Where Genius Grows

You cannot find safety in a degree. You cannot find safety in a particular job anymore. It just doesn't exist.

— Adam Solomon

Adam Solomon runs the IT talent acquisition firm DC Tech Search. In this interview Adam talks about current trends into tech hiring. As artificial intelligence ushers in a wave of automation that is making even the most skilled professionals redundant, is it time to rethink society's relationship to work?

Glean ideas in this episode for what you'll need to navigate the upheaval of a rapidly transforming 21st-century labor market.

Never miss another episode of Where Genius Grows. Get each new one delivered straight to your inbox by signing up here: http://eepurl.com/ckKJ1f.

The History of Japanese-American incarceration in the United States is, I think, one of the clearest examples of what happens when we ignore the United States Constitution.

— Rose Masters

Rose Masters is a Park Ranger specializing in oral history at Manzanar National Historic Site. In this interview Rose talks about the conditions that led to the signing of Executive Order 9066, which resulted in the eviction of ethnically Japanese Americans from the Western United States and the incarceration of nearly 70,000 American citizens.

Learn how this episode destroyed a pioneering American agricultural community and what we can do to avoid repeating in the future what President Gerald Ford called a "setback to fundamental American principles."

Never miss another episode of Where Genius Grows. Get each new one delivered straight to your inbox by signing up here: http://eepurl.com/ckKJ1f.

We brought a leadership group together that wants to get things done. We quickly decided to be very pragmatic. And people from other countries don't get this. I promise you, they don't get this — I don't care whether they're from the Middle East or from Europe: They think that we have to discuss, as a first matter, and solve the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, otherwise these two communities can't get together. And that turns out to be false.

— Bob Silverman

Bob Silverman is the American Jewish Committee's U.S. Director of Muslim-Jewish Relations. In this interview Bob discusses the doctrinal similarities between Judaism and Islam, his work forming the national Muslim-Jewish Advisory Council, and concrete actions you can take to build and maintain strong and useful interfaith bridges in your own community.

Throughout our conversation Bob underscores the power of pragmatism that allows people who may hold strong differences of opinion on one set of issues to nevertheless cooperate on separate issues of shared concern.

Never miss another episode of Where Genius Grows. Get each new one delivered straight to your inbox by signing up here: http://eepurl.com/ckKJ1f.

During his 12th year in the House of Representatives, Jim Kolbe became the first Republican congressman to come out as gay. In this interview, Jim describes how it happened: first leveling with himself about his own identity and then going public after receiving notice that a magazine would out him.

Never miss another episode of Where Genius Grows. Get each new one delivered straight to your inbox by signing up here: http://eepurl.com/ckKJ1f.

Anything and everything you say, whether it was a gaffe or something on point, can be cut, misconstrued, or marketed in a way that can go and hurt the candidate's position in the race. — Ben Sparks

What are politicians telling us? Why do campaigns go negative? *

Political operative Ben Sparks discusses the art and craft of campaign communication. Ben has directed campaign communications and managed campaigns for a variety of household names, including several sitting governors and senators. *

In this interview, we face uncomfortable truths about how campaign messages we despise are simply hideous reflections of ourselves. *

Further readings Ben recommends include: * "The Iliad" by Homer - http://amzn.to/2lUaamo * "All the King's Men" by Robert Penn Warren - http://amzn.to/2l9ojyV * "Face the Nation" by Bob Schieffer - http://amzn.to/2mdmSzd *

Never miss another episode of Where Genius Grows. Get each new one delivered straight to your inbox by signing up here: http://eepurl.com/ckKJ1f.

Online harassment degrades and can violently suppress our freedom of expression. When we equate online abuse with bullying, we miss its complex and dynamic underpinnings.

Soraya Chemaly (@schemaly), director of the Women's Media Center Speech Project, illustrates how online abuse, particularly of girls and women, mirrors age-old antisocial behavior that occurs offline. She presents this as a social problem that we can't expect victims to solve individually.

Learn in this episode what role you can play to influence your own online communities to promote equality and democracy, addressing challenges to these values in real-time.

Never miss another episode of Where Genius Grows. Get each new one delivered straight to your inbox by signing up here: http://eepurl.com/ckKJ1f

Immigration affects every aspect of American life. How and where does impact you? What are the implications of US immigration policy on your life?

Varsha Kayi and Lindsey Wilkes, managing partners of immigration law firm Kayi & Wilkes, discuss two sets of executive orders: Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States and Border Security and Immigration Improvements, both issued January 25th, 2017, as well as the Executive Order: Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States, issued January 27th, 2017.

Find out what you need to know and what actions you can take to lend material support to immigrants in your life — people that you may not know need your help; people that it may be remarkably easy to help in ways that — no exaggeration — will change their life.

Never miss another episode of Where Genius Grows. Get each new one delivered straight to your inbox by signing up here: http://eepurl.com/ckKJ1f

"Oh, no! I'm shooting a fish in a barrel, but also I'm in the barrel, and the barrel's going over a cliff!" — Alexandra Petri *

What does a satirist do? What is the satirist's role in society? What, in turn, is our responsibility to the satirist? And what makes for genius satire? *

Alexandra Petri (@petridishes) is a Washington Post humor columnist. In this interview she addresses the terrifying convergence of her desire to write dystopian futures with her job of covering the actual news. What's a political satirist to do when it's impossible to come up with anything more bizarre or ridiculous than a verbatim transcription of our elected leaders' words? *

Never miss another episode of Where Genius Grows. Get each new one delivered straight to your inbox by signing up here: http://eepurl.com/ckKJ1f

Never miss another episode of Where Genius Grows. Get each new one delivered straight to your inbox by signing up here: http://eepurl.com/ckKJ1f *

At the beginning of 2017 there are over 500,000 unfilled tech jobs in the United States. How will applicants learn the required skills to succeed in these jobs? How will employers avoid overlooking qualified candidates? How will applicants from underserved communities gain access to the training they need to compete for these jobs? *

Tess Posner (@tessposner) is the managing director of TechHire, an initiative by Opportunity@Work to connect 100,000 people to tech jobs by 2020. In this interview she describes the steps TechHire is taking to accomplish this feat and how you can participate. Tess also offers her vision of a well-rounded 21st-century education, balancing ever-evolving technical expertise against an understanding of what it means to be human. *

Further readings Tess recommends include: * - "The World is Open" by Curtis Bonk: http://amzn.to/2iLmrI8 * - "The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies" by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee: http://amzn.to/2iIK8Ty * - "Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future" by Martin Ford: http://amzn.to/2iLkSdt * - "Savage Inequalities" by Jonathan Kozol: http://amzn.to/2iXJ8J3 * - "The Brothers Karamazov" by Fyodor Dostoevsky: http://amzn.to/2iK3F3S * - "The Apology" by Plato: http://amzn.to/2iK7lCM * - "The Republic" by Plato: http://amzn.to/2iK1PQC * - "The Wealth of Nations" by Adam Smith: http://amzn.to/2hWS2Vf * - "The Federalist Papers" by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay: http://amzn.to/2j9YDgj

What role does Social Security Insurance play in holding together the fabric of society? How does it benefit children and the disabled? Why is it constantly under attack on Capitol Hill? *

Discussing these questions for this episode is Alex Lawson (@alaw202). Alex is the director of Social Security Works, an organization dedicated to protecting and improving the economic status of disadvantaged and at-risk populations. Alex details concrete action steps that you can take to defend Social Security Insurance against existential threats. *

In this interview, Alex recommends reading the book Social Security Works! Why Social Security Isn't Going Broke and How Expanding It Will Help Us All: http://amzn.to/2hK0tHX *

Want us to send each new Where Genius Grows episode straight to your inbox? Sign up here: http://eepurl.com/ckKJ1f.