This week, Adam talks with Katie Mack, physicist and author, about feeling some type of way about the end of the universe. Along the way we also discuss illusions of control, entropy, and why it can be good to feel insignificant.

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About the show:

Dreaming Against the Machine is a podcast about envisioning a realistic and hopeful future. Each week, the show’s host, journalist and astrophysicist Dr. Adam Becker, will have an earnest (and entertaining!) conversation with a guest about possible futures, seen through the lenses of history, science, and culture. In a world where tech oligarchs and their power fantasies are driving visions of the future, Dreaming Against the Machine aims to take back the terms of the public conversation about what our world can and should be.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week, Adam talks with Cory Doctorow, author, blogger, and tech policy advocate. Cory explains why your boss wants to replace you with an AI, why that won't work, and why they're trying to do it anyhow -- and what you can do about it. Cory and Adam also talk about the AI bubble and how its myth of perpetual growth is fed by greed, along with some terrible misunderstandings of science fiction.

Cory's new book, The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI, is out TODAY

Messages:

• Support the show at patreon.com/DreamingAgainstTheMachine

• Follow us on Bluesky and Instagram

• Subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts!

• Check out other great podcasts from Multitude like Tiny Matters

About the show:

Dreaming Against the Machine is a podcast about envisioning a realistic and hopeful future. Each week, the show’s host, journalist and astrophysicist Dr. Adam Becker, will have an earnest (and entertaining!) conversation with a guest about possible futures, seen through the lenses of history, science, and culture. In a world where tech oligarchs and their power fantasies are driving visions of the future, Dreaming Against the Machine aims to take back the terms of the public conversation about what our world can and should be.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week's guest is tech critic, podcaster, and professionally angry dude Ed Zitron. Adam asks Ed what things would have to happen for him to be less angry (mostly, regulating the tech industry). Along the way they also discuss the SpaceX IPO and why it's a scam, the absolute folly of data centers in space, and the bizarre financial vortex of Coreweave.

Messages:

• Support the show at patreon.com/DreamingAgainstTheMachine

• Follow us on Bluesky and Instagram

• Subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts!

• Check out other great podcasts from Multitude like This Guy Sucked

About the show:

Dreaming Against the Machine is a podcast about envisioning a realistic and hopeful future. Each week, the show’s host, journalist and astrophysicist Dr. Adam Becker, will have an earnest (and entertaining!) conversation with a guest about possible futures, seen through the lenses of history, science, and culture. In a world where tech oligarchs and their power fantasies are driving visions of the future, Dreaming Against the Machine aims to take back the terms of the public conversation about what our world can and should be.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week, Adam talks with Safiya Noble, professor of social science at UCLA and author of Algorithms of Oppression. They talk about how algorithms reinscribe systemic biases, what a better tech industry might look like, and how we might get there.

Messages:

• Support the show at patreon.com/DreamingAgainstTheMachine

• Follow us on Bluesky and Instagram

• Subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts!

• Check out other great podcasts from Multitude like Simple and Clean

About the show:

Dreaming Against the Machine is a podcast about envisioning a realistic and hopeful future. Each week, the show’s host, journalist and astrophysicist Dr. Adam Becker, will have an earnest (and entertaining!) conversation with a guest about possible futures, seen through the lenses of history, science, and culture. In a world where tech oligarchs and their power fantasies are driving visions of the future, Dreaming Against the Machine aims to take back the terms of the public conversation about what our world can and should be.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week is a ✨Very Special Episode✨, a crossover with the hosts of our fellow Multitude show Wow if True! Isabel J. Kim is an award-winning science fiction author, Amanda Silberling is a journalist at TechCrunch, and this week they're talking with Adam about horrible little guys on the internet and how they've seeped out into the real world. You can listen to Wow if True anywhere you get your podcasts. And please buy Isabel's debut novel Sublimation, which is out today!

Messages:

• Support the show at patreon.com/DreamingAgainstTheMachine

• Follow us on Bluesky and Instagram

• Subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts!

• Check out other great podcasts from Multitude like Spirits

About the show:

Dreaming Against the Machine is a podcast about envisioning a realistic and hopeful future. Each week, the show’s host, journalist and astrophysicist Dr. Adam Becker, will have an earnest (and entertaining!) conversation with a guest about possible futures, seen through the lenses of history, science, and culture. In a world where tech oligarchs and their power fantasies are driving visions of the future, Dreaming Against the Machine aims to take back the terms of the public conversation about what our world can and should be.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week, Adam talks with historian Susannah Glickman about the recent history of how we think about the future of technology, and why we have more power over that future than we might think. Along the way, they talk about AI, Moore's Law, quantum computers, a rocket-ships-and-chrome vision of the future, the problems with the "Great Man" theory of history, the most important physicist you've never heard of, and many, many other things — more than usual, even for this show. It's a wild ride this week!

Messages:

• Support the show at patreon.com/DreamingAgainstTheMachine

• Follow us on Bluesky and Instagram

• Subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts!

• Check out other great podcasts from Multitude like American Medieval

About the show:

Dreaming Against the Machine is a podcast about envisioning a realistic and hopeful future. Each week, the show’s host, journalist and astrophysicist Dr. Adam Becker, will have an earnest (and entertaining!) conversation with a guest about possible futures, seen through the lenses of history, science, and culture. In a world where tech oligarchs and their power fantasies are driving visions of the future, Dreaming Against the Machine aims to take back the terms of the public conversation about what our world can and should be.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week, Adam talks with Moiya McTier about the power of myth in shaping our sense of the past and the future. They also talk about the nature of genius and inspiration, and why Dreaming Against the Machine itself is (partially) Moiya's fault.

Messages:

• Support the show at patreon.com/DreamingAgainstTheMachine

• Follow us on Bluesky and Instagram

• Subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts!

• Check out other great podcasts from Multitude like Pale Blue Pod

About the show:

Dreaming Against the Machine is a podcast about envisioning a realistic and hopeful future. Each week, the show’s host, journalist and astrophysicist Dr. Adam Becker, will have an earnest (and entertaining!) conversation with a guest about possible futures, seen through the lenses of history, science, and culture. In a world where tech oligarchs and their power fantasies are driving visions of the future, Dreaming Against the Machine aims to take back the terms of the public conversation about what our world can and should be.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week, Adam talks with Shannon Vallor, a philosopher of AI, about the metaphors we use to talk about AI and ourselves. They also dunk on libertarians and San Francisco billboards, and consider what kind of hope we can have for the future of technology.

Messages:

• Support the show at patreon.com/DreamingAgainstTheMachine

• Follow us on Bluesky and Instagram

• Subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts!

• Check out other great podcasts from Multitude like Wow if True

About the show:

Dreaming Against the Machine is a podcast about envisioning a realistic and hopeful future. Each week, the show’s host, journalist and astrophysicist Dr. Adam Becker, will have an earnest (and entertaining!) conversation with a guest about possible futures, seen through the lenses of history, science, and culture. In a world where tech oligarchs and their power fantasies are driving visions of the future, Dreaming Against the Machine aims to take back the terms of the public conversation about what our world can and should be.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.