What Next: TBD | Tech, power, and the future - Beanie Babies for Geeks
What Next | Daily News and Analysis
Slate Podcasts
4.3 • 2.4K Ratings
🗓️ 13 December 2017
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this week’s If Then, Slate’s April Glaser and Will Oremus talk a little about why everyone is freaking out about Bitcoin. And in the run up to Thursday’s critical net neutrality decision from the FCC, the hosts speak with Columbia law professor Tim Wu - who actually coined the term net neutrality - about why it’s so crucial to save it, and what we might expect from legal challenges stemming from Thursday’s FCC announcement.
If Then’s “Don’t Close My Tabs” recommendations:
TechCrunch: Patreon’s New Service Fee Spurs Concerns that Creators will Lose Patrons
Slate: Netflix Releases Rare Ratings Info to Mock Obsessive Fans of its Own Movie
Podcast production by Max Jacobs.
If Then plugs:
You can get updates about what’s coming up next by following us on Twitter @ifthenpod. You can follow Will @WillOremus and April @Aprilaser. If you have a question or comment, you can email us at ifthen@slate.com.
If Then is presented by Slate and Future Tense, a collaboration among Arizona State University, New America, and Slate. Future Tense explores the ways emerging technologies affect society, policy, and culture. To read more, follow us on Twitter and sign up for our weekly newsletter.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to If Then, the show about how technology is changing our lives and our future. |
| 0:09.0 | I'm Will Oremus. |
| 0:10.2 | And I'm April Glazer. |
| 0:23.5 | Hey everyone, welcome to If Then. |
| 0:28.3 | We're coming to you from Slate and Future Tense, a partnership between Slate, Arizona State University, and New America. |
| 0:31.4 | We're recording this in the afternoon of Tuesday, December 12th. |
| 0:36.9 | And on today's show, we're going to talk about the biggest news in tech and big news in general this week, |
| 0:42.1 | net neutrality with our guest, Tim Wu, professor at Columbia University, who actually coined the term. |
| 0:46.8 | We'll also talk a little bit about the Bitcoin roller coaster this week, which has been fluctuating wildly. |
| 0:49.7 | And finally we'll end with Don't Close My Taps. |
| 0:54.3 | All right, April. So we are here recording the podcast together for the first time. |
| 1:11.9 | Yes, yes. We're typically in different cities. It's good to see you here, like in front of the microphone. But I'm kind of bummed or not kind of bummed, very bummed about the reason why you had to flee north from Santa Barbara where you're usually stationed. You were fleeing the smoke and the fires, right? |
| 1:17.5 | Yeah, the scene is post-apocalyptic down there. We were very fortunate. Our place in Goleta, |
| 1:23.3 | California, just north of Santa Barbara, is totally safe from the flames. But it was just absolutely shrouded in toxic smoke and ash. And with a little one, we weren't going to stick around. The |
| 1:29.7 | schools are all closed anyway. It's just, it's just everywhere you go, it smells like a bonfire. |
| 1:35.8 | So we got out last week. We are now camping up here in the Bay Area, and I'm excited to be with you to |
| 1:40.8 | record this podcast today. Yeah, no, it's good to be together and just want to send love to so many people that have lost so much in these fires that are still |
| 1:47.6 | ongoing and, you know, just lots of firefighters working so hard and reporters out there covering |
| 1:53.3 | this. And I hope everybody who's able to is finding safety. Aside from the fires, we've seen other wild things flying around this week, |
| 2:03.9 | and that is the valuation of Bitcoin, which is something I kind of wanted to talk about today. |
| 2:09.6 | Yeah, April, tell us about this. And this is good that you're going to talk about it because I know |
| 2:13.5 | so little about Bitcoin. I'm so ignorant here. What the heck is going on? Why is everybody suddenly |
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