Crimetown - S2 E03: The Fat Man and the Field Marshall

Eddie Jackson and Courtney Brown are childhood friends from a poor neighborhood. Eddie is the troublemaker, drawn to Detroit’s seamier side; Courtney is his quiet, serious sidekick. As they grow older in a city with dwindling job options, they go their separate ways. But when Eddie dives into the heroin trade, Courtney faces a choice: play it safe and stay broke, or join his friend’s burgeoning empire and get rich. 

For bonus content from this episode, check out crimetownshow.com.

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Crazy/Genius - Why Should We Care About Privacy?

Admit it: You have no idea what privacy means anymore. These days, virtually all online activity—searching, shopping, browsing—requires giving away our personal information to tech companies. In this episode, we review the 200 year history of privacy in America and explain what the new age of “surveillance capitalism” means for all of us who have to live in it.

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50 Things That Made the Modern Economy - Brick

'I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble,' Caesar Augustus apparently boasted. If so, he wasn’t the only person to dismiss the humble brick. They’ve housed us for tens of thousands of years. They are all rather similar – small enough to fit into a human hand, and half as wide as they are long – and they are absolutely everywhere. Why, asks Tim Harford, are bricks still such an important building technology, how has brickmaking changed over the years, and will we ever see a robot bricklayer?

Crazy/Genius - Season 3 Trailer: Unbreak the Internet

Ten years ago, “Move fast and break things” was the clarion call of the world’s tech giants. Well, they moved fast and broke stuff, alright. Lots of stuff. Whether it’s Facebook privacy scandals, YouTube’s radicalization of the far right, or China’s brutal use of surveillance gadgetry, digital technology seems to be a relentless force for greed, bad faith, and tyranny these days. Let’s talk about it.

“Unbreak the Internet” is the theme for the third season of Crazy/Genius, The Atlantic’s podcast on tech and culture. Over the course of eight weeks, we’ll expose the surveillance states in both western China and East New York, ask if digital platforms are an accelerant for right-wing nationalism, tell you why privacy is the climate-change crisis of the internet, and more.

The third season of Crazy/Genius returns on May 9.

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