech companies.

You may have heard of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and his followers, commonly known as Rajneeshees or sannyasins, from the incredibly popular Netflix documentary “Wild, Wild Country.”

Well in today’s episode we speak with a former follower of the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh cult to get a better understanding of how this society functioned, what it was like to live in normal society as a member of the cult, and what it was like on the famous Oregon ranch.

With our guest, Annie (who has asked to remain anonymous but showed her mala that she wore during her time as a Rajneshee to prove her affiliation with the cult), we find out how she first find out about Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and the Rajneeshees, and what inspired her to join their cult, where she goes into great detail about how she found them when she was 16 at an Alcoholics Anonymous event.

She also shares why life as a Rajneeshee was difficult off the ranch in normal society, as society often treated them with a mixture of suspicion, curiosity, and fear. In fact, she was fired from all of her jobs due to her membership in the cult, but she also explains how she saw this as a positive, “a trial by fire” as she claims.

Annie also goes into detail about what it was like visiting the ranch in 1983, when, she believes, much of the footage used in the documentary was filmed. She talks about the important role meditation played in being a Rajneeshee and what a normal day was like on the ranch.

She also shares her thoughts on how accurate the documentary was, how close she came to meeting Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, and finally, how she left the cult in the end.

Overall, Annie explains why she doesn’t see the following as a religion or cult, but instead as a community and how this community had such an overall, lasting positive experience in her life.