Benton and Abi agree to disagree about how to disagree.

In our "polarized" political climate, what value is there in a rhetoric that doesn't aim to change minds? Is it possible to embody empathetic listening while protecting ourselves from harmful views?

They discuss their not-especially-successful attempts to converse with undecided voters as the election nears, and how presidential debates aren't the right format for solving problems. Abi gives a quick rundown of alternatives to persuasion throughout the rhetorical tradition, culminating in the 2022 book Rhetorical Listening in Action by Ratcliffe & Jensen.

Stay to the end for Abi's most embarrassing high school debate experience.

Sources and further reading

Music credits: 

Visit https://faculty.mnsu.edu/tctalk/ for transcript.

Recycling or trash? It's a question you may have asked yourself when faced with a gross can, a heavily-stickered art project, or some weird plastic thing. Benton hijacks the podcast to teach Abi the behind-the-scenes of the recycling process: How it works, how effective it is, the consequences of "wish-cycling," and why plastic sucks so much. He addresses what steps you can take to make recycling work better, besides just putting things in the right bin.

Sources and further reading

TC Talk episodes mentioned:

Wikipedia articles mentioned:

Music credits:

Image credit:

Transcript at https://faculty.mnsu.edu/tctalk/podcast/recycling-you-still-dont-get-it/

Benton and Abi feel bad about climate change. As they should. They talk about how to channel negative emotions into productive action, as recommended in the book Facing the Climate Emergency by Margaret Klein Salamon.

Transcript and sources can be found at http://faculty.mnsu.edu/tctalk/

An interview with Dr. Dawn Armfield of Minnesota State, Mankato about how accessibility intersects with artificial intelligence. She shares about AI in teaching, visual AI, inclusivity, ethics, classroom technology, and her current research on virtual reality for young adults with cognitive disabilities. Find Dawn at her faculty bio or her Instagram @dawn_armfield.

Plus, what does AI have to do with fungus?

Find transcript and show notes at https://faculty.mnsu.edu/tctalk/

How to turn off your inner literature professor and create a habit of reading for enjoyment.

For transcripts and sources, visit https://faculty.mnsu.edu/tctalk/

This is part 2 of 2 about the book IBM and the Holocaust by Edwin Black. In Part 1, we described how IBM, through its German subsidiary Dehomag, supported the mass extermination of the Jewish people. How do we know IBM's involvement made a difference in the scope of the mass murders? One clue comes from comparing how things went down in the Netherlands vs. France. We also talk about surveillance, ethical hacking, why the logical fallacy "argumentum / reductio ad Hitlerum" shouldn't be a thing, and what the story of IBM and the Holocaust has to do with UX design. For transcripts and sources, visit https://faculty.mnsu.edu/tctalk/

Nazi Germany systematically identified, relocated, and murdered millions of Jewish people during the Holocaust. But how were they able to kill so many so efficiently? IBM equipment played a key role. Meanwhile, IBM CEO Thomas J. Watson got rich off of Nazi Germany and strategically escaped scrutiny for his collaboration. In this episode, drawing on Edwin Black's book IBM and the Holocaust, Abi explains how intertwined IBM and Nazi Germany were by tracing their paths through the Hitler years.

More jokes, ChatGPT-generated and otherwise, cut from the recording for the "AI is a joke" episode

We reflect on AI text generators, creativity, technical communication, writing instruction, algorithmic literacy, magic, and more. Importantly, we reveal the results of our Twitter experiment: Are we funnier than a robot? (Results were mixed.) Also, find out what happens when we drink an AI-generated cocktail recipe and ask ChatGPT to write a stand-up routine about the ethics of artificial intelligence. 

This is the last of our 3-part series in which we discuss The Devil Never Sleeps: Learning to Live in an Age of Disaster, by Juliette Kayyem. In this episode, we talk about the importance of continually examining your systems, and learning from mini disasters instead of brushing them off.  Finally, we put our newfound knowledge to the test when a baking attempt goes awry. Content warning: Gun violence.