Category: 3-SometimeCommentary

Paris Marx is joined by Mar Hicks to discuss why we need to know the history of tech and how the British history of sexism and colonialism in computing has lessons for the present-day US tech industry.

Mar Hicks is the co-editor of “Your Computer Is on Fire,” along with Thomas S. Mullaney, Benjamin Peters, and Kavita Philip. They are also the author of “Programmed Inequality: How Britain Discarded Women Technologists and Lost Its Edge in Computing” and an Associate Professor of the History of Technology at Illinois Tech. Follow Mar on Twitter as @histoftech.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.

Find out more about Harbinger Media Network at harbingermedianetwork.com.

Also mentioned in this episode:

• Mar wrote about the story of COBOL computer systems in the early months of the pandemic and how Britain killed its tech industry.
• Google fired top AI ethicists Timnit Gebru and Margaret Mitchell after their research was critical of the company’s practices. Diversity recruiter April Christina Curley was also fired in September 2020.

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Apoorva Mandavilli, science and global health reporter for The New York Times, joins Dr. Bob to close out our three-part series marking one year of the pandemic. They discuss how journalism had to adapt to cover COVID-19, what she’s hearing from experts about a possible fourth wave, and what lessons she’s taking with her for the next pandemic. Plus, an Andy update from Lana! Be sure to check out the other two episodes in this series with New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy and Ashish Jha, Dean of the Brown University School of Public Health. 

Follow Dr. Bob on Twitter @Bob_Wachter and check out In the Bubble’s new Twitter account @inthebubblepod.

Apoorva Mandavilli is on Twitter @apoorva_nyc.

Keep up with Andy in D.C. on Twitter @ASlavitt and Instagram @andyslavitt. 

In the Bubble is supported in part by listeners like you. Become a member, get exclusive bonus content, ask Andy questions, and get discounted merch at https://www.lemonadamedia.com/inthebubble/ 

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• Click this link for a list of current sponsors and discount codes for this show and all Lemonada shows: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NEJFhcReE4ejw2Kw7ba8DVJ1xQLogPwA/view 

Check out these resources from today’s episode: 

• Watch President Biden’s full address on the one-year anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic: https://www.c-span.org/video/?509778-1/president-biden-addresses-nation-year-anniversary-coronavirus-pandemic 
• Check out Apoorva’s article about what the next few months of COVID might look like: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/25/health/coronavirus-united-states.html 
• Read all of Apoorva’s articles for The New York Times here: https://www.nytimes.com/by/apoorva-mandavilli 
• This article answers frequently asked questions about the AstraZeneca vaccine and blood clots: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/15/health/astra-zeneca-vaccine-blood-clots-bleeding.html 
• Learn more about Dr. Bob Wachter and the UCSF Department of Medicine here: https://medicine.ucsf.edu/ 

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Happy belated Pi Day (3.14)!*

*Also Stephen Curry’s birthday and the anniversary of Marx’s death! (Guess who’s drafting today’s notes?)

0:00 – Seth Berkman’s NYT article on Subway product placements in K-dramas (don’t forget: Subway is evil!), Fatima Bhutto’s book on non-Western entertainment gone global, and whether Taylor Swift listens to BTS.

16:00 – The $1.9 trillion “American Recovery Plan,” or ARP, was signed last week. Is it a new era of Keynesian governance (Zach Carter in NYT) and/or a reversal of a half-century of austerity (Eric Levitz in NY Mag)? We talk: $1,400 checks, childcare credits, and, boo, the failure of the $15 federal minimum wage, and what all this could mean in the long run. (Also, is the new paradigm shift partly a nationalist response to the threat of China?)

44:00 – Covid reflections. What were we doing one year ago when Rudy Gobert’s positive Covid test shut down the NBA (and Tammy’s neighborhood library closed)? Plus: Covid Asian nationalism, loopholes in the vaccine rollout, and retrospectives on last summer’s protests. 

Thanks for listening! Please write in with questions and comments, and join our growing community: timetosaygoodbyepod@gmail.com, @ttsgpod (Twitter), https://www.patreon.com/ttsgpod.

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P.S. – If you’re free Thursday night U.S. time, come to Tammy’s presentation on Camp Humphreys, the U.S.’s largest foreign military base, with poet and translator Eunsong Kim, sponsored by the Heung Coalition, UC Berkeley, and U Mich.