Solarpunk Now‪!‬ Luka D.

AI, as it currently exists, already poses immediate risks. We don’t need to wait on the singularity for AI to become existential – the resistance starts now! In this episode, Dan McQuillan (Goldsmiths Department of Computing) critiques AI from an informed, technical basis. We explore the risks of currently existing models, from shaping our subjectivities to eradicating marginalized groups. And finally, Dan makes the case for an anti-fascist alternative: radical care as the antidote to careless tech-solutionism.

Find Dan on Twitter, Mastodon, or visit his website
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AJ is a fashion designer who focuses on making accessible fashion: clothing for diverse bodies, abilities, and genders. AJ offers his view of the problems with the fashion world, how he’s navigated fashion as a trans man with disabilities, and how his design processes challenges harmful norms. We’ll also hear some great ideas for making fashion part of a brighter future!
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For show notes and more info about this episode, click here.
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In fall 2022, Pasadena’s Measure H established citywide rent control, “just cause” eviction protections, and a rental housing board to implement the law. But the campaign to get there wasn’t easy, and the struggle certainly isn’t over. On the face of it, Measure H might seem like just another electoral campaign. But Aeryn, Ryan, and Bee of the Pasadena Tenants Union saw an awakening of political consciousness, and an expansion of the horizon of possibility for disempowered and disillusioned tenants.
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Bee Rooney is both a scientist and a socialist. She got her PhD in environmental engineering and science at Caltech (Pasadena, CA), and now organizes with the Socialists of Caltech and Pasadena Tenants Union.

Bee shares her insights on balancing the demands of research and activism. We also discuss her work in relation to climate, public health, and building a solarpunk future. Scientists can do a lot when they organize together, and when they bring their skills and knowledge outside of the academy to benefit their community. In this episode we’ll hear what it takes to get together, get involved, and make change happen as a scientist.

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This episode is about tenants unions, fighting for the right to secure housing in an increasingly precarious world.
Tenants are uniquely situated between socioeconomic inequality and climate change, so a tenants union fights against a wide variety of challenges: harassment and illegal evictions, gentrification, natural disasters, displacement, racism, and more. In this episode, we’ll hear from two tenants unions who have faced unique regional challenges. We’ll see where their struggles overlap, as well as unique obstacles they face and strategies they’ve developed as a result.
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This is a collab episode with fellow podcaster Joey Ayoub of The Fire These Times. We talk in detail about the research I was doing before I started my show, as well as how it connects to Joey’s current research. We cover neoliberalism, capitalist realism, hauntology and ghosts, and all sorts of issues with temporality and imagining the future.

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The Fire These Times website: https://thefirethesetimes.com/
You can also follow Joey on Twitter and Mastodon, and support his show on Patreon.

For more info about this episode, click here.
Follow me on Twitter: @solarpunkcast
Mastodon: @solarpunkcast@spore.social
Support the show