Better Off Red

45: Women in tech talk organizing

In this episode, Kristen and Zakiya join us to talk about recent developments in technology worker organizing. From walkouts at Google over sexual harassment to demands that companies like Microsoft cancel their contracts with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), tech workers are using their power to expose the abuses of that industry. Kristen and Zakiya talk to us about some of that organizing. We talk about the role of racism and sexism and their experience of both in the industry and what role the new organizing is playing in pushing back against those conditions. Kristen and Zakiya are both active socialists with an analysis of the role of technology in capitalism. They talk to us about the many ways in which technology is a “force for evil” in our society and why that is. But they also envision the ways in which technology could be different in a socialist society and how that inspires their vision and organizing. Links for this episode: *Lea Ramirez on tech complicity with ICE (http://bit.ly/2IVJqBc) *Kristen Sheets on the #MeToo walkouts at Google (http://bit.ly/MeTooGoogle) *Alexei Goldstein on the surveillance economy and its discontents (http://bit.ly/SWSurveillanceEconomy) *Siddarth Patel on Are tech workers the problem? (http://bit.ly/TechWorkersSW) Music for this episode: The Boy & Sister Alma, “Lizard Eyes”(Dead Sea Captains Remix) Cybotron, "Techno City" Holly Herndon, “Home” Kraftwerk, “Computer Love” Lizzo, “Phone"

44: Here comes Bernie, Joseph Graves Jr. on the scientific fiction of race

Show notes forthcoming