Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and How the Tech are Yet Today, I have a
Speaker 1: special treat for you. There's a big treat for me too.
Speaker 1: I got to sit down with Baratunde Thurston. He's a
Speaker 1: comedian and activist technologist. On top of all that, he
Speaker 1: hosts a show called How to Citizen. The show's third
Speaker 1: season focused on technology's role in our world and our
Speaker 1: our ability to citizen, as he calls it, and also
Speaker 1: about how some really remarkable people are working hard to
Speaker 1: see that technology lives up to its potential to facilitate
Speaker 1: positive change. Anyone out there who has listened to tech
Speaker 1: Stuff for any length of time, y'all know that I
Speaker 1: often focus on the dark side of tech, from unintended
Speaker 1: consequences that can be harmful to outrighte malicious misuses or
Speaker 1: abuses of technology, and how that impacts people. Well. I
Speaker 1: like to think of Barrattunda's attitude as a balm for
Speaker 1: the cantankerous perspective I typically have of tech, and so
Speaker 1: sit back and enjoy this conversation that I had with
Speaker 1: Barrittunde Thurston. You're gonna learn a lot, including some stuff
Speaker 1: you might not know about me. I want to welcome
Speaker 1: my guest, Bartunde Thurston, someone whom I have admired for
Speaker 1: many years. I have admired his comedy work, I've admired
Speaker 1: his perspective on tech, and I admire him in particular because,
Speaker 1: whether he remembers it or not, he once rescued me
Speaker 1: from the worst day of my professional career. WHOA welcome
Speaker 1: to the show. Yeah, that good to be here, Jonathan,
Speaker 1: Me about this rescue mission? I don't know about Okay,
Speaker 1: I'll set the scene. It was south By Southwest two
Speaker 1: thousand sixteen. It was in between you getting inducted into
Speaker 1: the Hall of Fame and me trying every taco at Torches.
Speaker 1: And I had been assigned to moderate a panel for
Speaker 1: which I was severely underqualified to do, but I had
Speaker 1: no had no option. And it was for a now defunct,
Speaker 1: anonymous GEO located social networking site called yik yak, And
Speaker 1: for those who do not remember, yik yak was a
Speaker 1: service that allowed people to anonymously post messages and people
Speaker 1: within a certain radius of that person's physical location could
Speaker 1: see those messages and post their own, So I had
Speaker 1: I had to submit every single question I had to
Speaker 1: the two co founders ahead of time, and that made
Speaker 1: me feel like I was kind of restricted in what
Speaker 1: I could ask. I wasn't confident in what I could do.
Speaker 1: So by the time we get to the panel, fly
Speaker 1: up sweat is evident. It's undeniable. Uh. I'm sitting there.
Speaker 1: There's way more people than I expected to be there
Speaker 1: because this wasn't part of the official south By Southwest
Speaker 1: panel uh that you would find in the other locations.
Speaker 1: This was in some bar off the main drag, and
Speaker 1: I get through my questions pretty quickly because I'm getting
Speaker 1: monosyllabic answers and not really any follow up. So after
Speaker 1: thirty minutes in an hour long slot, I opened it
Speaker 1: up to the audience because I have nothing else to
Speaker 1: go to. And I don't know if you remember, Baritone D,
Speaker 1: but you were the first person to stand up and
Speaker 1: ask questions, and you held those co founders accountable. You
Speaker 1: you asked them about the consequences of unleashing a tool
Speaker 1: that allowed for anonymous posting in geolocated areas. Uh. And
Speaker 1: the potential effects that could have on populations in those communities,
Speaker 1: specifically in colleges and high schools. And they gave very
Speaker 1: uh unsatisfying answers. And at the end of this I
Speaker 1: was shaking. I was so upset with myself. But I
Speaker 1: came up to you and I thanked you for your question.
Speaker 1: You were incredibly gracious, and then I slunk off to
Speaker 1: hide and shame and that fueled the stress dreams for
Speaker 1: the following six years, which is not even a joke,
Speaker 1: but um, but I was so thankful you were there
Speaker 1: because I appreciated the fact that you asked the tough
Speaker 1: questions and you were you were adamant about getting answers,
Speaker 1: and when clearly there were none, then that precipitated more
Speaker 1: questions from the rest of the audience. You. I remember
Speaker 1: there was a teacher who came up after you and
Speaker 1: started asking very tough questions, and I thought, man, I
Speaker 1: wish they had asked Barratt toun Day to moderate this panel.
Speaker 1: It would have been a much better panel. Oh, so
Speaker 1: thank you for remembering that. I actually do remember it now.
Speaker 1: It was It was at a bar right off Congress
Speaker 1: Street in downtown Austin. And they had to. I think
Speaker 1: that had a robotic bartender, which I also recall. Um,
Speaker 1: I looked up that service just to get a visual memory,
Speaker 1: and yeah, it was like a yak was there logo.
Speaker 1: They went out of business in tween. They literally just
Speaker 1: came back. I looked it up and it was like
Speaker 1: three hours ago from Yahoo News. Yeack yak is back, baby.
Speaker 1: So we can do this all over again, Jonathan, We
Speaker 1: can do this well this time. This time, I feel
Speaker 1: a little more prepared. That was that was Babe in
Speaker 1: the Woods, Deer in the headlight, Jonathan, I'm slightly better now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: no joke. So that kind of brings me to talk
Speaker 1: about How to Citizen, which is already a phenomenal podcast
Speaker 1: before you got into the the specific role of focusing
Speaker 1: on text role in this idea of making citizen a
Speaker 1: verb and uh and this concept of becoming more socially
Speaker 1: responsible and active in a positive way. And first of all,
Speaker 1: I absolutely love the show, and I love the tone
Speaker 1: of it, and I love your perspective. So uh, congratulations
Speaker 1: and thank you for that. Well, Um, thank you, and
Speaker 1: you're welcome for that. I mean, this season really is
Speaker 1: uh an outgrowth of of moments like the one that
Speaker 1: we shared in sixteen. I was at that south By
Speaker 1: Southwest to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, Baby Baby,
Speaker 1: and I gave a little acceptance speech like four minutes,
Speaker 1: and I made a lot of jokes about brand activations
Speaker 1: at this arts festival as well as tacos and whiskey
Speaker 1: and beer. But I also remember saying the folks, like
Speaker 1: the assumption that tech is just going to create goodness
Speaker 1: in the world, We've got to stop that, and we
Speaker 1: could actually be accelerating bad things in the world, you know,
Speaker 1: at scale, and codifying our history and sort of forcing
Speaker 1: history into our future under the guise of machine learning.
Speaker 1: If what we teach those machines is all of our
Speaker 1: mistakes and our biases and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: And and now that's that's like a common perspective, you know,
Speaker 1: on tech, but in we're just kind of entering the discordant,
Speaker 1: skeptical realm about what might happen with all this disruption,
Speaker 1: and this season of How the Citizen is a follow
Speaker 1: up to that, and it's like, okay, so what else
Speaker 1: can we do? You know, what else can we build?
Speaker 1: Who's out here not yik yakking all over our commons,
Speaker 1: but you know, creating something, if not perfect, at least
Speaker 1: more perfect and helping us be more of a union,
Speaker 1: not just in the US, but kind of just as
Speaker 1: human beings all over the world. So it's been a
Speaker 1: I needed that season to remind me that it's not
Speaker 1: all like insurrection and Nazis out there and team depression
Speaker 1: and body shaming, that there is so much more good
Speaker 1: we can still do. Uh and and the future history
Speaker 1: is not yet written. I could not agree more. I
Speaker 1: am in that same need or that positive spin. A
Speaker 1: few years ago, I used to host a show called
Speaker 1: forward Thinking, and the whole premise was that it was
Speaker 1: an optimistic view of the future, largely through the lens
Speaker 1: of technology and talking about the the promise of tech
Speaker 1: or the potential of tech and through that optimistic lens.
Speaker 1: And I do largely consider myself an optimist. I just
Speaker 1: unfortunately I am an optimist who also feels like I've
Speaker 1: been put through the ringer for the yeah and and
Speaker 1: yeah you think back, like I've heard you speak about
Speaker 1: this too. Like. I also was an early active participant
Speaker 1: on the Internet. I was in college when the Worldwide
Speaker 1: Web became a thing, and I thought, oh, that's never
Speaker 1: gonna take the place of tell net. Um now that
Speaker 1: Oh I want to hug you right now. I met
Speaker 1: my wife through tell net. That's how That's how I
Speaker 1: met my wife. Yeah, not many people know that, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I met her through a tell net chat room. Uh.
Speaker 1: And yeah, this I thought, the whole web thing like it.
Speaker 1: Thanks forever for that page, this prompt situation, command line
Speaker 1: entry Universe. The slash key is my friend. It lets
Speaker 1: me do anything. But yeah, listening to that, like when
Speaker 1: we cast our minds back to that and we think
Speaker 1: about the potential of of what we were seeing and
Speaker 1: this idea of a platform that could allow for instantaneous
Speaker 1: global communication and collaboration, um, as well as things like
Speaker 1: commerce down the line. Once that restriction was lifted, everyone
Speaker 1: was sure that the Internet was going to solve all problems,
Speaker 1: including eliminate conflict, because now suddenly there would not be
Speaker 1: these barriers to communication, ignoring places like China and North Korea,
Speaker 1: even if even if that problems were the old true
Speaker 1: everywhere else and um, And of course it didn't turn
Speaker 1: out that way, but it's not a big surprise. I mean,
Speaker 1: I look now at the landscape. I look at something
Speaker 1: like like Facebook, you know, not just meta but the
Speaker 1: specific platform of Facebook, which is supposed to be this
Speaker 1: this globalized social network that connects for parents, and well, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're we're listen. You and I are of a certain age.
Speaker 1: I think I'm two years older than you are. So um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I look at that and I think, well,
Speaker 1: of course that didn't turn into a really you know, benevolent,
Speaker 1: um useful tool that has nothing but good in it.
Speaker 1: It started, or at least it evolved out of a
Speaker 1: project that was ultimately about rating the appearance of female
Speaker 1: students at Harvard an age old human space, which always
Speaker 1: brings out the best in our species. Yes, and you
Speaker 1: can't have huge expectations, is I guess what I'm getting at.
Speaker 1: But the promise is still there, right, the promise that
Speaker 1: we could have have this democratized approach that removes barriers
Speaker 1: that traditionally stood in the way of people connecting to
Speaker 1: each other, or people connecting to a career, or people
Speaker 1: connecting to contributing to their communities. That's still there. It's
Speaker 1: it's easy to lose sight of that because we've seen
Speaker 1: all the bad. But I love that your podcast is
Speaker 1: looking at specific cases where people are making substantive changes two.
Speaker 1: Uh provide this this opportunity to actually use tech to
Speaker 1: make real benefits two people all over the world. And
Speaker 1: one of the the ways we've been asking that question, UM,
Speaker 1: it slows down the process. Tech is often about speed
Speaker 1: and efficiency and and results, but not necessarily with a
Speaker 1: very clear question like results for what faster at what? Um?
Speaker 1: So faster at extracting value to generate advertising revenue, cool,
Speaker 1: faster at dismantling you know, social ties or respect for
Speaker 1: various types of community interests. Yes, we're crushing it at
Speaker 1: that UM. But if if the question is baked a
Speaker 1: little differently, and it's about creating a healthy community, Uh,
Speaker 1: if it's about citizen ing as a verb, which is
Speaker 1: kind of the premise of our show. It's like, what
Speaker 1: if what if tech didn't make it harder to citizen
Speaker 1: but made it easier? Then you gotta ask what does
Speaker 1: it mean a citizen? That sounds very very cool, very abstract,
Speaker 1: very hard to pin down, and so we we tried
Speaker 1: to define our terms and repeatedly, so citizen means you
Speaker 1: show up and participate, So, like, do these technologies allow
Speaker 1: people to show up and participate in their various circles
Speaker 1: of community. Uh, two citizens to invest in relationships with yourself,
Speaker 1: with others and the planet around you. Do these tools
Speaker 1: and platforms that help us get in touch with ourselves?
Speaker 1: Do they help us connect with other people in a
Speaker 1: relationship fashion, not just a transaction? Do they eliminate this
Speaker 1: mythical separation between us and nature or create greater justice?
Speaker 1: And the third and of the four is that it
Speaker 1: helps us understand power, to citizens, to understand your power,
Speaker 1: money and presence and ideas and physical strength, but also
Speaker 1: communication strength and attention and in particularly you know, So
Speaker 1: it does this technology strip us of our powers? Or
Speaker 1: uh make us further aware of and capable of wielding
Speaker 1: our power. And then the last of these four nicely
Speaker 1: balanced pillars is that to two citizen is to um
Speaker 1: prioritize and take account for the collective interests, not just
Speaker 1: the individual self interests. And so if you're doing all
Speaker 1: that previous stuff just for your individual self, you're finely
Speaker 1: tuned social path and you could be very well funded
Speaker 1: by venture capital and go up into the right on
Speaker 1: all the charts, um, but you wouldn't be citizen ng
Speaker 1: you know, you'd be hyper investing in a in a
Speaker 1: iv IT life, which has its place, but is it
Speaker 1: should not take up all of of the space that
Speaker 1: that we occupied together. So yeah, we found all these
Speaker 1: people who are doing different pieces. We found all these
Speaker 1: people who are doing different pieces of that kind of
Speaker 1: citizen ing, and even with a platform like a social network,
Speaker 1: building them differently, you know, with different kinds of considerations.
Speaker 1: And so it's just a good reminder like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: we got choices, you know, um, and then you have
Speaker 1: to ask, you know, grace, So we have choices, do
Speaker 1: we how much are we able to exercise them? What
Speaker 1: barriers stand in between us in our ability to create
Speaker 1: those types of opportunities in large scale and not just
Speaker 1: have them be kind of cute demonstration projects. Uh. And
Speaker 1: that's a tough secondary question absolutely. Uh. I. I have
Speaker 1: covered many times in the past, some various projects in
Speaker 1: various stories that we're incredibly exciting, an inspirational and unfortunately
Speaker 1: also momentary. Yeah, that there was no lasting effect or
Speaker 1: or presence, and that um, you run the risk of
Speaker 1: it suddenly becoming something performative or that someone like me
Speaker 1: who covers tech for a lot starts to get really cynical.
Speaker 1: When I start seeing moves, even moves that are sincere
Speaker 1: and earnest in their motivations, you start to question simply
Speaker 1: because you've been encountering the dark side for too long,
Speaker 1: which is why I you know, I when I listened
Speaker 1: to season three, which by the way, everyone absolutely should.
Speaker 1: Everyone should listen to all of them. How does citizen
Speaker 1: that come? But especially your audience here with tech stuff.
Speaker 1: I think you know, I've listened to one of your
Speaker 1: recent episodes about the history of like Web one and
Speaker 1: Web two. Oh yeah, it was just it was a
Speaker 1: great time machine, and so I think, you know, if
Speaker 1: you like the time machine element and revisiting that, whether
Speaker 1: you were as it or not, there's value to it.
Speaker 1: We do a little bit of a version of that
Speaker 1: in our season three and then start chipping away at
Speaker 1: the assumptions about how a lot of this stuff needs
Speaker 1: to work, and it's kind of this global It ended
Speaker 1: up being a global expedition, you know, from Argentina to
Speaker 1: Spain to Taiwan, two prisons in the United States, uh
Speaker 1: and multiple cities and types of venues all around. So
Speaker 1: it's very very cool. But I'll finish letting you plug
Speaker 1: my podcast please contin Oh well, I was going to say, like,
Speaker 1: I love how you start with an episode where you're
Speaker 1: talking with your sister, which was beautiful. It was a
Speaker 1: beautiful conversation in such a wonderful tribute to your mother. Um.
Speaker 1: I absolutely loved it. And then you follow that up
Speaker 1: with the what I would call the tech Stuff episode
Speaker 1: of How to Citizens With with Scott Galloway, where you
Speaker 1: are defining the problems uh. And I was listening to that,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, man, I'm so glad that he
Speaker 1: doesn't have my job, because I would. I don't know
Speaker 1: what i'd be doing right now, but he does it
Speaker 1: better than I do. There's plenty of work out there
Speaker 1: for all of us, man, right. And then and then
Speaker 1: the later episodes, you know you're you're talking with these
Speaker 1: extraordinary people who are spearheading incredible projects. And that's where
Speaker 1: I really feel that Tech Stuff Listeners, if you have
Speaker 1: been listening to me for a while and you know
Speaker 1: you've you've especially with the news episodes, it's almost impossible
Speaker 1: to avoid the dark stuff because that's the stuff that
Speaker 1: tends to rise in the public consciousness. Listen to this
Speaker 1: show and get involved because there are ways you can
Speaker 1: do that, and it helps and it makes a better world.
Speaker 1: And those are all things I want to see. We'll
Speaker 1: be right back with more from Bariton day after these messages.
Speaker 1: When we look out for one another and when we
Speaker 1: take actions that are not us purely in our own
Speaker 1: self interest, everyone benefits, not just the individual. And that's
Speaker 1: what always blows my mind is that, yes, you can
Speaker 1: act selfishly, and you can act selfishly in a way
Speaker 1: that benefits you, but when you act in a way
Speaker 1: that helps others, you too benefit. Like that's an everybody
Speaker 1: wins situation and makes you it makes you feel good.
Speaker 1: So there's that selfishness um and it's it's something I
Speaker 1: often forget until I'm doing it. I'm like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: it feels good to be around others, it feels good
Speaker 1: to do something with others, it feels good to do
Speaker 1: something for others. And then recognizing maybe maybe that comes
Speaker 1: back to me in a literal or direct way, or
Speaker 1: maybe I just I'm getting high off the endorphins of
Speaker 1: that kind of social hit, you know, the same kind
Speaker 1: of feeling like when someone likes your posts or or
Speaker 1: shares your content online. You can get that in a
Speaker 1: in a much healthier way, you know, through engaging with
Speaker 1: with our fellow humans. Uh, And then you think about
Speaker 1: the sort of collective interest, like how does public health
Speaker 1: really work? How does national security work? How does how
Speaker 1: do cities and communities of all sizes work? We're not
Speaker 1: meant to do everything by ourselves, and I think we've
Speaker 1: just over indexed on the the independence strain. And it's
Speaker 1: very American and then very Western, but particularly American. It's
Speaker 1: like me, my house, my yard, my gun, my food supplies,
Speaker 1: my entertainment system, my pool, my kids, my private school,
Speaker 1: and this list of my my, my, my my leaves
Speaker 1: very little room for hour. And it's super inefficient. Actually,
Speaker 1: it's it's highly redundant, and it's really isolating and lonely
Speaker 1: taken to such an extreme. If we're all out here
Speaker 1: building our own you know, armies of one and cities
Speaker 1: of one in societies of one, then we're losing out
Speaker 1: on the benefits of even having other people around, Like
Speaker 1: what's what's the point of there being more than one
Speaker 1: of us? If we're all going I try to do
Speaker 1: the whole job of society by ourselves. It also includes
Speaker 1: a lot of denial, like you have to live in
Speaker 1: denial to believe that you alone are responsible for your
Speaker 1: place and and how and your well being. It's such
Speaker 1: an unrealistic view that it it boggles my mind. Um.
Speaker 1: I was fortunate to be raised by teachers and science
Speaker 1: fiction authors, so I came to my philosophy from a
Speaker 1: perspective of the sort of the star Trek view of society,
Speaker 1: like everyone contributes, and everyone's important. And if you if
Speaker 1: you deny that, if you think somehow that you are
Speaker 1: more important than everyone else, nothing but disaster awaits you
Speaker 1: and and there's there's you know, denial is a really
Speaker 1: good naming of one of the challenges of that kind
Speaker 1: of thinking. I think fear is another component of it,
Speaker 1: where we operate out of a sense of being afraid
Speaker 1: of others and so we must do this for ourselves
Speaker 1: because we can't trust someone else to be there for us.
Speaker 1: And there's reasons for the denial, you know, some of
Speaker 1: us are educated to believe we are better than others
Speaker 1: and don't need them. Uh, there's reasons for the fear,
Speaker 1: you know. We we we receive a lot of messaging
Speaker 1: and even have had personal experiences which would trigger that.
Speaker 1: It's not um outlandish, you know, it's it's not inexplicable,
Speaker 1: but I think it is ultimately self destructive for most
Speaker 1: of us to to live in such an extreme in
Speaker 1: that way. So you find finding people in this little
Speaker 1: pocket of the world who's who are asking some different questions,
Speaker 1: finding some different answers and saying, okay, So what if
Speaker 1: we made a social network that didn't give everyone on
Speaker 1: day zero all the powers of the network at once.
Speaker 1: You know what if you gradually unlocked these features over time,
Speaker 1: after being more carefully and considerately on boarded into the community.
Speaker 1: What do you mean I can't just start dm ng
Speaker 1: people right off the bat and addressed millions from from
Speaker 1: the first moment I sign up. WHOA, that's that's that's thoughtful.
Speaker 1: Why would you do that? It's like, okay, well maybe
Speaker 1: if you're not under the pressure of returning you know,
Speaker 1: ten x the financial investment to people who have already
Speaker 1: hundred x the money they were born with, you would
Speaker 1: have time to consider that and build a community optimizing
Speaker 1: that instead of just maximum noise. Uh and so yeah,
Speaker 1: we had this, you know, bach Rainy lgbt Q plus
Speaker 1: activists s ra Al Shaffi. She's one of the people
Speaker 1: who I think everybody. It's hard to pick up favorite.
Speaker 1: But just in this moment, given that you mentioned Facebook,
Speaker 1: that there's more than one way. There are many different
Speaker 1: ways to build networks and communities, and we've just done
Speaker 1: this copy paste thing. Uh. And Facebook in particular has
Speaker 1: just done the like copy paste thing with you know,
Speaker 1: innovations from others. Um, but speed speed, speed is costing
Speaker 1: us in some other ways. And the speed of enabling
Speaker 1: people to behave in certain ways without having any connection
Speaker 1: to the community they're part of. Yet it's like your
Speaker 1: first day as a freshman in high school. You're just
Speaker 1: like you're running the pep rally, You're the president of
Speaker 1: the class, like you're you're in charge of discipline. Uh.
Speaker 1: That's way too much power too quickly. Yeah, I uh
Speaker 1: so much of what you say resonates with me. I
Speaker 1: think back to some of the smaller forums that I
Speaker 1: participated in early on in the Internet and how fundamentally
Speaker 1: different they were, Like it felt like a community of people.
Speaker 1: Usually it was centered around something specific which helped, like
Speaker 1: an interest and exactly a movie or a comic. Yeah, hey, hey,
Speaker 1: shout out to all my fellow former Buffy the Vampire
Speaker 1: Slayer Bronze Bers. I was part of the Bronze Um,
Speaker 1: which I also have it man revealing a lot of
Speaker 1: personal stuff on this episode, and so do you in
Speaker 1: that first episode of season three. So I think that's good.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I I completely find that inspiring. I love
Speaker 1: the idea of social networks that truly are social and
Speaker 1: build towards that and and help people avoid traps, like
Speaker 1: the fact that a lot of folks fall into a
Speaker 1: sort of tribalistic experience online. UM that you have these
Speaker 1: echo chambers that you have, You have these these environments
Speaker 1: that they don't just allow for the noise, they don't
Speaker 1: just allow for the flame war. The platform itself is
Speaker 1: dependent upon that activity, the noise they need, the flame wars.
Speaker 1: They the flame wars fuel their growth. Yes, pretty much
Speaker 1: a literal sense. You know, there's another I'm looking bad
Speaker 1: at that season, something I haven't thought as much about.
Speaker 1: But given who you are and where you sit, you know,
Speaker 1: the way we UM defer to algorithms as a huge
Speaker 1: impact on our sense of reality and truth, and most
Speaker 1: of us are not aware of them. So we we
Speaker 1: think we're making choices, but we're actually you know, the
Speaker 1: choice set is predetermined by a series of machines guided
Speaker 1: by humans who tell us who we are before we
Speaker 1: have a chance to become who we may be meant
Speaker 1: to be. And so just even if you're like an
Speaker 1: independent minded person free will and rugged individualism, it's kind
Speaker 1: of hard to be that when you're subservient to a
Speaker 1: machine telling you who you are before you get to
Speaker 1: be who you are. And so there's folks working on
Speaker 1: cleaning up the data sets that power these algorithms and
Speaker 1: just adding a level of insight into like, oh, that
Speaker 1: was just a garbage mailing list that someone brought in
Speaker 1: the dark web. Maybe we shouldn't use that to determine
Speaker 1: who has access to health care? Huh interesting? Or you know,
Speaker 1: my favorite example is forman in Teresa Hodge, who's formerly
Speaker 1: incarcerated and was very frustrated by folks with felony records
Speaker 1: not being able to get employment after they serve their
Speaker 1: time because various algorithms say they're not trustworthy, you know,
Speaker 1: just because they got caught. I mean, I still maintain
Speaker 1: most humans are criminals technically, right, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: laws that we're breaking on a constant basis. Most of
Speaker 1: us are not under constant surveillance to be busted, and
Speaker 1: then many of us who are busted have access to
Speaker 1: a level of resource to get out of that, get
Speaker 1: that expunge. You gotta slap on the risk. It's get
Speaker 1: a warning, so you have you're able to learn from
Speaker 1: the error and then proceed in society. But but a
Speaker 1: subset of us get caught up and then punished forever.
Speaker 1: And so she came up with and another algorithm that
Speaker 1: employers could use to consider if someone is really a
Speaker 1: risky bet in terms of hiring. And and it takes
Speaker 1: a lot more data points into considerations because it's defined
Speaker 1: by people who have experienced that particular challenge. And so
Speaker 1: you're putting people who are close to the problem in
Speaker 1: the driver's seat to help co create the solution. And
Speaker 1: there was no assumption of vindictiveness or ill will. Right,
Speaker 1: this isn't about punishing companies, but it's also about no
Speaker 1: longer punishing people who have already been punished and then
Speaker 1: unlocking their ability to contribute productively for all of us,
Speaker 1: Like we would all benefit from those folks having gainful employement.
Speaker 1: So it's you know, it doesn't mean like no more algorithms. Ever,
Speaker 1: I think that ship has sailed. But how we algorithm
Speaker 1: and who's involved in crafting them, and what oversight we have,
Speaker 1: what goes into them, who makes them, how they affect
Speaker 1: the world. We have so much more choice in that.
Speaker 1: Then we have realized many of us should just sitting
Speaker 1: here kind of dormant, like a ghost. There's nothing we
Speaker 1: can do. Oh, well that they already the computers are
Speaker 1: going to compute. They must they must know better. It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: they know what we tell them to know, and we
Speaker 1: can still have an influence on that. So I just thought, Okay,
Speaker 1: people are not expecting to hear this formerly incarcerated black
Speaker 1: woman coming up with algorithms selling them to employers to
Speaker 1: help them hire people better. What's and that's the same
Speaker 1: kind of story that would be on the cover of
Speaker 1: an Ink magazine, you know, or of a fast company magazine,
Speaker 1: of a Forbes um But we don't hear it as
Speaker 1: often as the I made an app called Yek Yek,
Speaker 1: and and that alone is a crime that should be
Speaker 1: punishable severely and over and over again. Not to call
Speaker 1: anyone out, but one of the co founders, I don't
Speaker 1: remember both their names, but one name is always going
Speaker 1: to stick with me forever and ever and ever, because
Speaker 1: it was Brooks Buffington the third, And how do you
Speaker 1: forget a name like, No, that's an incredible name, that's
Speaker 1: an incredible books buff Rington the third. I shouldn't really
Speaker 1: you know, calling him out. I live in Atlanta. He's
Speaker 1: still in Atlanta running businesses and stuff. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: burning bridges. Butever, and you know, that was I don't
Speaker 1: know what yik yak is doing, you know, with its return.
Speaker 1: Maybe they have figured out and we are in a
Speaker 1: very different world from in in so many ways. So
Speaker 1: let's let's assume, uh, as we have grown, so have they,
Speaker 1: and and you can just marvel at the amazing name
Speaker 1: that is Brooks Buffing. Yeah, phenomenal. I like that. I
Speaker 1: like that perspective. We've got more conversation coming up with
Speaker 1: barretun day after this short break. I love hearing about
Speaker 1: these stories. Uh, this is the sort of it's it's
Speaker 1: like nourishment for the soul. It's the the bomb I
Speaker 1: needed in order to kind of just rock every that's
Speaker 1: going on and not you know, fall into that little
Speaker 1: puddle in the corner that's like, yeah, small and helpless
Speaker 1: and knowing that things are wrong, but not knowing how
Speaker 1: to right them um and feeling like the snowball is
Speaker 1: already so large that no one's ever gonna stop it.
Speaker 1: It's it's going to wipe out the village. We're just
Speaker 1: waiting to see when it happens. And these are the
Speaker 1: stories that remind me that's not that's not the case.
Speaker 1: That's not the narrative you I tend to abstract too much,
Speaker 1: the concept of companies being these monolithic things that somehow
Speaker 1: existed on their own, and in fact they are the
Speaker 1: construction of people, like actual human beings made these and
Speaker 1: and by forgetting that, you start to just I mean,
Speaker 1: I do it all the time, You start to ascribe
Speaker 1: motivations to things that are not themselves really an entity.
Speaker 1: It's a collection that was built by human beings. And
Speaker 1: it's even possible that the motivations that you're recognizing were
Speaker 1: never consciously in any of those human beings minds, but
Speaker 1: it's manifested that way. And I think that's healthy to
Speaker 1: make those realizations, because then you can say, all right, listen,
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not gonna necessarily lay blame on anyone
Speaker 1: here for for maliciously approaching this situation. But we still
Speaker 1: have to reckon with the consequences and to adjudicate, to
Speaker 1: decide are these things we want? Are they positive? Are
Speaker 1: they helpful? Or are they things we can do without?
Speaker 1: Are they things we can change so that we get
Speaker 1: more positive outcomes and more supportive outcomes. Um? And that's
Speaker 1: really the takeaway I get from your show, which is
Speaker 1: I think the most glowing review I can give five stars. Yes,
Speaker 1: we've got the strict and five stars accomplished retire from podcasting.
Speaker 1: I think, Please, don't I need more? I need more.
Speaker 1: I need more. I need like endless number of seasons.
Speaker 1: More is coming, More is coming. Yeah. Well, to to
Speaker 1: kind of wrap this up, I want to just sort
Speaker 1: of talk with you about some some random little things
Speaker 1: like do you have any uh uh favorite like I
Speaker 1: know you talk a lot about technological memories in your episodes,
Speaker 1: but do you have any like favorite standouts, like things
Speaker 1: where either something clicked for you or you encountered a
Speaker 1: technology for the first time, just that sort of sense
Speaker 1: of wonder and discovery. Yeah, so there's a I don't
Speaker 1: think that we put this in How to Citizen. Um,
Speaker 1: so this would be a pseudo exclusive. I've definitely mentioned
Speaker 1: it publicly, but not often. So in high school. I
Speaker 1: graduate high school to situate you in in my timeline,
Speaker 1: and we got an internet connection at that school in
Speaker 1: probably possibly nine two and always on T one level connection.
Speaker 1: So I was banging around in Unix and coding and
Speaker 1: see poorly and just bopping around Gopher servers and Usenet
Speaker 1: servers and finding gateways into public libraries UM. And I
Speaker 1: also worked for the student newspaper at the time, UH
Speaker 1: and a friend of mine had been expelled from school.
Speaker 1: So these three facts converged. A friend I felt who
Speaker 1: was unjustly expelled from the school. His family sued our school,
Speaker 1: and there was a court case involved, and I was
Speaker 1: called as a witness to this court case. And court
Speaker 1: cases create a lot of public documentation. Most people in
Speaker 1: the school did not know about this lawsuit. Enter my
Speaker 1: new internet skills, and so I start um a fake
Speaker 1: email address called the informant at knowledge dot com. It
Speaker 1: was one of my prouder I was like deep throating it,
Speaker 1: you know, and I figured out, you know, mail servers
Speaker 1: were very shall we say, porous at that time in
Speaker 1: our history, and so if you knew the right keyboard
Speaker 1: commands you could interact with a mail server as if
Speaker 1: you were a male client and you know, have the
Speaker 1: right syntax in the right order. And so I kind
Speaker 1: of logged in to this mail server at Yale University
Speaker 1: Minerva dot sys dot Yale dot e d U. I'm
Speaker 1: sure they've battened down those ports at this stage, and
Speaker 1: so I I used I launched my attack from from Yale,
Speaker 1: even though I was in the computer lab in Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. As said, well, friends, and I crafted a
Speaker 1: message to my fellow newspaper editors because I didn't want
Speaker 1: my fingerprints on it, and I wanted them to kind
Speaker 1: of independently decide this is worth talking about without it
Speaker 1: feeling like a favorite of me or without being colored
Speaker 1: by any attitude toward me at all. Because I was
Speaker 1: clearly close to the person who've been expelled, they I
Speaker 1: dismiss it. You know, you're just trying to get your
Speaker 1: friend back in school. So I alerted them to the
Speaker 1: fact that gave them like the docket number that they
Speaker 1: could look up in them the court system, and they
Speaker 1: ended up you know, telling the story you know, of
Speaker 1: this lawsuit, which triggered political action on campus and meetings
Speaker 1: and all kinds of stuff, but the the ability to
Speaker 1: influence in that way, to to discover a form of power.
Speaker 1: I didn't like hack into the mail server to destroy it.
Speaker 1: I didn't even create fake information with it. I had
Speaker 1: created a fake header technically, but you know, trying to
Speaker 1: raise awareness of an issue from my relatively meager position.
Speaker 1: I wasn't a trustee, I wasn't a faculty member, I
Speaker 1: wasn't a parent. But I was an interested and affected
Speaker 1: party by this, and I thought it affected all of us.
Speaker 1: I felt powerful in the moment. I felt like I
Speaker 1: did more than I thought I could, and it just
Speaker 1: felt kind of cool. And I didn't tell anyone for years.
Speaker 1: I just kept my mouth shut. I'm like, I don't
Speaker 1: know what the statute of limitations is. I don't know
Speaker 1: if that was technically a crime. You know, I'm not
Speaker 1: trying to go to jail for my friend, like I
Speaker 1: like him a lot, but you know, he still he
Speaker 1: wasn't incarcerated. He just had to go to a different school.
Speaker 1: So measuring all of that, but also just that the
Speaker 1: moment of realizing that I could communicate through machines in
Speaker 1: this way, and not just for the sake of communicating
Speaker 1: with machines, but for the sake of affecting the I
Speaker 1: R L universe that I inhabited. That was That was
Speaker 1: a significant moment in my technology life, in my life overall. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I also like to imagine, although I know it's not
Speaker 1: the case, that's why you had to go to Harvard
Speaker 1: because Yale was going to be like, oh no, well
Speaker 1: I didn't respect after that, you know, I'm just like,
Speaker 1: you don't take cyber security seriously, like you let a
Speaker 1: child manipulate your tech infrastructure. Come on, a child just
Speaker 1: just compromise as octa authentication company. Maybe so many people
Speaker 1: shouldn't shouldn't be dependent on that one service. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: though I won't go down that road. But but I
Speaker 1: love that story too. It speaks to me about sort
Speaker 1: of the the pure hacker ethos, this idea of understanding
Speaker 1: how systems work, occasionally using that knowledge to have systems
Speaker 1: do something that they weren't necessarily meant to do. Not not.
Speaker 1: It doesn't have to be malicious, it doesn't have to
Speaker 1: be criminal, it doesn't have to be destructive. The term
Speaker 1: hacker obviously gets thrown around a lot in a very
Speaker 1: sinister way, but we understand those of us who have
Speaker 1: ever kind of put our hand to it. It's more
Speaker 1: about that that innate curiosity of how does this thing work?
Speaker 1: And once you understand how it works, like, oh, I
Speaker 1: wonder if it could also do this other thing that
Speaker 1: it's not designed to you and and that I feel
Speaker 1: is is something that we need to encourage. But unfortunately,
Speaker 1: just the the term hacker has got such a stigma
Speaker 1: against it that I feel a lot of people immediately
Speaker 1: make judgments as soon as they hear the term being
Speaker 1: thrown around. Yeah, make look at we We always need
Speaker 1: folks who are going to push things, and sometimes most
Speaker 1: of us don't appreciate it, like why is that person
Speaker 1: over there pushing things? I like things just the way
Speaker 1: they are. But then we find out you know, who
Speaker 1: we are through that process and like, oh, I guess
Speaker 1: we don't have to always do it this way now,
Speaker 1: you know, Forging emails isn't like a thing that I
Speaker 1: want all of us to be doing on account of basis,
Speaker 1: So the lesson is more metaphorical. Um, but you know,
Speaker 1: being able to find your voice, being able to express it,
Speaker 1: h caring enough about you know, a situation to try
Speaker 1: to influence other people's perception or even awareness of that situation.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the same thing that drives something much bigger,
Speaker 1: like a me too or Black Lives Matter. Right, it's
Speaker 1: just and you see all kinds of social media usage
Speaker 1: to amplify awareness of situations as well as you see
Speaker 1: sort of secure journalistic communications and you know, very anonymized
Speaker 1: tour based UH file drop services UH to allow folks
Speaker 1: in a weekend position to still hold power accountable in
Speaker 1: some way, especially in like regimes that don't allow anything
Speaker 1: approaching the level of freedom free expression we have in
Speaker 1: the US, and that's super important work UH and will
Speaker 1: continue to be so, I suspect for as long as
Speaker 1: we have more than one person on the planet. Mm hm,
Speaker 1: I agree. And then we're even seeing it if you
Speaker 1: go one step removed from the tech itself. We're seeing
Speaker 1: it in the tech companies as we're watching a growing
Speaker 1: movement among employees toward organization. That's realization. I mean, I
Speaker 1: heart podcast union form not long ago and that was
Speaker 1: really exciting. And we're seeing it in efforts at Amazon.
Speaker 1: We're seeing it in efforts at parts of Activision, Blizzard, UM,
Speaker 1: you know, the these This is a really exciting time
Speaker 1: from that perspective too, because I see this this growing
Speaker 1: understanding that the balance has been out of whack for
Speaker 1: far too long and that it has been benefiting far
Speaker 1: too few people in the process. And I feel like
Speaker 1: we're getting to maybe not a full correction, but we're
Speaker 1: at least reckoning with it, and I'm hopeful to see
Speaker 1: that continue. Like that's another one of those trends. I'm
Speaker 1: excited to be alive to see that because we were
Speaker 1: also barred. We were also growing up in the Reagan
Speaker 1: era where a lot of those systems were dismantled. That's right.
Speaker 1: Yet the way that workers we have an episode of
Speaker 1: season three, Shall We Whang focused on not just workers
Speaker 1: organizing around better compensation, better benefits like those typical contract terms,
Speaker 1: but organizing around their own sense of power and purpose
Speaker 1: and technical Silicon Valley employees are highly valued financially um
Speaker 1: and yet they're starting to recognize the limits of financial
Speaker 1: recognition of their value and what do I want to
Speaker 1: be doing with my power? And then expanding the lens
Speaker 1: on what a technology worker is. You know, if you
Speaker 1: drive for Uber Eats, you're also a technology worker, and
Speaker 1: you know, just letting people claim that language for themselves,
Speaker 1: gig workers, gig workers, gig that's pretty dismissive unintentionally, I think,
Speaker 1: but it has a consequence of minimizing the labor of
Speaker 1: some versus others. And if you can build a bridge
Speaker 1: between the coder and the driver, you know, the coder
Speaker 1: and the courier, then you've just magnified your community and
Speaker 1: your potential power. And once we change who we relate to,
Speaker 1: all kinds of new things are possible. So there's been
Speaker 1: awakening that's happening to that's not just about contract terms, um,
Speaker 1: and it's much looser and broader, and I think potentially
Speaker 1: even more powerful, though contract terms very much matter. Yes,
Speaker 1: I feel the same. I don't want to keep you
Speaker 1: any longer because I am very cognizant of your time.
Speaker 1: But I could chatter on about all these things for hours,
Speaker 1: and uh, every time I'm like, no, no, stop, stop, stop,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Chatty, Cathy, you're gonna let You're gonna let it
Speaker 1: in here. You can have them back on the show
Speaker 1: some future point if he wants to come back, and
Speaker 1: I would happily come back. That's an easy, easy, yes,
Speaker 1: thank you. I would love to have you have you
Speaker 1: back on the show. Absolutely. I mean, you're a busy man,
Speaker 1: so we will talk when you've got time to breathe
Speaker 1: and uh and to engage in life in a meaningful way.
Speaker 1: I don't want anyone to be like, oh, I gotta
Speaker 1: get back on Johnson Show. I can't, you know, go
Speaker 1: outside and smell the flowers. None of that. Um, but
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining the show. This has
Speaker 1: been a truly enjoyable conversation as it has been for
Speaker 1: me as well. Thank you for taking me back to
Speaker 1: south By Southwest sixteen, back to high school, which is
Speaker 1: not always a pleasant revisitation because it's high school and
Speaker 1: everyone knows what that means generally unpleasant time in our lives. Um.
Speaker 1: And yeah, and thank you for what you're doing with
Speaker 1: your show to explain, um, why all this stuff matters,
Speaker 1: even to some degree, what it is, because I think
Speaker 1: it's such an important center of power and community and creativity.
Speaker 1: It's it's not just tech stuff anymore, but it's you know, this,
Speaker 1: this locust. So you've been at this for a while
Speaker 1: and I appreciate what you've been contributing as well. Excellent. Well,
Speaker 1: the show is how to Citizen. It's available anywhere you
Speaker 1: get podcasts. It's you absolutely have to listen to it.
Speaker 1: I guarantee after one episode you'll be hooked and you'll
Speaker 1: just binge them it um yeah, you know. And if
Speaker 1: you're like me, then you're gonna listen to them at
Speaker 1: half speed because you don't want them to end. You
Speaker 1: listen to them at half speed. I have what I've
Speaker 1: never heard of any I've only known people, including myself,
Speaker 1: who accelerate decelerate the playback. Your shows can be so
Speaker 1: packed with such important stuff. I don't want to miss
Speaker 1: any of it. This is a good note. Maybe we
Speaker 1: should spread it out a little bit. Well, thank you again,
Speaker 1: look forward to having you back, and uh, I look
Speaker 1: forward to my listeners checking out your show, so do.
Speaker 1: I thank you for having me enjoy your day and
Speaker 1: the rest of your podcasting and beyond life. Thanks again
Speaker 1: to Baritone Day for joining the show. I could have
Speaker 1: talked with him for hours. I think that was pretty
Speaker 1: clear in the episod out uh, and he probably would
Speaker 1: have let me because he's a nice guy. But you know,
Speaker 1: I should not monopolize anyone's time, including yours, dear listeners,
Speaker 1: So I'll leave you with this his show How to
Speaker 1: Citizen is in fact available on all podcasting platforms. I
Speaker 1: really do urge you to go out and listen to it,
Speaker 1: particularly if you've ever felt yourself wondering what can one
Speaker 1: person do that can make a difference. I know that
Speaker 1: there have been times where I felt kind of lost
Speaker 1: and helpless and that the problems are just so big
Speaker 1: that there's nothing I can really do to make a difference,
Speaker 1: and and it it's really discouraging. Well, it turns out
Speaker 1: there actually are a lot of ways that you can
Speaker 1: make a difference, and his podcast kind of focuses on
Speaker 1: that in a way that you know it's actionable. So
Speaker 1: highly recommend you check it out, especially if you need
Speaker 1: to pick me up. I mean, they do tackle some
Speaker 1: tough problems on that show, but it's with that sort
Speaker 1: of optimistic view, always a goal of doing better, and
Speaker 1: I really admire that. If you have suggestions for topics
Speaker 1: I should cover on future episodes of Tech Stuff, or
Speaker 1: even guests I should invite on the show, please reach
Speaker 1: out to me. The best way to do that is
Speaker 1: over on Twitter. The handle for the show is text
Speaker 1: Stuff H s W and I'll talk to you again
Speaker 1: really soon, y text Stuff is an I heart Radio production.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i
Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.