The Buy Nothing movement started as a way to share items between strangers. The trouble came when corporations wanted in. Wired contributing writer Vauhini Vara joins host Krys Boyd to discuss the founders of The Buy Nothing Project, Inc, a movement with fervent followers that were mad when the platform went to an app backed by investors, and the questions that raises about what makes something called free, actually free. Her article is “The Battle for the Soul of Buy Nothing.”

Twenty-million people sell their plasma each year, and the most vulnerable populations are usually the first in line. Journalist Kathleen McLaughlin joins host Krys Boyd to discuss her own journey with an auto-immune disease and her research into where blood plasma really comes from – a journey through the for-profit blood industry that stretches all the way to China. Her book is “Blood Money: The Story of Life, Death, and Profit Inside America’s Blood Industry.”

Implicit bias is a problem for humans, and humans are programming it into computer algorithms. Meredith Broussard is an associate professor at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute of New York University and research director at the NYU Alliance for Public Interest Technology. She joins host Krys Boyd to discuss why net neutrality is a myth, the racism and ableism built into systems, and why A.I. needs more diverse human role models. Her book is “More than a Glitch: Confronting Race, Gender, and Ability Bias in Tech.”

Our days are marked by appointments dictated by the clock. What would happen if we just walked away? Artist and author Jenny Odell joins host Krys Boyd to discuss why she believes our clock-watching is tied to for-profit goals and not the reality of nature, and to offer ways to slow down and take in the beauty of the true rhythms of life. Her book is “Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock.”

Memory is key to who we are and, yet forgetting is so common. Boston University School of Medicine neurology professor Andrew E. Budson joins host Krys Boyd to discuss his work studying memory, how to control what you remember and how diet plays into this ability. His book, with co-author Elizabeth A. Kensinger, is “Why We Forget and How to Remember Better: The Science Behind Memory.”

Ethnocide refers to a systematic erasure of an ancestral culture. Barrett Holmes Pitner, founder of The Sustainable Culture Lab, joins host Krys Boyd to discuss why Black Americans have faced ethnocide since the beginning of the slave trade, why the post-Trump world has spotlighted this issue further, and the way it continues to shape the future. His book is “The Crime Without a Name: Ethnocide and the Erasure of Culture in America.”

The next job for sophisticated chatbots might be to stand in for mental health professionals. Dhruv Khullar is a contributing writer at The New Yorker and a physician and assistant professor at Weill Cornell Medical College. He joins host Krys Boyd to discuss the shortage in the mental health field and the development of predictive algorithms that promise to spot suicidal triggers. His article is “Talking to Ourselves.”

Urban landscapes are spreading throughout the globe, pushing nature out. Ben Wilson joins host Krys Boyd to discuss the modern quest for biodiversity within cities, how ancient civilizations lived alongside grasslands and rivers, and what we can do to reclaim green spaces. His book is “Urban Jungle: The History and Future of Nature in the City.”

Judith Heumann has used a wheelchair since childhood – which forced her to fight for her right to an education. And that was just the beginning of her activism for disabled rights. Today, she’s an internationally recognized leader in the Disability Rights Independent Living Movement who served in the Clinton and Obama administrations and was the World Bank’s first adviser on disability and development. She joins host Krys Boyd to discuss her life’s work, the lawsuits and sit-ins that changed history for people with disabilities, and what it means to rebel against entrenched norms and win. Her book, co-authored with Kristen Joiner, is “Rolling Warrior: The Incredible, Sometimes Awkward, True Story of a Rebel Girl on Wheels Who Helped Spark a Revolution.”

This episode originally aired on June 17, 2021.

The perfect mother on TikTok or Instagram is a far cry from the reality of motherhood off the screen. Jessica Grose is an opinion writer at The New York Times who writes the newsletter On Parenting, and she joins host Krys Boyd to discuss what successful parenting really looks like, from her own stories of pregnancy and child-rearing to the societal expectations we have for parents. Her book is called “Screaming on the Inside: The Unsustainability of American Motherhood.”

This episode originally aired on January 11, 2023.