Aiming for the Moon - 96. The Religion of Work: Dr. Carolyn Chen (Author of "Work Pray Code" and Associate Professor of Ethics at University of California, Berkeley)

96. The Religion of Work: Dr. Carolyn Chen (Author of "Work Pray Code" and Associate Professor of Ethics at University of California, Berkeley)

08/26/22 • 27 min

In this episode, I talk with Dr. Carolyn Chen, author of Work Pray Code: When Work Becomes Religion in Silicon Valley and associate professor of ethics at the University of California, Berkeley, (scroll down for full bio), about the “religion of work” in “techtopias.”
Topics:

Work as religion
Tech workers as believers
The cult of productivity
Should we let this happen?
The sacraments and saints of Work
The monkish lifestyle of workers
What books have had an impact on Dr. Chen
What advice Dr. Chen has for teenagers

Books Mentioned: (I get a cut)

Work Pray Code: When Work Becomes Religion in Silicon Valley - https://amzn.to/3pLH5Lx
Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion - https://amzn.to/3ccvC4H
The Hidden Lives of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate--Discovers from a Secret World - https://amzn.to/3Cno8qk
Justice: What's the Right Things to Do? - https://amzn.to/3AdgCeG

Dr. Carolyn Chen, a sociologist, is an associate professor of ethnic studies at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of Getting Saved in America (Princeton) and the co-editor of Sustaining Faith Traditions. She lives in Kensington, California.

Socials! -

Lessons from Interesting People substack: https://taylorbledsoe.substack.com/
Website: https://www.aimingforthemoon.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aiming4moon/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Aiming4Moon
Taylor's Blog: https://www.taylorgbledsoe.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6-TwYdfPcWV-V1JvjBXk

Send us a text

Work as religion
Tech workers as believers
The cult of productivity
Should we let this happen?
The sacraments and saints of Work
The monkish lifestyle of workers
What books have had an impact on Dr. Chen
What advice Dr. Chen has for teenagers

Books Mentioned: (I get a cut)

Work Pray Code: When Work Becomes Religion in Silicon Valley - https://amzn.to/3pLH5Lx
Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion - https://amzn.to/3ccvC4H
The Hidden Lives of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate--Discovers from a Secret World - https://amzn.to/3Cno8qk
Justice: What's the Right Things to Do? - https://amzn.to/3AdgCeG

Previous Episode

undefined - 95. China's Great Firewall - Censorship in the Asian Superpower: Dr. Margaret E. Roberts (Professor in the Department of Political Science @ University of California, San Diego, and author of "Censored")

95. China's Great Firewall - Censorship in the Asian Superpower: Dr. Margaret E. Roberts (Professor in the Department of Political Science @ University of California, San Diego, and author of "Censored")

Send us a text

In this episode, I talk with Dr. Margaret E. Roberts (scroll down for full bio) about China and the new age of censorship.
Topics:

Methods of modern censorship
Why free speech is bad for regimes
How much does the average Chinese Citizen know?
How censorship creates factions in China
Should the West intervene?
The global impact of censorship
Democracies and censorship
Censorship and Covid-19 in China
What books have had an impact on Dr. Roberts
What advice Dr. Roberts has for teenagers

Books Mentioned: (I get a cut)

Censored: Distraction and Diversion inside China's Great Firewall by Margaret E. Roberts - https://amzn.to/3QJODtE
Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang - https://amzn.to/3QKcnOD

Margaret Roberts is a Professor in the Department of Political Science and the Halıcıoğlu Data Science Institute at the University of California, San Diego. She co-directs the China Data Lab at the 21st Century China Center. Her research interests lie in the intersection of political methodology and the politics of information, with a specific focus on methods of automated content analysis and the politics of censorship and propaganda in China. She received a PhD from Harvard in Government (2014), MS from Stanford in Statistics (2009) and BA from Stanford in International Relations and Economics (2009). Her book, Censored: Distraction and Diversion Inside China's Great Firewall, published by Princeton University Press in 2018, was listed as one of the Foreign Affairs Best Books of 2018, was honored with the Goldsmith Book Award, and has been awarded the Best Book Award in the Human Rights Section and Information Technology and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association. She holds a Chancellor's Associates Endowed Chair at UCSD.

Next Episode

97. "Hacking" the Legal System: Dr. Bruce Schneier (World-renowned Security Expert and Blogger)

Send us a text

Ethical hacking is essential in the tech world as it exposes the holes and bugs in systems before bad people can use them. This same mindset can be applied to the legal system in order to “hack” it before "black hat" hackers exploit the problems. In this episode, Dr. Bruce Schneier (full bio below) explains this philosophy and the steps to apply it.
Topics:

What are public-interest technologists?
Hacking the legal system
Practical hacking
The Big Tech monopoly
Surveillance Capitalism
What can the next generation do?
What books have had an impact on Dr. Schneier
What advice Dr. Schneier has for teenagers

Bruce Schneier is an internationally renowned security technologist, called a "security guru" by the Economist. He is the New York Times best-selling author of 14 books -- including Click Here to Kill Everybody -- as well as hundreds of articles, essays, and academic papers. His influential newsletter, Crypto-Gram, and blog, Schneier on Security, are read by over 250,000 people. Schneier is a fellow at the Berkman-Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, a Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, a board member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and AccessNow, and an advisory board member of EPIC and
VerifiedVoting.org. He is the Chief of Security Architecture at Inrupt, Inc.
Socials! -

Lessons from Interesting People substack: https://taylorbledsoe.substack.com/
Website: https://www.aimingforthemoon.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aiming4moon/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Aiming4Moon
Taylor's Blog: https://www.taylorgbledsoe.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6-TwYdfPcWV-V1JvjBXk