The Simple Heart w/ Wayne Hsiung

Randy Shaw is the co-founder of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic, author of five books, and has been one of the Bay Area's leading community organizers on tenants’ rights, housing, and homelessness for the past 40 years. Randy, in short, is a fountain of knowledge and knows what works when it comes to solving one the nation's most pressing problems. In this episode, Wayne and Randy explore the roots of the Bay Area's--and the nation's--housing crisis. They look into past ballot measures, California politics, policies, and voting behaviors that have shaped our current housing predicament. They talk about taxation, Joe Biden's housing plan, Obama's political failures, the power of grassroots local activism, and what ordinary people can do to create change. Randy also answers the key question: how can we end homelessness in the U.S., for good? “Don’t be distracted by all the noise.” “We need to keep people connected to the issues and fighting AFTER the election.” The Tenderloin Housing Clinic in San Francisco Randy’s Book – Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UFW, and the Struggle for Justice in the 21st Century Randy’s Book – The Tenderloin: Sex, Crime and Resistance in the Heart of San Francisco Randy’s new Book – Generation Priced Out Randy’s Book – The Activist Handbook Music by Moby: Everything That Rises

Mark Duggan, The Trione Director of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research and former Senior Economist for Health Care Policy under Obama, was Wayne Hsiung's earliest mentor. At 17 years old, Wayne took Mark's class at University of Chicago and Mark took him under his wing, changing his life trajectory thereafter. Mark was so inspired by Wayne's work while in his class that he convinced Wayne to pursue a Ph.D. in economics and maximize his potential for doing better for the world. Although Wayne found his passion and drive outside of the academy, it was the lessons he learned, the skills he gained, and influence from Mark that drove him to be a data-driven activist, organizer, and force for positive change. In this episode, Wayne and Mark take us back to that fateful day in Chicago in 1999. They discuss the economic fallout--and future scarring--from Covid and climate change; life in graduate school and searching for a meaningful path; the impact of losing Obamacare; imposing a wealth tax; and Mark watching his life flash before his eyes as he had to brief Obama for the first time. “Try to get past the Tweets, past the bumper stickers and really understand things.” “One person's waste is another person's income.” Becoming A Man - Chicago youth violence reduction project Robert "Bob" Solow Mark Duggan's research on the impact of the Affordable Care Act Wayne and Cass Sunstein's research on the economic costs of climate change Emmanuel Saez , professor of Economics, UC Berkeley - Progressive Wealth Taxation Marshall Burke - Managing the growing cost of wildfire Music by Moby: Everything That Rises

Moby transcends simple classification: a punk who became a breakthrough 90s electronica DJ and producer; a mainstream and highly successful Grammy Awards-nominated musician who prefers to be alone and out of the limelight; an introspective and spiritually-connected philosopher who is...an evidence-driven data wonk. Moby and Wayne Hsiung unpack these contradictions, exploring Moby's tumultuous and chaotic early life growing up in a basement in Harlem, and later move to San Francisco where he was surrounded by a sea of drugs, alcohol, and violence. His father's suicide and the comfort and safety he found in rescued animals. Moby and Wayne also dig into the philosophy of existence, secular monasticism, wealth inequality, cosmology, Alcoholics Anonymous, human separation from the natural world, and what happened when visionary filmmaker David Lynch let Moby borrow his microscope. And, perhaps most importantly, Moby and Wayne uncover key principles for evaluating and guiding effective activism. “Emotional self-indulgence just doesn't help animals." “You can't have an anxious brain and a calm body.” Moby's 1996 album - Animal Rights Moby's latest album - All Visible Objects Carbon Disclosure Project Moby's vegan restaurant - Little Pine Wayne arrested at a Colorado Whole Foods for asking a question Music by Moby: Everything That Rises

British journalist Nelufar Hedayat survived bombs and mortars as a child in Kabul, Afghanistan, only to immerse herself back into a world of danger as an intrepid award-winning documentary filmmaker and correspondent. Her investigations have unraveled shocking illicit underground trade networks as well as exposed the unseen (and legal) global systems of commodity production. Nelufar's groundbreaking work has appeared on Netflix, the BBC, Fusion, and The Guardian. In this wide-ranging episode, Wayne and Nelufar speak about the first time they met, under the cover of darkness, outside of one of the most violent places on earth; war, trauma, pain, and resilience; religion and meaning; immigrant childhoods, secret police, obsession, and MIT; and why The New York Times columnist Paul Krugman—Wayne's failed mentor—is dead wrong. “It was absolute treachery of the soul—I felt like I was betraying myself” “Every part of who I am as a person is screaming” Nelufar’s Podcast - Course Correction The Traffickers (Netflix) - Investigative series on illegal trafficking Food Exposed (Fusion) - 8-part docu-series tracing the global food chain and the true cost of food Doha Debates (YouTube) - Nelufar's interview with Yuval Noah Harari, author of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2014) & Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow (2016) Nelufar on Twitter Chatterbox - Nelufar's sister's language learning company Music by Moby: Everything That Rises

Glenn Greenwald is the now-legendary journalist and Pulitzer Prize recipient who broke the Edward Snowden story, documented in the Academy Award-winning film Citizenfour, showing how the U.S. and British governments were spying on ordinary citizens. Glenn is also the co-founder of online media publication The Intercept and, in 2019, published leaked messages that broke a watershed corruption scandal in the Brazilian government, which implicated officials in the highest levels of office of serious wrongdoing. This publication made him and his family the target of a political prosecution and ongoing death threats. But how did he get here? In this episode, Wayne Hsiung digs deep into Glenn's adolescent upbringing, unearthing his struggles as a gay kid in Florida, his rambunctious teenage years and failed run for political office, his double life as a corporate lawyer and radical gay rights activist, and his transition to exposing The Game-That-We-Call-The-Justice-System for what it is: a fraud. “It’ll eat you up before you can start eating it up.” “Courage means you do it despite that fear.” Glenn's article on animal experimentation - Bred to Suffer: Inside the Barbaric U.S. Industry of Dog Experimentation Glenn's article on DxE - The FBI’s Hunt for Two Missing Piglets Reveals the Federal Cover-Up of Barbaric Factory Farms Jim Hubbard's documentary on ACT-UP - United in Anger Chris Hayes' book - Twilight of the Elites Music by Moby: Everything That Rises

Ezra Klein created the concept of The Green Pill—the namesake of this podcast. He is a world-renowned political journalist, founder of Vox Media, former columnist at the Washington Post, and host of The Ezra Klein Show. In this first episode, Wayne Hsiung and Ezra Klein discuss what happened to Ezra after he first took the green pill and how his life was forever altered. “I want to normalize the idea that if you care about suffering, one of the categories of suffering you should care about is animal suffering.” "The solution is not individual action, but there is no solution without individual action.” Ezra's work at Vox Ezra's book - Why We're Polarized Ezra interviews Wayne Hsiung - Ezra Klein Show | When Doing the Right Thing Makes You a Criminal Melanie Joy's book - Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows Music by Moby: Everything That Rises

Who says you can't change the world? Meet the people who are. Wayne Hsiung, law professor-turned-grassroots animal rights activist and multi-state felony defendant, uncovers the people behind the political, the unexplored personal stories of social change. Intimate interviews with world-renowned journalists, musicians, filmmakers, community leaders, and all stripes of the politically active. Change isn't easy. But it must start somewhere. Come, take The Green Pill with us. Warning: there's no turning back.