Plutopia News Network

Christopher Brown is an author, attorney, and urban naturalist living in Austin, Texas. His newest book, A Natural History of Empty Lots: Field Notes from Urban Edgelands, Back Alleys, and Other Wild Places, blends nature writing, memoir, and nonfiction. The book explores the intersection of nature and urban spaces, encouraging readers to reconnect with the wilderness found in city edgelands and forgotten lots. Brown’s narrative examines how wildlife adapts to urban environments and offers practical advice for rewilding urban life without relying on remote landscapes. Through personal stories and reflections, he inspires readers to appreciate and act on the urgent need to preserve biodiversity within their immediate surroundings. Chris writes a popular Substack newsletter about his adventures in the edgelands, called “Field Notes,” which we discussed in a previous podcast. Chris also writes science fiction, including the novels Rule of Capture, Tropic of Kansas, and Failed State. Chris Brown: It is kind of a love story with place. It’s also a love story about nature and about the natural world and about learning to connect with nature in a way that doesn’t involve trying to inhabit some gear catalog or goofy car ad of imagining yourself in some remote depopulated landscape that probably doesn’t really exist much anymore in real life, right? And coming to terms with it. There’s a bunch of great blue herons making their giant mess there in this trashy tree behind this dumpy old warehouse down the street. Why are they doing that there? It could have been because there’s nowhere else for them to go. And getting excited about that and at the same time kind of saddened by that as you think about as you wonder if the presence of a lot of these animals in the city is because they’ve run out of other places to hang out.

Sustainability pioneer Gil Friend joins the Plutopia podcast this time. He has been called one of the 10 most influential sustainability voices in America. Gil is the founder, chair, and CEO of Natural Logic Inc. and Critical Path Capital. He advises leading companies, communities, and investors on value-driving sustainability strategies. He has been a noted sustainability pioneer for more than 50 years and is widely considered one of the founders of the sustainable business movement. We currently mostly have a system where if I make something and sell it to you, I’m done. It’s out of my hands, it’s in your hands. There’s a system called Extended Producer Responsibility that’s in place in a number of places around the world that says the producer is responsible for the safe, disposal of the stuff they make at the end of its life. So as a producer, I have responsibility throughout the value chain, so therefore I need to think about the implications and the costs of recovery at the end of life and I start to design things differently. We saw an early version of that in the United States with bottle pills, with deposits on soda bottles. It’s much more sophisticated in other countries. So that notion of responsibility, connecting actions and consequences, reducing and eliminating the subsidies, both the actual payments to companies, but also the pervasive subsidy of giving folks a free ride for their bad effects. Gil discusses the importance of extended producer responsibility, a system in which producers are accountable for the safe disposal of their products at the end of their life cycle. He explains how this principle encourages companies to design more sustainable products, drawing on historical examples like bottle bills in the U.S. and more advanced systems in other countries. He discusses his background in systems ecology, highlighting the need to consider complex, interrelated factors in sustainability efforts. The conversation touches on challenges in addressing climate change, the evolving nature of renewable energy, and how businesses, governments, and individuals can collaborate to create a more sustainable future. Gil also explores the benefits of employee ownership, alternative business models, and ways to shift cultural norms toward more environmentally responsible practices.

Filmmaker Nadya Wynd recently premiered her new movie “At Her Feet” in Hawaii and select mainland theatres. She joins the Plutopia podcast this time as we explore her creation of this moving and beautiful film. Nadya is a Hawaii-based director, writer and producer with extensive experience in writing, acting, producing and directing for stage and film. Nadya Wynd: I went to the big island and went up and communed with the volcanoes because I needed to shift my energy. I was still really frustrated about my documentary. And while I was up there at the crater of Kilauea Volcano, this story just came down, flooding through me. And I realized it was a gift to shift my energy, give me something to pour my creativity into. And thank God, because three years later, I would have been crazy if I’d still been focused on my documentary. Instead, I made this amazing movie that has been super successful in our theatrical release. And people have really embraced it. The Hawaiian people love the culture and history and language and spirituality, all the aspects of Hawaiian culture that is very seldom seen authentically in movies. “At Her Feet” is now available on the following platforms: Cable & Satellite: U-Verse DirecTV Dish Network Sling TV Spectrum https://ondemand.spectrum.net/movies/27352587/at-her-feet/ Vubiquity Non-Theatrical: Hoopla Swank (colleges, hospitals) On Demand: Amazon Apple TV FandangoNow (Vudu) Microsoft (Xbox) Google Play YouTube Movies Amazon DVD

In this episode of the Plutopia podcast, Linda Castellani and Tim Powers join Jon to discuss the legendary science fiction author Philip K. Dick. Linda and Tim recount their personal interactions with Dick. The discussion considers Dick’s complex personality, his writings, and his often tumultuous relationships, including Linda’s own experience as one of Dick’s “dark-haired girls.” They explore Dick’s paranoia, his mystical experiences, and his deep influence on the science fiction genre. Despite his brilliance, Dick’s life was marked by emotional instability, which profoundly affected those around him. Dick’s science fiction was mind-bending – his stories explored the nature of reality and of human perception, and he wrote about alternate realities and histories, monopolistic corporations, authoritarian regimes, drugs, the nature of consciousness. He had his own mystical and metaphysical experiences that were reflected in his work. Later science fiction including the cyberpunk subgenre owed much to his work. Linda Castellani: I wrote the letter because I was in a class taught by a professor named Will McNelly. I was in his Chaucer class; in the previous semester I was in his science fiction class. And one day he came to the Chaucer class with a letter from Phil, saying “Some of you might know who Philip K. Dick is and some of you may not, but you were in my science fiction class so maybe you’d be interested in this letter.” And it was all about his time in Canada at a rehabilitation place called X-Kalay, and the story of how he ended up being in Canada was kind of interesting. But I knew nothing of Philip K. Dick. I just heard this letter. I was 21, quite young and as you will see quite naive. And I thought, “Oh this man’s so sad, he needs a friend I’ll write him a letter.” Although I have come to wonder lately if I might not have been encouraged to do so by McNelly. But that’s a whole nother train of thought. So I wrote Phil a letter. My letter was dated April 7th, 1972. And a couple of days later McNally called me into his office and said, “Phil wants you to pick him up at the airport on Thursday night.” Which totally freaked me out.

Climate scientist Dr. Michael Tobis returns to the Plutopia podcast with an update on the current state of the Earth’s climate. The current state, it appears, is not so good. Michael discusses the worsening state of the Earth’s climate, highlighting the missed opportunities to transition away from fossil fuels over the past 30 years. He delves into the complexities of attributing specific extreme weather events to climate change, emphasizing the importance of focusing not just on these dramatic incidents but also on the subtle, day-to-day environmental shifts that are already occurring. Despite growing awareness, Tobis expresses concern that meaningful change is still lacking, with society continuing to operate unsustainably, driven by economic and political inertia. Michael Tobis: If we had started going down the road of moving off of fossil fuels 30 years ago, it would not have been a major adjustment. Back then we were saying, “Okay, if we don’t behave ourselves, the world could warm as much as two degrees Celsius.” And now we’re saying, “Well, if we really step on things and really work really hard, the world could warm as little as two degrees Celsius.” So we’re already pushing, we’re hoping for what was once considered the worst

This time, on the Plutopia podcast, blogger and author Susan McCarthy, a noted authority on apologies, helps us perform a verbal autopsy on the worldwide CrowdStrike security meltdown. Unlike most large outages, the CrowdStrike outage impacted individual workstations, Microsoft Windows workstations. In the aftermath, CrowdStrike apologized and even offered a $10 Uber Eats voucher. Susan found the CrowdStrike apology somewhat lacking. Our discussion centers around the global impact of the outage, which caused thousands of Microsoft Windows workstations to crash, leading to significant financial losses for companies like Delta Airlines. McCarthy critiques CrowdStrike’s apology, noting its inadequacies, particularly the company’s decision to offer those Uber Eats vouchers, which she argues were both insufficient and potentially damaging to the company’s reputation. The conversation explores the broader implications of corporate apologies in the tech industry, emphasizing the importance of taking full responsibility and making meaningful reparations to restore trust. Background Links Brian Fung sums up what went wrong pretty well at CNN. Initial estimates put daamge to Fortune 500 companies in revenues and gross profit at $5.4 billion Cybersecurity praises Crowdstrike’s “quick apology” Backlash over $10 Uber Eats gift certificate Delta Airlines has hired David Boies to demand compensation from Crowdstrike for 6,000 canceled flights AT&T issue (February 2024). Note it’s the same cause: failure to test software update properly. AT&T Apology AT&T offers some compensation in the form of credit to customers

Nick Selby, a law enforcement and security expert, shares insights from his extensive experience in the complexities of policing and information security. He highlights the often misunderstood realities of police encounters, noting that while 1,400 people die annually following interactions with police, the use of non-deadly force—such as intimidation and humiliation—more significantly erodes public trust in law enforcement. Selby also discusses the challenges in modern policing, including the integration of technology and the balance between civil liberties and effective law enforcement. The conversation delves into the nuanced issues surrounding police culture, training, and the societal impact of these practices. Nick is an information and physical security professional who provides information security, disaster- and cyber incident-readiness assessments at Fuzz Technology, a subsidiary of EPSD, Inc. Nick Selby: Every year, 1400 people die after an encounter with police. There are 80 million encounters in the United States between police and citizens. And every year, 1400 people end up dead. Some of them are unarmed, usually about 150 to 200. The rest of them are either armed or something. Even the Washington Post says that 92% of the people who were killed by police had initiated a deadly force encounter. But every cop knows that if you shoot somebody, you’re going to absolutely get investigated. You probably are going to be the subject of a federal civil rights lawsuit. It’s going to be a nightmare for years and years. Actually, non-deadly force is the problem. The slap, the kick, the punch, the humiliation, the ordering people to do stuff that is unfair, talking to people who believe. These are the things that destroy trust in law enforcement, of the community. And there’s no data anywhere in the world, anywhere about that. Relevant Links Interview with Nick about police shootings: https://thecrimereport.org/2016/05/31/doing-the-right-thing/ Nick discusses spending a week with a mental health policing team in North Texas: https://nickselby.com/docs/divert/ He is co-author of In Context: Understanding Police Killings of Unarmed Civilians The Crime Report: “Doing the Right Thing” (2016)

Plutopians Jon and Scoop converse with Bruce Sterling, renowned for his cyberpunk novels. The discussion delves into Sterling’s interests beyond cyberpunk, including industrial design, steampunk, Frida Kahlo, and space exploration. Sterling shares insights on the evolution of the Viridian Design Movement and its impact on addressing climate change, albeit with limited success. He reflects on his experiences with design criticism and the intriguing intersections between historical fantasy and science fiction in his work. The conversation also touches on the surreal state of the world, AI advancements, and Sterling’s perspective on the resilience and adaptability of humanity through history’s challenges. Bruce Sterling: I follow space stuff. I mean I’m very interested in astronomy and space exploration so I’m looking up stuff from NASA or the ESA or the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, I follow a lot of people who are doing stuff like that. Things like looking for potential asteroid impacts and the amount of space technology that is present there and the sophistication of it is really impressive. I mean there aren’t a lot of manned human bases where things are but there are unbelievable amounts of drone coverage and fantastic amounts of incredibly detailed photos of the surface of Mars, the surface of Venus – like we know what’s on the dark side of the moon. We have samples from the dark side of the moon. Relevant Links Links: Bruce Sterling on Medium Viridian Design Movement Long Now Elon Musk The Lunar Codex Primo Levi Frida Kahlo Collapse of Romance Writers of America

David Miles, a British immunologist, joins the Plutopia podcast to discuss vaccines and vaccine hesitancy, sharing insights from his book, How Vaccines Work. The conversation covers the history of vaccine development, from artisanal methods in the 1930s to modern techniques. Miles addresses the current skepticism towards vaccines, explaining that while no vaccine works perfectly for everyone, they have historically been game-changers in public health. He emphasizes the importance of transparent communication to dispel myths and provide factual knowledge, allowing people to make informed decisions. Miles also touches on the challenges of vaccine distribution, particularly in low-income regions, and highlights the need for better ventilation in public spaces to reduce virus transmission. The discussion reflects on the evolution of vaccine technology and public perception, aiming to bridge the gap between scientific understanding and public awareness. Wendy Grossman discusses David and his book in “The Skeptical Inquirer.” David Miles: Back in the 1930s, most vaccines were done in universities, or actually a lot of them were done in the Institut Pasteur specifically, at that point. At the same time, there was this sort of artisanal vaccine development thing going on where people who had an outbreak in their general area would try and culture whatever microbe was causing it and then kill it and then inject it as a vaccine. I mean, fundamentally, that’s how vaccines work. You take the microbe that causes the disease, you do something to it so it can’t cause the disease, but it can trigger the immune memory to it. And then you give it to people and if it works, it protects them. Most people doing this really didn’t have a clue what they were doing and probably a lot of them probably did more harm than good.

Investigative journalist James Ball is no stranger to bullshit. In his 2017 book, Post Truth: How Bullshit Conquered the World, he explains how the political left and right tend to exist in an ecosystem of bullshit. James is also author of The Other Pandemic: How Q-Anon Contaminated the World, which explores the pervasive nature of misinformation and conspiracy theories (aka “bullshit”) in contemporary society. In his work, James argues that both political left and right are susceptible to such falsehoods, highlighting that intelligence and prior success in uncovering actual conspiracies can make individuals more prone to believing in new ones. He emphasizes that societal distrust in mainstream media and institutions fuels the spread of misinformation. Currently, James is working on a new book while also covering UK politics and pursuing a law degree, doing a thesis on AI and human rights. He engages in discussions on various platforms, including the right here on the Plutopia podcast, where he discusses his views on the media, conspiracies, and the influence of digital platforms like 4chan and YouTube on public perception and behavior. James Ball: I think people have a tendency to think that only their political opponents get into conspiracies and only stupid people get into conspiracies. And my experience, and I’ve checked and there’s some quite good research supporting this, is peer reviewed, but hey, there’s a million replication crises right now. Clever people are the people who get pulled into conspiracies, especially clever people who have been right when the world has suggested they’re wrong. People who’ve had a breakthrough theory or people who have exposed an actual conspiracy. Lots of investigative journalists become conspiracy theorists because being right is dangerous. When people stop trusting or stop buying mainstream media, we say we must change the people. The people are wrong, our product is just as good as it ever was. And that manifested all sorts of strange ways, because I think there is a habit of confusing, this is how we’ve always done it, with this is good and how it should be done. You know, I think especially the US media confuses traditions with values or with quality. Relevant Links Wendy Grossman’s review of Post Truth: How Bullshit Conquered the World: https://www.zdnet.com/article/post-truth-book-review-the-facts-about-alternative-facts/ Wendy’s review of The Other Pandemic: How Q-Anon Contaminated the World: https://netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2023/10/26/review-the-other-pandemic/ net.wars on Naomi Klein’s Doppelganger: https://netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2023/09/29/the-two-of-us/ Workshop on the Economics of Information Security: https://weis.utdallas.edu/ Wendy’s review of Culture Warlords, by Talia Lavin is an exploration of the online far right. Here’s my review: https://www.zdnet.com/article/culture-warlords-book-review-into-the-heart-of-online-darkness/

On this episode of the Plutopia Podcast, Jon and Scoop discuss current politics, the charm of vintage sci-fi movies, and the importance of reducing social media usage. They reflect on the shift in political conventions from dynamic debates to predictable events and lament the loss of genuine political discourse. The conversation also touches on the influence of the Heritage Foundation, the cultural implications of Trump’s presidency, and the current state of media. The podcast concludes with a nostalgic discussion about classic sci-fi films and the therapeutic value of stepping away from constant digital engagement.

Nate Wilcox has many opinions and he is not afraid to use them all. Nate joins the Plutopia podcast this time as we discuss politics, politicians, and other dangerous predators. Nate is a former political consultant turned MMA blogger (noting the similarity of politics to mixed martial arts). He’s publisher of “The MMA Draw Newsletter” and “Let It Roll” podcast (the latter is currently on hiatus). Nate joins the Plutopia podcast to discuss various political topics, highlighting how Trump’s unexpected rise to presidency was initially a strategy to gain leverage in reality TV negotiations. Wilcox provides an in-depth analysis of American politics, criticizing both major parties and their handling of power, policy, and military strategy. He draws parallels between contemporary political figures and historical events, questioning the effectiveness and motivations behind current leadership. The conversation covers Biden’s cognitive state, the influence of corporate interests, and the long-term implications of foreign policy decisions, painting a picture of a deeply flawed and corrupt political system. * * * Nate Wilcox (on Trump): If you look at the details of how he got into this situation, it’s Shakespearean! I mean, basically the guy wanted to show the producers at NBC that, hey, assholes, you should be paying me more money to star on whatever reality show it was because look at how good my polling numbers are gonna be. And he never thought he would win. He didn’t even really intend to get the nomination. And there are accurate accounts of election night 2016 where he’s just as shocked and horrified as anybody else that he’s getting elected. And now he’s in this position where if he doesn’t run for office, he goes to prison. So his interests are pretty easy to see through. I mean, the guy wants to eat cheeseburgers, talk about himself, and not go to prison and get money out of people.

Ian Forrester, a member of the BBC’s R&D Advisory Team, focuses on open innovation and disruptive opportunities, working with startups and early adopters. With a history at the BBC World Service, Ian’s role evolved from traditional news development to anticipating future broadcasting and Internet challenges. His team addresses core issues relevant to public service broadcasters, emphasizing the importance of forward-thinking and exploring new technologies. Known in the digital scene, Ian’s innovative approach and his involvement in projects like BBC’s Micro and Webwise initiatives highlight his commitment to public education and digital advancement. I spent a lot of time, well, I first started the BBC in the World Service, which is a news outlet side of the BBC. And it was always a cycle where you go into work, you work on stuff, and I was in the development team. But when it came to four o’clock, there was a massive rush, getting the stories out, getting them out to the right places, is it done, is the editor happy, all that stuff. And I have worked at newspapers as well, so I know that cycle. You don’t have time to sit there and think about, what does this mean in like two, three, four, five years time? That’s what R&D, so that’s what R&D department does. And the advisory team focuses on some of the kind of core issues that are relevant to the future of broadcasting, the future of the BBC and the future of all public entities when it comes to the internet. Relevant Links The BBC’s Webwise Indieweb Chaos Computer Club FOSDEM iPlayer GPL-3 Apache 2.0 license

In this episode of the Plutopia Podcast, the hosts revisit an interview with the late Stanton Friedman, a prominent nuclear physicist and UFO investigator who lectured extensively on his research into UFOs. Friedman argued that governments conceal information about UFOs to maintain nationalistic divisions and prevent public unification as earthlings. He emphasized the significant evidence supporting UFO reality, including his own investigations and the Project Blue Book Special Report 14, which documented numerous unexplained sightings. Despite skepticism and ridicule, Friedman’s work contributed to a broader acceptance of UFO phenomena and highlighted the inadequacies of official investigations.

In this episode of the Plutopia Podcast, Jon and Scoop discuss the origin of the name “Plutopia” as well as the organization, and its connection to digital convergence. We also discuss the importance of democratic principles. Jon delves into the history of the Plutopia News Network, while Scoop shares his passion for analog technology. They touch on political issues, including conservative attacks on democracy, and the nostalgic allure of the 1950s for some people. The conversation also covers their experiences with high-tech events in Austin and the broader implications of technological advancements on society. (Thanks to ChatGPT for the image, especially the flattering representations of “Jon” and “Scoop”… looks nothing like us, but we like it!)

In this episode of the Plutopia podcast, hosts Scoop Sweeney, Wendy Grossman, and Jon Lebkowsky have an open discussion without a guest, considering what’s buzzing at the moment. The conversation touches on various topics, including being a dilettante versus a specialist, the misuse of AI in solving policy problems, and the influence of technology on participatory medicine. They also discuss the anti-vax movement, the effects of misinformation, and the political landscape, including voter suppression and the influence of venture capital on job security. The episode concludes with reflections on the current state of democracy and the challenges posed by disinformation and authoritarianism.

Contemporary media artist Patrick Lichty returns for another conversation with Plutopians Scoop and Jon. In this conversation, we discuss the current state of digital art. Pat is a Contemporary Media Artist, educator, professional writer/researcher, expert in Augmented/Virtual Reality/Drones, public speaker, and curator. He is a Herb Alpert/CalArts fellow, a TED Global exhibitor, and his writing on culture and art is widely published. As an activist and artist, he was part of or worked with the collectives RTMark, Pocha Nostra, The Yes Men, Terminal Time, Second Front, Shared Universe, and Critical Art Ensemble, showing in the Venice and Whitney Bienniales. His writing on VR, AR, and media culture are widely published, and for 10 years he was Editor in Chief of Media Arts Journal Intelligent Agent, published by Christiane Paul, Adjunct Curator of the Whitney Museum of American Art. He lives in Winona, MN. Pat Lichty: Digital art is finally getting accepted in the, what I’d say, the high art ecosphere, between museums and galleries and collectors and that sort of thing and you know, there’s been different names for this stuff like, you know, cyberart – that’s kind of where we started into this, then new media, then post internet art, then now we’re kind of getting into digital art, which is, you know, there’s a lot of stuff with the guarantee of it, you know, and this has been the big thing with digital art, you know, how can we guarantee this as something that you can collect or sell and that has to do with verifying it on the blockchain.

In this episode of the Plutopia Podcast, hosts Jon and Scoop engage in a wide-ranging discussion covering various topics, including the ongoing ransomware attack at Ascension Seton hospitals, solar flares, science fiction, billionaire bunkers, and QAnon conspiracy theories. They also touch on the upcoming debates between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, speculating on Trump’s debate tactics. The conversation highlights Plutopia’s commitment to freewheeling discussions, even if they occasionally veer off into humorous, speculative, or strange territory. The episode provides a blend of current events, personal anecdotes, and societal commentary, reflecting the eclectic nature of our podcast. Jon: Biden and Trump are going to have a couple of debates, or Trump is going to have a couple of debates, whether he will let Biden get a word in edgewise is another question. Scoop: Yeah, he’s not real good at following the rules of decorum and debate. He just wants to scream and yell and interrupt. That’s how the last one’s were. Jon: It’d be cool if Biden showed up with a bunch of black guys carrying bazookas. Scoop: Okay…! Jon: Terrorize Trump for a change.

ACLU Senior Policy Analyst Jay Stanley joins the Plutopia podcast this time. Jay works with the ACLU Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, where he researches, writes, and speaks about technology-related privacy and civil liberties issues. The ACLU is very involved in legislative advocacy. We have a team here in Washington of lobbyists who work with Capitol Hill and federal agencies to try to stop bad things and encourage good things. And also a lot of times just educate staffers. As everybody knows Capitol Hill is run by 20-somethings. And members of Congress who have to deal with every issue under the sun, A to Z, often aren’t very educated on particular abstruse tech issues like what we were talking about. And so just having people who can pick up the phone, people on Capitol Hill who call and help educate them about the realities of things. * * * The ACLU, a multi-issue nonprofit, has a team of lobbyists in Washington working to influence legislation, educate Capitol Hill staff, and address privacy and civil liberties concerns. Jay, as part of the Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, focuses on issues like digital identity and drones, which have significant implications for privacy and power dynamics. He highlights the risks posed by surveillance technologies and the importance of protecting individual rights against misuse by both government and private entities. The conversation also covers the challenges of combating mass surveillance and ensuring technologies serve the public rather than expanding the power of corporations and government. Relevant Links Ross McNutt and his Baltimore aerial surveillance: https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/baltimore-police-secretly-running-aerial-mass Flock: https://www.aclu.org/wp-content/uploads/publications/flock_1.pdf Google and Project Maven: https://www.wired.com/story/3-years-maven-uproar-google-warms-pentagon/ The Dawn of Robot Surveillance: https://www.aclu.org/publications/dawn-robot-surveillance Point and shoot chemical detection: https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/new-point-and-shoot-chemical-detectors-raise-privacy-and-constitutional-issues Justice Dept report on Ferguson: https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opa/press-releases/attachments/2015/03/04/ferguson_police_department_report.pdf More on airport security and facial recognition: https://papersplease.org

Madeline Bocaro describes herself as a passionate fan of rock music. In this episode of the Plutopia podcast, she explains her passion for all things rock and roll. We also explore her ultimate biography of Yoko Ono, In Your Mind: The Infinite Universe of Yoko Ono. I just saw a picture of her in a magazine in 1967. It was a picture of her in front of a frame of one of her films. And I just thought, “This person has kind of a mischievous look. She looks kind of interesting.” And her film was about “Bottoms,” you know, on the screen walking. And I said, “Well, this is kind of cool.” I kept the picture and the following year I realized, “Hey, this is the person that’s with John Lennon.” So I was so happy because now I’m like, “Wow, I can really find out what she’s doing now.” And sure enough, you know, they end up getting married and doing all their events together. The bed-in for peace, then, you know, everything they did. They were on the news every day practically. I started collecting everything she ever did, all the interviews, all her music, all her TV interviews – I would record off the TV. And I’ve been writing about her all my life. In Your Mind: The Infinite Universe of Yoko Ono HARD COVER BOOKS signed by the author are exclusively available at http://conceptualbooks.com SOFT COVER: also at http://conceptualbooks.com Amazon worldwide AND: http://bookbaby.conceptualbooks.com

In this episode of the Plutopia podcast, hosts Jon Lebkowsky, Wendy Grossman, and Scoop Sweeney discuss with guest Mike Nelson, a senior fellow at Carnegie Asia, the evolution and impact of the internet and encryption policies. Mike shares his journey from being Al Gore’s science advisor, contributing to legislation that allowed public internet access, to his current focus on technology policy at Carnegie. He reflects on the internet’s explosive growth during his tenure at the White House, highlighting the lack of cybersecurity concerns at the time compared to the multi-trillion dollar stakes and geopolitical consequences present today. The conversation delves into the ongoing conflict between privacy advocates and law enforcement over access to encrypted communications. Mike criticizes inconsistent encryption policies and warns of the dangers of weakening encryption, which could impact a wide range of legitimate users including journalists. He also discusses the misuse of encryption and cryptocurrencies, noting the latter’s primary use in ransomware. Further, Mike touches on his career trajectory, including his early advocacy for public internet access and his ongoing efforts to combat “stupid policy” through alternative frameworks. The discussion also covers the influence of digital technology on societal structures, politics, and personal privacy, emphasizing the need for careful policy crafting to avoid unintended consequences. The dialogue expands to address broader technology issues like AI, digital leadership, and the sustainability of platforms like Signal. The hosts and guest critique current technology and encryption policies, debating the potential benefits and drawbacks of various regulatory approaches. Michael expresses concern over the future of encryption, digital currencies, and the overarching impact of technology on society, including the shift towards centralized digital power. By the end of the discussion, it’s clear that while technology offers immense opportunities for innovation and problem-solving, it also presents significant challenges that require thoughtful and informed policy responses to ensure it benefits society as a whole. Relevant Links @Mike Nelson on X (Twitter) The Modem World: A Prehistory of Social Media by Kevin Driscoll The Dream Machine by M. Mitchell Waldrop “Asia’s Interest in Wholesale Central Bank Digital Currency—and Challenges to Cross-border Use” by Robert Greene Carnegie Endowment compendium on “Digital Leadership” Background on “colonial copyright” and how the U.S. copyright first was redesigned to focus on profit rather than culture and creativity. (The original term was 14 years.) Article about Mike’s role in the key-escrow encryption (and the Clipper Chip). Details on the first Presidential Twitter debate (in 2008) from the dawn of Political Twitter. What was Elon Musk’s strategy for Twitter?

This time on the Plutopia podcast, our evil alien overlords, Jon and Scoop, talk about their favorite science fiction films and TV series.

Filmmaker Friedrich Moser is on a crusade for truth. His new film “How to Build a Truth Engine” features investigators from the fields of technology, journalism, folklore and neuroscience who show that if you can hack the information feed, you can hack somebody’s mind. Friedrich Moser: Anything that happened in the world would become the cornerstone of a new conspiracy story, like a small story. In some you have this web of conspiracy stories that grow together and then on top of that you see the formation of a real conspiracy. And that’s the conspiracy that led to January 6th and the capital riot because a lot of people who were there, and I’m not talking about the Proud Boys – I’m not talking about those, but like normal ordinary people. A lot of people who were there genuinely believed that they were there to save democracy. So their feedback loop system of the model of the world that is in the mind and the real world had been cut off by relying exclusively on this online community for information. And that’s a really dangerous thing.

In her new book, Rebel Health: A Field Guide to the Patient-Led Revolution in Medical Care., Susannah Fox focuses on the health care needs of patients and caregivers. She points out the need for better communication and networking for anyone who has difficulty navigating the American healthcare system. Susannah Fox: With all of the technology that we have now, at the base of it, it’s really about the connection between and among people who are facing the same challenge, who are lost in the maze of healthcare, who find out that they’re not alone. And that moment that you find that just in time someone like you, it’s the same incredible excitement that we all felt in the early days of being online, it’s the same feeling that people have now on TikTok and whatever is the latest platform. Susannah Fox is a health and technology strategist. She is a former Chief Technology Officer for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, where she led an open data and innovation lab. She has served as the entrepreneur-in-residence at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and she directed the health portfolio at the Pew Research Center’s Internet Project.

On the March 21st Plutopia Livestream, woke Plutopians discussed the financial woes of that orange-haired politician, the Biden impeachment hearings, RFK Junior, student loans, the University of Austin, South by Southwest and much more. “I think it was a sock puppet…”

David Gans has a long history of making music, writing about music, and broadcasting music. He recently added a new entry to his musical résumé, teaching “Psychedelia and Groove: The Music and Culture of the Grateful Dead,” a continuing studies course at Stanford University. But what I proposed was a class that was going to be very, very loosely structured. And I said, “Here are six things that we will address in these six sessions, but they won’t be rigidly divided into these things, because everybody that I invite to talk about this with me will have expertise in all these areas.” I said, “We’ll talk about the history, we’ll talk about songwriting, we’ll talk about improvisation, we’ll talk about the culture, the deadhead culture, and how the Grateful Dead impacted the music and the world around them. And we’ll talk about the Grateful Dead’s amazing way of interpreting music – it’s one of the most important things they did was take music from outside the Grateful Dead and make it their own.” David regularly streams performances at https://www.youtube.com/@dgans. Photo by Nancy Carbonaro

Jen Persson is director of the UK Civil Liberties Group, Defend Digital Me. She campaigns for a safe, fair, and transparent collection of children’s data in education and elsewhere. What happens when you start collecting school records is that they’re about children, but those records age as the people do, and now we have a record of about a third of the UK population who have been in state education over the last 20 years. So anyone under 47 also has a national pupil record, and it is de facto becoming a go-to national identity database. It is something that other departments and even the police have started to use as how to find people. And that for me is a really concerning development and something that was foreseen and argued about 20 years ago. And I think any collection of data that is starting should be asking the same questions now about thinking about how they would be down the line. So that’s kind of one aspect of what we do is around government – state-collected information about children. And then we also look at things like technology that’s used in education, so things like biometrics, AI, apps, and platforms. Jen is an advocate for digital privacy and human rights, is director of the digital privacy organization, Defend Digital Me. She writes about government plans to use personal data from education, health, and other parts of the public sector, for purposes beyond our reasonable expectations. Relevant Links danah boyd (research on teens online) UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child Sonia Livingstone Center for Democracy and Technology Electronic Frontier Foundation Open Rights Group Privacy International KOSA

This time on the Plutopia Podcast, Jake Dunagan joins us as we explore the future of governance and democracy. This podcast is from the Plutopia Live webcast on 2/22/2024. Jake is Director of the Governance Futures Lab at the Institute for the Future. More information here: https://www.iftf.org/people/jake-dunagan/ Jake Dunagan: As much as it is anathema to my values, the MAGA wing has shaped the conversation, and they are dominating the conversation, and they are moving the window over. And so that is, again, in a neutral sense, leadership. And so what’s the countervailing to that, rather than just trying to hold on to the last bits of maybe majority rule? You know, maybe if you win elections, it just feels very desperate on the left to try to hold on against this juggernaut of focus. It’s not the majority, but it is a focused, mission-driven group of people that have no end point other than seizing absolute control over the system. And so what do you do? It’s the greatest dilemma that we’ve faced, I think, in our lifetimes for sure, is what do you do when your opponent does not play by the rules, and you’re trying to hold on to legitimacy in the other group? The other side is not. I mean, I think that’s our democracy death spiral at this point. Points to consider: The conversation about the future of democracy is dominated by the MAGA wing of the Republican Party. This group is focused on seizing power and does not care about the traditional norms of democracy. The dominance of the MAGA wing is due in part to the fact that they have a clear vision for the future, while the left is focused on holding onto the status quo. The left needs to develop a compelling vision for the future of democracy that is better than the one offered by the MAGA wing. This vision should include things like protecting individual rights and freedoms, and ensuring that everyone has a fair shot at success. The left needs to be more strategic in its thinking. This means being willing to play hardball and fight for what it believes in. The Republican Party has been taken over by Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, and there is no longer any room for dissent within the party. The only way to stop the MAGA wing is to push back against them in a way that is uncomfortable and disruptive. This may require people to step outside of their comfort zones and take risks.

This time on the Plutopia podcast, we investigate Texans’ love affair with high school football. Football culture… Capture the energy of high school football in Texas, and you could power a planet. A view of Texas from space on any Friday night in-season could be blinding – those Friday night lights at football stadiums across the state. We talked about the game and the culture on Plutopia Live, Thursday, 2/15/2024. An urban legend claims the best time to commit burglary in an average Texas town is on a Friday night during a high school football game! In Texas, high school football isn’t just a sport; it’s a way of life. Friday night lights illuminate small towns and big cities alike as communities gather to support their local teams. High school football games often draw large crowds and foster a sense of community pride. However there’s a decline in football participation, particularly in high school. This decline is attributed to concerns about the harmful effects of concussions and sub-concussive hits, potentially causing brain damange in some cases, leading many parents to keep their kids away from tackle football as a safety precaution. Changing demographics, athletic specialization, and the rise of non-sanctioned activities like club sports are also potential causes for the slumping involvement in football and other traditional sports. Originally webcast February 15, 2023 – on the weekly Plutopia News Network Livestream at YouTube. Photo: Keith Johnston, Unsplash

Moira Meltzer-Cohen has provided legal services for persons arrested in the course of justice struggles, including Indigenous communities and social movement groups. Moira Meltzer-Cohen: I mean, it doesn’t just contribute to greenhouse gases, right? I think that might be sort of the thing that everyone is most aware of. But the pollution, the environmental degradation, the mutagenic potential of all of the radioactive dust that is created by different kinds of mining, these are all consequences of colonial modes of resource extraction that probably would not be happening if anyone bothered to actually follow the aspirational international law norms that are being set forth in, like for example, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. That is not really something that has been provided for in America. There are these consultation requirements that are A, very minimal, and B, often ignored. Moira Meltzer Cohen is an educator, attorney, and abolitionist serving overlapping communities of activists, LGBTQ+, and prisoners. Moira provides criminal defense, particularly for those arrested in the course of justice struggles; representation of witnesses before federal grand juries; and advocacy for those seeking gender affirming and other necessary (but often withheld) health care while in prison.

Dr Richard Bartle is Honorary Professor of Computer Game Design at the University of Essex, UK. He co-created the first virtual world, MUD or multi-user dungeon, a progenitor of the Massively-Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game industry. His 1996 Player Types model has seen widespread adoption by MMO developers and the games industry in general. He’s the author of Designing Virtual Worlds and How to be A God: A Guide for Would-Be Deities. Prior to the interview, he told us “I regard games as a medium of personal expression by their designers. I simply want better games.” Richard Bartle: I was always a gamer and I’d always been creating worlds, paracosms. When I went and got to the University of Essex I was planning to make a world implemented in software. But I saw that Roy [Trubshaw] had just started like a week earlier work on this game MUD and I thought no, there’s no point in me writing my game if Roy’s doing the same thing. So he was a year older than me so he was more experienced programming, he knew all the stuff from that. So I started helping him with content and eventually Roy had to do his family of projects so he handed over the code ownership of MUD to me. That’d be 1980 and that’s when I started working with it. But the reason that we were working on it, at least in part Roy was working on it through curiosity because he was just interested in computers, he wanted to know and wanted to do things. But the real, the under libraries for it was because we wanted to make our own world because the real world sucked. MUD Links MUDII, the latest incarnation of the world’s very first MUD! Multi User Dungeon 2

Renshin Bunce is a Soto Zen Buddhist Priest who received Dharma transmission in 2013. She worked as a hospice chaplain from 2010 until she retired in 2022. Her latest book is Remembering Myogen Steve Stücky. Renshin Bunce: The impetus for the book was, I am, as you said, a Zen teacher. And Steve Stücky died ten years ago. At the time of his death he was one of the Abbots at San Francisco Zen Center. When he was made Abbot, he had not lived at Zen Center for, I don’t know, 20 years or something. So he was quite a surprise. He was Abbot for seven years when he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. And that was enough time for people to, I would say, begin to get to know him. His death was an enormous shock. So I have found in the years since his death that I was repeating stories about Steve to my students. So the point to the book was to gather those stories in the hopes that some kid who has become so curious about Zen that they’re coming around one of the Zen Center buildings. And they go in the bookstore and they’ve heard about this Steve Stücky. Who was he? So what I was hoping for, this is good. This never occurred to me before. What I was hoping for was to concretize his – make permanent his – teachings.

Brenda Laurel is an American interaction designer, video game designer, and researcher. She is an advocate for diversity and inclusiveness in video games, a pioneer in developing virtual reality, a public speaker, and an academic. She is known for her work on virtual reality and her advocacy for diversity and inclusiveness in video games. She founded Purple Moon, a company that created computer games for girls, in 1993. Purple Moon was bought by Mattel in 1999 and eventually shut down, but Laurel’s work has had a lasting impact on the gaming industry. Link to Computers as Theater at Amazon. Brenda Laurel: Our thought was to try to do some research to figure out how we might get girls engaged with technology so they wouldn’t be afraid of it. That was the initial impulse. And then as we went around, we interviewed like 1,000 kids all over the country, several years of research. We started learning things that we could do with those games that might be actually relevant and liberating for girls between the ages of 8 and 12. And so our mission became twofold, really. One was a computer literacy attractant. That was the initial impulse. But as we got into it, it was about – oh, shit, man, we can do some things for little girls that might make a big difference in their lives. And as I was raising three of them at the time, I was closely related to the problem space.

joey lopez phd loves media, all kinds of media. That love of media was confirmed at UT Austin’s ACTLab, where he was teaching assistant for Sandy Stone, the legendary academic and media theorist. In this episode of the Plutopia podcast, we discuss ACTLab, high-end audio gear, and joey’s work at Texas A&M’s Media and Gaming Lab. joey lopez: When I took soundscapes Sandy was like, production’s important, but why are you making this? What are you making? What’s the story? What is sound? Why does sound matter? What was sound and what will sound be? Oh, it was just intoxicating. So I just really latched onto that to the extent that I ended up taking a plethora of classes with her on multiple topics. And it’s also where I learned HTML. I learned HTML and notepad at the ACT Lab. And by the second semester, I was making websites for hi-fi companies. And that would end up being like a $500 to $1,000 a month side gig that I did all the way through my PhD. I was hosting either dealer or importer level websites for gear that they were selling. And that was really fun. And I learned it all in the ACT Lab. joey lopez phd – joey lopez phd is an Associate Professor of the Practice at Texas A&M and Director of the Department of Communication’s Media & Gaming Lab. joey is a polymath of sorts whose works range from Chicana Feminism to automotive journalism to hardware and software development cheerleading. He is often described as a degenerate who is looking for other degenerates to cause “otherness” with. He is a co-founder of the Convergent Media Collective, a group of “stuff makers” who span multiple disciplines and geographical spaces. He is also a co-owner of a High-End Audio shop called Dremonoid’s in San Antonio, TX. He is a fellow of the ACTLab Program which was founded by tech goddess Sandy Stone. Links mygeekylife.com https://www.instagram.com/joeyhifi/ https://www.instagram.com/dreamonoids/ https://www.instagram.com/tamumediagaminglab/

In this episode of the Plutopia podcast, we discuss the various technologies and sites that comprise the Fediverse. Johannes Ernst and Tom Brown have explored the Fediverse since the early days of the movement for an alternative to big social media. Johannes Ernst: Think of social media as this one linear feed that somehow streams by you. The best we can do, all we can do, can be to organize this differently, for example, or have different kinds of friend classes, like the Google+ used to do back in the day. There’s so many innovations and innovative things you could do if you could innovate as an innovator, which you can’t do on top of Facebook or on top of Twitter or any of these things. But you can in the Fediverse. One of the big problems that the world has is that so many of our communication channels from mass media to social media are fundamentally manipulated by interests that we cannot see and we cannot understand, and we would probably disagree with if we knew what they were. And so one of the premises on the societal level that the Fediverse has is that we are building a communication network that at least can’t be manipulated by unaccountable third parties, which is a huge proposition as far as I’m concerned. Johannes Ernst (@[email protected] on Mastodon)is a technologist, entrepreneur and community organizer. At Dazzle, he works on technology and governance enabling people to get back control over their on-line lives including their identity and their personal data. He is also co-organizer of the Fediverse Developer Network and FediForum, a twice-yearly unconference for the people who move the Fediverse forward. Tom Brown (@[email protected] on Mastodon) is a software developer and beer league hockey player. Links: David Pierce in The Verge: 2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse – an excellent summary of the case for the Fediverse. Anil Dash in the Rolling Stone: The Internet is About to Get Weird Again — Dash argues that a 25-year draught in decentralized innovation is now ending. Johannes’ notes from an interesting meeting at Meta on what they are up to with Threads: https://reb00ted.org/tech/20231208-meta-threads-data-dialogue/

Attorney Ed Cavazos specializes in technology and intellectual property law. He joins the Plutopia podcast this time as we explore artificial intelligence, content moderation, and telemedicine. Ed feels that lawsuits to stop AI programs like ChatGPT and open AI will likely fail. Ed Cavazos: There will be temptation to overreact. And we could lose some real valuable benefits of these technologies if we do that. I don’t know if this is a great place to be, right? I mean, the world may have been better the day before they unleashed this stuff, but it’s out there now. And I actually am optimistic that there will be more benefits than harm. But the harm is real. The dangers are real. And I mean, we could just go down a list, right? And we could get things wrong. We could get bad medical advice. It could be used to scam you – you think it – email scams and voice scams, the Nigerian prince type thing – you think it’s bad now? I think wait for those guys to start leveraging AI to make it really hard to know if you’re talking to someone real or someone fake. And all that’s coming. I know that’s out there. I know that’s bad stuff. But I think the legal system is just going to have to deal and try to keep up with it. I don’t think we can kill it. Ed Cavazos’ previous Plutopia interview: https://plutopia.io/ed-cavazos-cyberlaw/

Gus Hosein worries about data, everyone’s data. As executive director of Privacy International, Gus has a long history of fighting to protect people’s data from exploitation by companies and governments. When the Bush administration introduced the US-VISIT system, we were the only organization on the planet that opposed it, saying, this is ridiculous. You shouldn’t be fingerprinting kids coming to visit people in the US. But Americans didn’t really care. Although it was funny, because at that time, the Brazilians were a little bit rebellious. And they decided to retaliate against Americans by fingerprinting all American visitors. And Colin Powell was Secretary of State at the time, and he was on his way to Brazil. When he was asked about that, he said he was going to make his displeasure clear to the Brazilians that that was not a good practice. He couldn’t even imagine that this was standard US policy. I was working at the time campaigning against that system, and the Japanese government had also introduced its equivalent system. And the EU was very much on our side, saying, no, you should not be collecting data on EU citizens who are just visiting the US. And the data collected in the US-VISIT system, the fingerprint data is kept for 100 years. Gus Hosein is the Executive Director of Privacy International, a London-based charity that works across the world to protect people and their data from exploitation by governments and companies. He has worked at the intersection of technology and human rights for over twenty-five years.

Science fiction author and undisputed Queen of Cyberpunk Pat Cadigan joins this episode of the Plutopia podcast. We explore cyberpunk, artificial intelligence, and her recent novelizations of classic sci-fi movies and Japanese anime. Pat tells us she has no plans to write her own movie scripts… I am probably the wrongest person in the whole world to ever consider writing a screenplay, because apparently, you have to pitch this stuff. And my idea of a pitch is studio executives come to me and explain why I should give them time of day. I don’t make 30-second pitches on elevators to guys who can’t read. I’ve had just enough of Hollywood over the years to know that I’m probably not a good candidate for writing, for a studio. The other thing that they all seem to have is industrial strength ADHD, where they’re all excited about one project. And it’s all they can talk about. And then suddenly, you don’t hear anything about it, and everyone’s on to something else. Previous Plutopia interviews with Pat: Pat Cadigan: Alien 3 and Me Pat Cadigan: Covid and Cancer Won’t Stop Me from Going to Work Pat’s Latest Novelization Photo by Andy Miah. License

Andy Cohen is a blues musician who, when he’s not on the road touring, resides in Memphis Tennessee. He plays mostly southeastern music that he found on old 78 RPM records. Andy’s performances include blues, gospel, country dance music, fiddle tunes, ballads, classic rags, country songs, and boogies. If there’s one thing Andy loves as much as playing blues, that would be talking about the blues. I lived in Asheville, North Carolina in the mid 1970s. And I met a man there, his name was Walt Phelps, and he could play a little bit of guitar. And I asked him where he was from, and he said, I’m from Lawrence, South Carolina. And he was born in the same year as [Reverend Gary] Davis. He was in his close to 80 when I met him. I said, when you were a kid, did you know a blind kid that could pick his ass off? And he said, yeah, you’re talking about Gary Davis. I knew him, and I knew his brother, Buddy Pinson. I knew them both. And then he proceeded to take my guitar and he played “Candyman” just exactly like Reverend Davis taught me. Links Andy’s website: http://www.andycohenmusic.com/ Various music recordings at Wendy’s website: https://www.pelicancrossing.net/mp3s.htm Hoedowns, Reels, and Frolics, by Phil Jamison Buy the book Riverlark label: http://www.riverlark.com/oldtimecds/ Cornell Folk Song Society: http://cornellfolksong.org/ Harry Orlove: http://harryorlove.com/ Bottle Hill band at Fox Hollow Folk Festival 1970: https://archive.org/details/bottle-hill-fox-hollow John Roberts and Tony Barrand: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roberts_and_Barrand Dave van Ronk: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Van_Ronk The Duhks: https://duhks.com/ Eliza Carthy: https://eliza-carthy.com/ Martin Carthy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Carthy Rev Gary Davis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverend_Gary_Davis Media Reverend Gary Davis: Andy Cohen, “Franklin Blues”: Ray Fisher, singing Willie’s Lady:

Plutopia’s own Jon Lebkowsky was an early adopter of digital technology and the internet. On this episode of the Plutopia podcast, Jon presents a personal history of digital tech, life online in the 1990s, the internet, and much more. Jon Lebkowsky: So I heard that you could get a pretty decent computer, personal computer, an IBM PC clone from a company that was called PC’s Limited. And PC’s Limited was actually a DBA for a company called Dell Computers. So I bought one of the first Dell computers, which was through PC’s Limited. And carted it home and I had this computer and this amber monitor, no color, just amber, that was it. And a stack of manuals like this [holds hands to suggest size], huge stack of manuals, one for each computer program and one for the computer itself and one for the monitor and all this stuff that I had to read through and learn. And I started kinda banging away on the computer and then it’s like, okay, Marsha, now what I wanna do next is I wanna log in via long distance to this system that’s out in California and it’s gonna be about 10 bucks an hour. And this led to a rather tense discussion. And of course, acknowledging who wears the pants in the family, we squashed that idea. Currently cohost of Plutopia News Network, Jon was formerly CEO of FringeWare, Inc. and editor/publisher of FringeWare Review; associate editor at bOING bOING and Factsheet Five; writer for Mondo 2000, 21C, Wired, Whole Earth Review, Austin Chronicle; sub-editor at Millennium Whole Earth Catalog; and blogger at Worldchanging. A member of the online community The WELL for over 30 years, he cohosts three WELL forums: VC (virtual communities), Media, and Civil War (.ind) conferences.

In his 1941 short story, “Runaround,” Isaac Asimov created his three laws of robotics: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the first law, and A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection is not conflict with the first or second law. In this episode of the Plutopia podcast, Cindy Grimm and Bill Smart feel Asimov’s laws miss the mark when it comes to laws of robotics. Bill Smart: Asimov’s three laws, everyone brings them up. They were a plot device by a guy – who had never seen a robot – to drive story. If you were to think about it for five seconds, they are a reasonable three things to come up with. If you think about it for ten seconds, they fall apart of course. We do need structures and we do need a way of thinking about the ethics and morality of a social impact of robots. But I think it’s way more nuanced – way, way, way more nuanced – than you could compile into a paragraph of text. Cindy Grimm: I mean something even simple like, a robot should always do what you tell them to do, they should always get out of your way, that might not actually make sense. If the robots are all trying to get out of your way and so on, but there’s a needed delivery or they actually need to get somewhere, then maybe the robot does actually need to take priority over the humans. You can’t really have those conversations when you start from the place of, you know, all robots should kowtow to humans and stuff. Cindy Grimm is an American computer scientist, roboticist, and mechanical engineer. Bill Smart researches the areas of robotics and machine learning. Both are professors in the College of Engineering at Oregon State University. Links We Robot We Robot 2023 Wendy’s summary of this year’s “We Robot” XKCD on Asimov Ghost Work, by Mary L. Gray and Siddharth Suri Wendy’s review of Ghost Work

Don Norman has been a professor, industry executive, consultant, keynote speaker, and author. He’s worked in electrical engineering, cognitive psychology, cognitive science, computer science, and design. He’s the author of several books, among them Design for a Better World, his latest; also including The Design of Everyday Things, Living with Complexity,, Emotional Design and The Design of Future Things. Don believes you should design for people the way they are, not for how you want them to be. He joins the Plutopia Podcast this time as we discuss his journey from 1988’s The Design of Everyday Things to his latest book, Design for a Better World. Don Norman: I wanted to do something that actually was much more important for the world – and the world is a mess and I thought, what can I do to make a difference? And I thought about all the problems that exist, but I’ve also said, gee, you know, lots of good people have written about all these problems. I don’t have anything to add. And I looked for the solutions. Well, lots of good people have written about the solutions. I don’t have anything to add. Most of them are technology solutions, however. But then I said, wait a minute, we have all these problems, we have all these solutions but they aren’t being done. Why aren’t they being done? And I realized the real issue was human behavior and that maybe that’s where I could say something. And so what I tried to do was put together the problems that I thought I could say something new on. Photo by Peter Belanger Links: Wendy Grossman’s review of Living with Complexity “Responsible AI: Bridging From Ethics to Practice” by Ben Shneiderman Heavy Weather, by Bruce Sterling Charlie Stross’s blog Viridian Design Movement

Conceptual media artist, activist and educator Patrick Lichty joined the Plutopia Live show for a wide-ranging discussion of current events and the future. We explored migration and borders, climate change, AI and art, and the techno-tsunami of new ideas. Patrick Lichty: When we think of the idea of the future, I think something that’s a relatively new thing I think is really, really interesting called Paleo-Future Studies and the idea of what the future … in other words, like the future isn’t what it used to be. And so what happens, I think part of the questions I was thinking about and asking was the matter of saying what is the future now as opposed to what it was, as opposed to “2001, A Space Odyssey.” We’re now thinking about AI, whether crypto technology, blockchain technology is actually going to take hold. And I think AI is going to transform a lot of things. It reminds me of an event very similar to that, when my father retired over computers coming to his insurance office, and I think this is as big of a shift. It’s as big of a shift as smartphones.

Cory Doctorow has a problem with corporate bullies. In his latest book, The Internet Con, How to Seize the Means of Computation, Cory details how monopolies have taken control of much of the tech sector and are unlikely to give it back without a fight. Cory Doctorow: Corruption arises out of monopoly, so we know what our marching orders should be, and obviously it’s much harder under monopolistic conditions to do something about it. The best time to have prevented monopolies was 40 years ago but the second best time is now and we are living at a historically unprecedented moment in which there is interest in public service provision, good governance, good public administration and returning power over the structure of your daily life from corporate boardrooms into publicly accountable meetings held by publicly accountable agencies. Cory is a science fiction author, activist, journalist, and ball of fire. He’s written quite a few books, including Red Team Blues, a science fiction crime thriller; Chokepoint Capitallism, nonfiction about monopoly and creative labor markets; the Little Brother series for young adults; In Real Life, a graphic novel; and the picture book Poesy the Monster Slayer. In 2020, he was inducted into the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame. Cory’s been bringing back muckraking big time at Pluralistic.net. Portrait by Jonathan Worth

Journalist John Schwartz joins Plutopians to discuss journalism and climate science. After two decades at the New York Times, John has joined the faculty at the University of Texas School of Journalism as a professor of practice concentrating on climate science. UT has been very good to me and it turns out that I love teaching, and the students are great. And it’s also not a bad thing to be trying to launch people into the world of journalism, and especially – I’m teaching a course in covering climate, covering the environment. And I really feel it’s important to get people into that field especially – the science communication/climate communication field – and have them be good at it and have them come from not necessarily the Ivy Leagues but from every part of the country. And so doing this from Texas is especially satisfying. John has written extensively about climate science and environmental issues. He is a strong advocate for science communication, and has argued that journalists have a responsibility to report accurately on climate science and to help the public understand the issue. He argues that climate journalists need to be more proactive in telling stories about the impacts of climate change that are already happening. He has also said that journalists need to do a better job of explaining the science of climate change to the public. Links Oddly Normal: One Family’s Struggle to Help Their Teenage Son Come to Terms with His Sexuality by John Schwartz This Is the Year I Put My Financial Life in Order by John Schwartz A.R. “Babe” Schwartz, John’s father Molly Ivins Can’t Say That, Can She? Mr. Texas by Lawrence Wright The Heat Will Kill You by Jeff Goodell

Karen Levy is an author, associate professor in the Department of Information Science at Cornell University and associated faculty at Cornell Law School. Her research focuses on the legal, organizational, social and ethical aspects of data-intensive technologies, particularly in contexts that are marked by conditions of inequality. In her book, Data Driven: Truckers, Technology, and the New Workplace Surveillance, Levy examines the impact of electronic logging devices (ELDs) on truck drivers. ELDs are devices that are hardwired into truck cabs and track how much time drivers spend driving. The devices were mandated by the US Department of Transportation in 2017 in an effort to reduce truck accidents caused by driver fatigue. Karen Levy: Back in 1980, trucking was still a regulated industry. The federal government set rates in the industry. It was much more heavily unionized. And truckers made about $110,000 a year in today’s dollars, so a pretty decent living. Truckers today make about $47,000 a year. So half, basically, what they made 40 years ago. And so when you create these conditions, you end up in a position where people are going to end up breaking the law to keep the lights on at home. So if we think that that’s a problem – the federal government doesn’t really want people breaking the law as much as they are. So they suggested a proposed rule in the Department of Transportation, mandating what are called electronic logging devices [ELD]. And what these are are basically devices that are hardwired into the truck cab that keep track of how much truckers are driving. The idea is that it’s a little digital tattletale. It tells the government what the trucker goes through, a wait station or is inspected. It keeps a record of whether or not that trucker has exceeded the allowable hours. And this is now required of all truckers in the United States. It’s been required for about five years. And what my research has focused on is the evolution of this rule, of this technology, and trying to understand how the life of trucking and the day-to-day work of trucking looks different when truckers are being monitored this way versus before when they were just keeping track of their time using the pencil and paper.

Technologist, thought leader and podcaster Tom Parish joins the Plutopia Podcast as we explore developments in artificial intelligence, privacy, the Internet of Things, and job security. Tom Parish: The difference about AI is there’s so much Hollywood myth associated with gloom and doom and what’s going to come in – the end of the world and all that. And a lot of worry about how it’s going to impact jobs. I began to think, look, it’s going to happen, it’s not going away. And one of the most amazing things about this version of AI is that it’s so reflective of who you are. You know, it can reflect back to so many different aspects of your own personality. It can seem almost like a real entity itself. And so when I thought about that from the perspective of where do we really want to go with this, especially if you were looking for employment, what’s ultimately more important than just knowing something about AI if you are out on the job market again five years from now or ten years from now? It’s knowing about yourself. I use the mantra, be what the machines can’t be. Be more you, be more human. Tom Parish is a thought leader and facilitator of conversations around technology and the problems of our times. Tom worked with AI researchers at the MIT AI Lab back in the 1980s, and he helped move Motorola’s IT infrastructure to a TCP/IP-based network in the 90s. He worked with Motorola’s first Internet Marketing Group. He has 30-plus years in management in networking, cloud computing, SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) and process control, enterprise software, mobile technology, customer relationship management, social media, AI, and multi-media production, as well as a career as a musician and a film colorist. And he’s produced a LOT of podcasts. Key points: AI is becoming increasingly powerful and accessible, and it is important to be aware of the risks associated with the technology. AI has the potential to be a powerful tool for good, but it is important to use it responsibly. Human creativity and empathy are essential in the age of AI. Tom encourages people to focus on their unique strengths and to use AI to amplify their abilities.

Journalist and educator Jeff Jarvis, who believes we have entered the post-print age of communication, joins Plutopians to discuss his book The Gutenberg Parenthesis: The Age of Print and Its Lessons for the Age of the Internet. Jeff created and edited Entertainment Weekly and wrote about media for TV Guide, People Magazine, and The Guardian. He’s a blogger at buzzmachine.com. He holds the Leonard Tow Chair in Journalism Innovation and directs the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism at the City University of New York’s Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism. He cohosts a podcast, “This Week in Google,” and has written several books, including What Would Google Do and his latest, The Gutenberg Parenthesis. Jeff Jarvis: I think society was fundamentally conversational before print. That’s fairly obvious, that’s what we had. But even in the early days of print, Luther and the Pope held a conversation through their books and burnings of them. Erasmus and Thomas More wrote letters to each other for the purpose of including them in the books because that was part of the conversation. What ruined the conversation, I think, was the mechanization and industrialization and corporatization of print and its products, this idea that they were products for that matter, and people couldn’t fit into a conversation at that scale. And now my hope is that we rediscover the conversation. We’re bad at it. Society’s long out of practice with it. We’re doing an awful job of it. I’ll concede all of that. But I treasure all the voices that can now be heard that were always there that were not heard in mainstream mass media run by people who look like me: old white men. Relevant links: Wendy Grossman’s review of The Gutenberg Parenthesis. Tom Standage – The Writing on the Wall – tomstandage.com Jeff Jarvis’ next book – Magazine Charlton McIlwain – Black Software Douglas Rushkoff – Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus Tiny News Collective The Ferret Bristol Cable Marshall McLuhan: The Medium is the Massage Black Twitter Photo by Robert Scoble. CC BY 2.0

Marjorie Ingall and Susan McCarthy are co-authors of the book Sorry, Sorry, Sorry, The Case for Good Apologies, where they draw on a deep well of research in psychology, sociology, law, and medicine to explain why a good apology is hard to find and why it doesn’t have to be. They also have a website called SorryWatch, where they track bad apologies and occasionally good apologies as well. In their book, Susan and Marjorie have identified the good, bad, and ugly ways we say I’m sorry for that thing I did or said or didn’t do or didn’t say. We like to distinguish between corporate politician celebrity apologies that are made not to truly be apologetic but to salvage your brand. You know that bad stilted corporate apology. You know there’s also the sort of influencer celebrity Instagram notes apology which or you know in general like little video apology from a famous person where they don’t wear their makeup so you know they’re serious. They’re often holding a small fluffy dog. They always start with, “Hey guys, I just wanted to talk to you myself.” And then it comes into this litany of self-justification. Good apologies tend to make things vanish from the forefront of the public mind. One of the things that fascinated me doing research for this book, I came across the Zeigarnik effect, which suggests that you remember uncompleted actions better than completed actions. The authors argue that apologies are essential for repairing relationships and restoring trust. They also provide a six-step process for giving a good apology. A good apology puts the other person’s feelings front and center. 1. Say “I’m sorry” or “I apologize.” Not “I wanted to apologize for” or “I regret.” SAY THE WORDS. (We can talk about why those specific formulations are the right ones later, but we bet most people can guess.) 2. Say what you’re sorry FOR. Name the thing. Not “the situation” or “what happened.” 3. Show you understand why it was bad/wrong/a cause of pain. 4. If you need to offer some explanation, BE CAREFUL; don’t let explanation become excuse. (This is the hardest step for me, btw.) 5. Explain what you’re doing to ensure it never happens again. 6. Make reparations, if that’s possible. 6.5 = LISTEN. People want to be heard. Let them talk. Let them discuss why they’re upset. It’s .5 because you don’t SAY or DO anything except bear witness. (And indeed, you shouldn’t interject when you’re letting them have their say.) About the Sorrywatchers (from their website) Susan McCarthy Susan is the author of Becoming a Tiger: How Baby Animals Learn to Live in the Wild (HarperCollins) and co-author with Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson of When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals (Delacorte). A modest person, she seldom mentions that the latter book was an international bestseller. Publications she’s written for include Discover, Guardian.co.uk, Outside, Parade, Salon, Smithsonian, and Wired. McCarthy wrote a piece for Salon on apologies (“How to Say You’re Sorry: A Refresher Course”) which has been lastingly popular, and which has encouraged her to think more about the matter. McCarthy writes about animals on the blog The Nature of the Beast (According to Susan McCarthy). This combines observations about animals, humor, and sometimes drawings. Take a look. If you don’t like it, too bad. She’s not sorry. Except for herself. McCarthy lives in San Francisco. A carbon-based life form, she is a native of Earth. “I love your sunsets,” she reports. Marjorie Ingall Marjorie has written for many magazines and newspapers, including Tablet (where she was a columnist for a decade), The New York Times, Ms., Food & Wine, Wired, Self (where she was a contributing writer), Glamour (where she was a contributing editor), and Sassy (yes, that one), where she was at one time or other the senior writer, health editor, and books editor, and won several awards for health and social issues coverage. She’s the author of Mamaleh Knows Best; the co-author of Hungry, written with the model Crystal Renn; the author of The Field Guide to North American Males; a contributor to Here Lies My Heart: Essays on Why We Marry, Why We Don’t, and What We Find There (Beacon); and the co-author of Smart Sex (Simon & Schuster), a now-retro guide for teenagers. She’s also a former writer/producer at the Oxygen TV network, where, in a meeting with Oprah, she saw Oprah’s giant diamond earring fall out of her ear, get entangled in her sweater and dangle temptingly above the conference room floor. Ingall considered leaping for it, plucking it from the angora and fleeing to pay off her mortgage, an impulse for which she does not apologize. At the end of her rousing and mesmerizing pep talk, Oprah (who had not given any indication that she had noticed the fallen earring) cool

Plutopia Live was on vacation hiding from the heat – but last week the weather was lowered from molten lava to merely hellish so we resumed our regular Thursday show on YouTube (9/21/2023). Join us now for a rebroadcast of that show where we discuss the former president who shall not be named, fascist takeovers, social media, brain implants, and much more. And we’re not mentioning Donald Trump by name! At least, we’re trying not to do that… He who shall not be named is a master of self-promotion, and he often uses his name to generate attention. By not mentioning him by name, can we deprive him of this attention? And let him know that we don’t think he’s a “leader,” just a con man with a bad attitude. Jon: I just want to frame a conversation here, and we don’t have to talk about for very long, if you don’t want to, but this guy, this guy who shall not be named, the one that we’re not gonna talk about, – you could call him a juggalo or something like that. Scoop: Yeah, well, Trump has been– Jon: I don’t think he’s gonna have a receptive audience there. Scoop: He’s been a union buster for most of his life. I mean, his entire family was built on that. They didn’t allow unions at any of his companies. Jon: You mentioned his name. You’re not supposed to do that. Suzy: I didn’t say his name. Jon: It wasn’t you, it was Scoop! Jon: Get a gallon of liquor. Scoop: Okay this is the “his name we shall not say” jar. So I’m putting a quarter in. Suzy: Oh, nice. Nice, nice, nice. Jon: We’re all gonna get rich!