Podcast Episodes

Public Health Is a Utopian Vision (with Naseem Jamnia and Natasha O'Brown)

Public health is a vital part of keeping all of us safe — but what does it mean, and where did the concept come from? Special guest host Naseem Jamnia breaks it down for us, and tells us about some f…

Published on 4 months, 2 weeks ago

Simulating Earth and Politicizing Science

Season 1 Episode 177

It's the end of science as we know it in America. As the U.S. government dismantles science agencies and slashes budgets for health and environmental research, we talk about what it means to politici…

Published on 5 months ago

The Power of Protest (w/ andré carrington)

Season 1 Episode 176

It's time to rise up. That's why we're talking about the power of protest, in real life but also in fiction. Indeed, the act of writing science fiction can itself be a protest, and sometimes it's jus…

Published on 5 months, 2 weeks ago

Too Bad About the Internet (with Anil Dash)

Season 1 Episode 175

Where did the Internet go wrong, and how do we fix it? To find out more, we talk to entrepreneur and activist Anil Dash about the alternate history of technology. But first, we talk about why Doctor …

Published on 5 months, 4 weeks ago

Some really weird shit you didn't know about taxes

Season 1 Episode 174

Why are taxes the secret weapon in so many science fiction and fantasy stories? And why the heck do archaeologists measure the complexity of ancient civilizations partly by looking at their taxation …

Published on 6 months, 1 week ago

Severance and the New Hellscape (w/ Carl Zimmer)

Season 1 Episode 173

Welcome to the new dystopian era. The series Severance, which just finished its second season, is perhaps the best-known of a fresh crop of dark, absurdist stories that tackle the horrors of high-tec…

Published on 6 months, 3 weeks ago

Hip Hop x Cyberpunk (with clipping.)

Season 1 Episode 172

Hip hop group clipping. has  just released a brilliant new cyberpunk-inspired album, Dead Channel Sky, and we're talking to the members about how hip hop and cyberpunk have inspired each other from t…

Published on 7 months, 1 week ago

"Interior Chinatown" Just Became a Very Weird TV Show (with Charles Yu)

Season 1 Episode 171

In his award-winning novel Interior Chinatown, Charles Yu took a scalpel to television's tropes and stereotypes. Now he explains to us how he managed to turn that book into a brilliant, challenging T…

Published on 7 months, 3 weeks ago

Forced Feminization and Cute Robots

Season 1 Episode 170

We're catching you up on all the movies we've been watching recently, from The Substance to The Wild Robot, and a few themes emerged. One is that there are an awful lot of feminists who are mad about…

Published on 8 months, 1 week ago

No, We Don't Live in a F---ing Simulation!

Season 1 Episode 169

It's a fun thought experiment: what if the universe is a simulation, and nothing around us is real? But lately, some of the most powerful people in tech (and politics) have been saying they believe t…

Published on 8 months, 3 weeks ago