Hi Carl;
I didn't recognize any of that Tech-cast in terms of your question.. it just brings to mind a thought on their project (and TOD's, consequently) ..

Computer power has increased exponentially since 1980, when machines less sophisticated than your cellphone filled entire rooms. And we can expect similar mindboggling advances in the coming decades.
For a sense of what’s in store, take a look at the breakthroughs on this page. Some of them may seem like the stuff of science fiction, but they’re closer to reality than you may think.

(my emphasis)rf

They describe the great, globewide communications in the internet that have made the collections of like minds (or any other collection you'd choose) possible and fairly easy. This can and has resulted in some great focused efforts, but has also created some massive Echo Chambers, which assemble with a common ideological bent, and don't have to include some kind of Check and Balance. Maybe they do, maybe not, but this is one of the challenges of a certain part of the scientific method, which separates the area of study from all else and holds it isolated from the interferences and impurities of the big world. Reintegrating the learning into the messy mix of life can challenge the clarity of results that grew so easily in a vaccuum.

Specialization and the Culture Dish have made possible some wonderful advancements, but have also celebrated a form of segregation that can also carry its own blinders and toxicity.

"The Specialist learns more and more about less and less until he finally knows Everything about Nothing. (and the Generalist scans Less and Less about more and more, finally knowing nothing about Everything.)"

For what it's worth, I feel that the spectrum of views at TOD swings across techological and sociological spectra enough to allow a reader to get some sense of a reasonable middleground, amidst the muddle.

Bob