Ep 304 | How Big Tech is Conquering Countries | Guest: Alexis Wichowski

Chewing the Fat with Jeff Fisher

Blaze Podcast Network

News Commentary, Society & Culture, Daily News, News

4.6 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 15 February 2020

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this timely and provocative book about our new tech-based reality, political insider and tech expert Alexis Wichowski considers the unchecked rise of tech giants like Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and Tesla—what she calls “net states”—in a new light: personal, social, and geopolitical forces that rival nation states in power and capital. As these tech giants act more and more like countries, they are transforming the way the world works, putting our rights up for grabs, from personal privacy to national security. Written for the tech-savvy and tech-phobic alike—and featuring original reporting and insights drawn from more than 100 interviews with technology and government insiders, explores what happens when we give up our personal freedom and individual autonomy in exchange for an easy, plugged-in existence—and shows what we can do to control our relationship with net states before they irreversibly alter our future. Wichowski urges us to remember that as tech users we have power over our technologies and the companies behind them; we are in control of the relationship. Alexis Wichowski is associate commissioner for communications at the Department of Veteran Services, and an adjunct professor of technology, media and communications at Columbia University. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, TechCrunch, Foreign Affairs, and WIRED, which published her viral piece, “Net States Rule the World: Ignore Them At Your Peril.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Have you ever had an instant connection with someone? You see them and you just know.
0:04.6	Butterflies in your stomach, wedding bells ringing, the whole enchilada.
0:08.9	It's more than just compatibility. It's a special connection. They're the one.
0:14.5	The inn to your yang, the ketchup to your chips, the gravy to your Sunday roast.
0:19.0	The Samsung Galaxy Buds FE to your Samsung phone. New Galaxy Bud's FE, the perfect match for your
0:26.3	phone. Discover in store and online at Curries.
0:29.2	Joining us in the breakroom today on Shoeing the Fat is Alexis Swichowski, the author of
0:39.3	the information trade, how big tech conquers countries challenges our rights and transforms our world
0:45.5	and for those of you that have listened to this podcast for any time you know that
0:51.1	this is something that some of this just drives me insane and
0:55.9	first of all Alexis welcome to chewing the fact thanks for coming on today
0:59.6	thank you so much so I have some fascinating stuff in the book and before I get to some of the thoughts and that I have to question you specifically on I kind of wanted to go through you've got eight chapters in the book and the last one I really kind of want to delve into separately but the first seven I kind of want to give you a
1:20.0	I'll just call it first thought and I'll give you the title of the chapter and you give me your first thought from each chapter okay
1:28.3	Sounds good
1:29.8	Rise of the citizen user first thought
1:33.7	How people transform from being audiences to individual users of technology.
1:39.6	Net States IRL Chapter 2. How tech companies are transforming from providing digital services to interjecting themselves into our physical landscape.
1:50.0	Chapter 3. Privacy allies and adversaries.
1:55.0	How we are losing our sense of privacy as we've known it as we contribute more of our data online.
2:03.6	And I will, I mean I want to get into a little bit of that too.
2:06.7	Chapter 4, Information Age War Fighters.
2:10.1	The way that tech companies are opening defense and counterterrorism units to fight alongside or even in front of our military.
	...

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