The Forum at Grace Cathedral
Paulina Borsook: Cyberselfish
Forum with Paulina Borsook Grace Cathedral, San Francisco Twenty-six years after the original publication of Cyberselfish, Paulina Borsook's "smart, funny and irreverent" (The New York Times) critique of high-tech culture reads as a remarkably prescient assessment of an ethos that has seeped into nearly every corner of our world. Cyberselfish identified the warning signs of a culture profoundly lacking in compassion, deeply suspicious of regulation, more comfortable with computers than people, and surprisingly ignorant of history and politics. It also exposed the contradictions beneath Silicon Valley's mythology of self-reliance: a culture whose extraordinary success was made possible in significant part by massive government investment, yet whose leaders often embraced Ayn Rand, the primacy of shareholder value, and a suspicion of the public institutions that helped make their success possible. Borsook foresaw that as technology companies reached unprecedented levels of wealth and influence, their leaders would come to believe that success in one sphere entitled them to greater power in others. Today, as tech titans have inserted themselves ever more deeply into politics, culture, education, media, and public life, Borsook's insights seem more relevant than ever. What happens when the people shaping public policy and society at large possess enormous technological and economic power, but little understanding of history, political institutions, or—perhaps most importantly—how to live with other human beings? Cyberselfish called this the true revenge of the nerds. Join Malcolm Clemens Young for a conversation with Borsook about the assumptions that shaped the early digital age, what they have wrought, and what they might teach us now. Can we imagine a digital culture oriented not simply toward innovation and individual success, but toward human flourishing and the common good? Recorded at Grace Cathedral on September 27, 2026. Give to Grace You can help us bring the arts to life at Grace with a gift today to The Forum. gracecathedral.org/give Become a GraceArts Member Love engaging dialogue? We offer a special cultural membership program, GraceArts, focused exclusively on the arts and well-being. GraceArts allows a wider community to belong to and support Grace, with discounts and benefits on a robust schedule of events. Learn more and join at gracecathedral.org/join. About the Guest Paulina Borsook has worked in and around Northern California tech culture since the early 1980s. Formerly on the masthead of Wired, she has written for multiple tech publications and companies and for countless non-tech publications. She is currently a contributing editor for the magazine "InFormation/every day computers are making people easier to use", which offers both silly and serious critiques of tech as written by people within it. About the Moderator The Very Rev. Dr. Malcolm Clemens Young is the dean of Grace Cathedral. He is the author of The Spiritual Journal of Henry David Thoreau and The Invisible Hand in Wilderness: Economics, Ecology, and God, and is a regular contributor on religion to the Huffington Post and San Francisco Examiner. About The Forum The Forum is a series of stimulating conversations about faith and ethics in relation to the important issues of our day. We invite inspiring and illustrious people to sit down for a real conversation with the Forum's host and with you. Our guests range from artists, inventors and philosophers to pop culturists and elected officials, but the point of The Forum is singular: civil, sophisticated discourse that engages minds and hearts to think in new ways about the world. Learn more about The Forum here: gracecathedral.org/the-forum
