As with many other social and economic problems, the pandemic has only deepened the digital divide. “Unlike in other wealthy nations, the federal government has imposed no cost controls to make broadband more affordable,” writes Will Carless in a recent article for Reveal. “The result: massive inequality in one of the modern world’s most basic […]
Disaster Capitalism and Lessons from Post-Katrina New Orleans
Disaster capitalism describes the process of private industries springing up to profit from large-scale crises, according to Naomi Klein, who popularized the term in her influential 2007 book The Shock Doctrine. Is this what we’re seeing now with the coronavirus pandemic? To explore this question, Ali spends the hour with Vincanne Adams, professor of medical […]
Rebroadcast: The Case for Universal Basic Income with Annie Lowrey
This show was originally broadcast on October 23, 2019. The universal basic income (UBI) movement is gaining momentum in the United States, where cities like Stockton, California have implemented pilot programs and former presidential candidate Andrew Yang ran on a platform heavily based on principles of UBI, including the idea of giving every American a […]
The Case for Universal Basic Income with Annie Lowrey
The universal basic income (UBI) movement is gaining momentum in the United States, where cities like Stockton, California have implemented pilot programs and 2020 presidential candidate Andrew Yang is running on a platform heavily based on principles of UBI, including the idea of giving every American a “freedom dividend” of $1,000 per month. On today’s […]
New Report Shows Extreme Racial Disparities in Wisconsin, Midwest
African Americans lag behind white Americans in employment and educational outcomes nationally, but University of Iowa Professor Colin Gordon’s Race in the Heartland report argues that the gap between white and black Midwesterners is among the worst in the country. Furthermore, a related paper entitled “Wisconsin’s Extreme Racial Disparity” uses data from Gordon’s report to […]
Rebroadcast: Let’s Talk Big Data with Cathy O’Neil
Today’s episode is a rebroadcast from October 24, 2016. Patty is joined in the studio by Cathy O’Neil, author of Weapons of Math Destruction, to talk about big data. O’Neil argues that algorithms perpetuate inequality through their influence on advertising, jobs, education, voting, and democracy at large. Cathy O’Neil is a mathematician who has worked as […]
