America Trends Podcast

America Trends

A podcast focusing on the social and political trends shaping our future.

  1. 4D AGO

    EP 956 Chromebooks Prevalent in Schools: What’s the Impact?

    The test scores for 4th and 8th graders in math and reading have not been great lately.  The lag may be due to the time lost during the pandemic, but there may be another remnant of that time that is affecting things.  As teachers hurried to adopt EdTech practices in that time, much gave way to the computer becoming a dominant force in the classroom, not just in computer labs. The Chromebook was the symbol of this change.  This Google portable laptop option with cloud-based applications promised future-readiness, engagement and innovation for students. A few years down the road, there are crusader parents who sense different impacts on their children, including six-minute attention spans, normalizing the need for constant stimulation and academic mediocrity.  Not to mention that these devices track students’ personal data.  Julie Frumin, one such mom, founder of HealthierTech and a licensed family and marriage therapist, joins us to discuss.

    39 min

  2. 6D AGO

    EP 955 Should We Be Making It Harder or Easier to Vote?

    While some states are making it easier to vote, with automatic registration when you renew a driver’s license, or aggressive campaigns to bring voter registration to you, other states are working aggressively to restrict voting by requiring proof of citizenship, which goes beyond basic voter identification.  And President Trump and the GOP-proposed SAVE Act is considered by many to be a solution for a problem that does not exist. It is not a Voter ID bill but rather a ‘show me your papers’ bill with the government seeking your birth certificate or passport to vote.  Birth certificates will often not include a woman’s married name, those born outside a hospital may not have one and only about fifty percent of Americans do not have a passport.  C’mon, this is a burden meant to suppress voting by some. The big concern raised by those who are attempting to put more restrictions in place is non-citizen voting.  Even conservative groups who’ve studies that issue find it to be a red herring, representing at most .004 percent over a sweep of time.  In this conversation with Anjali Enjeti, author of “Ballot,” I share my greater concern–that too few people go out and vote.  In fact, the numbers in municipal elections, which used to be in the 70-80 percent range in many places have dwindled to about 25 percent.  And presidential elections now hover in the 60-70 percent range. How do we really know the will of the people when a dwindling share decides to participate? I believe we should be making it easier, not harder, to vote.  At the end of the conversation, I mention that Australia has mandatory voting or you are fined.  Would that work in America?  We discuss it today on this podcast.

    39 min

  3. MAR 25

    EP 954 AI’s Coming Disruption Will Change More Than We Can Imagine

    At the moment many of us see and use AI as a quicker and more comprehensive search engine. Truth is, it really is a game changer.  So much so that our guest, Fred Voccola, author of “The Coming Disruption: How AI Will Force Organizations to Change Everything or Face Destruction,” says, (are you sitting down), AI is the single most important development in the history of our species.  He posits that it will have more impact than the steam engine, electricity, penicillin, and the Internet itself.  Recently, Elon Musk said that AI is good enough TODAY to replace half of white-collar jobs, and he argues that it’s ‘pointless’ to go to medical school except for social reasons.  He suggests that robots will being doing surgery at scale within three years.  Is all of this imaginable? Or remotely possible? And talk about societal dislocation.  All this change based on something that doesn’t require huge investments in new infrastructure but simply changes in leadership and adoption of what is available to us.  And it’s all coming at breakneck speed.  Are you ready?  Find out today on this podcast.

    37 min

  4. MAR 24

    EP 953 Should We Be Concerned About the Reliability of the Electrical Grid?

    Do you think very often, if at all, how it is that when you turn on a light switch in your home, instantly there is light.  Given that there are so many factors upstream from your home–generating the power, transmitting it, distributing it and, finally, consuming it, the whole thing is pretty miraculous. And we’ve heard time and again that there is always a fragility to it.  We have aging infrastructure, increasing demand (never more so than now with the oncoming data centers for AI), cybersecurity threats, climate change impacts and the integration of renewable energy sources.  And it’s all driven by 11,000 power plants, 3,000 utilities, and more than 2 million miles of power lines.  In 2016, a great book which I’ve kept on my shelf at home, came out.  It was titled “The Grid: The Fraying Wires Between Americans and Our Energy Future” and was written by Gretchen Bakke, PhD, explaining the history and current (no pun intended) status of the grid.  I interviewed her ten years ago on radio and thought it was time to update that important discussion.  So here it is.

    43 min

  5. MAR 18

    EP 952 Have Our Solutions to the Climate Crisis Been Misguided?

    Have you ever started working on a puzzle and realized you had the whole picture wrong and needed to start over again?  Well, our guest thinks that we’ve been so focused on ‘managing tons’ of emissions, with regulatory and accounting nightmares like offsets, that we’ve lost sight of the goal of developing a new economic system built on a different energy platform.  Given the political muscle of the oil, now energy, companies, the desire to move incrementally into more green energy alternatives may be understandable.  This moment, though, may be the time, with the numbers getting even worse, to jettison the old model of multilateral agreements and start putting green energy asset holders in the driver’s seat.  It’s not an easy assignment, but Jessica Green, our guest, a Professor in the Department of Political Science and in the School of the Environment at the University of Toronto and the author of “Existential Politics: Why Global Climate Institutions are Failing and How to Fix Them,” explains why the transition in thinking is critical at this stage.

    39 min

  6. MAR 16

    EP 951 Diverse Schools and Workplaces Perform Better. There’s Science Behind It.

    There was a time when our guest was a diversity skeptic.  He actually believed that Justice Clarence Thomas’s thinking on the matter had some validity.  Then he began to explore the history of the concept and became a true admirer of the benefits that diversity brings to academic settings, the workplace, science laboratories and all manner of activity.  From that he began a thoughtful examination of the science behind the benefits of having previously excluded groups as part of the conversation and decision-making process.  And while some argued that simply by using the Socratic Method of challenging convention you could get enough diverse opinions, he began to recognize, as other scholars like Wilhelm von Humboldt and John Stuart Mill did in the 19th century and Charles Eliot, Archibald Cox and Lewis Powell did in the 20th century, that you actually needed people with different backgrounds and life experiences to provide the rich diversity of thought that resulted in better scholarship and outcomes.  America’s adaption of diversity in action over the last 50 years seemed to suggest we understood that, so now why the backsliding?  We discuss this all today with Berkeley law professor, David Oppenheimer.  He is the author of the new book, “The Diversity Principle: The Story of a Transformative Idea.”

    36 min

  7. MAR 11

    EP 950 Your Digital Life Lives on Long After You’re Gone

    Here’s a podcast subject I bet you’ve never thought about. It did briefly occur to me as I continue to get birthday reminders from Facebook about friends I know who have died.  What happens to your digital life when you pass away?  Unlike previous technologies to preserve the dead–cemeteries, archives, photo albums, home movies–the internet is no longer something you visit and leave.  Many people will leave behind a daily account of who they were and what they were thinking. The vast necropolis is being built daily and the number of dead, say Facebook, accounts will over the next several decades outnumber social media accounts of the living.  This fact poses previously unconsidered concerns: who owns this material? what policies dictate its use and maintenance? will an ad-sponsored service have as an interest in maintaining those accounts when they are the digital record of people who no longer can buy products?  In 2019, then Twitter announced it would purge those accounts that had been inactive for more than six months.  What followed was an outcry by grieving relatives and friends and the company rescinded the policy.  Our guest, Carl Ohman, a digital ethicist at Uppsala University and the author of “The Afterlife of Data: What Happens to Your Information When You Die and Why You Should Care” joins us for a fascinating topic which goes beyond most checklists people have set up in preparation for death.

    38 min

  8. MAR 9

    EP 949 Have the Pandemic and Social Media Crushed Our Sense of Awe?

    Step out your front door and feast on images of the natural world that when studied provide us with such great joy and wonder that our spirits rise and all of our self-doubts and social anxiety melt away. Yet, since the pandemic when we became inert and homebound and relied on our small screens for connection.  The lag from that moment, coupled with the many choices for entertainment in-home and the fear of confrontation with others about our partisan divide, make the safe choice the one many of us choose.  And, of course, that results in the loneliness epidemic that a past Surgeon General said was a major health problem in the country.  How do we cure it?  Referring to the opening sentence in this podcast description, step out your front door and watch and appreciate birds, smell the ocean air, lose yourself in the wonders that abound.  Feel small.  Lose a sense of time.  Get the chills.  To discuss all of this with us is Val Walker, author of her newest book, “Healing Through Wonder: How Aw Restores Us After Trauma and Loss.”

    39 min

  9. MAR 4

    EP 948 Social Security’s Future is Still Not Secure

    Social Security has been in the news lately because DOGE had a particular interest in finding waste, fraud and abuse in a system in which .05 percent of all funds are used to administer the program.  It appears they found none, despite initial reports that 150- year -olds were still on the rolls.  The more important news about Social Security is its inability to continue providing full benefits as of 2033, when absent Congressional action, those benefits would dip to 77 percent of what most recipients are now receiving.  Politically speaking, it’s inconceivable that this will happen.  However, given the fact that we have now three workers for every retiree, that ratio threatens the financial viability of the program, absent FICA tax increases, changes in vesting times, reducing benefits for future retirees or some combination thereof.  To discuss all things Social Security with us is Martha Shedden, President of the National Association of Registered Social Security Analysts (narssa.org or rssa.com).

    36 min

  10. MAR 2

    EP 947 The Bag of Tricks Used to Make Black Homeownership Difficult Continues to Grow

    If you go back and look at the history of how Blacks in America have been limited in their pursuit of the American Dream by way of home ownership, the record is staggering.  Historically there have been racial covenants, redlining, predatory mortgage lending, blockbusting, urban renewal and now we can add a new pernicious tool: property tax foreclosures.  Our guest, Professor Bernadette Atuahene, the author of “Plundered: How Racist Policies Undermine Black Homeownership in America,” describes, chapter and verse, how this practice has been done in Detroit, the focus of the book’s case study.  Yet, this tactic, along with the others listed above, have been commonplace throughout the nation.  You will find in listening to this podcast that our guest is clear-eyed about the many machinations which have grown the wealth disparity in our nation.  The transfer of wealth from one generation to another is a product of home ownership: thus, the vast differentials between races.  She will acquaint you with terms like ‘structural injustice’, ‘predatory governance, ‘ and ‘acts of legal violence.’  Many practices we would all find objectionable in this age are hiding in plain sight.  After listening to this podcast, you will be much better equipped to identify them.  And like the scholar/activist our guest is, perhaps, you can do something in your community to remedy them.

    36 min
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A podcast focusing on the social and political trends shaping our future.

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