Month: October 2020

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Time To Say Goodbye - Abolishing Silicon Valley: Wendy Liu

A bonus deep-dive episode into the culture and politics of Big Tech and Silicon Valley!

Today Andy chats with the writer Wendy Liu (no relation) about her recent book, Abolish Silicon Valley.

A programmer, former Google intern, and startup founder, Wendy has written on a host of political-economic questions swirling around Silicon Valley today: how to organize contract workers in Silicon Valley; Andrew Yang and UBI; and why we should socialize Amazon.

Above all, she is interested in spoiling the myths that Silicon Valley tells itself and sells to the public. This episode focuses on her individual reckoning with the reality of Big Tech and capitalism: her distaste for corporate identity politics, how her social position (second-generation Chinese-Canadian woman) shaped her growth, the contrast between STEM and political education, and the mythology of meritocracy.

0:00 – Wendy’s own trajectory from youthful adherent of the cult of Silicon Valley (Elon Musk, Elizabeth Holmes) to disillusionment and critique.

19:30 – Wendy’s thoughts on entering the tech world as a woman and an Asian-(North) American—from minimizing her feelings of difference in order to fit in to gaining a structural understanding of gender and race. Some choice words for White Fragility-style corporate diversity measures. And a brief discussion of the mind-blowing history of Chinese labor migration to the West Coast.

41:30 – Our thoughts on a previous listener question: why so many Asian-Americans opt for STEM education and career paths. Parental pressure? Culture? 

48:00 – We discuss friend-of-the-show Immanuel Wallerstein’s classic, Historical Capitalism (Verso, 1983), and his criticism of the concept of meritocracy. Why is Silicon Valley’s cult of meritocracy a “sham”? How should the rest of us try to process and make sense of this critique?



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CBS News Roundup - World News Roundup: 10/16

President Trump and Joe Biden take part in dueling town halls. The President insists he does not owe money to Russia. Coronavirus cases spike across the nation. CBS News Correspondent Deborah Rodriguez has today's World News Roundup.

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City of the Future - Generative Design

Generative design is the process of automatically producing thousands of designs based on goals and constraints you feed into a computer. In this episode, we ask: could you apply generative design to something as complex as the urban planning process? Could it reveal better designs for buildings, neighborhoods, districts — showing us options we didn’t even know were possible? And, in the future, could this new emerging field even empower urban development teams to create better, more human cities?

In this episode:

  • [0:06 - 4:13] Hosts Vanessa Quirk and Eric Jaffe on the unintended consequences of the 1915 Equitable Building (the “monstrosity” that influenced New York City’s first zoning laws)
  • [4:15 - 11:42] Sidewalk Labs’ Senior Product Manager Violet Whitney and Senior Design Lead Brian Ho on Delve, a product that uses generative design to reveal unexplored urban design options for any given development project
  • [11:43 - 18:13] Carnegie Mellon University’s Associate Professor of Ethics & Computational Technologies Molly Wright Steenson on the history of architecture and computing — and the contributions of thinkers like Cedric Price, Christopher Alexander, and the MIT Architecture Machine Group
  • [18:14 - 20:16] Geographer and City Planner Evan Lowry on how visualization software could transform community engagement in Charlotte, North Carolina
  • [20:19 - 22:42] Violet and Brian return to explain why it’s important for cities to visualize how urban designs could impact their communities.

To see images and videos of topics discussed in this episode, read the link-rich transcript on our Sidewalk Talk Medium page.

City of the Future is hosted by Eric Jaffe and Vanessa Quirk, and produced by Benjamen Walker and Andrew Callaway. Mix is by Zach Mcnees. Art is by Tim Kau. Our music is composed by Adaam James Levin-Areddy of Lost Amsterdam. Special thanks to Violet Whitney, Brian Ho, Molly Wright Steenson, and Evan Lowry.

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The Intelligence from The Economist - Más MAS? Bolivia’s election

After last year’s vote was marred by fraud allegations, the electorate is split ahead of Sunday’s poll: will the country return the socialist MAS party of exiled leader Evo Morales to power? A private tutor to the rich and anxious reveals the costs—to students and tutors—of heightened academic pressure. And a new book yields a cat’s-eye view of 18th-century London.

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NBN Book of the Day - Paul Howe, “Teen Spirit: How Adolescence Transformed the Adult World” (Cornell UP, 2020)

Paul Howe's book Teen Spirit: How Adolescence Transformed the Adult World (Cornell UP, 2020) offers a novel and provocative perspective on how we came to be living in an age of political immaturity and social turmoil. Award-winning author, Paul Howe, argues it's because a teenage mentality has slowly gripped the adult world.

Howe contends that many features of how we live today--some regrettable, others beneficial--can be traced to the emergence of a more defined adolescent stage of life in the early twentieth century, when young people started spending their formative, developmental years with peers, particularly in formal school settings. He shows how adolescent qualities have slowly seeped upwards, where they have gradually reshaped the norms and habits of adulthood. The effects over the long haul, Howe contends, have been profound, in both the private realm and in the public arena of political, economic, and social interaction. Our teenage traits remain part of us as we move into adulthood. We now need instruction manuals for adulting

Teen Spirit challenges our assumptions about the boundaries between adolescence and adulthood. Yet despite a cultural system that seems to be built on the ethos of Generation Me, it's not all bad. In fact, there is an equally impressive rise in creativity, diversity, and tolerance within society: all traits stemming from core components of the adolescent character. Howe's bold and suggestive approach to analyzing the teen in all of us helps make sense of the impulsivity driving society and to think anew about civic re-engagement.

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Bay Curious - Proposition 25: Cash Bail

Proposition 25 would eliminate the use of cash bail in California, replacing it with a threat assessment system using algorithms and judicial discretion. This episode is part of our Bay Curious Prop Fest series, which explores the 12 propositions on California's ballot. The series runs from Oct. 1-16, with new episodes dropping every weekday.

Additional Reading:


Reported by Marisa Lagos. Bay Curious is made by Olivia Allen-Price, Katrina Schwartz, Katie McMurran and Rob Speight. Additional support from Erika Aguilar, Jessica Placzek, Kyana Moghadam, Paul Lancour, Bianca Hernandez, Ethan Lindsey, Vinnee Tong and Michelle Wiley.

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The Goods from the Woods - “The Corona Diaries #96” with Courtney Peterson

Three L.A. comedians are quarantined in a podcast studio during a global pandemic. There is literally nothing to be done EXCEPT make content. These are "The Corona Diaries" and this is Episode 96. Sitting in with us today is the hilarious Courtney Peterson! Follow her on Twitter @Coutnakovia and on Instagram @CatwingCourt! Spooky music at the end is "Cold Blows the Wind" by Ween.

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The Best One Yet - “Facebook thinks it’s a telephone line” — Nio’s 1,000% jump. Sleep Number’s anti-Casper pivot. Twitter/Facebook’s Section 230 moment.

Shares of Nio (the Tesla of China) have subtly surged 1,000% since March because it’s made a lifestyle brand out of a glorified battery. Twitter and Facebook just faced their biggest ever test about whether they’re platforms or publishers. And Sleep Number stock popped because it’s doing everything with mattresses that Casper isn’t. $NIO $SNBR $TWTR $FB Got a SnackFact? Tweet it @RobinhoodSnacks @TBOYJack @NickOfNewYork Want a shoutout on the pod? Fill out this form: http://forms.gle/KhUAo31xmkSdeynD9 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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What Next | Daily News and Analysis - TBD | Facebook Flips on Holocaust Denial

Two years ago, Mark Zuckerberg held up Holocaust denial as an example of the type of speech that would be protected on Facebook. The company wouldn’t take down content simply because it was incorrect. This week, Facebook reversed that stance. Is this decision the first step toward a new way of policing speech on the social network?


Guest: Evelyn Douek, Lecturer at Harvard Law School and affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society


Host

Lizzie O’Leary

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The NewsWorthy - Town Halls Recap, First Ebola Treatment & Tony Nominations- Friday, October 16th, 2020

The news to know for Friday, October 16th, 2020!

What to know about:

  • President Trump and Joe Biden going head-to-head from 1,200 miles away: the takeaways from their competing town halls. 
  • why Biden's running mate, Kamala Harris, has canceled weekend travel
  • the first Ebola treatment approved
  • new diversity goals at Starbucks
  • Tony nominations celebrating the best of Broadway, even as theaters stay shut down

Those stories and more in less than 10 minutes!

Head to www.theNewsWorthy.com or see sources below to read more about any of the stories mentioned today.

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Sources:

Trump/Biden Town Halls Recap: AP, WSJ, Reuters, CNN, CDC

Kamala Harris Suspends Travel: AP, WaPo, SF Chronicle

New COVID-19 Cases Surge: WSJ, Reuters, Johns HopkinsNY Post on Controversial Email:  NY Post, Politico, WaPo, WSJ, PolitiFact 

CA Power Outages: AP, FOX News, SF Chronicle

FDA Approves First Ebola Treatment: AP, The Hill, Fox News, FDA

Women’s March This Saturday: WaPo, The Hill, Forbes, Women’s March

YouTube QAnon Crackdown: NY Times, AP, YouTube, The Verge

Starbucks Ties Executive Pay to Diversity: WSJ, USA Today, CNN

Tony Nominations Announced: WaPo, NY Times, Variety, Deadline

Feel Good Friday- Books Donated for Hurricane Laura Victims: KSTP