In 2005, New York Times journalist Eric Lichtblau wrote a series of articles about the surveillance – without warrants – of some Americans’ international phone calls and e-mails. The Times won a Pulitzer Prize for their reporting. In 2008, Steve asked Lichtblau about covering the NSA’s warrantless wire-tapping program.
Jonathan Harris created the website wefeelfine.org. He tells Steve Paulson how it works, and we hear a montage of postings from the site.
John McWhorter teaches linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley and is the author of “Doing Our Own Thing: The Degradation of Language and Music and Why We Should, Like, Care.”
Oxford University philosopher Nick Bostrom offers a cautionary take on artificial intelligence in his new book, Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies. In it, he imagines what could happen if computers were to ever become smarter than humans. He tells Steve Paulson that it could have catastrophic effects, unless we start thinking about it now.
The evidence is mounting... "we" are mostly who we think we are. Our identities are mental constructs, cobbled together from memory and stories. Jonathan Adler gives us a crash course in narrative identity and mental health.
Julia Alvarez talks about her novel for young adults, and how it mirrors her own experience reconciling a native Dominican background with the culture of her adopted home: a small town in rural Vermont.
She is "the Queen of Norwegian Crime" with a series of internationally best-selling stories of psychological suspense.
Peter French tells Anne Strainchamps the ancient Greeks thought revenge was a good thing, and analyzes the vengeance scenario of Clint Eastwood’s film “Unforgiven.”
