Episode description

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Sometimes there's an interview that brings radical clarity about the current moment. Professor Anita Say Chan's book Predatory Data: Eugenics in Big Tech & Our Fight for an Independent Future ties Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and the tech billionaires empowered under Trump to eugenics movement of the 19th and 20th centuries with chilling specificity. She offers two key insights: first, that the focus on "merit" is an effort to convince Americans to give up democracy (in which everyone gets a vote/say/rights on the basis of their humanity) in favor of a system where various characteristics (such as IQ/race) "qualify" one for human rights. Second, she argues that by claiming only they (and their individual genius) can save the world, tech giants are persuading Americans that government should shrink to a "benevolent autocracy" where the rich rule. As Peter Thiel has said, "I no longer believe that freedom and Democracy are compatible." Seen through the lens of the eugenics movement, the end goals become shockingly clear, as does the role the left must play.

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Produced by Armand Aviram.

Theme by Nick Thorburn (@nickfromislands).