Speaker 1: Yeah. Welcome to How to Citizen with Baritune Day, a
Speaker 1: podcast that reimagine citizen as a verb, not a legal status.
Speaker 1: This season is all about tech and how it can
Speaker 1: bring us together instead of tearing us apart. We're bringing
Speaker 1: you the people using technology for so much more than
Speaker 1: revenue and user growth. They're using it to help us citizen.
Speaker 1: So first, I'm going to open the circle. Sky above me,
Speaker 1: earth below me, love around me, divine within me, Mother, father, kind, ancestors.
Speaker 1: Thank you for your wisdom which flows into us through us.
Speaker 1: The reading that we undertake today is for the joy
Speaker 1: and liberation of the sitter and the greater joy and
Speaker 1: liberation of all. Thank you you had me at open
Speaker 1: in the circle. That other voice you're hearing is Shaowei Wang.
Speaker 1: Right now, they're reading my tarot cards, an old tech
Speaker 1: of sorts. The cards can provide insights into our past, present,
Speaker 1: and future. And this reading hits pretty close to home.
Speaker 1: My mother was a very spiritually curious person. I was
Speaker 1: baptized Catholic, but attended an Episcopal church from most of
Speaker 1: my childhood. As my mom explored her own spirituality, she
Speaker 1: just dragged me along with her to Buddhist temples to chant,
Speaker 1: to our living room where she consulted the Taoist teaching
Speaker 1: Book of Changes, to arenas for Native American pow wows,
Speaker 1: and to her computer where she would generate and read
Speaker 1: my astrological chart with her own software. Because of all
Speaker 1: this history, I've always been open minded about the different
Speaker 1: paths we can take to find meaning and insights. So Tarot,
Speaker 1: that was an easy yes. Now shall weighs pulling three
Speaker 1: cards to help frame my current state of mind. So
Speaker 1: the middle card is the two of Pentacles, and so
Speaker 1: as you see it, it's this iconography of someone who
Speaker 1: is juggling, and in the back there's actually a lot
Speaker 1: of water, so water meaning emotions. It's someone who you know,
Speaker 1: you kind of see them, and they're like a court
Speaker 1: jester almost. Um. So it's a sense of I'm juggling
Speaker 1: a lot, particularly in the material round, so just like money, job,
Speaker 1: things like that. And in the background is also this
Speaker 1: tidal wave of emotion, like things look fun and playful
Speaker 1: on the outside because I'm juggling for an audience, but
Speaker 1: in the back there's a lot of emotion that's being
Speaker 1: kind of damned up. I take that court jester or
Speaker 1: comment as a compliment. Now, if you saw my Google calendar,
Speaker 1: you know how real the juggler image is to my life.
Speaker 1: Right now, I'm managing many commitments, including this podcast. I
Speaker 1: often consider the fact that I deal with difficult topics
Speaker 1: like race and democracy. I refer to what as handling
Speaker 1: hazardous material. It takes an emotional toll, and as practiced
Speaker 1: as I am at performing have it all togetherness, I'm
Speaker 1: often holding back a lot of emotions associated with my
Speaker 1: chosen work. That emotional water in the background of the card.
Speaker 1: And on the other side, we have the Night of Swords,
Speaker 1: and we have the Three of Cups, But the Night
Speaker 1: of Sorts is someone who is just like has this
Speaker 1: energy that's just like, Oh, there's a problem, let's do
Speaker 1: something about it. How can we fix this immediately? There's
Speaker 1: this one side of me that's just in the material realm.
Speaker 1: As we're going through things, we have to fix it.
Speaker 1: We have to get things done, we have to move
Speaker 1: on to the next thing, moving at like a million
Speaker 1: miles an hour. This is so me. I love to
Speaker 1: fix things. I literally fixed computers to help pay for college,
Speaker 1: and I'm always jumping to solutions in the face of
Speaker 1: almost any problem, even when the people around me don't
Speaker 1: want me to come up with a solution. And then
Speaker 1: on the other side is the very real side of
Speaker 1: when we're doing community work, when we're dealing with the
Speaker 1: emotions of other people. That's a kind of slowness that
Speaker 1: is very much, you know, counter to the Night of Swords.
Speaker 1: Who's like about to Russian So at least from this
Speaker 1: terror reading. And I'm curious if any of this resonates
Speaker 1: with you, this notion of juggling between the two and
Speaker 1: the sense of like I just want to like fix
Speaker 1: it and do something about it. And then the other
Speaker 1: part that's, you know, slow down, you know, talk it through,
Speaker 1: talk about feelings. This is dead on, this is you, you
Speaker 1: you got me. It's exactly where I am really and
Speaker 1: then a lot of who I am and how I
Speaker 1: present and what's going on to the surface. But the
Speaker 1: support I'm finding shall wait, that's this podcast, you know,
Speaker 1: like you also just read for how to Citizen, So
Speaker 1: thank you. That is one of the most potent ways
Speaker 1: of meeting a person that I've ever experienced. You have
Speaker 1: a bit of a gift, so thanks for sharing it.
Speaker 1: I know, I know, a tarot reading seems random but
Speaker 1: tarot isn't just woo woo fortune telling. I love reading
Speaker 1: Tarot for others and I always view it as helping
Speaker 1: others hold space, or like holding up a mirror, if
Speaker 1: you will, And that's exactly what we're doing today, my guests.
Speaker 1: Shall Wei Wang is going to help us hold a mirror,
Speaker 1: not just to me, but to the entire tech industry.
Speaker 1: Shawi is not only a tower reader, but the lead
Speaker 1: steward of Logic School, an online school that empowers tech
Speaker 1: workers to transform the industry from within. They also wrote
Speaker 1: the book called Blockchain Chicken Farm about tech in rural China. Cha.
Speaker 1: We spent a lot of time traveling in China and
Speaker 1: working in the tech industry themselves. Through these experiences, they
Speaker 1: learned a lot about how to transform the tech industry.
Speaker 1: And it may surprise you, but the solution is actually
Speaker 1: pretty low tech. Take time, take patients, move at the
Speaker 1: speed of trust and care. The act of talking to
Speaker 1: people and just being with them. That's the work, right,
Speaker 1: that's the transformation. When we come back from the break,
Speaker 1: how a rural chicken farmer in China became a real
Speaker 1: life landing a sketch, Hello, challweg, How are you good.
Speaker 1: It's nice to meet you. By twin Day. Lovely to
Speaker 1: meet you. First off, I want to talk to you
Speaker 1: about your current work Logic School. Logic School is an
Speaker 1: organizing school for tech workers. Above all, it's really a
Speaker 1: community of twenty folks who get together every week and
Speaker 1: laugh and cry and learn from activists, artists, people who
Speaker 1: are trying to think about changing tech and the tech industry. UM.
Speaker 1: As part of it, there were a series of final
Speaker 1: projects that came out from the cohort and it's been
Speaker 1: just such a joy and honor to serve as the
Speaker 1: lead steward of that school and see the work that
Speaker 1: people are doing. You say the Logic School is for
Speaker 1: tech workers, will qualify someone as a tech worker? We
Speaker 1: made the definition really broad on purpose, just to you know,
Speaker 1: foster these incredible new connections. We had the gig worker
Speaker 1: to someone who used to work actually in government policy
Speaker 1: on tech um. It was a bit disillusioned, I don't
Speaker 1: know what that says about regulation UM. And that we
Speaker 1: also had you know, engineers, designers from some of the
Speaker 1: big companies. So it was really cool to see that
Speaker 1: conversation unfold. When when I think of a school for
Speaker 1: tech workers The first thing that pops to mind is
Speaker 1: a place like General Assembly or at a place that
Speaker 1: kind of creates the classic image of a tech worker,
Speaker 1: like they pump out coders and engineers and developers and
Speaker 1: some version of those words, and the images typing long
Speaker 1: into the night. Maybe that scene from the Social network
Speaker 1: where everybody's like pounding beers and slamming keys. What is
Speaker 1: your definition of tech worker and of tech work? I
Speaker 1: love that that is like a very good and marketing
Speaker 1: scheme on behalf of the tech industry where they're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's you know, fridge full of kombucha and you're just
Speaker 1: like hacking, like it's mostly snacks, right exactly. I think
Speaker 1: for us at Logic School, you know, a tech worker
Speaker 1: can be someone who's doing community technology, so instead of
Speaker 1: working for a big company, they're thinking about like what's
Speaker 1: the infrastructure, what's the projects that respond to the needs
Speaker 1: of their local neighborhood. It can be someone who's beyond
Speaker 1: the like I'm so rational, I'm so logical image that
Speaker 1: we have um and really someone who has a lot
Speaker 1: of care and thoughtfulness. You know, I think all of
Speaker 1: these ideas of what a tech worker looks like that's
Speaker 1: highly gendered, highly racialized, and you know has has a
Speaker 1: lot to do with capitalism. How does the school itself work?
Speaker 1: We met every week over zoom, had folks from Pittsburgh
Speaker 1: all the way to Texas in the Bay Area, and
Speaker 1: amazing guest lecturers come in like the Free Radicals, stop
Speaker 1: lap d spying coalition to Kadija abdu Rakhman, who's working
Speaker 1: on child welfare in the New York City area. And yeah,
Speaker 1: just lots of dialogue and activities and feedback on each
Speaker 1: other's projects. I think one of the most important questions
Speaker 1: for us was, you know, who are your people, who's
Speaker 1: your community? Who do you see yourself building tech for?
Speaker 1: Right this sounds like the opposite of everything we've been
Speaker 1: taught about the tech sector as a workplace. I think
Speaker 1: a lot of us are like, it's very logical, it's inhumane,
Speaker 1: it's non empathetic, it's profit seeking, it's overworked, and questions
Speaker 1: about empathy and community and power they're just not associated
Speaker 1: with tech generally. What was the impetus to create the
Speaker 1: Logic School in this way? It was exactly what you
Speaker 1: just said. I mean, there's very few spaces to talk
Speaker 1: about power, to talk about you know, how do we
Speaker 1: be empathetic? I mean there's places like after work extracurriculars
Speaker 1: where you can learn how to be a better engineer, right, like,
Speaker 1: how do I do better JavaScript on the job? Like
Speaker 1: all these things, um, but logic school really response to that.
Speaker 1: There's no space where it's like, I'm a tech worker
Speaker 1: and I'm having kind of a crisis about what my
Speaker 1: company is doing. How do I bring in empathy into
Speaker 1: the workplace. It was actually interesting because some people definitely
Speaker 1: try to bring in empathy from what they learned at
Speaker 1: logic School into the workplace and it got shut down.
Speaker 1: So I think it also says a lot about just
Speaker 1: the way the tech industry is structured and what they
Speaker 1: want to maintain. When you create this program, you invite
Speaker 1: these people in meeting every week, what do you want
Speaker 1: them to leave with? Honestly, I think that as part
Speaker 1: of rethinking what school is, I think everyone came in
Speaker 1: with a different goal because that's also like very different
Speaker 1: than a job, right. A job is like we create
Speaker 1: this space for you to do one thing. We have
Speaker 1: these expectations of how you do on your job, and
Speaker 1: you will be evaluated by every quarter. We had one
Speaker 1: person who worked at Twitter during the length of the
Speaker 1: President who I will not say his name, and you know,
Speaker 1: had a lot of just personal all these like traumas, right,
Speaker 1: and spent logic school processing through that and actually, you know,
Speaker 1: talking about trust and safety more broadly, we had another
Speaker 1: person who is actually building this incredible augmented reality app
Speaker 1: now in Pittsburgh and his whole app for his community
Speaker 1: to like celebrate black life in Pittsburgh and to really
Speaker 1: counter these narratives of disappearance and gentrification. So it's a
Speaker 1: whole range of what people wanted out of it, but
Speaker 1: just trying to be like, hey, this this could be
Speaker 1: a different tech That's why we're here. You know, I've
Speaker 1: been frustrated myself at the lack of imagination and in
Speaker 1: some ways I've said, we've taken some of the most
Speaker 1: powerful machines that we've ever built and some of the
Speaker 1: smartest people that we've ever had, and applied it to
Speaker 1: like shipping ads. It's a very underwhelming use of a superpower.
Speaker 1: I want to know more about you. You've been a
Speaker 1: tech worker. Yeah, so there was this moment where I
Speaker 1: was working in tech and it was and Trump got
Speaker 1: elected and like all tech companies in the Bay Area.
Speaker 1: At the time, you know, the CEO gives kind of
Speaker 1: a little speech about like, this terrible thing has happened,
Speaker 1: and now we have to realize that what we do
Speaker 1: every day at our company is changing the world and
Speaker 1: improving the world, and we still have to do it.
Speaker 1: And it's actually fighting against like Trump and all of
Speaker 1: what this like right wing is um is doing. I'm
Speaker 1: all fired up in tingling and stuff. Okay, braveheart speech, right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: At the same time, I was sitting there and I
Speaker 1: was like, but our company is funded by like Dared
Speaker 1: Kushner's brother, all these threads of funding. You know, it's
Speaker 1: every quarter the venture capitalists who fund the company, they
Speaker 1: come in and there's always this kind of standoff, right
Speaker 1: like they're like, we need to see returns. This is
Speaker 1: how you should change your business plan, this is how
Speaker 1: you should run your company. And then it trickles down
Speaker 1: to us, like the engineers working day to day, it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: that thing you were working on, actually it doesn't matter anymore.
Speaker 1: We're like pivoting to this new thing. And so just
Speaker 1: realizing one this kind of culture of not care but
Speaker 1: really bottom line returns, and then too the idea that
Speaker 1: we're doing something to better the world, to change the world,
Speaker 1: and yet you know, our work was really making making
Speaker 1: other people rich essentially UM and not helping communities directly.
Speaker 1: That I think gave me a sense of disillusionment. I'd
Speaker 1: love to UM know a bit more about your path.
Speaker 1: And I know you've written a book whose title just
Speaker 1: makes me crack up every time I hear it, Blockchain
Speaker 1: Chicken Farm. What experiences did you have in tech that
Speaker 1: led you to rural China to write a book called
Speaker 1: block Change Chicken for? My friend Jason came up with
Speaker 1: that title, and I was just like so snappy. You know.
Speaker 1: There was also a lot of anti China of rhetoric
Speaker 1: at the time. They're still continues to be, but just
Speaker 1: this idea that there's this foreign power battle of the
Speaker 1: civilization stuff going on UM, and I really wanted to,
Speaker 1: you know, question that idea that it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: US versus China, and China is this foreign place that's
Speaker 1: so different and scary. And I think the approach I
Speaker 1: really wanted to take was to humanize UM and to
Speaker 1: tell these stories on the ground of folks in rural China.
Speaker 1: It made sense to me also because we really ignore
Speaker 1: the rural um. I mean not just in the US,
Speaker 1: but also in China, where it's just like we paint
Speaker 1: these pictures in broad strokes of like what country side
Speaker 1: people are like, and then it's actually way more complicated
Speaker 1: and it connects to like a global story too, about
Speaker 1: you know, agriculture, economics, all these like big picture systems
Speaker 1: complicate China for me with the sites, the smells, the sounds,
Speaker 1: the tastes that you experience that we miss out on
Speaker 1: when we over generalize. I mean, I miss it so
Speaker 1: much because I haven't been able to travel. So I'm
Speaker 1: sorry if I get like nostalgic or emotional, I will
Speaker 1: open a circle for you to have these feelings. Oh,
Speaker 1: you know, my time in real China, there were villages
Speaker 1: that I would go to um several times, like twice
Speaker 1: a year, and it felt like a sense of returning home.
Speaker 1: Whenever you get to a village, it's this really beautiful
Speaker 1: thing where the first thing they ask is have you
Speaker 1: eaten yet? And there's just such a priority and value
Speaker 1: placed on food, especially you know for rural places where
Speaker 1: a lot of the times, you know there might be famine,
Speaker 1: there might not be enough to eat, and so people
Speaker 1: present you with this like bowl of rice and sometimes
Speaker 1: there's little dots on it in the rice because of
Speaker 1: insects that have eaten the rice. And it just is
Speaker 1: this feeling of like, oh, like you're literally giving me
Speaker 1: food from your own grain store and feeling really touched
Speaker 1: by that. What misunderstandings do you think people like us
Speaker 1: have us in the US and the West in general.
Speaker 1: What misunderstandings do we have about tech in China? I
Speaker 1: would say the biggest misunderstanding that I've seen, I mean,
Speaker 1: especially in relation to this anti China stuff, is that
Speaker 1: like China is they're stealing everything right um, and that
Speaker 1: there is absolutely zero freedom that you know, somehow the
Speaker 1: people of China are complicit in what its government does,
Speaker 1: you know? And when you're in rural China, which is
Speaker 1: still like the population, folks are just living day to day,
Speaker 1: trying to get by, making money, harvesting their crops, thinking
Speaker 1: about their kids in their next generation and how they're
Speaker 1: going to pay the school bills. Sounds very relatable. You
Speaker 1: know what they sound like? Shall we? They sound like
Speaker 1: people exactly. We've gotten to a point where it's hard
Speaker 1: to see beyond certain narratives. We we got to get
Speaker 1: to the title and and how your book landed on
Speaker 1: blockchain Chicken farm. The book is full of store words
Speaker 1: of people from the rural parts of China. What's the
Speaker 1: story that led to this title Chinese economic development? It
Speaker 1: happened really fast, in the span of like twenty thirty years.
Speaker 1: So when you have gross that fast, things are going
Speaker 1: to happen. The block chain chickens really came out of
Speaker 1: this one small farmer in Guido Province where he was
Speaker 1: raising free range chickens, and no one believed him that
Speaker 1: they were free range. There's such distrust. So he said,
Speaker 1: I've got these free range chickens. They're like, you're lying,
Speaker 1: prove it. So he was like some county official came
Speaker 1: in was like, well, you should put these chickens on
Speaker 1: the block chain. Paul is right there. That's just not
Speaker 1: a normal government response, you know, Like I just I
Speaker 1: can't imagine like my DMV manager or some FDA official
Speaker 1: here in the US like you should put this livestock
Speaker 1: on the blockchain. What does that even mean. So there's
Speaker 1: all these small tech companies in China who I think
Speaker 1: just wat government contracts, and the one company offered this
Speaker 1: product that was like, you know, the blockchain is this
Speaker 1: ledger um so record keeping system that can't change or falsify, right,
Speaker 1: so you could say, like the chicken is a pent
Speaker 1: free range, and then it got sent to this slaughterhouse
Speaker 1: and it was slaughtered on X y Z date and
Speaker 1: now it's at your doorstep um. And these chickens were
Speaker 1: heavily tracked. It was really wild, like it's like a
Speaker 1: giant chicken surveillance network. Yes, there was actually a dashboard
Speaker 1: where you could watch the chickens through cameras. This is
Speaker 1: weirdly dystopic and hilarious and progressive all at the same time.
Speaker 1: I know, right, it's like, oh, you could definitely see
Speaker 1: that Portlandia sketch where they're like this chicken has been
Speaker 1: massage and here's a picture of it. Here is the
Speaker 1: chicken you'll get joined tonight. This is fantastic. Absolutely. His
Speaker 1: name was Colin. So farmer needs people to believe that
Speaker 1: his chickens are free range. County officials like, I know,
Speaker 1: we prove it with the blockchain. Put these chickens on
Speaker 1: the block chain. Did it work? Did it help the
Speaker 1: farmer when he had this distributed certification through the blockchain ledger.
Speaker 1: So I will say that it really did work. He
Speaker 1: sold all of his chickens. Um the chickens each had
Speaker 1: this gnarly chicken fitbit is like this bracelet. Stop you're
Speaker 1: killing me. So they had a chicken okay, yeah, and
Speaker 1: the tracker had a QR code. But when they slaughtered
Speaker 1: the chicken, they actually keep the tracker on. So you
Speaker 1: can buy the chicken online. And so when you get
Speaker 1: the chicken, it's like this dead chicken, but it still
Speaker 1: has this wrist thing attached to it. It's really a site.
Speaker 1: So the chickens got a little chicken apple watch, you know,
Speaker 1: which is like tracking its health. Does the person who
Speaker 1: buys the chicken do they read that little tracker themselves
Speaker 1: to kind of inspect it. Yeah, they can scan the
Speaker 1: QR code and then read about it. So there's like
Speaker 1: a picture of the chicken, how much the chicken waight
Speaker 1: at birth, how many steps it took, because there's like
Speaker 1: a phenomena like all the chicken got it sent thousand
Speaker 1: steps in let's eat. So this is what you've just done,
Speaker 1: as you've brought a Portlandia sketch to life. The truth
Speaker 1: is stranger than fiction. Oh so this sounds like a
Speaker 1: victory farmer gets people to believe his chickens are free
Speaker 1: range because he's got the blockchain proof, sells out of
Speaker 1: his chickens and now is like the biggest farmer in
Speaker 1: rural China. What's how does this story proceed? Um? Sadly,
Speaker 1: I think that this is another one of those situations
Speaker 1: when we say, like we're building tech to quote unquote
Speaker 1: improve people's lives. It's like, well, who for who you know?
Speaker 1: Who do you count as your people and your community?
Speaker 1: And this farmer was kind of abandoned by that tech
Speaker 1: company and for the next season he's he's good at
Speaker 1: raising chickens and thinking about chicken life. Um, he's not
Speaker 1: a programmer. And when I asked him, you know, how
Speaker 1: do you feel about blockchain? He was like, what's blockchain? Um, which,
Speaker 1: to be honest, is a question that I think most
Speaker 1: of us would ask, right, like what's black chain? But
Speaker 1: there was really a sense that he became like dependent
Speaker 1: on this very opaque product that he had no control over,
Speaker 1: and when they pivot and when it becomes about profit
Speaker 1: the bottom line, they had to move on to other projects.
Speaker 1: How else have you seen tech companies exploiting folks in
Speaker 1: world China, I would say with the e commerce villages, Um,
Speaker 1: that was really fascinating because you know, the tech companies
Speaker 1: they say, hey, we're providing livelihoods to the countryside. You know,
Speaker 1: now you can work from anywhere and manufacture Halloween costumes
Speaker 1: or you know, wooden block toys for taboo. And it
Speaker 1: sounds great. I mean it really does. You can stay,
Speaker 1: you can work from home. Where have I heard this before?
Speaker 1: Continue and work from home is going to be like
Speaker 1: the mantra of our century. And yeah, so these folks
Speaker 1: they would be, you know, basically making Halloween costumes out
Speaker 1: of their home workshops. Um. I saw old people like
Speaker 1: their grandparents and uh, you know great aunts like helping
Speaker 1: with the manufacturing and the packaging and the shipping. So
Speaker 1: it was really a family business or you know, some
Speaker 1: people might call it like family self exploitation. Um. There
Speaker 1: was definitely this like rosy scene that the official government
Speaker 1: line was trying to paint like this is poverty alleviation,
Speaker 1: it's giving people like digital literacy skills. But then when
Speaker 1: I actually started talking to some folks that are like,
Speaker 1: this is like a scam, and we know it and
Speaker 1: we're just trying to like get it while it's good
Speaker 1: and make money while we can. So they were saying
Speaker 1: that the sellers, if you're selling on the platform, you
Speaker 1: have to pay fees, you have to buy ads. It's
Speaker 1: like a race to the bottom to try and cut costs,
Speaker 1: and you're just making cheaper and cheaper items, um that
Speaker 1: are really flimsy, that are like you use it once
Speaker 1: and it falls apart. But they're like, this is just
Speaker 1: all part of the game and in a few years
Speaker 1: this might not work, but we're going to get rich
Speaker 1: while we can. And so it was interesting, you know,
Speaker 1: to to see just like again this reliance on a
Speaker 1: platform and how much control that e commerce platforms had
Speaker 1: over sellers. We have the same story in the United
Speaker 1: States and in other Western countries. Um. We've been talked
Speaker 1: about it on this podcast about Amazon, uh, mostly in
Speaker 1: the US and how this race to the bottom. So
Speaker 1: the idea that the same stories playing out on the
Speaker 1: literal other side of the world in communities we don't
Speaker 1: identify with because we don't take time to know about them.
Speaker 1: It's really upsetting, um and not that surprising. When I
Speaker 1: pause to think about it, I will say. I also
Speaker 1: saw other small villages that were enacting totally ambitious projects.
Speaker 1: For example, I visited this um rice farming village, Rice Harmony.
Speaker 1: That's that sounds great, Rice Harmony, I like that. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's definitely. Their vibe is like, you know, very community oriented,
Speaker 1: and they were really trying to push against top down
Speaker 1: initiatives um and reliance on like whether it's one technology
Speaker 1: or like one government policy. Yeah, so this other way
Speaker 1: is um definitely a little bit more difficult. After the break,
Speaker 1: we go to Rice Harmony Village. So shall we tell
Speaker 1: me about the Rice Harmony Village project? And what about
Speaker 1: it is so different. So rice farming is in this region,
Speaker 1: it's terraced and so each farmer has their own little
Speaker 1: patty and the water flows from the top to the bottom,
Speaker 1: and it's this kind of natural irrigation. And so for
Speaker 1: a long time they were using high scale, up, high
Speaker 1: yield tactics like pesticides and fertilizers and really quote unquote
Speaker 1: modern agriculture, and they were noticing that, you know, there
Speaker 1: was a decline in their soil, decline in just like
Speaker 1: their crops and like the nutrition content of the rice.
Speaker 1: And so they started to do this lottery system where
Speaker 1: you wouldn't have contiguous patty, so you might have one
Speaker 1: patty at the top, you might have one patty at
Speaker 1: the bottom, have a different neighbor every five years, and
Speaker 1: so as a result of this, you are really materially
Speaker 1: interconnected to others. Like you know, if you spray pesticides
Speaker 1: or dam off water, you're going to affect your neighbors,
Speaker 1: but you also might be affecting like yourself. And it's
Speaker 1: through this system that they decided to do organic regenerative farming,
Speaker 1: which does not really quote unquotes gale up right. It's
Speaker 1: all about like thinking about scale across time and different
Speaker 1: generations and like the soil, you know, twenty years from now,
Speaker 1: rather than like how are we going to make as
Speaker 1: much rice as possible this next year? Yeah, why were
Speaker 1: they using the pesticides in the first place? It was
Speaker 1: really about yield, right, Like it's just this form of
Speaker 1: UM having granular control over your yield. If you're like,
Speaker 1: I see what you did there, granular control. Glad you
Speaker 1: appreciated that the lottery system sounds like a super creative
Speaker 1: way to engineer UM community and interconnectedness, Because if I'm
Speaker 1: just looking out for myself. I don't only care about
Speaker 1: the runoff, but if my lots are no longer contiguous,
Speaker 1: then my interest is in the runoff two. And so
Speaker 1: I'm forced to care about my neighbor. I'm basically I
Speaker 1: am my name her. That's kind of mind blowing. How
Speaker 1: did they come up with that system? It was a
Speaker 1: really beautiful system. And when they were telling me about it,
Speaker 1: I didn't expect it to go there, but they were
Speaker 1: saying that for a long time. It really came out
Speaker 1: of their practices of helping each other harvest every year.
Speaker 1: It was always like, oh, my family is harvesting the
Speaker 1: rice in my patty, but also like the neighbors are
Speaker 1: helping to and we're just all sharing everything. We're sharing
Speaker 1: you know, equipment, we're sharing labor. We're like helping each
Speaker 1: other out. And so the patty lottery system really stemmed
Speaker 1: out of that um this kind of longer, longer community practice.
Speaker 1: And you know, they made it very clear to me
Speaker 1: that it was not easy. They'd like showed me photos
Speaker 1: and they'd be like, yeah, that guy he always like,
Speaker 1: you know, we have meetings to talk about this system
Speaker 1: and the lottery and who's doing what and that guy's
Speaker 1: always like stirring up trouble, and that lady she's never satisfide.
Speaker 1: And our community meetings they take like hours and no
Speaker 1: one likes going to them, but we all show up.
Speaker 1: You know, it's scale interpreted differently, small scale on purpose.
Speaker 1: A lot of us are just accepted what's delivered to
Speaker 1: us by the massive commercial interests. But in your Rice
Speaker 1: Harmony village example, they developed their own tools at their
Speaker 1: own lower tech which suited their needs. Honestly, we need
Speaker 1: to question the tools that we are given and really
Speaker 1: push our imaginations. We've used like the most incredible tech
Speaker 1: to now sell ads, and I think just like thinking
Speaker 1: about what we're doing with these tools, like through the
Speaker 1: span of time and not just the immediate one year
Speaker 1: five year return. That's that's really key. How did your
Speaker 1: experiences in rural China shape your views of tech and
Speaker 1: of tech work and tech organizing. You seem to believe
Speaker 1: something a little differently on the other side of that
Speaker 1: experience than you did before. In seeing places like Rice Harmony,
Speaker 1: where the conversations are difficult, they take hours, there's a
Speaker 1: kind of patience the villagers would be telling me like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, sometimes we get into fights and like, you know,
Speaker 1: we let it simmer and we pick it up the
Speaker 1: next day. I think it really countered my you know
Speaker 1: approach to organizing as well, where it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: let things be unresolved, you know, don't push the conversation,
Speaker 1: take time, take patience, move at the speed of trust
Speaker 1: and care rather than I need to like get these
Speaker 1: ten sign ups for the union, right, and that also
Speaker 1: you know, seeing right places like rice harmony. It's like
Speaker 1: the act of talking to people and just being with them.
Speaker 1: That's the work, right, that's the transformation. Like whatever happens,
Speaker 1: whether you win or lose the campaign, it's really about
Speaker 1: just creating that kind of relation that is that is powerful.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm yeah, instead of move fast and break things,
Speaker 1: you know, move slower and build things. It's like trust
Speaker 1: like relationships the stem brain of science, tech, engineering math.
Speaker 1: I think there's a little bit of a stereotype to it,
Speaker 1: in the same way that we have some stereotypes about
Speaker 1: rural China. But there is a pressure out of so
Speaker 1: many of these products that most of us use for efficiency.
Speaker 1: It's like how do I avoid discomfort? We pay for
Speaker 1: it in some way or the other. It may feel
Speaker 1: faster and more efficient, but there's a cost on the
Speaker 1: back end. Like you said, move at the speed of trust. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's something else to be gained by that. That's so powerful.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I love your framing of it as this
Speaker 1: avoidance of discomfort. It speaks to really power to write
Speaker 1: like who gets to decide? Well, this is the new
Speaker 1: experience that everyone in the world should have. So how
Speaker 1: does your work at the largest school address some of
Speaker 1: the types of exploitation you were seeing firsthand in rural China. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so in in a few ways. I feel like there's
Speaker 1: one threat of Logic School, which is about what are
Speaker 1: the ways that we can change industry from the inside. So,
Speaker 1: you know, there are folks um at Amazon, like Amazonians
Speaker 1: for Climate Justice, UM, people who are organizing and trying
Speaker 1: to really think about these things, right, and it's like, no,
Speaker 1: we're gonna build tech that is different. UM. So it's
Speaker 1: more of the like you know, Rice Harmony stance where
Speaker 1: it's like, well, you know, forget about everything else, We're
Speaker 1: just going to go our own way. And I think
Speaker 1: both approaches are urgent and much needed right now. Right
Speaker 1: UM and Logic School it's really about like cultivate dating, nurturing,
Speaker 1: and like thinking through these different threads and also supporting
Speaker 1: folks who are doing this on the ground right now.
Speaker 1: I'm really glad that your answer to like should we
Speaker 1: reform from within or build something new out is both?
Speaker 1: So so let's push your imagination. You've done your first
Speaker 1: cohort with Logic School, when you've had your inaugural class,
Speaker 1: what comes next? What's your vision for where this this
Speaker 1: school goes, and this experience goes. And I feel like
Speaker 1: out of the first cohort of Logic School, seeing people
Speaker 1: organize do these incredible projects, It's like, how can we
Speaker 1: continue to support the first cohort but also future cohorts
Speaker 1: on like doing these projects that they do want to
Speaker 1: carry out in the world right so that they're not
Speaker 1: like can I quit my tech job and pursue what
Speaker 1: I'm actually passionate about and is meaningful and impactful. I
Speaker 1: think there needs to be a huge amount of culture shift,
Speaker 1: and I think that is happening. Whenever I talked to
Speaker 1: new grads from you know, computer science programs, I'm like, wow,
Speaker 1: you are like so aware, you are so thoughtful, You
Speaker 1: like know more about radical history than like some professors
Speaker 1: I've spoken to like, yes, I love that. UM. So
Speaker 1: I guess in that sense, I feel optimistic about the
Speaker 1: culture shifts that are coming and then regulation of what
Speaker 1: what we currently are facing in the US at least
Speaker 1: is there a place in those two or maybe something
Speaker 1: you haven't identified the regulation the culture shift? What is
Speaker 1: Logic schools role in getting us there? I feel like
Speaker 1: it's definitely in the culture shift area. But I also
Speaker 1: think creating these open, expansive spaces for folks to dream about,
Speaker 1: you know, a better tech industry or better tech UM
Speaker 1: that is to me really urgent because we don't have
Speaker 1: a lot of spaces to do that. Right. Even if
Speaker 1: you do, like a startup incubator, we're like, we're gonna
Speaker 1: build better tech. It's like, what's the bottom line? What's
Speaker 1: your pitch deck? UM? And Logic School is really about
Speaker 1: creating that expansive space and to dream to rest. We
Speaker 1: really care about rest at Logic School. UM to have
Speaker 1: that fire going for reflection, fire for reflection. It's the
Speaker 1: anti hustle propaganda and in a great spirit of a
Speaker 1: new type of energy that I would also love to see.
Speaker 1: We call the show how to citizen. Citizen is a
Speaker 1: verb to us not a legal status to be weaponized
Speaker 1: against certain communities. And when you interpret this word as
Speaker 1: a verb, what does it mean to you, two citizen?
Speaker 1: It's about showing up. It's about really showing up. I
Speaker 1: think it also requires a degree of listening, um, you know,
Speaker 1: and compassion, right, And so I think of this like
Speaker 1: listen to understand the ways that you're sharing space, the
Speaker 1: ways that your decisions affect and inform and change conditions
Speaker 1: for others. So I think we use the word show
Speaker 1: up like really casually, but to do it and to really, like,
Speaker 1: you know, citizens, that's difficult, right. I want you to
Speaker 1: picture a motivated, fired up person ready to show up,
Speaker 1: and they're like, oh, blockchain, chickens, rice, living in harmony,
Speaker 1: tech workers with empathy, put me in coach, What can
Speaker 1: I do? You know? There's this great phrase from Buddhism,
Speaker 1: clean the temple, so that you can actually sit get
Speaker 1: yourself health and your home and your family and where
Speaker 1: you're coming from right before you're like, I'm going to
Speaker 1: go to the temple and like talk to other people now.
Speaker 1: So I feel like that's been my work for a
Speaker 1: few years. It's just like cleaning the temple and then
Speaker 1: from there. You know, if there's an organization that you
Speaker 1: want to be organizing with, email them, show up and
Speaker 1: listen and be patient and be willing to have the
Speaker 1: you know, difficult conversations. Very lastly, like have empathy. I've
Speaker 1: noticed that sometimes even in communities where we're like trying
Speaker 1: to organize or do different initiatives and we feel like
Speaker 1: we're bettering the world in some way, it can be
Speaker 1: really easy to be like we just want to win,
Speaker 1: Like we can't trample over people's feelings, having a live joy,
Speaker 1: you know, take care of each other movement, like I think,
Speaker 1: at the heart of it, that's the work. I'm so
Speaker 1: happy to hear that the industry and a capital T
Speaker 1: capital I the tech industry has done a really good
Speaker 1: job of selling a narrative of what tech is and
Speaker 1: who a tech worker is and what he most likely
Speaker 1: looks like, and then the media amplifies that. So the
Speaker 1: public mind around what tech even is, it's very narrowly oriented.
Speaker 1: And so if we can contribute to shifting that mindset,
Speaker 1: expanding that imagination, will be better off. And we're certainly
Speaker 1: better off for having spoken with you. So thank you
Speaker 1: so much, Shaowei Wang tarot reader, philosopher, professor, activist, organizer,
Speaker 1: blockchain chicken farmer, advocate keeping it real. Appreciate you, Thank
Speaker 1: you very tin day. I appreciate you. Thank you for
Speaker 1: having me by. Now we're all well aware that technolog
Speaker 1: lergy can and often is used to take advantage of people,
Speaker 1: but it can also help us to connect, to empathize
Speaker 1: with one another, to strengthen the bonds of trust and
Speaker 1: transparency that we so deeply crave in our communities, and
Speaker 1: to accomplish that bigger ain't always better. I would argue,
Speaker 1: in fact, that it's it's rarely better. Shawegh is redefining
Speaker 1: what it means to be a tech worker, that the
Speaker 1: world at tech doesn't have to be all hoodies and
Speaker 1: energy drinks, that it can be, like a tarot reading,
Speaker 1: a place that opens up a space to listen to
Speaker 1: others and to hold up a mirror to ourselves, because
Speaker 1: the truth is, the world is just one big rice
Speaker 1: harmony village, and what we do in our communities trickles
Speaker 1: down to impact others. Whether those impacts are good or bad,
Speaker 1: that's up to us and the way we choose to
Speaker 1: use tech. It can isolate or it can unite. When
Speaker 1: the ever evolving world of technology tells us to move
Speaker 1: fast and break things, we've got to be the ones
Speaker 1: to slow down and listen, to show up, to step
Speaker 1: back and open the circle. Next time, for our final episode,
Speaker 1: we're asking an important question, how do we bridge the
Speaker 1: digital divide so that everyone can citizen. I'll be honest
Speaker 1: with you, I was so overwhelmed because I did not
Speaker 1: have that level of connection to technology, and just the
Speaker 1: phone ringing and trying to text and people calling and
Speaker 1: pictures popping up, and I felt some anxiety and I
Speaker 1: didn't expect that. And now it is time for some actions.
Speaker 1: No tarot reading required. A lot of which you're about
Speaker 1: to hear comes directly from shall weigh so extra appreciation
Speaker 1: to them for giving me things to give you to do.
Speaker 1: The first is an internal reflection. Think of what consent
Speaker 1: and care means to you, and think of what consent
Speaker 1: ful and careful tech would look like, would function like,
Speaker 1: would feel like, What relationships would be strengthened by that
Speaker 1: kind of tech? What might be shadowed? Next, let's get
Speaker 1: informed about tech critiques and some better ways of doing
Speaker 1: things with tech. Read about platform co ops. We have
Speaker 1: a link to a great explainer in the show notes.
Speaker 1: These are digital platforms think of like a ride share
Speaker 1: or delivery service, but they're collectively owned and governed by
Speaker 1: the people who depend on and participate in them, not
Speaker 1: just a handful of investors looking to turn their one
Speaker 1: million into ten million. Also follow the work of the
Speaker 1: Gig Workers Collective. This is a group that shines a
Speaker 1: light on and advocates for people who work at the
Speaker 1: other end of our smartphone taps and swipes. It really
Speaker 1: humanizes their experience. And most of us don't work in
Speaker 1: that part of the economy, but we all engage with it.
Speaker 1: So let's have more information about the impact of that engagement.
Speaker 1: Speaking of engagement, here's some ways to step it up
Speaker 1: a notch and publicly participate. Support community Internet and technology groups.
Speaker 1: These are organizations like the Detroit Community Technology Project, NYC
Speaker 1: MESH Oakland MESH. They provide local internet access, tech training
Speaker 1: and tools by of and for the people. It's democratic
Speaker 1: technology and check out this one uh The Tech Worker
Speaker 1: Handbook by Ifoma a Zoma. This is a collection of
Speaker 1: resources to better prepare and support tech workers who are
Speaker 1: considering whether they should speak out on issues that are
Speaker 1: in the public interest, like should they whistle blow? You
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, So recommend this to a tech
Speaker 1: worker near you, but please do them and our general
Speaker 1: freedom of favor, don't send it to their work email. Right,
Speaker 1: Let's be smart about that now. Look, We've got links
Speaker 1: to all of this and more at how do Citizen
Speaker 1: dot com and in the episode show notes as usual.
Speaker 1: Check us out on Instagram at how the Citizen tag
Speaker 1: us in your posts about this episode? How did Shaowei
Speaker 1: make you feel? Do you want them to do your tarot?
Speaker 1: Hashtag how the Citizen? And let us know how this
Speaker 1: one hates you? Stay tuned and keep citizen. How Do Citizen?
Speaker 1: With barituone Day is a production of I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: Podcasts and dust Light Productions. Our executive producers are Me
Speaker 1: Barrett tune Day, Thurston, Elizabeth Stewart, and Misha Yusa. Our
Speaker 1: senior producer is Tamika Adams, our producer is Ali Kilts,
Speaker 1: and our assistant producer is Sam Paulson. Stephanie Cohen is
Speaker 1: our editor, Valentino Rivera is our senior engineer, and Matthew
Speaker 1: Laie is our apprentice. Original music by Andrew Eapen, with
Speaker 1: additional original music for season two from Andrew Clausen, additional
Speaker 1: production help from Arwin Nicks. This episode was produced and
Speaker 1: sound designed by Matthew Laie. Special thanks to Joel Smith
Speaker 1: from I Heart Radio and Rachel Garcia at dust Light Productions.