Leonie Tanczer: Technology and Control

Leonie Tanczer: Technology and Control

Dr. Leonie Tanczer [https://www.leonietanczer.net/] discusses how smartphones, connected household devices, surveillance tools, location trackers and AI can be repurposed to facilitate domestic abuse, allowing perpetrators to monitor, manipulate and intimidate victims through ordinary technologies designed for convenience or protection. She argues that cybersecurity must protect people as well as systems, particularly in shared-device environments where one account holder may exercise disproportionate control. Rather than relying on generic security advice, which can increase danger in abusive situations, responses should be guided by professional risk assessment and individualized safety planning. Tanczer calls for safety-by-design, transparent access records, stronger regulation and a broader concept of digital consent that treats control over one’s devices, accounts, location and data as an extension of bodily autonomy. She also questions whether normalizing parental surveillance teaches children to equate monitoring with love and safety, potentially preparing them to accept coercive behavior in later relationships. Leonie Tanczer: > Products that are marketed for protection are actually misused. Things like CCTV cameras that are internet-connected and allow people to install it and monitor a person in a household while they are not physically there. Equally, doorbells, which is so funny because there’s this whole effort of our police forces handing out Ring doorbells, [https://ring.com/support/articles/oi8t6/Learn-About-Ring-Law-Enforcement-Guidelines] for example, for protective purposes. But again, if you’re thinking of a coercive and controlling environment that is often very gendered—and, let’s be honest, unfortunately, in most heterosexual households, the people that are in charge of digital systems are men. So they are the account holders, they’ve set it up, they decide when it’s going to be disposed of. So, if they are in charge of the Ring doorbell, so to say, they will be able to monitor when you come and go or who else is coming and going. Includes this chapter by Leonie Tanczer: “Technology-Facilitated Abuse and the Internet of Things (IoT): The Implication of the Smart, Internet-Connected Devices on Domestic Violence and Abuse” The post Leonie Tanczer: Technology and Control [https://plutopia.io/leonie-tanczer-technology-and-control/] first appeared on Plutopia News Network [https://plutopia.io].

Amber Case: Calm Technology

Cyborg anthropologist Amber Case [https://www.caseorganic.com/] argues that technology should quietly support human life rather than dominate our attention. Contrasting clock-driven “Chronos” time with meaningful “Kairos” time, she explains how smartphones, unstable interfaces, and AI can disconnect us from our bodies, surroundings, creativity, and direct experience while requiring constant maintenance. Through calm technology—durable, intuitive, unobtrusive tools designed around human senses—Amber envisions objects that people can master, value, and preserve. The conversation also explores nature’s influence on creativity, technology hype throughout history, the cognitive risks of outsourcing skills to AI, and the fragility of digital culture, emphasizing the need for physical engagement, better questions, resilient archives, and technologies that serve humanity rather than dictate how people live. Amber is the author of the book Calm Technology. [https://bookshop.org/a/52607/9781491925881] Amber Case: > I created this certification called Calm Tech Certified [https://www.calmtech.institute/calm-tech-certification] that’s looking at the primary attention it takes to do something, your secondary attention… you know, the durability, does it work when it fails or does it become e-waste? Light, does it shine a bright blue light into your face when you’re trying to sleep? Is there diffusion on the LED? How does it sound? Does it sound like a microwave or not? What are the materials? Is it just some low quality plastic, or is there a wood facade on it? And how are the buttons articulated? This is my attempt to maybe try to get us out of this very temporary, like neo-Victorian era, in which our lives are filled with so many objects, but very few of them do we treasure. And getting back into an era in which we would care about what objects we make, and there’s an industrial design idea on how we could make these. That we carve them out of balsa wood first, and we then try different shapes and forms in the three-dimensional space, and we let our hands do the understanding versus CADCAM software and how it looks. The post Amber Case: Calm Technology [https://plutopia.io/amber-case-calm-technology/] first appeared on Plutopia News Network [https://plutopia.io].

Brett Hurt: Love Conquers Fear

In this Plutopia podcast interview, entrepreneur and author Brett Hurt [https://lucky7.io/about] presents the optimistic thesis of his book Love Conquers Fear: [https://bookshop.org/a/52607/9798903870004] humanity can use AI and other rapidly advancing technologies to create broad abundance, cure disease, and expand access to energy and knowledge, but only if it replaces fear, tribalism, materialism, and profit-driven exploitation with love, cooperation, and concern for human flourishing. Drawing on Buddhism, multiple spiritual traditions, philosophy, and his experience in technology and investing, Hurt argues that mastering one’s mind is essential to overcoming suffering and that wealth and consumption cannot produce lasting happiness. He acknowledges legitimate concerns about AI, including overvalued startups, data-center demands, corporate concentration, and exaggerated predictions of job losses. But he expects open-source models, cheaper computing, and human-AI partnerships to make advanced intelligence widely accessible rather than render people obsolete. The discussion also distinguishes intelligence from consciousness, questions whether current AI can reach true general intelligence, and emphasizes that technology alone cannot resolve political and social problems. Ultimately, Brett believes humanity faces a choice between self-destruction and a global awakening rooted in shared identity, spiritual responsibility, and cooperation, and is optimistic that it will choose the latter. Brett Hurt: > A lot of people — in America, especially — are afraid of AI. The recent reports show that only about 25% of Americans are positive on it. And there’s a reason why there’s a lot of hand-waving going on by CEOs that are doing layoffs at public companies saying that it’s because of AI. It’s really just a convenient excuse. It’s the next excuse that they’re using to not take the tough medicine and talk about the fact that they’re actually laying off people because they overhired during the pandemic, as a lot of people did, as we had this melt up to the ZERP period, the zero interest rate period. And now they’re correcting as a result. Actually, if you look at the job stats, we haven’t had a meaningful change in hiring, and for engineering, it’s actually up to a five-year high right now since AI came online in terms of large language models starting three and a half years ago. YOUTUBE VIDEO The post Brett Hurt: Love Conquers Fear [https://plutopia.io/brett-hurt-love-conquers-fear/] first appeared on Plutopia News Network [https://plutopia.io].

Rob van Eijk: Privacy, AI, and Digital Sovereignty

Dr. Rob van Eijk [https://blaeu.com/team/rvaneijk/] discusses how Europe treats privacy as a fundamental right under the GDPR, contrasting it with the United States’ largely consumer-protection approach. He explains the distinction between pseudonymized and truly anonymous data, the principles of data minimization and purpose limitation, and how European authorities audit and penalize organizations for unlawful collection, tracking, and sharing. The conversation also explores cookie-consent fatigue, targeted advertising, AI privacy risks, and the advantages of narrow, purpose-built AI models over resource-intensive general systems. Broader topics include the environmental and social costs of data centers, Europe’s push for digital sovereignty, the value of open-source technology, AI-enabled cybersecurity threats, and uncertainty surrounding the continued viability of EU–US data-transfer arrangements as American regulatory independence weakens. > If you want to look into the servers, where that information ends up in, obviously you need the power of law to go on the location and to do a spot check. And this is what the DPAs [Data Protection Authorities] are for. I’ve been on those teams as well in my previous life. And then you can basically take samples from databases and ask questions about “what does the script do?” “How long do you keep this data?” “To what extent do you consider this data anonymous or personal data?” “What about your compliance here?” “Did you do a privacy impact assessment?” Etc. , etc. Depending on the complaint, obviously, it matters which legal article is being examined and zoomed in on. But that’s typically what’s happening. So DPAs do have the ability and sometimes also they have to act. I mean, we had a lot of cookie complaints all over Europe. And some of these actually lead to fines, hefty fines as well. LINKS * Guidelines 02/2026 on Anonymisation [https://www.edpb.europa.eu/system/files/2026-07/edpb_guidelines_202602_anonymisation_v1_en_0.pdf] – European Data Protection Board [https://www.edpb.europa.eu/home_en] * Guidelines 01/2025 on Pseudonymisation [https://www.edpb.europa.eu/system/files/2025-01/edpb_guidelines_202501_pseudonymisation_en.pdf] * “No, Trump v. Slaughter does not undo the EU-US data-transfer redress mechanism” [https://iapp.org/news/a/no-trump-v-slaughter-does-not-undo-the-eu-us-data-transfer-redress-mechanism] – International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP) [https://iapp.org/] * Data sovereignty [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_sovereignty] * Rob van Eijk: Hyper-Nudging [https://plutopia.io/rob-van-eijk-hyper-nudging/] – Previously on Plutopia News Network VIDEO ON YOUTUBE The post Rob van Eijk: Privacy, AI, and Digital Sovereignty [https://plutopia.io/rob-van-eijk-privacy-ai-and-digital-sovereignty/] first appeared on Plutopia News Network [https://plutopia.io].

Living Your Truth: Counseling, Community, and LGBTQ Resilience

In this Plutopia News Network interview, Dallas, Texas counselor and longtime LGBTQ advocate Candy Marcum [https://candymarcum.com/] reflects on more than four decades of providing affirming mental health care, her activism during the AIDS crisis, and her belief that LGBTQ people need support in accepting themselves amid discrimination and social pressure. She discusses growing up gay in West Texas, the influence of her medical family, and her path into counseling, as well as the continuing challenges faced by LGBTQ people, especially transgender people, during periods of political backlash. Marcum also explores common relationship issues such as communication, sex, finances, divorce, parenting, and family acceptance, explaining how counseling can help couples either repair their relationships or separate more constructively. She describes the importance of trust in therapy, professional boundaries, medication when appropriate, and virtual counseling, while emphasizing that a therapist’s role is not to fix clients but to help them understand themselves, manage their lives, and make their own choices. There are difficult things if you’re gay or lesbian, but there’s difficult things for a lot of things. And it gets better, and it’s character building. But we somehow have an idea of what a perfect person is, looks, and does. We try to put that on other people. I could tell people like to talk to me. And so I kind of put that together as I evolved and matured, and came to the conclusion that gay people need to feel good about themselves, need to feel good about being gay, and need to talk to someone about that. That’s how it all came together for me, was exactly, you know, what I am made of. I wanted to help other people, and knew I could do that through counseling. * The Gottman Method [https://www.gottman.com/about/the-gottman-method/] VIDEO ON YOUTUBE The post Living Your Truth: Counseling, Community, and LGBTQ Resilience [https://plutopia.io/living-your-truth-counseling-community-and-lgbtq-resilience/] first appeared on Plutopia News Network [https://plutopia.io].