Peter Bloom is the founder and general coordinator of Rhizomatica, an organization that promotes new communication technologies that are community owned and managed. He is also the founder and ex-director of Juntos, a human rights organization for latino immigrants, and the founder of the Media for Justice Project in Nigeria. In 2015, he was named to the MIT Technology Review's "Innovators Under 35" list and Foreign Policy’s "100 Leading Global Thinkers" list.

Erick Huerta serves as policy and advocacy coordinator at Rhizomatica and is an expert of the International Telecommunication Union for connectivity issues in remote and indigenous communities. He has served as the Co-Rapporteur on Development of Information Technology and Communication and the Head of the Study Group on Indigenous Populations. Mr. Huerta is currently a member of the advisory council of IFETEL, the Mexican telecommunications regulator.

This conversation was recorded on July 6, 2023.

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This podcast may contain explicit language and content that is not suitable for all audiences.

Daron Acemoglu is an acclaimed economist, author, and professor at MIT. In 2024, he received the Nobel Prize in Economics and the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences. His research focuses on the field of political and economic development and the relationships between political power and institutions and prosperity. He has written six award-winning books about the intersection between economic institutions, statehood, democracy, and technology.

Nishat Anjum joined me as co-host for this interview. Nishat holds a PhD and MA in Economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She currently serves as a fellow in the National Data Innovation Centre at the National Council of Applied Economic Research.

This conversation was recorded on September 23, 2025.

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Andrew Yang is an American entrepreneur, lawyer, author and philanthropist, as well as a former 2020 Democratic presidential candidate and 2021 New York City mayoral candidate. He is the founder of the Forward Party and Humanity Forward, an organization that lobbies for anti-poverty measures in Washington DC. Andrew is the first two-time guest on Utopias!

This conversation was recorded on July 11, 2025.

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Astra Taylor is a documentary filmmaker, writer, and political organizer. Her works include the documentary What is Democracy? and the books The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together as Things Fall Apart and The People’s Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age, which won an American Book Award in 2015. She is also the co-founder of the Debt Collective, a union for debtors fighting to cancel student debt and bail debt.

This conversation was recorded on July 11, 2025.

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Cory Doctorow is an activist, journalist, and bestselling science fiction author. His books include The Lost Cause, Red Team Blues, The Internet Con, and Picks and Shovels. In 2020, he was inducted into the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.

This conversation occurred on May 8, 2025, as part of a live event sponsored by UCLA DataX, an initiative focused on strengthening research and education in data science and critical data studies. The event was titled Beyond Broligarchy: The Fight for a Better Future.

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Sayash Kapoor is a computer scientist and co-author of AI Snake Oil. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate at Princeton University's Center for Information Technology Policy. His work focuses on the societal impacts of AI. In 2023, he was named to Time magazine’s “100 Most Influential People in AI.”

This conversation was recorded on February 27, 2025.

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References:

• The Fallacy of Inscrutability by Joshua A. Kroll.
• Technology and the Rise of Great Powers by Jeffrey Ding.
• Machine Bias by Julia Angwin, Jeff Larson, Surya Mattu and Lauren Kirchner.

This podcast contains explicit language and content that may not be suitable for all audiences.

Venerable Dr. Pooja Dabral is a Buddhist monk and an assistant professor at Nalanda University in Rajgir, India, a university which originally dates back to more than 1500 years. Her research focuses on Buddhist 'middle path' philosophy and psychology and Buddhist Psychology.

This conversation was recorded on January 28, 2025.

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Check out this list for definitions of technical terms used in the conversation.

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This podcast contains explicit language and content that may not be suitable for all audiences.

Venerable Geshe Dorji Damdul is the director of the Tibet House, the Cultural Center of His Holiness the Dalai Lama in New Delhi, India. He previously served as the English translator to His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

This conversation was recorded on September 18, 2024.

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