Arts and Entertainment Company Meow Wolf creates large-scale interactive and immersive art installations. They recently opened their fifth installation in Houston. Austin based hardware and software developer, Alan Watts, created many of their custom interactive devices, database driven platforms, and animation software. Alan joins us this time on the Plutopia podcast to discuss his work.

Photo of installation at Meow Wolf Santa Fe

Alan Watts:

You see maybe 10% of the work on the outside at Meow Wolf. And you go behind the scenes and look at the server rooms and the documents and the schematics and the one line diagrams. It’s like, oh my God, there is this like – before anything even begins production, we’ve done interactivity matrices. We’ve built out diagrams and it’s kind of amazing to see how much work goes into these and then just sustaining them too is incredibly expensive because this is stuff that’s gonna break and it’s tech and it’s very expensive to maintain. And to have the staff to do that requires that we hand things off when we’re done. So we have to hire people, and train them, that have a certain technical knowledge to be able to fix things on their own. And we’re a company of a thousand people now, across all of our locations. So it’s a beast now, it’s truly a beast.

DJ Megahertz at Meow Wolf Houston

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Plutopians are joined by EFF-Austin president Kevin Welch. Elon Musk’s team of alleged geniuses continue to disrupt many U.S. government agencies. With that in mind, we discuss Musk’s disruptive influence on U.S. government agencies, democracy, and the rule of law. Our conversation explores how Musk’s unqualified team is recklessly dismantling government technology systems, leading to security breaches, mass layoffs, and data misinterpretation, with concerns over IRS and Social Security databases. The discussion also highlights the long-standing complexities of government software, the dangers of centralized data collection, and the erosion of institutional trust. The hosts reflect on the broader implications of these changes, including the loss of privacy, potential financial manipulation, and the risks of unchecked executive power in an increasingly unstable political landscape.

Kevin Welch:

It all has very much the feeling of a fishing expedition – they don’t necessarily know what they’re looking for, they’re just looking, and then when they find stuff, they take things out of context to justify continuing to look. If I take them at their word, they’re claiming they found proof of fraud – oh, there’s the same persons in the system multiple times. Dead people are getting tons of money. By the way, I am sure that is happening to a certain degree because there’s no way a system that sprawling, that old, with that much data that you can’t just delete – some of it may not be right. I’m sure to a certain extent it is happening. Hell, reports have been put out under previous administrations identifying some of this problem. But what’s happening is a highly selective window narrative is being built here, combined with people who don’t have the technical expertise to truly know what they’re looking at.

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In this episode of the Plutopia News Network Podcast, we discuss how AI is revolutionizing healthcare by empowering patients to take control of their medical decisions. Our guests, Dave DeBronkart (e-Patient Dave), Gilles Frydman, and Hugo Campos are advocates for patient autonomy and participatory medicine. We discuss how AI enables patients to interpret complex medical data, such as clinical notes and lab reports, without relying solely on healthcare professionals. AI can also aid in critical thinking, allowing patients to explore multiple medical possibilities and interventions. Our discussion highlights the balance between AI’s potential and the responsibility patients must take in navigating healthcare decisions, emphasizing the need for AI literacy to maximize its benefits.

e-Patient Dave deBronkart:

Access to information was a huge limiting factor in how much we could do, and that has changed a lot. There was an article about patients using AI in the New York Times this summer, and it said Google is like a librarian, but AI gives you access to clinical thinking, clinical thought and it has just caused an explosion in the things that people can do. A trivial example is when I get back from a doctor visit now – because of open notes and federal policy I’m allowed to read all the gobbledygook that the doctors put in the computer, and what I do is I copy paste that into ChatGPT and I say “summarize this, what are my action items” and it digests the whole thing and says here are the problems you worked on today here’s what you’re doing about it and here are your next steps.

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This episode of Plutopia News Network’s podcast features hosts Scoop Sweeney, Jon Lebkowsky, and Wendy Grossman discussing skepticism, trust, and current societal issues.

We explore the erosion of trust in air travel following recent accidents, accessibility concerns for disabled passengers, and broader vulnerabilities in government systems and infrastructure. The conversation shifts to concerns about the concentration of power among elites, the influence of tech billionaires, and the role of social media in shaping public trust. They also touch on movements like 50501, an emerging decentralized protest effort, and the importance of fostering genuine communities amid increasing polarization. Ultimately, they question how to rebuild trust in institutions and media while emphasizing the necessity of engaged, local communities.

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Dr. Rebecca Mercuri, a leading expert on electronic voting systems, discusses the vulnerabilities and shortcomings of modern voting technology, particularly the reliability of voter-verified paper ballots and the risks of electronic voting machines. She emphasizes that cryptography alone cannot secure elections and argues that paper ballots must remain the definitive record for vote counting. Mercuri recounts her role in election security, including her dissertation on electronic vote tabulation, her involvement in the Bush v. Gore case, and her testimony on voting system integrity. She highlights the intentional flaws in electronic voting procedures, the potential for fraud or miscounts, and the general lack of public awareness about verification processes. The conversation also explores broader concerns about cybersecurity, digital forensics, and the dangers of increasing reliance on electronic systems without sufficient backup measures.

Rebecca Mercuri:

There are many states where what they do is provide you with the paper ballot and you put the dots in where, or X’s or whatever they tell you to do. On your selection and then very few places count them manually. But again, the paper would be available for a manual counting, but then it’s usually scanned. But that is a voter-verified paper ballot. It’s a paper ballot that you verified by virtue of you making the selections in there. But they also say, the excuse I hear from election officials is that well, it would be very expensive for us to print out all those ballots. They said, but you’re printing them out anyway. Every person is getting a printed paper ballot. So why is it any more or less expensive? The quantity of paper is identical because whether you’re voting absentee or you’re voting in person, you’re getting a paper ballot. So why not just print it out? But again, this is part of, I refer to it as the charade. It’s the charade of voting. The idea is that we want to make everyone feel that they voted and feel that their vote was counted. And that it’s available for a recount in those places that want to be able to do that.

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In this episode of the Plutopia podcast, British immunologist David Miles discusses his book How Vaccines Work and considers the science of vaccines, viruses, and the societal impact of vaccine misinformation. The conversation covers the role of vaccines in combating diseases like COVID-19, polio, and avian influenza, as well as the challenges posed by anti-vaccine narratives fueled by figures like RFK Jr. Miles highlights the importance of sourcing accurate information and the evolutionary mechanics of viruses. The episode also touches on the broader implications of vaccine hesitancy, the economic impact of diseases, and the enduring mystery of viruses like HIV and the common cold. Listeners are encouraged to approach vaccine-related decisions critically, relying on credible resources.

David Miles:

If somebody has reservations or questions that’s completely reasonable: yes, having a steel needle stuck in you or your child is going to make you think twice about that. But if you go looking for answers, think carefully about where you’re getting that information from. There are organizations like Voices for Vaccines, for example, that give very good information. There are also a lot of people who will give very bad information. And I’m not naming names here because we’ll be here all night. It’s make sure that you’re getting your information from one and not the other.

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On this Inauguration Day episode of the Plutopia podcast, we discuss the past, present and future of democracy. We also acknowledge the return of Felonious Trump, the 45th and 47th President of the United States. Our friend Dr. Roy Casagranda joins the podcast as we examine the incoming Trump Dream Team and its possible impact upon the nation. We discuss the potential challenges of the new Trump administration, from appointing incoherent and narcissistic officials to managing (or mismanaging?) critical issues such as NATO, tariffs, immigration, healthcare, climate change, and the economy. The conversation reflects skepticism about Trump’s leadership capabilities, critiques the global and domestic consequences of his proposed policies, and explores the broader dysfunctions of U.S. governance and consumer culture. The episode ends on a somber yet slightly hopeful note, urging action amidst an uncertain political and environmental landscape.

Roy Casagranda:

The problem is the narcissistic maniacs that he’s appointing to the government are the kind of backstabbing guys who don’t have a coherent plan, they don’t have a coherent policy, they don’t know anything. That’s one of Trump’s problems is that he just doesn’t understand things. I bet he doesn’t know Canada and Denmark are NATO members. I bet he doesn’t know that Greenland belongs to Denmark so that if you attacked Greenland you would effectively be going to war with NATO. I don’t even know what’s supposed to happen if a NATO member attacks a NATO member because Article 5 says if any state attacks a NATO member all the other NATO members are instantaneously or automatically at war. There’s no need for a declaration of war. So I don’t think he can neglect his government of narcissistic maniacs. I think he’s going to have to be there. And I can see them just really making a mess of things too. So it’s possible that this will be okay. We’ll have an incoherent four years where the United States basically is just sort of frozen and paralyzed, where the president is randomly threatening to attack this country and that country and the other country. It wrecks the US’s reputation globally but honestly I don’t know how much lower it can get anyway – we’re close to bottom.

The post Roy Casagranda: Inauguration 2025 first appeared on Plutopia News Network.

Jon and Scoop consider various political and societal issues, centering on Donald Trump’s potential second term as U.S. president, the constraints of governance, and the role of systemic friction in tempering political ambitions. The Plutopians highlight misunderstandings around Trump’s perceived ability to operate outside the established political framework, emphasizing the persistence of institutional processes. We touch on societal divides, tribalism, and the challenges of coalition-building in a polarized country. Broader themes include the evolution of technology and its impact on media, data privacy, and artistic expression, with tangents into topics like AI’s influence, music industry economics, and the importance of maintaining connections to the natural world amidst digital chaos. The episode is punctuated with humor, nostalgia, and personal anecdotes, reflecting a mix of skepticism and resilience in navigating modern challenges.

It’s not like the doors just open wide for him and the light’s shown and he can just step right in and do whatever the fuck he pleases. So people need to get over that and the problem with that, the problem with feeling that way is that you kind of open up that reality a bit more than it really should be open. We should understand that the people in the USA matter and that it’s really about us. It’s not about the government, it’s not about Donald Trump, it’s about us.

Scoop:

Well, the whole problem with Trump is he has the same problem a lot of our generation has. His memory is fading. He forgets the problems that he created for himself in Trump 1.0. When he promised all these grand things and the reality stepped in and said, no, you can’t do that, there is a process. And it’s hard, when you deal with a government, it is really hard to escape the process.

The post Jon and Scoop: Chaos Navigators first appeared on Plutopia News Network.

This time on the Plutopia podcast, we turn on our time machine and take you back to 1979. King Crimson guitarist and founder Robert Fripp was touring with his Frippertronics real-time tape looping device. He performed shows at UC Berkeley and Mabuhay Gardens, San Francisco’s premier punk venue. Following those shows, Ed Ward and Scoop Sweeney interviewed Robert Fripp and this restored from tape interview.

Frippertronics, an innovative real-time tape looping technique, enabled Fripp to create layered, meditative soundscapes that defied conventional rock performance norms. The conversation explores Fripp’s unconventional approach to performance, emphasizing audience interaction and dismantling the typical performer-audience hierarchy. Fripp reflects on the economic and artistic challenges of touring, contrasting his intimate and improvisational Frippertronics shows with the larger, more commercial King Crimson tours. His insights into performance dynamics, audience influence, and the tension between art and commerce offer a unique perspective on the evolving nature of music and live performance.

Thank you note from Robert Fripp to Scoop.

Robert Fripp:

It’s ironic that this particular way of touring, if I were doing it on a purely financial level, really funny, we’re doing so much more money than King Crimson. Touring, I reckon, touring in a three-month form. I could earn as much as I earned from King Crimson, so I’m just saying. Touring with King Crimson took years. I think I earned $3,000, which was one tour in the spring in 1972, when it was known that the band was going to break out. So the booking agency didn’t take it seriously and bought this in a small venue. And I made $3,000, maybe two, two or $3,000 from that tour. That was the only time I ever made money from it. The statistics were, one, by the time the band finished July the first night, the average cost for us playing was $5,000 a night. That’s what it would cost. The average earnings were $5,000 a night. So over six years, with the exception of this one tour, I would have earned nothing. I could earn $3,000 probably in a week, here – I have minimal expenses.

Featured photo by Jim Summaria. Creative Commons license: CC BY-SA 3.0

The post Robert Fripp: The Art of Frippertronics first appeared on Plutopia News Network.

In this episode of the Plutopia podcast, communication coach and author Michelle Gladieux discusses her book Communicate with Courage: Taking Risks to Overcome the Four Hidden Challenges. She highlights the importance of communication skills, vulnerability, and ethical influence, providing practical strategies for improving personal and professional relationships. Gladieux shares insights on overcoming challenges like rationalizing the negative, settling for good enough, and striving for perfection while emphasizing the value of failure as a learning tool. Drawing from decades of experience, she offers actionable exercises to help individuals communicate more effectively and courageously. The conversation also touches on leadership, conflict resolution, and the transformative potential of brave and intentional communication.

As far as we know, this is a one-way ticket. And we should share what we’ve learned. We should share about ourselves. We should care about what others think. And we should stand for what we think is right. And we should try to do it without being a jerk. So I think we all need communication skills, constantly polishing verbal and written and listening skills. And I think also we all have a message to bear based on our experience. So I wanted to give people a short book. I kept it around 140 pages or so because I know we’re all busy. But I wanted to take about 25 years of coaching and teaching at the college level and consulting and see what I could do for those people who aren’t going to enroll in a communication class in a college or go to a workshop. Maybe this was a way they could raise their game.

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