#1774 Monthly-ish Mix: Who's in Charge?—The Scramble for Control of Nations, Bodies, and Minds
Air Date: 3-3-26
The Monthly-ish Mix™ is here to get you caught up on recent news without being overwhelming! This month we examine the multi-front struggle for control: military force and economic coercion seizing resources abroad, institutions weaponized to constrain bodies at home, platforms and propaganda capturing minds, and the democratic resistance proving that organized people can still win.
Read more#1773 How Big Tech Captured Attention, Kids, and Democracy
Air Date: 2-23-2026
Today we examine how the platforms that monetize your attention are merging with state power. We'll hear how TikTok's new owners include Trump ally Larry Ellison, how DHS sent hundreds of subpoenas to unmask anonymous ICE critics, how Ring's Super Bowl ad cheerfully introduced AI-powered neighborhood surveillance, and how the social media addiction trials that are being likened to the Big Tobacco settlement of the 90s, are finally exposing what these companies knew about the harmful nature of their products all along.
Read more#1608 Widespread Loneliness is a Solvable Social Problem - Urban Design, Architecture, Co-housing, and Community Action and Support Can Make Our Towns Better
Air Date: 2-7-2024
Loneliness is an epidemic that long-predates the COVID lockdowns that only made things worse but it's not primarily cultural or even technological in origin. The issue largely has to do with how our built environment is designed and then social and technological aspects compound the problem.
Read more#1600 Housing Cannot be a Fundamental Human Right and a Commodity at the Same Time
Air Date: 12-23-2023
The housing crisis is at a worse point than at any time in recent history. Solutions are available and require political will to bring into reality but because the problem is now so widespread, we may actually be able to take action that would have been untenable before.
Read more#1596 Building a positive future by first envisioning it and then designing it
Air Date: 12-5-2023
It's important to focus on positive visions and not only get stuck in doom cycles of complaining about what's going wrong. So, we're looking at a variety of positive visions including rethinking human nature, reimagining our relationship with consumerism, considering how design can work with nature instead of against it, and understanding why cooperation is better than individualistic competition from an evolutionary point of view.
Read more#1333 An Examination of Fear, Anger, Forgiveness and Grace (and Mr. Rogers) (Throwback)
Original Air Date: 2–2-2020
Today we take a look at the relationship between fear, anger and how to deal with the structural forces of harm in our society. To help us, we examine two of the greatest thinkers of the past 65 years, Martin Luther King Jr. and Mister Rogers, and go beyond the nonviolence of King and interrogate Mr. Roger's insistence on liking everyone just the way they are.
Read more#1396 The Platforms of Our Discontent (Social Media, Social Destruction) (Repost)
Original Air Date: 2–5-2021
Today we take a look at the role that social media plays in the radicalization of discontented communities and engage in the debate over content moderation and de-platforming of individuals.
Read more#1293 Debating Democratic Socialism and How to Get There (Repost)
Air Date: 7–30-2019
Today we take a look at the ongoing debate about socialism between socialists and non-socialists alike, including discussion of tactical strategies on where to set our goals and how to get from here to there
Read more#1396 The Platforms of Our Discontent (Social Media, Social Destruction)
Air Date: 2–5-2021
Today we take a look at the role that social media plays in the radicalization of discontented communities and engage in the debate over content moderation and de-platforming of individuals.
Read more#1318 Why We Cannot Have Nice Things (How Racism Hurts Everyone, Including White People) (Repost)
Air Date: 11–12-2019
Today we take a look at some of the ways that conservative policies, willed into existence almost exclusively by white people, measurably hurt people and shorten life expectancies, including those who most fervently support the self-destructive policies.
Read more
