Where We Go Next

How do we define our "tribes"? That's a word that gets thrown around a lot these days - political tribes, ideological tribes, religious tribes, national tribes... it's just tribalism all the way down. Tribalism, factionalism - whatever you want to call "strong loyalty to one's own social group" - has been with us forever, and we'll never be rid of it. But we can redefine and expand our tribes to include more people, and decrease the animosity we may feel toward our "outgroups." Writer and filmmaker Jay Shapiro has been thinking a great deal about how to do just that.

Who Gets to Wear the Hat?: Replacement and Representation, by Jay Shapiro (companion essay to this episode)

Opposite Field - a film by Jay Shapiro

Are Humans Hard-Wired for Racial Prejudice? - Los Angeles Times

Political Tribes: Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations, by Amy Chua

I Can Tolerate Anything Except the Outgroup, by Scott Alexander

Your Roots Are Showing, by Razib Khan

"50% of the 5,000 pilots we train in the next decade to be women or people of color." - United Airlines

Deficit Gives a Tarnish to Golden Gate Bridge - The New York Times

From “Is” to “Us” the Words That Define Impeachments, by Jay Shapiro

Moral Saints, by Susan Wolf

Dilemma Podcast - hosted by Jay Shapiro

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How often do you think about how you access the internet? Not in the general sense, but the actual act of accessing it: the descriptive text you read underneath an item for sale, the buttons you click or tap to signal an intent or complete an action, or an input field to type a credit card number, select a country or state, or scroll through a set of dates. This is the stuff that, for many of us, fades away as we aimlessly look at memes or news stories. But it's important. Vital, even. Jennison Asuncion, LinkedIn's Head of Accessibility Engineering Evangelism, dedicates his time to ensuring that the digital world is accessible to everyone.

Episode Transcript - Accessible PDF

Global Accessibility Awareness Day

Accessibility Camp Bay Area

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) - Wikipedia

#a11y

WebAIM

Agile Web Development - Comprehensive Overview

jennison.ca

Jennison's Twitter: @Jennison

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Instagram: @wwgnpodcast

If there's anything we've learned over the last year, it's that it's not enough to get important information right - you have to communicate that information successfully, too. Because if the data you need to share isn't being heard by the very people that need to hear it, it may as well not exist! Social media consultant and communication specialist Sarah Mojarad teaches and advocates for effective science messaging.

Communicating Science on Social Media, by Sarah Mojarad (YouTube)

10 Facts About Americans and Coronavirus Vaccines - Pew Research

A Year of U.S. Public Opinion on the Coronavirus Pandemic - Pew Research

"Food Science Babe" - Instagram

Online Harassment: Death by 1,000 Tweets, by Sarah Mojarad

First Draft News

RAND Research

Sarah's Twitter: @Sarah_Mojarad

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How do you know what's true, and what's false? What's right, or wrong? How do you know... what you know? You likely heard all of it somewhere, and for you to hear it, somebody had to say it. Because for us to be able to figure out what's true - in order to form a more perfect union - we must be able to speak with one another, freely. Greg Lukianoff, President and CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, fights against speech restrictions being enacted in the very institutions that should be bastions of free expression.

Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression

State of the Law: Speech Codes - FIRE

Papish v. Board of Curators of the University of Missouri (1973)

Innovation in the Collective Brain, by Michael Muthukrishna and Joseph Henrich

What Is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy? - American Psychological Association

Types of Distorted Automatic Thoughts

How Americans Became So Sensitive to Harm, by Conor Friedersdorf

Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free Thought, by Jonathan Rauch

Eugene V. Debs' Canton Speech (June 18th, 1918)

Report of the Committee on Freedom of Expression at Yale (1974)

Nicholas Christakis Yale Confrontation (2015)

Greg's Twitter: @glukianoff

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The vaccines are here, and they're amazing. But there's still so much pessimism and confusion about how effective these vaccines actually are, which ones are "best," and what anyone can actually do after they've been vaccinated. This is a special episode, to get you justifiably excited about the rest of the year, and your life going forward. Share it with friends and family who are doubtful or scared, because Dr. Monica Gandhi, Professor of Medicine and Associate Chief in the Division of HIV, Infectious Diseases, and Global Medicine at UCSF, has the credentials and the knowledge required to prescribe some much-needed optimism.

Follow Monica: @MonicaGandhi9

How Do mRNA Vaccines Work? Here's What You Should Know - Johns Hopkins YouTube

How the Oxford-AstraZeneca Vaccine Works - The New York Times

University of Pennsylvania mRNA Biology Pioneers Receive COVID-19 Vaccine Enabled by their Foundational Research - Penn Medicine

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These days, when we hear the phrase "growing up," it tends to mostly reference the growth in inches and feet. But for a child to a grow up, they don't just need to physically grow, they need to grow mentally and emotionally as well. The recent cultural normalization of what is colloquially referred to as "helicopter parenting" has brought with it ever-hovering adults and minute-by-minute-scheduled weekdays and weekends, which have significantly stunted that growth. Lenore Skenazy, Co-founder and President of Let Grow, shares both data and anecdotes that help to illustrate exactly why children need the freedom to grow independent.

Why I Let My 9-Year-Old Ride the Subway Alone, by Lenore Skenazy

I Let My 9-Year-Old Ride the Subway Alone. I Got Labeled the ‘World’s Worst Mom.’ by Lenore Skenazy

Mother May I? by Lizzie Widdicombe

Learn How the Let Grow Project Can Help Kids with Anxiety, Let Grow YouTube

Let Grow

• The Let Grow Project
• Let Grow Play Club

Free Range Kids

Raising Independent Kids - Facebook

Lenore's Twitter: @FreeRangeKids

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Children need adults. They need them for guidance, for discipline, for inspiration, and of course, formal education. But often when we talk about education, our attention is almost exclusively focused on those adults. What are they doing right? What are they doing wrong? What are they doing too much or too little of, and how can we stop them? And we too often lose sight of how the children are actually performing. Michaela Community School founder and headmistress Katharine Birbalsingh shares how her staff have gone about providing underserved children the ability to change their stars.

Michaela Community School

The Power of Culture: The Michaela Way, edited by Katharine Birbalsingh

Controversial Michaela Free School Delights in GCSE Success - The Guardian

Success Academy Charter Schools

The Butterfly of Freedom, by Edward Monkton

Michaela student achieves perfect GCSE scores - Twitter

Katharine's Twitter: @Miss_Snuffy

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In John Rawls' 1971 book, A Theory of Justice, he offers a thought experiment known as the Veil of Ignorance. Behind this veil, no knows who they are. They don't know their race, class, age, sex, privileges, disadvantages, or even their personality. Only once they step through the veil will they know their place in society. But before they take that step, they are tasked with designing it - its laws and its structures, its benefits and punishments. Imagine yourself behind the veil. How would you construct the world, if you weren't sure of your own place within it? Samuel Weiss, Executive Director of Rights Behind Bars, has a deep understanding of what certain corners of our society look like when that veil goes unconsidered.

Rights Behind Bars

Prison Policy Initiative - Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2020

American Prison: A Reporter's Undercover Journey into the Business of Punishment, by Shane Bauer

The Jailhouse Lawyer's Handbook

ACLU National Prison Project

Prison Law Office

Civil Rights Corps

Right Behind Bars' Twitter: @RightsBehind

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