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Urgent Futures with Jesse Damiani

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8 snips
Oct 9, 2024 • 1h 58min

Taryn Southern: The Peril & Promise of Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI), Generative AI, and Spatial Computing | #28

Taryn Southern, an award-winning storyteller and creative technologist, dives into brain-computer interfaces and their potential to enhance creativity. She shares insights on innovative virtual reality uses for mental health and explores the ethical challenges of these technologies. Discussions on AI's evolution in the creative process highlight its limitations and impact on jobs. Taryn reflects on her transformative journey through cancer treatment, emphasizing authenticity and vulnerability in life, while humorously touching on personal hygiene habits.
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20 snips
Oct 2, 2024 • 1h 44min

Nora Bateson: Warm Data, 'Combining,' and "Who Can You Be When You Are With Me?" | Urgent Futures #27

Nora Bateson, an award-winning filmmaker and president of the International Bateson Institute, delves into her innovative Warm Data theory, emphasizing the intricate connections between personal relationships and societal challenges. She introduces Afani Poesis, highlighting unseen societal processes and the importance of collective practices. Bateson advocates transformative dialogue through the concept of 'Urgent Mud,' encouraging authentic communication. The discussion also touches on the limitations of AI in genuine interactions and the profound impact of personal narratives on understanding cultural complexities.
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Sep 25, 2024 • 2h 40min

Al Hassan Elwan: Edgelording a New Avant-garde (POSTPOSTPOST™ Admin Reveal!) | #26

Welcome to the Urgent Futures podcast, the show that finds signals in the noise. Each week, I sit down with leading thinkers whose research, concepts, and questions clarify the chaos, from culture to the cosmos.My guest this week is Al Hassan Elwan.Support the show by checking out: ZBiotics (Decrease impact of hangovers. Code: JESSEDAMIANI for 10% off), MUD\WTR (43% off starter kits), 1Password (simplify your life and increase digital safety), Mission Farms CBD (healthy, effective CBD for relief, sleep, and wellbeing—25% off with email), NordVPN (the simplest way to protect yourself online, 72% off 2-year plans).Al Hassan Elwan is an interdisciplinary designer, brand consultant and creative director, born in Cairo, Egypt. They are now based in Los Angeles, where they completed a postgraduate degree in architecture with a focus on media studies from SCI-Arc in 2022.Al is the founder of POSTPOSTPOST™, a brand that produces films, publications, and fashion on the edges of the cultural vanguard while simultaneously building an art movement. POSTPOSTPOST™ has garnered a following on Instagram by posting contemporary cultural commentary, niche content, and avant-garde theory in the format of memes. Al is the instigator and co-editor of POSTPOSTPOST™'s inaugural publication, POSTPOSTPOST: Reflections on a New Avant-garde, which features contributions from over 30 artists, writers, and academics, including Shumon Basar, Jack Self, Carly Busta, and Ana Viktoria Dzinic. POSTPOSTPOST™ has been featured in various publications such as Dazed, FlashArt, Frieze Seoul, Novembre, DAMN Magazine, and others. Al is also the writer and director of POSTPOSTPOST™’s launch film, produced by Liam Young - which is now published on DIS [dis.art]. Their theoretical work has been published in RealReview and DoNotResearch, among others. They are also a part-time lecturer at MSCHF.Besides their POSTPOSTPOST™ work, Al is the co-founder and Creative Director of the brand strategy and design firm, pew. design bureau, which is based in Cairo, Dubai and Los Angeles. pew. has worked with notable clients including Google, YouTube, Vice, Unilever, and UN Women, and their work has been featured in Entrepreneur, World Brand Design Society, LA Weekly, the Brandberries, Cairoscene, and others.I first met Al when their fever dream of a new avant-garde, POSTPOSTPOST™, was just taking shape. It immediately struck a chord with me. A decade ago I was drawn in by metamodernism, the proposed structure of feeling that emerged in the wake of postmodernism. A lot of people have a lot of feelings about metamodernism, and this isn’t the place where I’m going to get into it—though I am planning some pieces on Reality Studies, so be sure to subscribe over there.I bring it up because when I encountered metamodernism, it had an electricity to it that felt true, capturing something in the zeitgeist that I hadn’t seen named quite so well prior. And this is exactly how I felt when I encountered POSTPOSTPOST™ in 2022. Of course, the 2020s are many worlds away from the 2010s, with new forms of digital culture and sociality. Ideas can go from fringe to center in an eyeblink—looking at you, Brat Summer and very demure. And speaking for myself, there’s this paradoxical feeling I get when I navigate platforms whose algorithms prioritize de-nuanced, hard-line certainty—all the while I feel increasingly disoriented and uncertain. POSTPOSTPOST™ consistently manages to distill that weird feeling. Al delights in ambiguity, even as they weigh into murky and fraught topics. I won’t burden you with a deep media theory argument, but simply say that the work feels important to me. In this conversation, which I’m honored is something of an admin reveal for the account, we get into a full range of stuff, from their background growing up in Egypt, their experience in architecture, memes (of course), and much more. As this show is finding new audiences, some of the folks who are most concerned about ecological overshoot, climate change, and biodiversity loss have expressed confusion about why I also emphasize digital culture on the channel. My answer is simple: how we socialize and share information with each other impacts pretty much everything else—and digital culture plays an outsized role in determining those norms. Folks who understand the emerging shapes of digital culture are critical in helping the rest of us understand the realities we inhabit. And Al is one such critical interlocutor.CREDITS: This podcast is edited and produced by Adam Labrie and me, Jesse Damiani. Adam Labrie also directed, shot, and edited the video version of the podcast, which is available on YouTube. The podcast is presented by Reality Studies. If you appreciate the work I’m doing, please subscribe and share it with someone you think would enjoy it.Find video episodes of Urgent Futures at: youtube.com/@UrgentFutures. Get full access to Reality Studies at www.realitystudies.co/subscribe
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Sep 17, 2024 • 1h 39min

Gerardo Ceballos & Paul R. Ehrlich: 'Before They Vanish'—All The Life We Can Still Save from the Sixth Extinction | #25

Welcome to the Urgent Futures podcast, the show that finds signals in the noise. Each week, I sit down with leading thinkers whose research, concepts, and questions clarify the chaos, from culture to the cosmos.My guests this week are Gerardo Ceballos & Paul R. EhrlichGerardo Ceballos, one of the world’s leading ecologists, is a professor at the Institute of Ecology at National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). He has established more than twenty protected areas in Mexico and is the author or coauthor of more than 55 books. Ehrlich and Ceballos are coauthors of The Annihilation of Nature: Human Extinction of Birds and Mammals. Paul R. Ehrlich is the emeritus Bing Professor of Population Studies in the Department of Biology and the president of the Center for Conservation Biology at Stanford University. He is the author of The Population Bomb and Human Natures: Genes, Cultures, and the Human Prospect.I don’t even know where to begin with this conversation. On the one hand, I’m still a little dumbfounded that I had the opportunity to have a conversation with two of the world’s leading conservation scientists, whose contributions not only to their respective fields but to the planet are historically significant.On the other hand, this is one of the most devastating conversations I’ve had on the show, rivaled only by my chat with William Rees, which I’d say is thematically linked. The inciting incident for the conversation is the publication of their incredible new book, Before They Vanish, which they co-authored with Rodolfo Dirzo, who wasn’t able to also join the call because he’s out in the field. As you might gather from the title, the book is part-blaring siren, part-love letter. In in, the authors highlight how precious life on Earth really is, detailing not only the sheer variety of flora and fauna we are blessed to share the planet with, but how entangled they all are within ecosystems we humans have done so little to understand, and therefore have allowed ourselves to push to the brink of extinction.Before I go any further, I want to say what I always say in episodes like this: go buy the book. These conversations are invitations to the subject matter, and I do hope they’re illuminating, but the book is where you’ll have the necessary time and mental space to fully grapple with the ideas.Anyway, however bad you imagine the present extinction crisis is, which some have called the sixth mass extinction, this book basically argues it’s worse even than that. That stems from several factors, including the lack of historical data, the amount of information we still don’t have about various ecosystems, and the way we tend to measure extinctions—at the species level rather than at the level of discrete populations. The book also outlines the drivers of the extinction crisis and steps that we could take individually and collectively to mitigate the harms of modern industrial society, and advocate for protections that will begin to heal the planet.Before people get up in my comments: I’m well aware of how individual responsibility has been weaponized by fossil fuel companies, and I too am wary putting the onus on individuals. That said, through their careers, these three authors have shown how much individuals can actually do. And we’re in the all hands-on-deck, everything-and-the-kitchen-sink moment to protect biodiversity. We should want to protect biodiversity because life is sacred, but even if that doesn’t land, as Ehrlich says in the interview, if we destroy biodiversity, we humans likely won’t survive either.CREDITS: This podcast is edited and produced by Adam Labrie and me, Jesse Damiani. Adam Labrie also directed, shot, and edited the video version of the podcast, which is available on YouTube. The podcast is presented by Reality Studies. If you appreciate the work I’m doing, please subscribe and share it with someone you think would enjoy it.Support the show by checking out: ZBiotics (Decrease impact of hangovers. Code: JESSEDAMIANI for 10% off), MUD\WTR (43% off starter kits), 1Password (simplify your life and increase digital safety), Mission Farms CBD (healthy, effective CBD for relief, sleep, and wellbeing—25% off with email), NordVPN (the simplest way to protect yourself online, 72% off 2-year plans).Find video episodes of Urgent Futures at: youtube.com/@UrgentFutures. Get full access to Reality Studies at www.realitystudies.co/subscribe
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Sep 11, 2024 • 1h 28min

Nina Jankowicz: Why Disinformation Is Still a Critical Issue for Democracy | Urgent Futures #24

Welcome to the Urgent Futures podcast, the show that finds signal in the noise. Each week, I sit down with leading thinkers whose research, concepts, and questions clarify the chaos, from culture to the cosmos.Support the show by checking out: ZBiotics (Decrease impact of hangovers. Code: JESSEDAMIANI for 10% off), MUD\WTR (43% off starter kits), 1Password (simplify your life and increase digital safety), Mission Farms CBD (healthy, effective CBD for relief, sleep, and wellbeing—25% off with email), NordVPN (the simplest way to protect yourself online, 72% off 2-year plans).My guest this week is Nina Jankowicz.Nina Jankowicz, the co-founder and CEO of The American Sunlight Project, is an internationally-recognized expert on disinformation and democratization, one of TIME magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in AI, and the author of two books: How to Lose the Information War (2020), which The New Yorker called “a persuasive new book on disinformation as a geopolitical strategy,” and How to Be A Woman Online (2022), an examination of online abuse and disinformation and tips for fighting back, which Publishers Weekly named “essential.” Jankowicz has advised governments, international organizations, and tech companies, and testified before the US Congress, UK Parliament, and European Parliament. In 2022, Jankowicz was appointed to lead the Disinformation Governance Board, an intra-agency best practices and coordination entity at the Department of Homeland Security; she resigned the position after a sustained disinformation campaign caused the Biden Administration to abandon the project. From 2017-2022, Jankowicz has held fellowships at the Wilson Center, where she led accessible, actionable research about the effects of disinformation on women and freedom of expression around the world. She advised the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry on strategic communications under the auspices of a Fulbright-Clinton Public Policy Fellowship in 2016-17. Early in her career, she managed democracy assistance programs to Russia and Belarus at the National Democratic Institute.Nina has lived a fascinating life, which is not to say that it’s always been easy. In many ways she has lived out the very things that she’s spent her career researching and working to address.I first encountered Nina’s work in How to Lose the Information War, which really clarified my understanding of how Russian influence operations work. This was in 2020, when concern about disinformation and its impacts had reached all-time highs, especially with regard to the rise of conspiracy theories like QAnon, antivax communities, and more. How to Lose the Information War was a book that helped me see how these seemingly convoluted outcomes were grounded in basic, repeatable strategies (not just by Russians per se, but by anyone seeking to manipulate the information sphere at scale).In recognition of her work and scholarship, Nina was tapped to lead the Disinformation Governance Board at the Department of Homeland Security in 2022. But her tenure was short-lived—in no small part because of the very influence operations and toxified media environment that she had been working to illuminate and address. We talk about this more in-depth in the episode.Already in 2022 talk of disinformation and misinformation didn’t have the fangs that it had during the Trump years. In some ways that speaks to half of the American populace feeling like they could ramp down from the state of hypervigilance they’d maintained during the preceding years. But just because it wasn’t as hot of a topic of conversation anymore didn’t mean that bad actors weren’t still endeavoring to interfere with the information environment. If anything, the lack of a magnifying glass probably made for ideal conditions to build out new operations and social communities.Which is why Nina’s latest effort, The American Sunlight Project feels like such an important organization at this moment. Yes, there are complicated questions about what means we use to determine if something is true, but at bare minimum we need an information space predicated on good-faith attempts to reach consensus, even if through debate. To do that, we need to understand the media environment we’re in and the strategies we need to develop to preserve our ability to communicate. And Nina is one of the key figures leading us in that direction.CREDITS: This podcast is edited and produced by Adam Labrie and me, Jesse Damiani. Adam Labrie also directed, shot, and edited the video version of the podcast, which is available on YouTube. The podcast is presented by Reality Studies. If you appreciate the work I’m doing, please subscribe and share it with someone you think would enjoy it.Find video episodes of Urgent Futures at: youtube.com/@UrgentFutures. Get full access to Reality Studies at www.realitystudies.co/subscribe
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Sep 3, 2024 • 2h 6min

Michael Mezzatesta: Why Isn't the Economy Working? An Economist's Case for Post-Growth | #23

Michael Mezzatesta, an economist known for making complex economic concepts accessible, delves into the intricacies of economic growth and its relationship with climate change. He critiques traditional metrics like GDP, advocating for regenerative economics focused on well-being. The discussion touches on the ethical implications of resource extraction and the importance of diverse energy sources. Mezzatesta also shares his transition to digital platforms for outreach, emphasizing the need for inclusive dialogue in social change and the role of radical youth movements in climate activism.
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Aug 28, 2024 • 1h 49min

Noelle Perdue: What Everyone Gets Wrong About Pornography—According to a Porn Historian | Urgent Futures #22

Welcome to the Urgent Futures podcast, the show that finds signal in the noise. Each week, I sit down with leading thinkers whose research, concepts, and questions clarify the chaos, from culture to the cosmos.Support the show by checking out: ZBiotics (Decrease impact of hangovers. Code: JESSEDAMIANI for 10% off), MUD\WTR (43% off starter kits), 1Password (simplify your life and increase digital safety), Mission Farms CBD (healthy, effective CBD for relief, sleep, and wellbeing—25% off with email), NordVPN (the simplest way to protect yourself online, 72% off 2-year plans).My guest this week is porn historian Noelle Perdue.Porn. I’ve noticed it referenced in the news and on social media a lot more lately because many are concerned that it’s having harmful addictive effects on us—especially on adolescents and young men. While I do think it’s important to take these concerns seriously, I think sometimes these arguments are not being made in good faith, and when they are, they’re directed at symptoms, not underlying causes.What I’m getting at is this. What if porn is not the problem, but Western society’s post-Puritanical relationship to it? (or not so post puritanical) And what are the byproducts of a culture that not only demonizes pornography, but implicitly advocates for repressing desire, and wraps up these fears into obscenity law that harms queer, trans, nonbinary folks, and pretty much anyone else who doesn’t fit neatly within the bounds of heternormativity?Spoiler alert: it’s not good!This is why it felt so important to invite Noelle onto Urgent Futures. She is someone who approaches this subject with a high degree of rigor, but also an artist’s touch, translating complex ideas in accessible and sometimes even comedic ways. In the episode you’ll hear how I discovered her work through an experimental AI art project she posted about on TikTok in 2021. I even see this approach at work in her more recent project, Candy Lore, a venue for serious reviews of candy. Even though it’s not about porn at all, it gives a sense of how she’s able to take a subject that’s often dismissed as frivolous, despite being a major part of our culture, and treat it with care without losing its essential play and silliness.Porn, sex, eroticism, and intimacy are incredibly complex, interrelated systems. Trying to address them with oversimplified mechanistic approaches represents a misunderstanding of their complexity. We need to be able to talk about these subjects openly, and create a culture and political backdrop in which it doesn’t imperil folks to talk about it honestly. It seems obvious to me that working in that direction would do more to curb the harmful effects currently being attributed to porn and the porn industry than attacking it. But if you’re unconvinced, I have one of the world’s leading experts on the subject to explain it better than I ever could.BIO:Noelle Perdue is a writer, producer, and Internet porn historian with nearly ten years of experience working platform-side for multiple mainstream and independent adult companies. Having written everything from Food Network porn parodies to legally binding terms and conditions, much of her current work explores obscenity law and how pornography’s history can influence our digital and political futures. Noelle’s writing work has been published on Wired, Washington Post, Pornhub, Slate, Brazzers, Input, etc, she’s also been featured as an industry expert on multiple programs including the BBC, CBC, The Guardian, Rolling Stone, and on Netflix's 2023 documentary Money Shot.If you’re loving the Urgent Futures podcast…Please subscribe + leave a review on your preferred podcast platform! Or recommend it to a friend who might like it. All of it help the podcast grow.Guests on Urgent Futures are experts across art, science, media, technology, AI, philosophy, economics, mathematics, anthropology, journalism, and more. We live in complex times; these are the voices who will help you orient to emerging futures.Find video episodes of Urgent Futures at: youtube.com/@UrgentFutures.CREDITS: This podcast is edited and produced by Adam Labrie and me, Jesse Damiani. Adam Labrie also directed, shot, and edited the video version of the podcast, which is available on YouTube. The podcast is presented by Reality Studies. If you appreciate the work I’m doing, please subscribe and share it with someone you think would enjoy it. Get full access to Reality Studies at www.realitystudies.co/subscribe
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10 snips
Aug 21, 2024 • 2h 11min

William E. Rees: The Disconnect Between Ecology & The Economy is Driving us Toward Collapse—What Should we do About it? | Urgent Futures #21

William E. Rees, an expert in ecological economics and a champion for sustainable development, discusses the perilous state of ecological overshoot. He stresses that humanity is consuming resources at a rate far beyond Earth's regenerative capacity, necessitating a shift from infinite growth ideologies. Rees critiques neoliberal policies and highlights the critical need for systemic changes to address population growth and promote ecological solutions. He emphasizes the importance of informed discourse amid rising skepticism about expertise in climate science.
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Aug 14, 2024 • 1h 22min

Günseli Yalcinkaya: Internet Folklorist Explains Reality Shifting, Dolls, Incels/Femcels, Cryptids, Memes, & AI | Urgent Futures #20

My guest this week is Günseli Yalcinkaya. An expert in youth and internet culture, London-based writer, researcher and critic Günseli Yalcinkaya is the features editor at Dazed Magazine and the host of Logged On, a podcast series that puts online trends under the microscope. She's written extensively about AI, VR and psychedelia, and as an artist, studies the relationship between ecology, magic and machine learning.What’s an AI cryptid? What is reality shifting? How are dolls and the idea of cuteness evolving online, and what does this mean for the future of intimacy? What’s the next phase of conspiritualism? How are tropes and memes changing—and how are those changes shifting how we communicate with each other? If these questions appeal to you—or sound like they might once you understand what they’re referring to—you need to be paying attention to Günseli’s writing, editorial, and arts practice.Please support this podcast by checking out:- ZBiotics: https://zbiotics.com/?sca_ref=4926056.YlP8s92iYP (click the link or use code: JESSEDAMIANI for 10% off)- MUD\WTR: https://mudwtr.pxf.io/Urgent (click the link to reveal 43% off starter packs with code)- Mission Farms CBD: https://mission-farms-cbd.sjv.io/Urgent (25% off with email signup via link)- NordVPN: https://nordvpn.com/special/?utm_medium=affiliate&utm_term=&utm_content&utm_campaign=off15&utm_source=aff97058. (Get up to 69% off 2-year plans + a Saily eSIM data gift with that link) - 1Password: https://1password.partnerlinks.io/UrgentFutures (free trial at that link)In the simplest terms, Günseli creates context for latent trends, stuff floating around in the zeitgeist that’s barely understood, or might not even have a name yet. And her interest in the weird, the occult, and psychedelia adds a surprising and distinct angle.Forecasting any single trend or cultural phenomenon is difficult enough, but swimming in the rapids of digital culture and managing to return with meaningful syntheses is really special. This dot-connecting helps us all make sense of the accelerating rush of trends, memes, ideas, and emergent social phenomena. Understanding the edges of digital culture as it exists now—especially the weird stuff—helps us orient to coming shapes of reality. I’ve learned so much from her work online, so I invited her on Urgent Futures to dig into the questions and topics I mentioned earlier, as well as other key areas of research she’s pursuing in her arts practice. The result is a wide-ranging conversation that has a lot to teach us about internet culture and beyond. So please enjoy this conversation with Günseli Yalcinkaya.CREDITS: This podcast is edited and produced by Adam Labrie and me, Jesse Damiani. Adam Labrie also directed, shot, and edited the video version of the podcast, which is available on YouTube. The podcast is presented by Reality Studies. If you appreciate the work I’m doing, please subscribe and share it with someone you think would enjoy it.Find more episodes of Urgent Futures at: youtube.com/@UrgentFutures. Get full access to Reality Studies at www.realitystudies.co/subscribe
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8 snips
Aug 7, 2024 • 1h 5min

Meredith Broussard: How 'Technochauvinism' Leads to Bad AI | Urgent Futures #19

My guest this week is data journalist & professor Meredith Broussard.The public discourse around AI is noisy. Depending on where you turn, it’s either about to save the world or destroy the world, grant you magical powers or take your job and leave you penniless. But AI is a very real thing happening in and to society. Rarely is the hype-doom binary helpful for understanding how it is and will be woven into our lives from a practical perspective—as well as the social, cultural, political, and economic issues it surfaces or amplifies.So I was thrilled to chat with Meredith, who has been a guiding light in understanding what AI actually is here and now, as well as how to approach the technology ethically. She published Artificial Unintelligence in 2018—which in the dog years of tech bubbles is several lifetimes ago. In it, she proposed the notion of (and makes the case against) technochauvinism, the belief that technology is always the best or only solution to social problems. Technochauvinism is a powerful lens to understand the mistakes people make in developing AI, as well as in the narratives put forward by AI developers. It’s also helpful for understanding how race, gender, and ability bias in technology is perpetuated through AI—which is the focus of her most recent book, More Than a Glitch. These forms of systemic injustice and oppression that are amplified by algorithmic tools are not abstract, they have real world consequences for real people. The book is an absolute must-read—actually just got a new paperback release a few months ago, so make sure you go grab a copy.Across both of these books, and the rest of her scholarly and public output, Meredith has an incredible gift for making complex technical topics related to AI and computing accessible without dumbing things down. However you feel about AI—and I know there are many mixed opinions—it’s clearly going to be part of our lives for the foreseeable future. As a non-technical person myself, I believe it’s vital to develop basic literacies and informed positions on AI, so that we’re able to meaningfully participate in advocating for prosocial uses and sensible regulations. And we get to these positions by learning from experts like Meredith Broussard.Bio: Meredith Broussard is an associate professor at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute of New York University and the research director at the NYU Alliance for Public Interest Technology. She is the author of the book, More Than a Glitch: Confronting Race, Gender, and Ability Bias in Tech (MIT Press, 2023), as well as the award-winning 2018 book Artificial Unintelligence: How Computers Misunderstand the World. Her research focuses on artificial intelligence in investigative reporting, with particular interests in AI ethics and using data analysis for social good. She appears in the Emmy-nominated documentary “Coded Bias,” now streaming on Netflix. Her work has been supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, the Institute of Museum & Library Services, and the Tow Center at Columbia Journalism School. A former features editor at the Philadelphia Inquirer, she has also worked as a software developer at AT&T Bell Labs and the MIT Media Lab. Her features and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Slate, Vox, and other outlets.📚 Grab your copy of More Than a Glitch here and Artificial Unintelligence here.If you’re loving the Urgent Futures podcast…Please subscribe + leave a review on your preferred podcast platform! Or recommend it to a friend who might like it. All of it help the podcast grow. Guests on Urgent Futures are experts across art, science, media, technology, AI, philosophy, economics, mathematics, anthropology, journalism, and more. We live in complex times; these are the voices who will help you orient to emerging futures.🎧 Audio versions of the podcast can be found Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you like what you hear, please subscribe!Support Reality Studies:NOTE: Thank you for supporting my work by purchasing these products through the links provided. I will only ever share products I actually believe in.Health & Wellness:ZBiotics: Right now, get 10% off ZBiotics. Just head over to zbiotics.com and use code JESSEDAMIANI. If you have an evening with drinking and a morning you need to feel fresh, I strongly recommend these.Genetically engineered by a team of PhD microbiologists, ZBiotics is a probiotic drink that breaks down the byproduct of alcohol responsible for rough mornings after drinking (acetaldehyde).MUD\WTR: Right now, get 43% off starter packs using this link and the code SUMMER. There’s four different blends to choose from, but my current favorite is :rest. “This is our protest to hustle culture,” they say, and that resonates with me. Not only does it actually help me ramp down to sleep, but since I froth a little milk and make a latte with it, I get the warm cozy feeling of morning coffee at night. (For the evening tea drinkers out there: I’m not saying it’s better, just different!)Mission Farms CBD: Mission Farms CBD crafts full-spectrum CBD products for specific conditions like sleep, stress, and discomfort, using a combination of CBD and terpenes found in essential oils. I swear by this stuff: I take one of their Marionberry Lemon gummies to end each day.There’s a lot of junk CBD on the market. All of Mission Farms’s CBD comes from a small farm in Bend, Oregon. They farm the hemp organically, tend every plant by hand, and test for purity four times: the soil, the hemp, the hemp-extract, and the final products. This CBD is designed for wellness and it shows. Go to this link and sign up for emails to get 25% off your first order.Digital Hygiene:1Password: Listen, I know from personal experience that password managers don’t make for the most riveting dinner party conversation, but I need to express 3 things: 1) They make your life so much easier—it’s called “1Password” because once you get set up it’s the only password you’ll ever need to remember again. 2) They make your online life so much safer, ensuring that you use unique passwords for every account, stored with a high degree of encryption. 3) They are not nearly as complicated to set up as you think they are! Head over to 1Password using this link for a free trial, and individual plans for less than $3/mo after that.NordVPN: Right now, get up to 69% off 2-year plans + a Saily eSIM data gift through this link. Some people tell me that “VPN” brings to mind ideas of hackers and the dark web, but honestly VPNs are just an extremely easy way to stay much safer online. I’ve used NordVPN for the past four years, and appreciate what they offer, including Threat Protection against malware, 24/7 customer support, fast speeds, and more. One account can protect up to 6 devices (phone and computer), and they don’t track or share what you do online. Another benefit: you can always access the content/apps you have at home, wherever in the world you are.CREDITS: This podcast is edited and produced by Adam Labrie and me, Jesse Damiani. Adam Labrie also directed, shot, and edited the video version of the podcast, which is available on YouTube. The podcast is presented by Reality Studies. If you appreciate the work I’m doing, please subscribe and share it with someone you think would enjoy it.Find more episodes of Urgent Futures at: youtube.com/@UrgentFutures. Past conversations include Taylor Lorenz, Lia Halloran & Kip Thorne, Cherie Hu, Lisa Messeri, Legacy Russell, and more. Get full access to Reality Studies at www.realitystudies.co/subscribe

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