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October 30, 2020 27 mins

Just in time for Halloween, the news hit that Kanye West gifted his wife a hologram of her late father as a 40th birthday surprise. Is this the best or worst present ever? And should we be treating this as a weird headline about those crazy celebrities, or as a wakeup call for us all?

Elaine Kasket, psychologist and author of All the Ghosts in the Machine: The Digital Afterlife of Your Personal Data (2020) talks to Patrick Stokes, philosopher based at Deakin University in Australia and author of Digital Souls: A Philosophy of Online Death (2021) about the massive societal issues raised by Kim's milestone birthday gift.

More context:

Kim's tweet about 'the most thoughtful gift of a lifetime', where you can watch the hologram delivering its message

Tamara's Kneese's article on Slate about Herman Cain and the problems with tweeting after death

Produced by me, Elaine Kasket. I do this podcast ALL BY MYSELF with no production team, editors, or help from anyone other than my wonderful guests. If you want a simple, easy start to your own podcast, you can do what I did: get a great podcasting platform (see the link for mine below) and easily add music and sound effects with an affordable subscription to Epidemic Sound.

'Confidence is Key' by Arthur Benson and 'Jaded' by Blue Steel, both from Epidemic Sound

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