Commonwealth Club of California Podcast

Leading up to the recent Tokyo Olympics. athletes Annet Negesa of Uganda and Maximila Imali of Kenya both had their Olympic dreams crushed because of rules set by the track and field global governing body, World Athletics. They are just two—of many—elite women athletes who have been told their natural testosterone levels, if not lowered through medication or surgery, disqualify them from competition at the highest levels of sport.

Join us for an in-depth conversation about intersex biology and the history of sex testing in women’s athletics ahead of the Tokyo Olympics.

About the Speaker

In February 2021, Eliza Anyangwe became the editor of As Equals, CNN’s ongoing gender inequality project. She began her career working for nongovernmental organizations Action Against Hunger and then the Pesticide Action Network, where she was Organic Cotton Officer, but has spent more than a decade in media, working for The Guardian, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, and most recently The Correspondent, where she was managing editor. The Guardian Opinion series she commissioned and wrote for, a "Week in Africa," was longlisted for a One World Media award.

In 2016, Eliza founded The Nzinga Effect, a media project focused on telling the stories of African and Afro-descendant women, and delivered that work through partnerships with organizations such as The Serpentine Galleries and The British Council. In 2018 she was awarded a development reporting grant by the European Journalism Centre to tell stories about the African women breaking taboos and carving out space to talk about sex and sexuality. 

Eliza has written for The Independent, Financial Times, Al Jazeera and Open Democracy; has appeared on broadcast programs, including "Newsnight," "BBC World Service," PRI’s "The World," and the podcast "Our Body Politic"; and has spoken at events, among them SXSW, D&AD Festival, The Google News Initiative Summit, the International Journalism Festival, Africa Utopia, The Web We Want Festival and the Next Einstein Forum. Eliza is a contributing author to Africa’s Media Image in the 21st Century, published by Routledge.

SPEAKERS

Eliza Anyangwe

Journalist; Editor, As Equals, CNN Gender Inequality Project; Twitter @elizatalks; Instagram @Elizatookthis

Michelle Meow

Producer and Host, "The Michelle Meow Show," KBCW TV and Podcast; Member, Commonwealth Club Board of Governors; Twitter @msmichellemeow—Co-Host

John Zipperer

Producer and Host, Week to Week Political Roundtable; Vice President of Media & Editorial, The Commonwealth Club—Co-Host

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently hosting all of our live programming via YouTube live stream. This program was recorded via video conference on October 4th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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On July 14, 2021, lesbian feminist Sally Miller Gearhart passed away at the age of 90. In 1973, she had become the first out lesbian to obtain a tenure-track faculty position when she was hired by San Francisco State University, where she helped establish one of the country's first women and gender study programs. In her long life, she was a teacher, feminist, science fiction writer and political activist.

Join us for a special program in tribute to her; we will also reveal exclusive clips from a documentary now in production on Sally Gearhart's life. A complimentary lunch will be provided for in-person attendees.

Note: This program contains EXPLICIT language

SPEAKERS

Deborah Craig

Documentary Director and Producer, including "A Great Ride" and Sally

Jörg Fockele

Filmmaker, Executive Producer and Television Director/Producer, including "Queer Eye," Sally

Melanie Nathan

Executive Director, African Human Rights Coalition

Ondine Rarey

Filmmaker; Writer and Editor, including A Portrait of Female Desperation and Sally

Michelle Meow

Producer and Host, "The Michelle Meow Show" on KBCW and Podcast; Member, Commonwealth Club Board of Governors—Host

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently hosting all of our live programming via YouTube live stream. This program was recorded via video conference on September 30th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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Please join us for a lively and intimate discussion on the Judy Chicago: Retrospective exhibit, which is currently showing at San Francisco’s de Young Museum. The discussion is presented by the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco Docent Victoria Kirby. Adding to the conversation will be Debra Reabock, a Bay Area visual artist and photo philanthropist.

Judy Chicago is a trailblazer and leader of the feminist art moment. Kirby's talk will explore Chicago’s full body of works, from her early forays into minimalism to her current work that addresses mortality and environmental issues.

Judy Chicago: A Retrospective is organized on the heels of the 40th anniversary of the first showing of The Dinner Party in San Francisco and in conjunction with the 100th anniversary of the women’s right to vote in the United States. How fitting a tribute to an artist who has spent a lifetime fighting for social justice and female expression. The discussion will be followed by Q&A. Have your questions ready.

NOTES

MLF: Arts

MLF ORGANIZER Robert Melton

SPEAKERS

Victoria Kirby

Docent, Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco

Debra Reabock

Visual Artists; Photo Philanthropist

Robert Melton

Co-chair, Arts Member-Led Forum; Curator, Farmer Gallery—Moderator

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently hosting all of our live programming via YouTube live stream. This program was recorded via video conference on September 28th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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Within the next two decades, Kai-Fu Lee says, artificial intelligence will become the defining development of the 21st century, making aspects of daily human life today virtually unrecognizable. AI will revolutionize medicine and education through human-machine symbioses. It will challenge the social and economic order by creating brand-new forms of communication and generating unprecedented wealth. AI is at its tipping point, and if our society doesn’t prepare for both the exciting and possibly perilous pathways ahead, we will lose the ability to control our collective future.

In their new book AI 2041, Kai-Fu Lee, bestselling author and former president of Google China, teams up with Chen Qiufan to create an image of what a world with artificial intelligence will look like in 20 years. In 10 gripping short stories, the authors introduce readers to an array of eye-opening concepts, such as the rogue scientist in Munich who uses AI technologies in a revenge plot that endangers the world. Or the teenage girl in Mumbai who rebels when AI’s crunching of big data gets in the way of romance. Through these stories, Lee and Qiufan draw on the ominous possibilities of autonomous weapons and human bias in smart technology as well as the incredible liberating power of artificial intelligence and its unprecedented ability to strengthen societal connections.

Kai-Fu Lee is the CEO of Beijing-based Sinovation Ventures and the co-chair of the Artificial Intelligence Council at the World Economic Forum. Formerly the president of Google China, Lee was also a senior executive at Microsoft, SGI and Apple.

Join us as Kai-Fu Lee delves into the intriguing future of artificial intelligence.

SPEAKERS

Kai-Fu Lee

Ph.D., CEO, Sinovation Ventures; Co-author, AI 2041: Ten Visions for Our Future

In Conversation with Rumman Chowdhury

Ph.D., CEO and Founder, Parity AI

n response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently hosting all of our live programming via YouTube live stream. This program was recorded via video conference on September 28th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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In the era of big tech, groundbreaking technological innovation has given rise to an increasingly efficient and methodical society. But these advances are not without consequence, as unbounded technological growth demands control over how we work, think, consume and communicate. Our panelists say too many have accepted biased algorithms, job-displacing robots, and surveillance-based capitalism as an inexorable cost of innovation, giving a powerful few the reins over our evolving society. Technologists, the venture capitalists who fund them, and the politicians who allow for this unregulated growth have stepped into the seat of power, often prioritizing technological optimization and efficiency over fundamental human values.

System Error, authored by three Stanford professors, offers an alternative to this dystopian vision of a world controlled by big tech. Armed with the combined knowledge of philosopher Rob Reich, a leading thinker at the intersection of technology and ethics, political scientist and former Obama staffer Jeremy Weinstein, as well as the director of Stanford’s undergraduate computer science program Mehran Sahami, System Error reveals how big tech can be held to account for the power it wields over our society.

Join us as professors Reich, Weinstein and Sahami uncover the gripping reality of big tech and explain how we can chart a new path forward to control technology before it controls us.

About the Speakers

Rob Reich is the director of Stanford University’s Center for Ethics in Society; co-director of the Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society, and associate director of its new Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence; and co-author of System Error:Where Big Tech Went Wrong and How We Can Reboot.

Mehran Sahami is a professor of computer science at Stanford University; former senior research scientist at Google; and co-author of System Error:Where Big Tech Went Wrong and How We Can Reboot.

Jeremy M. Weinstein is a professor of political science at Stanford University; former deputy to the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and former director for development and democracy on the White House National Security Council staff during the Obama Administration; and co-author of System Error: Where Big Tech Went Wrong and How We Can Reboot.

SPEAKERS

Rob Reich

Director, Stanford University’s Center for Ethics in Society; Co-author, System Error:Where Big Tech Went Wrong and How We Can Reboot

Mehran Sahami

Professor of Computer Science, Stanford University; Co-author, System Error: Where Big Tech Went Wrong and How We Can Reboot

Jeremy M. Weinstein

Professor of Political Science, Stanford University; Co-author, System Error: Where Big Tech Went Wrong and How We Can Reboot

Levi Sumagaysay

Tech Reporter, MarketWatch—Moderator

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently hosting all of our live programming via YouTube live stream. This program was recorded via video conference on September 27th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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The transition from President Donald J. Trump to President Joseph R. Biden Jr. is one of the most tumultuous periods in recent American history. Robert Costa and his co-author Bob Woodward have taken on the task of documenting the transition in a never-before-seen way in their new book, Peril.

With material ranging from secret orders to transcripts of phone conversations from the Trump and Biden White House, the 2020 campaign, and more, Peril is the story about changes, a first inside look into Biden’s presidency, and the unique challenges that face the new administration.

Join Costa he as analyzes this intense period in history as well as the overall landscape of American politics in 2021.

SPEAKERS

Robert Costa

National Political Reporter, The Washington Post; Co-Author, Peril

In Conversation with Scott Shafer

Senior Editor, KQED’s Politics and Government Desk; Twitter @scottshafer

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently hosting all of our live programming via YouTube live stream. This program was recorded via video conference on October 7th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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We’ve experienced yet another summer of record wildfires in the western U.S., endangering lives, displacing communities, and sending unhealthy smoke across the nation. 

The science is clear: human-caused climate change is making lands more conducive to burning, and we are increasingly living in flammable landscapes. Forest experts say there are tools to help reduce the risk of catastrophic fires, keep forests alive as valuable carbon sinks and make communities more resilient to megafires. But we may also have to become accustomed to more fire – and smoke – in our lives. 

How can we better live with fire, including using it as a tool, rather than always fighting it?

For transcripts and other information, visit: https://www.climateone.org/watch-and-listen/podcasts 

Guests:

Stephen Pyne, author, The Pyrocene: How We Created an Age of Fire, and What Happens Next 

Susan Husari, member of the California Board of Forestry and Fire Protection

Chad T. Hanson, author, Smokescreen: Debunking Wildfire Myths to Save Our Forests and Our Climate

Jaime Lowe, author, Breathing Fire: Female Inmate Firefighters on the Front Lines of California’s Wildfires

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The best venture capitalists look around corners, and at Top Tech Trends, some of the best VCs will share what they see.

The event will be highlighted by a lively panel discussion with investors from Bessemer, Greylock, HSBC Ventures and Mayfield offering their top picks for below-the-radar trends. We'll also hear from one of the most provocative tech investors in the business: Cathie Wood of Ark Invest, with her 1 million Twitter followers and bullish views on the future of technology.

NOTES

In partnership with the Silicon Valley Leadership Group Foundation's California Center for Innovation.

SPEAKERS

Ore Adeyemi

Managing Director and Global Head, HSBC Invest

Navin Chaddha

Managing Director, Mayfield

Byron Deeter

Partner, Bessemer Venture Partners

Sarah Guo

General Partner, Greylock

Cathie Wood

CEO/Chief Investment Officer, ARK Invest

Candy Cheng

Senior Correspondent, Insider—Moderator

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently hosting all of our live programming via YouTube live stream. This program was recorded via video conference on September 29th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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What has caused the recent international resurgence of xenophobia? Looking for clues, psychiatrist and historian George Makari started out in search of the idea’s origins. He discovered that while the fear and hatred of strangers may be ancient, the notion of a dangerous bias called "xenophobia" arose not that long ago.

Coined by late-nineteenth-century doctors and political commentators, and popularized by an eccentric stenographer, xenophobia emerged as a popular cultural concept alongside Western nationalism, colonialism, mass migration, and genocide. Makari chronicles the concept’s rise, from its popularization and perverse misuse to its spread as an ethical principle in the wake of the Holocaust, and then on to its sudden reappearance in the twenty-first century. He investigates xenophobia’s evolution through writers like Joseph Conrad, Albert Camus and Richard Wright, and innovators like Walter Lippmann, Sigmund Freud, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and Frantz Fanon. Weaving together history, philosophy and psychology, Makari also offers insights into related ideas such as the conditioned response, the stereotype, projection, the authoritarian personality, the other, and institutional bias.

Makari offers a unifying paradigm for comprehending more clearly how xenophobia, other irrational anxieties and contests over identity sweep through cultures and lead to the dangerous divisions so prevalent today.

MLF ORGANIZER

George Hammond

NOTES

MLF: Humanities

SPEAKERS

George Makari

Director, DeWitt Wallace Institute; Professor of Psychiatry, Weill Cornell Medical College; Author, Of Fear and Strangers: A History of Xenophobia

In Conversation with George Hammond

Author, Conversations With Socrates

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently hosting all of our live programming via YouTube live stream. This program was recorded via video conference on September 29th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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The Black Lives Matter and Stop AAPI Hate movements, among others, have brought international attention to widespread social injustices that have been ignored by society for far too long. As a result, many individuals have been inspired to make positive changes toward a safer and more inclusive world. But pursuing equity and justice can be a complex and confusing undertaking. Good intentions do not necessarily lead to good outcomes. Inspiration can easily be derailed by feelings of confusion, the trap of performative allyship, and misguided attempts to take action. When it comes to helping instead of harming, the hardest part can often be figuring out where to begin.

Michelle MiJung Kim will unpack hot button issues—cancel culture, inclusive language, representation, and more—in a way that is accessible to people regardless of their current understanding of inclusive practices.

Join us for an in-depth conversation Michelle MiJung Kim, followed by a book signing for her new tome, The Wake Up: Closing the Gap Between Good Intentions and Real Change.

SPEAKERS

Michelle Mijung Kim

Author, The Wake Up; Co-founder and CEO, Awaken

Michelle Meow

Producer and Host, "The Michelle Meow Show," KBCW and Podcast; Member, Commonwealth Club Board of Governors; Twitter @msmichellemeow—Co-Host

John Zipperer

Producer and Host, Week to Week Political Roundtable; Vice President of Media & Editorial, The Commonwealth Club—Co-Host

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently hosting all of our live programming via YouTube live stream. This program was recorded via video conference on September 28th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices