Crowdcast event with Sarah Jaffe: Wednesday, 7pm EST
I’ve been a little wary of virtual events for a number of reasons, but it is better than nothing and sometimes it really works. The event I have scheduled this week, I think will be one of those occasions—and I’m pretty excited about it!
Sarah Jaffe has hosted a podcast called Belabored for years now and her new series of virtual events feels like a natural extension of it.
We plan to talk about how the Great Recession bolstered Silicon Valley. Google, Facebook, and Amazon shored up their power in those years, while startups seized it as a perfect opportunity. The topic is something I discuss briefly in the fourth chapter of Lurking, which is on iPhones and social media apps—I keep meaning to write more about this, so here is my chance to think out loud a bit. Sarah’s fantastic 2016 book Necessary Trouble was a look at how the financial crisis spurred on activism both good (Fight for $15, Black Lives Matter) and bad (the Tea Party), so she’ll have an interesting perspective on the political and labor aspects.
All of this is meant to be cautionary context. Because this moment looks much worse and the worst companies will try to exploit calls for contact tracing apps and other surveillance. But it doesn’t have to end terribly!
Anyway…if this is of interest at all, please join us from wherever you happen to be… :)