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EP62: Socialize the Series of Tubes (ft. Ben Tarnoff)
Recently a major outage took nearly a third of Canada offline. No phone, no internet… even access to 911 got shut down in some places, all thanks to Rogers Media Inc. But why does one company get so much control over a vital service like the Internet in the first place?Listen now -
EP61: Enter the Zuckerverse (ft. Sandrine Han and Ian Bogost)
The term "metaverse" comes from a 1993 science fiction novel. Since then, it's grown from a dystopian literary concept to a reality that corporations want to sell you. Strap on some VR goggles and escape your tired analog life! Except that the systemic issues we already have seem to be creeping into the metaverse, too.Listen now -
EP60: Not Alright Alright Alright (Big Shiny Takes ft. Gordon Katic)
Canadian media is full of galaxy brain columnists. Luckily there is a show who reads their crap so that you don't have to: Big Shiny Takes, aka Jeremy Appel, Eric Wickham and Marino Greco. We're featuring this episode because your esteemed host and editor Gordon Katic was a guest.Listen now -
EP59: January 6th and the Myth of the Mob (ft. James Jasper and Joy Rohde)
Scholars used discredited crowd theory to explain the events of January 6ths. These are straight from the physician Gustave Le Bon, a bigot who hated the masses. Is it OK to apply reactionary ideas to reactionary movements, out of political expediency? We think no.Listen now -
EP58: The Twisted “Science” of Great Replacement Theory
The suspect in the Buffalo shooting had a manifesto, as mass shooters often do. However, this one was different. It was littered with references to peer-reviewed scientific research that, he purports, supports his white supremacist beliefs. It’s part of a broader far right subculture, with ‘journal clubs’ and the like, in which research is read closely and appropriated, says population geneticist Jed Carlson (check out this thread in particular). What are scientists to make of it?Listen now
