How Big Tech benefits from the disinformation panic

Sean Illing talks with Joe Bernstein of BuzzFeed News about online disinformation and what — if anything — can be done about it. They discuss the role of tech giants in the spread of propaganda, why it’s been impossible for researchers to agree on what disinformation even is, and how the nature of both mass media and democracy means that disinformation is here to stay.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), Interviews Writer, Vox

Guest: Joe Bernstein (@Bernstein), Senior Reporter, BuzzFeed News

References: 

• “Bad News: Selling the story of disinformation” by Joseph Bernstein (Harper’s; Sept. 2021)
• “Civil Society Must Be Defended: Misinformation, Moral Panics, and Wars of Restoration” by Jack Bratich (Communication, Culture & Critique 13 (3); Sept. 2020)
• “The Priest in Politics: Father Charles E. Coughlin and the Presidential Election of 1936” by Philip A. Grant Jr. (Records of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia 101 (1); 1990)
• “Lying in Politics: Reflections on The Pentagon Papers” by Hannah Arendt (NYRB; Nov. 18, 1971)
• Subprime Attention Crisis: Advertising and the Time Bomb at the Heart of the Internet by Tim Hwang (FSG Originals; 2020)
• “Does Instagram Harm Girls? No One Actually Knows” by Laurence Steinberg (New York Times; Oct. 10)
• The Radio Right: How a Band of Broadcasters Took on the Federal Government and Built the Modern Conservative Movement by Paul Matzko (Oxford; 2020)
• “What’s so bad about scientism?” by Moti Mizrahi (Social Epistemology 31 (4); 2017)

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This episode was made by: 

• Producer: Erikk Geannikis
• Editor: Amy Drozdowska
• Engineer: Paul Robert Mounsey
• Deputy Editorial Director, Vox Talk: Amber Hall

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Fannie Lou Hamer and the meaning of freedom

Vox’s Jamil Smith talks with Keisha Blain, associate professor of history at the University of Pittsburgh and author of Until I Am Free: Fannie Lou Hamer’s Enduring Message to America. They discuss the legacy of Fannie Lou Hamer, a sharecropper-turned-civil-rights-activist, whose speech about voting rights at the 1964 Democratic National Convention changed how the Democratic Party viewed Black activism. They talk about how Hamer’s ideas influence movements for human rights and racial equity today.

Host: Jamil Smith (@JamilSmith), Senior Correspondent, Vox

Guest: Keisha Blain (@KeishaBlain), author; professor of history, University of Pittsburgh

References: 

• Until I Am Free: Fannie Lou Hamer’s Enduring Message to America by Keisha Blain (Beacon Press; 2021)
• Fannie Lou Hamer’s speech at the DNC (August 22, 1964)
• American Experience: Freedom Summer (dir. Stanley Nelson. PBS; 2014)

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This episode was made by: 

• Producer: Erikk Geannikis
• Editor: Amy Drozdowska
• Engineer: Paul Robert Mounsey
• Deputy Editorial Director, Vox Talk: Amber Hall

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What the internet took from us

Sean Illing talks with writer and New York Times Book Review editor Pamela Paul about her book 100 Things We’ve Lost to the Internet and the ways, big and small, that the internet has changed our lives. They talk about the complicated relationship between change, innovation and loss, and how to understand who we are and who we’ve become in a world where we’re never truly offline.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), Interviews Writer, Vox

Guest: Pamela Paul (@PamelaPaulNYT), author and editor

References: 

• 100 Things We’ve Lost to the Internet by Pamela Paul (Penguin Random House; 2021)
• Pornified: How Pornography Is Damaging Our Lives, Our Relationships, and Our Families by Pamela Paul (St. Martin’s Griffin; 2006)
• “Let Children Get Bored Again” by Pamela Paul (New York Times; Feb. 2, 2019)
• “For Teen Girls, Instagram Is a Cesspool” by Lindsay Crouse (New York Times; Oct. 8)
• “The Moral Panic Engulfing Instagram” by Farhad Manjoo (New York Times; Oct. 13)

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This episode was made by: 

• Producer: Erikk Geannikis
• Editor: Amy Drozdowska
• Engineer: Paul Robert Mounsey
• Deputy Editorial Director, Vox Talk: Amber Hall

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Trapped inside with Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi

Vox’s Constance Grady talks with novelist Susanna Clarke about her latest book, Piranesi, before a virtual audience for the Vox Book Club. They discuss how Clarke’s novel engages with themes that have come to characterize the pandemic experience, such as solitude, confinement, and isolation from society. They explore the idea of being forced to step away from the world. and what we lose — and gain — when we do.

Host: Constance Grady (@constancegrady), staff writer, Vox

Guests: Susanna Clarke, novelist

References: 

• Piranesi by Susanna Clarke (Bloomsbury; 2021)
• Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: A Novel by Susanna Clarke (Tor; 2006)
• “The meditative empathy of Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi” by Constance Grady (Vox; Sept. 17)

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This episode was made by: 

• Producer: Erikk Geannikis
• Editor: Amy Drozdowska
• Engineer: Paul Robert Mounsey
• Deputy Editorial Director, Vox Talk: Amber Hall

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Bryan Stevenson on the legacy of enslavement

Vox’s Jamil Smith talks with attorney, author, and activist Bryan Stevenson about the newly expanded Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama. They discuss the museum’s project to connect America’s history of enslavement with the contemporary realities of voter suppression, police brutality, and mass incarceration. They also talk about the museum’s relationship to Stevenson’s work with the Equal Justice Initiative, and legal advocacy on behalf of the wrongfully convicted.

Host: Jamil Smith (@JamilSmith), Senior Correspondent, Vox

Guest: Bryan Stevenson, founder and executive director, Equal Justice Initiative

References: 

• The Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration (400 N. Court Street, Montgomery, Alabama)
• The National Memorial for Peace and Justice (Montgomery, Alabama)
• Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson (Penguin Random House; 2015)
• “Images of Border Patrol’s Treatment of Haitian Migrants Prompt Outrage” by Eileen Sullivan and Zolan Kanno-Youngs (New York Times; Sept. 21)

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This episode was made by: 

• Producer: Erikk Geannikis
• Editor: Amy Drozdowska
• Engineer: Paul Robert Mounsey
• Deputy Editorial Director, Vox Talk: Amber Hall

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What’s your status?

Sean Illing talks with writer Will Storr about his new book The Status Game, and its central idea: all human beings are constantly competing for status. They discuss how certain aspects of society “supercharge” our innate drive for status, how social media has hijacked these impulses, and the risks posed by the status game’s most dangerous players.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), Interviews Writer, Vox

Guest: Will Storr (@wstorr), author and journalist

References: 

• The Status Game: On Social Position and How We Use It by Will Storr (Harper Collins UK; 2021)
• Discourse on the Origin of Inequality Among Men by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1755)
• Selfie: How the West became self-obsessed by Will Storr (Picador; 2018)
• “My Twisted World: The Story of Elliot Rodger” by Elliot Rodger (2014)

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This episode was made by: 

• Producer: Erikk Geannikis
• Editor: Amy Drozdowska
• Engineer: Paul Robert Mounsey
• Deputy Editorial Director, Vox Talk: Amber Hall

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Is there a hack for enlightenment?

Vox’s Sigal Samuel talks with scholars and authors Wesley Wildman and Kate Stockly about their book, Spirit Tech: The Brave New World of Consciousness Hacking and Enlightenment Engineering. They discuss high-tech tools like brain stimulation and neurofeedback-guided meditation that purport to enrich our spiritual lives, what possible risks they may pose to our psyches, and the ethical implications of technology-induced shortcuts to transformative meditative states. They also talk about whether such spiritual experiences are authentic rather than simulated, and whether brain-based spirit tech might help humans evolve as a species.

Host: Sigal Samuel (@SigalSamuel), Senior Reporter, Vox

Guests: Wesley Wildman (@WesleyWildman) and Kate Stockly (@KateJStockly), authors and researchers

References: 

• Spirit Tech: The Brave New World of Consciousness Hacking and Enlightenment Engineering by Wesley Wildman and Kate Stockly (Macmillan; 2021)
• SEMA (Sonication Enhanced Mindful Awareness) Lab, University of Arizona Center for Consciousness Studies (Dr. Jay Sanguinetti & Shinzen Young, co-directors)
• VR Church; Bishop D.J. Soto

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This episode was made by: 

• Producer: Erikk Geannikis
• Editor: Amy Drozdowska
• Deputy Editorial Director, Vox Talk: Amber Hall

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Fighting a world on fire with fire

Sean Illing talks with climate scholar Andreas Malm about his book How to Blow Up A Pipeline. They discuss the failure of decades of protests and appeals to curb the actions of the fossil fuel industry. And they explore why, despite dire evidence like the increasingly common scourge of wildfires and disastrous weather events, the climate change movement hasn’t moved beyond peaceful protest — and why Malm argues the time for escalation is now.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), Interviews Writer, Vox

Guest: Andreas Malm, associate professor, Lund University

References: 

• How to Blow Up a Pipeline: Learning to Fight in a World on Fire by Andreas Malm (Verso; 2021)
• “Uganda, Tanzania, oil firms sign accords to build $3.5 billion pipeline” by Elias Biryabarema (Reuters; Apr. 11)
• “The Energy Future Needs Cleaner Batteries” by Drake Bennett (Bloomberg; Sept. 23)
• “Empirically grounded technology forecasts and the energy transition” by Rupert Way, Matthew Ives, Penny Mealy, and J. Doyne Farmer (INET Oxford Working Paper No. 2021-01; Sept. 14)
• “Fossilised Capital: Price and Profit in the Energy Transition” by Brett Christophers (New Political Economy; May 12)
• The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson (Hachette; 2020)
• “The Myth of Sisyphus” by Albert Camus (1942)

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This episode was made by: 

• Producer: Erikk Geannikis
• Editor: Amy Drozdowska
• Deputy Editorial Director, Vox Talk: Amber Hall

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Revolutionary Love

Vox’s Jamil Smith talks with author, activist, and filmmaker Valarie Kaur about her memoir See No Stranger and the Revolutionary Love Project. They discuss Kaur’s personal experiences of the racism that followed 9/11, the idea of responding to violence and hatred with love, and why, two decades after 9/11, her project is more relevant than ever.

Host: Jamil Smith (@JamilSmith), Senior Correspondent, Vox

Guest: Valarie Kaur (@valariekaur), author, activist, and filmmaker

References: 

• See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love by Valarie Kaur (One World; 2020)
• Divided We Fall, dir. by Valarie Kaur (2008)
• “Indianapolis Sikh Community Mourns 4 Of Its Members Killed In Shooting” by Jeannette Muhammad (NPR; Apr. 18)
• “How 9/11 convinced Americans to buy, buy, buy” by Emily Stewart (Vox; Sept. 9)

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This episode was made by: 

• Producer: Erikk Geannikis
• Editor: Amy Drozdowska
• Deputy Editorial Director, Vox Talk: Amber Hall

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How to make meaning out of suffering

Vox’s Sean Illing talks with David Wolpe, senior rabbi of the Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, about the role and nature of God, how religion and spirituality can address our modern problems, and how to make sense and meaning out of the suffering and pain we experience. This episode was recorded in the summer of 2020 and first appeared as part of the Future Perfect series The Way Through.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), Interviews Writer, Vox

Guest: David Wolpe (@RabbiWolpe), senior rabbi at Sinai Temple in Los Angeles

References: 

• “Religion without God: Alain de Botton on ‘atheism 2.0′” by Sean Illing (Vox; Feb. 24, 2018)
• Making Loss Matter: Creating Meaning in Difficult Times by David Wolpe (Penguin Random House; 2000)

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This episode was made by: 

• Producers: Jackson Bierfeldt & Erikk Geannikis
• Editor: Amy Drozdowska
• Deputy Editorial Director, Vox Talk: Amber Hall
• VP, Vox Audio: Liz Kelly Nelson

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