Is There an Opportunity for Governments to Step in and Improve Our Lives

Paris Marx is joined by Rose Eveleth to discuss the end of her long-running podcast, why thinking about the future is important, and how tech billionaires try to shape our idea of the future to serve their ends.

Rose Eveleth is the creator and host of the Flash Forward podcast and the author of Flash Forward: An Illustrated Guide to Possible (And Not So Possible) Tomorrows. You can follow them on Twitter at @roseveleth.

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.

The podcast is produced by Eric Wickham and part of the Harbinger Media Network.

Also mentioned in this episode:

• Please participate in our listener survey this month to give us a better idea of what you think of the show: https://forms.gle/xayiT7DQJn56p62x7
• Elon Musk says Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a big inspiration, but he seems to have missed its message.
• Karen Hao and Gideon Lichfield explained how Facebook’s PR team nitpicked one of their stories
• Books mentioned: Ruha Benjamin’s Viral Justice: How We Grow the World We Want and Jimmy Soni’s The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley.
• The New York Times recently wrote about a group of Luddite teens.
• Tommy Douglas won CBC’s Greatest Canadian contest for winning public healthcare. You can see the episode here.

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