Licking Elon’s Boot: The Politics of Technology
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EP81: Introducing Academic Edgelords & Reading the Unabomber
We're excited to announce Academic Edgelords. This is a scholarly podcast about scholarly provocateurs. Gadflys, charlatans, and shitposters sometimes get tenure, believe it or not. This is a leftist podcast that takes a second look at their peer-reviewed work, and tries to see if there’s anything we might learn from arguing with them. We start with the ultimate academic edglelord: Ted Kacynski, the domestic terrorist.Listen now -
EP80: Dr. Ex Machina (ft. Casey Ross & Ben Chin-Yee)
Could an artificial intelligence diagnosis what ails you? Medical futurists offer a techno-utopian vision of perfect personalized risk assessments, diagnoses, and treatment recommendations. Yet, recent stories belie this optimism.Listen now -
EP70: Chokepoint Capitalism ft. (Cory Doctorow)
Many of the creative industries look like an hourglass. On the one side, you have creators; on the other, the rest of us. In the middle, Rebecca Giblin and Cory Doctorow say there's often a 'chokepoint.'Listen now -
EP69: Mathematical Morality (ft. Émile P. Torres)
The collapse of the crypotcurrency exchange FTX has is forcing a reckoning in the financial world, with calls intensifying to reign in and regulate these emerging technologies. It's also forcing a philosophical reckoning about the ideas that inspired their CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried. SBF is a major proponent and funder of Effective Altruism.Listen now -
EP67: Darts Transit Commission (ft. Paris Marx)
We speak to Paris Marx of Tech Won't Save Us on the shifting politics of Silicon Valley. We'll traverse the intellectual history of hippies-turned-arch-capitalists, and focus especially on their ideas for transportation policy. Do they have a radical vision for a different transportation future, or is it a vision of maintain the status quo?Listen now