This past Friday I interviewed Jason Silva and Max Lugavere, two 27-year-old producers and co-hosts of Current TV, the Emmy-award-winning cable network started by Al Gore in 2005 that has since become the fastest growing network in TV history. Picked out of hundreds of applicants, Silva and Lugavere have become the faces of the network, a role that earned them a reputation as pioneers within the emerging movement of web-enabled “citizen journalism” and “user-generated-content” the potential of which has been made so clear with the Iranian election protests.

Current TV’s mission has from the beginning been to “democratize” television and provide a platform for younger filmmakers that may have a harder time gaining access to larger media networks. (Check out “Good News in TV Land,” by EnlightenNext contributing editor Maura O’Connor) To that end, Current gathers around 30% of their short films and stories from outside of their studios. But unlike YouTube and the many other user-generated-content platforms on the web, Current TV isn’t just a free-for-all in which the talented is all mixed up with the tedious. They are known as the “HBO of the YouTube generation,” and through editorial selection and a unique voting process, the best and most thought-provoking interviews on Current rise, like cream, to the top. As they say, they’re trying to “raise the conversation” that’s happening online.

The reason for our interview was the fact that Silva and Lugavere’s late night talk show on Current, called Still Up, will be featuring EnlightenNext among a variety of other sources in a July 13th episode dedicated to the evolution of consciousness. Describing the upcoming show as “a televised version of an Alex Grey painting,” the two plan to feature everything from “esoteric techno optimism” and immortalism of Ray Kurzweil (which they’ve also made a short film about) to an interview with Deepak Chopra and a review of the variety of opinions about what if anything will happen in 2012.

Our conversation was a good one. And while I was very interested in hearing what they had to say about the current status and future of media, I was most keen on finding out what they thought about the future of Generation Y, which has caused so many employers, cultural critics, and parents to scratch their heads. As Tom Huston pointed out in his recent column, we’re the dumbest, the most idealistic, the most technologically adept, and the most narcissistic generation ever. . . and no one quite knows whether the future is in capable hands. And so as two budding thought leaders and broad cultural voices for our generation (they think of themselves as Bill Maher for the next generation), I wanted to find out where they stood on the issue.

You can listen to the interview below (18:38):
 

Right-click to download.

And to watch their upcoming Still Up episode on the evolution of consciousness, airing at midnight Eastern, 11 Central and 9 Pacific on Current TV, which you can watch on the following channels:

DirecTV 358
Dish Network 196
Comcast 107
Time Warner LA 142
Time Warner NYC 103
Time Warner everywhere else: Check local listings.