More than just a region, Silicon Valley has also become a concept — and what that concept represents means a lot of different things to different people. Some might think of it as a techno-utopian dreamland where billionaires are made. Others, perhaps a soul-sucking dystopia driven by a never ending rat race — also where billionaires are made. Whatever you may think, one thing that's hard to disagree with is the idea that work dominates Silicon Valley, and while some here are simply working to live, a certain privileged class of society actually lives to work. It's this class of workers that are the main characters in Carolyn Chen’s new book: Work Pray Code: When Work Becomes Religion in Silicon Valley. Carolyn Chen is an Associate Professor of Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies and Comparative Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley. How has work become the new religion in Silicon Valley? What material and historical conditions led to the spiritualization of work? What strategies do workplaces deploy to ensure workers find meaning and purpose in work — and what other realms of life does this impact? What happens when work takes over the institutions that shape our souls? These are just some of the questions we’ll explore in this conversation with Carolyn Chen.  This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

The latest installment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC report, released this month, gives us three years to drastically cut emissions. “It’s now or never, if we want to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees,” the authors of the report warn. But in reality, it's more likely that we’ll double that number. If you haven’t already seen the headlines, the report indicates that we’d need to cut emissions by almost half by 2030 and be at negative emissions by 2050 — that means we’d need to be taking carbon out of the atmosphere at that point — in order to avert the worst of climate change. But these are just the headlines — the actual report is around 3000 pages long, and is a pretty groundbreaking and radical document, at least when it comes to these kinds of reports by typically conservative scientific bodies. The report includes a great deal of research from social scientists, and for the first time, in a major way, debunks much of the economics behind neoliberal climate solutions, even going so far as to name colonialism as a driver for climate change, and even alludes to capitalism as a major contributing factor. To unpack it all, we’ve brought on someone who's actually started reading all of the entire 3000 pages of the report. Amy Westervelt is an award-winning climate journalist, founder of the Critical Frequency podcast network, and host of the podcast Drilled. Is the fossil fuel industry, as they would like us to believe, a demand-driven industry? Or has it really become more of a market looking for a product? Are we getting to a place where mainstream narratives no longer simply call for individual actions, but focus much more heavily on collective and systemic solutions to climate change? And are we finally moving away from seeing global warming as a strictly environmental issue, and instead to seeing it as one more rooted class struggles against systems like capitalism, colonialism, and imperialism? These are some of the topics we explore in this conversation with Amy Westervelt.  Thanks to Bedouine for the intermission music.  This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

“The pursuit of private financial gain is what drives inequality and ecological harm.” This is the perspective of Jennifer Hinton, a leading proponent of the not-for-profit business, which is differs in fundamental ways from a traditional nonprofit organization and, of course, from for-profit businesses. Not-for-profit businesses models are often invisible in the many movements to reimagine our economic system, but the idea is starting to gain momentum. Jennifer offers a vision of an entirely not-for-profit economy made up exclusively of not-for-profit businesses that de-emphasize profit and growth and instead prioritize businesses as a means for social and environmental benefit. Together we look at examples and operating principles of this model, we explore how it navigates the capitalism/socialism binary, and we ask what conditions would be necessary for this model to truly offer a bridge to a post-growth, post-capitalist world. Dr. Jennifer Hinton is a systems researcher, activist, and ecological economist who is a Senior Fellow at the Schumacher Institute and the author of two books: How on Earth: Flourishing in a Not-for-Profit World by 2050, co-authored with Donnie Maclurcan of the Post-Growth Institute, and Relationship-to-Profit: A Theory of Business, Markets, and Profit for Social Ecological Economics Thanks to Between Friends for the intermission music.  This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

Standing Rock was a pivotal moment in regards to Indigenous resistance — but it was just one in a long line of battles that Indigenous peoples have been fighting against the twin forces of colonialism and capitalism since first contact. In this episode, we’re taking a deep dive into Indigenous resistance against colonialism, capitalism, and climate change — from the Amah Mutsun’s fight to save their most sacred site in California to the Wet’suwet’en’s battle against a gas pipeline on Canada’s western coast, and then up into the North American tundra and across into Northern Europe’s arctic circle where the Inuit and Sámi peoples are fighting to save the ice that they rely on. What parallels lie between the struggles of the Amah Mutsun Costanoan Ohlone, the Wet’suwet’en First Nation, the Inuit, and the Sámi peoples of northern Europe? How have the forces of capitalism and colonialism led to the destruction of Indigenous lives, land, language and culture? What can tens of thousands of years of a diversity of Indigenous insights, knowledge, and wisdom — along with a more modern amalgamation of Indigenous-Marxism — teach us about it? And what invitations for paths forward can we take to lead us to a future committed to solidarity, healing, and ecological restoration? Join us in exploring these questions with guests: Valentin Lopez: Chairman of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band of the Costanoan Ohlone Eleanor Castro: Amah Mutsun Costanoan Ohlone Elder Sleydo' (Molly Wickham): Member of the Wet'suwet'en Nation and spokesperson for the Gidimt’en Checkpoint Sungmanitu Bluebird: Oglala Lakota activist, researcher, writer, member of The Red Nation and the host of the Bands of Turtle Island podcast for The Red Media Sheila (Siila) Watt-Cloutier: Canadian Inuit activist, political representative for Inuit, International Chair for Inuit Circumpolar Council, and author of The Right to be Cold Beaska Niillas: Northern Sámi traditional handicrafter, hunter and gatherer, activist, Sámi school kindergarten teacher, politician, and the host of the SuperSápmi Podcast Florian Carl: Indigenous ally and member of the Cloudberry Collective Alberto Saldamando — Indigenous Environmental Network’s Counsel on Climate Change and Indigenous and Human Rights Music by: Chris Zabriskie Qilaut (Sylvia Cloutier) A. Paul Ortega and Joanne Shenandoah G. I. Gurdjieff and Thomas De Hartmann as performed by Cecil Lytle Douglas Spotted Eagle Thank you to Cerberus Star for the cover art. Upstream theme music was composed by Robert Raymond. This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you and the Guerrilla Foundation. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support Also, if your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on social media: Facebook.com/upstreampodcast twitter.com/UpstreamPodcast Instagram.com/upstreampodcast You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcast and Spotify: Apple Podcast: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/upst…am/id1082594532 Spotify: spoti.fi/2AryXHs

There are many ways women across the world have been disproportionately impacted by COVID. The pandemic has simultaneously increased the demand for unpaid labor from women — including childcare and homeschooling — while decimating industries like retail, leisure, hospitality, education and entertainment which are their main employers. So many of the jobs lost during the pandemic were held by women, that the resulting economic recession has been called a “she­cession” — or even an example of “disaster patriarchy.” But our current economic system has always had a history of harming women disproportionately — in fact, in many ways, COVID has simply revealed and exacerbated already existing inequalities. But where there is a crisis, there is also opportunity. And in this space, some are asking what a feminist response to COVID could look like? There are, however, multiple kinds of feminism. In this episode we explore what kind of feminism could not only lead us beyond this present crisis, but also offer us a vision of a more just world where equality and liberation are premises, not aspirations: a feminism for the 99%. Featuring: Khara Jabola-Carolus — Executive Director of the Hawaii State Commission on the Status of Women Tiek Johnson — Reproductive Justice Advocate and Doula Sarah Jaffe — Independent journalist and author of Work Won’t Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted and Alone Tithi Bhattacharya — Associate Professor of History and the Director of Global Studies at Purdue University and author of Feminism for the 99 Percent: A Manifesto Nicole Aschoff — Editor at large at Jacobin Magazine, senior editor at Verso Books, and author of the book, The New Prophets of Capital  Music by: Thao and the Get Down Stay Down, Marissa Kay, Chris Zabriskie  This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

By traditional metrics, the U.S. economy is doing pretty well right now — better than any other high income countries. But, at the same time, we have the worst COVID health outcomes of any of these countries too. It seems pretty obvious that by reopening the economy and all but abandoning any interventions aside from the vaccine, the Biden administration has pretty much this outcome. But of course, the problem goes much deeper — it’s a combination of years of disinvestment and neoliberal policies. In this Conversation we’re talking COVID with Beatrice Alder-Bolton, co-host of the Death Panel podcast and co-author of the forthcoming book, "Health Communism: A Surplus Manifesto," which will be published by Verso Books this fall. What are the structural causes of our skyrocketing COVID rates? How has COVID laid bare the rotting foundations of not just the U.S. healthcare system — but almost every single institution in this country? How are our political leaders using the pandemic as a launching ground for the rewriting for the social contract in a way that even further minimizes the responsibility of the state to protect people? These are just some of the questions we explore in this Conversation with Beatrice Alder-Bolton.  This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

Join Johann Hari, author and journalist renowned for his exploration of attention and focus, as he discusses the alarming decline in attention spans due to systemic issues, not just personal shortcomings. He emphasizes the impact of digital distractions, urging a cultural shift towards mono-tasking for deeper connections. Hari critiques social media's negativity bias and the attention economy, calling for systemic changes to reclaim mental well-being, making a strong case for an attention revolution.

Why do so many of us often feel like shit when we leave work? Where does that ambient feeling of alienation come from? That nagging sense that we’ve somehow been taken advantage of? That subtle anger — or sometimes even outright hatred — many of us feel towards our supervisors, our managers, our bosses? And why — despite devoting the majority of our waking hours to "making a living" — does it still feel like we’re always one emergency away from financial ruin? A lot of people these days are starting to seriously question the political-economic system we live under. And if you’re someone who listens to this podcast, you’re probably already well aware of the faults and, really, the horrors of this system that we’re all imprisoned in: capitalism. Although it’s relatively easy to critique capitalism through our lived experiences of it, it’s not always as easy to frame those critiques and those nagging feelings into economic language or a political framing. Canonical texts like Marx’s Capital can be fairly opaque and inaccessible, and oftentimes, even among those who study it, capitalism can be difficult to pin down. What is it, exactly? What is it not? And what precisely is that thing that we often think of as its opposition: socialism? In this Conversation, we’ve brought on someone who can explain all of that. Hadas Thier is the author of "A People’s Guide to Capitalism: An Introduction to Marxist Economics," published by Haymarket Books. In this Conversation, Hadas Thier will help us break down capitalism into its most fundamental components — and not in an overly technical way, but in a manner that situates it within historical and modern day events and processes — and which hopefully provides you with a pretty comprehensive and compelling explanation as to why we’re all feeling so exploited, alienated, and imprisoned in this oppressive and life-denying set of operating principles and beliefs we know as capitalism. This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

It’s probably safe to say that at this point, most people recognize that it’s not a question of whether climate change will have devastating impacts on humans and our environment — but more, just what the political fallout of inevitable climate collapse will look like… In this Conversation, we’re exploring just that: the political consequences of climate collapse. We’ve brought two guests to help explore this, co-authors of the book Climate Leviathan: A Political Theory of Our Planetary Future, published by Verso Books. Geoff Mann is the Director of the Centre for Global Political Economy at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia and Joel Wainwright is a human geographer who teaches political economy and social theory at Ohio State University.  Thank you to Matt Kish for the cover art. This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

Happy Solstice 2021! Here is our second annual solstice conversation with fellow podcasters Manda Scott and Nathalie Nahai. In this conversation we ask each other the core questions at the heart of our shows, we reflect on key themes, insights, and inquiries that we have traced through our interviews and documentaries in 2020, and we give gratitude and gifts of inspiring books, practical invitations, and a beautiful closing solstice meditation. Manda Scott is an award-winning novelist, podcaster and smallholder whose life is underpinned by the shamanic dreaming she gave voice to in her Boudica: Dreaming novels. For the past two years, she has been host of the Accidental Gods podcast which originally aimed at fostering conscious evolution and is now leaning more towards finding an inspiring way through to a flourishing future. Nathalie is an international speaker, consultant and author of two books: the recently published Business Unusual: Values, Uncertainty and the Psychology of Brand Resilience, and best-seller, Webs of Influence: The Psychology of Online Persuasion. Her work explores the intersection between persuasive technology, ethics, and the psychology of online behavior. Nathalie also hosts The Hive Podcast, and contributes to national publications, television and radio on the impact of technology in our lives.  This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.