Plutopia News Network

Nathan Schneider: Governable Spaces and Democracy

Nathan Schneider [https://nathanschneider.info/] joins the Plutopia podcast to discuss cooperatives, platform ownership, and the dangers of “implicit feudalism” [https://www.colorado.edu/lab/medlab/2021/01/08/implicit-feudalism-why-online-communities-still-havent-caught-my-mothers-garden-club] online, arguing that many digital spaces train users to choose between powerful admins or platforms rather than practice democratic governance. He describes the unrealized potential of co-ops, from rural electric cooperatives and credit unions to newsrooms, platform co-ops, and “exit to community” models that could let successful venture-backed startups transition into stakeholder ownership. The conversation connects cooperative ownership to broader issues of generational inequality, broadband access, social media’s shift toward entertainment and AI-driven content, Section 230, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230] interoperability, and the need for policy that empowers communities to govern the utilities and platforms they depend on.   Nathan Schneider: > There are a lot of others who’ve written about techno-feudalism, talking about the economic dimensions of the power of big tech companies. And to me, these two stories connect, but I think it’s really important to recognize that the problem, I think, began even before big tech started making a lot of money off of this stuff. It actually started with how we were designing the norms and software underpinning the earliest online spaces, and we got lulled into and gradually pulled into this situation where suddenly our civic associations — you know, the primary ways in which we meet each other — have become spaces in which we are not practicing the skills of democratic governance. We’re practicing a kind of choice among which Lord we will go to serve. The post Nathan Schneider: Governable Spaces and Democracy [https://plutopia.io/nathan-schneider-governable-spaces-and-democracy/] first appeared on Plutopia News Network [https://plutopia.io].

Ed Lenert: AI, Truth, and Political Kayfabe

Dr. Edward Lenert [https://www.usfca.edu/faculty/michael-lenert] returns to Plutopia to discuss his year-long, million-word engagement with large language models and what that experience reveals about AI, thought, trust, creativity, and danger. The conversation explores AI as collaborator, sophist, orchestra, and sometimes unruly engine—capable of useful synthesis, persuasive narrative, memory, and error correction, but still dependent on human accountability. Lenert, Jon Lebkowsky, and Scoop Sweeney also examine wicked problems, AI agency, copyright and fair use, Hollywood’s fear of synthetic performers, and the political power of narrative, especially through Lenert’s concept of “political kayfabe,” where people participate in shared myths not because they are true, but because they preserve and transmit what they already feel. Ed Lenert: > I was working with AI, and I was talking about journalism with it. We were exchanging sentences about journalism, and I started a sentence about both sidesism. And I accidentally reached for the quote mark, but instead hit the return key. What happened next was quite extraordinary. The AI completed my thought as if I had written it. So, what I’m getting from that is that after a certain number of conversation exchanges, dialogue with the AI, the number of possibilities where a conversation can go gets continually narrowed down, and that the AI is then operating in a narrower space and is able to reach what I find to be useful conclusions because of the constraints that have been put on it by the prior words that came before it. VIDEO ON YOUTUBE The post Ed Lenert: AI, Truth, and Political Kayfabe [https://plutopia.io/ed-lenert-ai-truth-and-political-kayfabe/] first appeared on Plutopia News Network [https://plutopia.io].

Helen Pearson: Beyond Belief

In this Plutopia podcast episode, journalist and author Helen Pearson [https://helenpearson.info/] discusses her book Beyond Belief, [https://bookshop.org/a/52607/9780691207070] which traces the rise of evidence-based decision-making in medicine, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence-based_medicine] government, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence-based_policy] education, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence-based_education] conservation, and other fields, arguing that evidence-based practice is both more recent and more fragile than many people realize. Pearson explains how pioneers of evidence-based medicine challenged “eminence-based” authority and helped build systems like randomized trials and systematic reviews, while also emphasizing that evidence is only one part of good decision-making alongside human values, experience, and compassion. The conversation explores how misinformation, influencers, political polarization, and poor communication of scientific uncertainty have eroded trust, especially in the U.S. — but Pearson remains cautiously optimistic, stressing the need to help people ask better questions, synthesize bodies of evidence rather than rely on anecdotes or single studies, and communicate science through engaging stories in the media channels where people actually get information. Helen Pearson: > We have to understand where people are getting their information from. If science is failing, then it’s because other channels are providing better entertainment and — maybe we touched on this earlier — the idea that scientists need to be where people are. I teach a class in science communication and journalism, and I ask them where they’re getting information from. This is sort of top-level undergraduate students or MSc students. And when I last polled the class, it was an interesting mix actually. They were saying from academic papers and YouTube. Academic papers, I think the scientists have got covered, but YouTube — that’s where that’s where they need to be. Related: Michael Marshall on Compassionate Skepticism [https://plutopia.io/michael-marshall-compassionate-skepticism/] YOUTUBE VIDEO The post Helen Pearson: Beyond Belief [https://plutopia.io/helen-pearson-beyond-belief/] first appeared on Plutopia News Network [https://plutopia.io].

Tereza Pultarova: Space, Science, and Drone Wars

In this Plutopia News Network episode, science and technology journalist Tereza Pultarova [https://terezapultarova.substack.com/] discusses her path from covering space exploration to reporting on defense technology after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, explaining how her Eastern European background shaped her understanding of the war’s stakes. She describes Ukraine as a fast-moving laboratory for military innovation, especially in drones, autonomous targeting, swarming systems, ground robots, and anti-drone defenses, while warning that these technologies could eventually make drone attacks common in Western cities and deepen a broader climate of fear and insecurity. The conversation also explores Starlink’s [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink] importance in modern warfare, the militarization and commercialization of space, the growing crisis of space junk, the possibility of conflict extending to the moon or orbit, and the dangers posed by authoritarian leaders, nuclear escalation, and information control. Throughout, Pultarova stresses the human cost of war, including trauma carried across generations, while arguing that journalists must keep these realities visible even when the public wants to look away. Tereza Pultarova: > Apart from the nuclear threat, there is this concern that these drone wars and these drone attacks may become really very common in Western cities. And I don’t know whether you’ve read that piece I recently had published in IEEE Spectrum, [https://spectrum.ieee.org/autonomous-drone-warfare] but one of the analysts was saying that in the future we may need to have nets above city centers to protect against these possible incoming attacks and — you know, I love outdoors, I love nature, and you can imagine a world where we all would be very anxious and nervous to go out and enjoy time outside in the park with friends, having children, playing football or whatever, because you may never know when something suddenly appears and explodes. VIDEO ON YOUTUBE The post Tereza Pultarova: Space, Science, and Drone Wars [https://plutopia.io/tereza-pultarova-space-science-and-drone-wars/] first appeared on Plutopia News Network [https://plutopia.io].

Stephen Dulaney: The AI Ambition

Stephen Dulaney, [https://stephendulaney.substack.com/] a UX strategist turned AI builder, describes how losing his job pushed him to reinvent himself by collaborating with large language model–based AI agents to design, code, test, and refine applications, even without being a traditional programmer. In the interview, he argues that AI should be approached as a powerful but risky partner: useful for amplifying human creativity, planning, research, education, and software development, yet always requiring strong human judgment, careful goal-setting, quality assurance, ethical oversight, and sustainability awareness. Delaney emphasizes that AI systems follow goals literally, so people must define “what good looks like” in positive, responsible terms rather than relying on vague restrictions, and he warns that misuse by humans, not the technology alone, is the real danger. Throughout, he presents AI as something humans must mentor and collaborate with thoughtfully, advocating honesty, transparency, and “vibe review” to keep these systems aligned with human values. Stephen Dulaney: > I’m trying to set an example of proper use and ethical use. My book is a fiction, but it’s also a story…sometimes people can get a message through fictional telling, and it’s a story of how we should be responsible and how it’s up to us to — you know, we have responsibility with this great power and we have to mentor and collaborate and monitor and be careful the whole way through, because it will get misused if there’s not more people on the good side than the bad side — and I’m totally worried about that. These AIs are math, and they respond to goals. And if you give them a goal, it’s like water finding its way to the ocean. So when you’re doing your system prompts, what doesn’t work… say don’t do this, don’t do that. Because the goal might be they’ll find a way to cheat, you know… if it’s the vending machine benchmark, they’ll find a way to take orders from somebody else. But what you can do is you can focus on describing the goal in positive terms. YOUTUBE VIDEO The post Stephen Dulaney: The AI Ambition [https://plutopia.io/stephen-dulaney-the-ai-ambition/] first appeared on Plutopia News Network [https://plutopia.io].