- Musk's Twitter, Mark's Metaverse and the future of the digital town square
Thursday, November 3rd 2022
Between Meta (formerly Facebook) losing $80 billion and Elon Musk's fumbling start to his Twitter acquisition, it's been a pretty good week for anyone who hates social media. But today's guest argues that even if you never use these platforms, what happens to them impacts your life, simply because they've grown too influential to remain in the digital world.
So what does Mark Zuckerberg's relentless pursuit of the Metaverse and Musk's plans to shake up Twitter mean for the future of social media in general? And what does it mean for the future of the world that it influences?
GUEST: Jesse Hirsh, technologist and futurist
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- Is "democracy on the ballot" in the US midterm elections?
Wednesday, November 2nd 2022
It's the kind of hyperbolic claim usually made by partisan contenders: "This is the most important election of your life" or "This year, democracy is on the ballot". But with candidates who deny the results of the 2020 presidential election running in races across the United States—and some of them poised to take over posts literally overseeing vote counting in future elections—non-partisan institutions and journalists are sounding the alarm.
What should Canadians expect from our neighbours on November 8 and beyond? Is political violence at the polls a real possibility? What does it mean for our own political future if America continues to slide away from democratic norms?
GUEST: James McCarten, Washington correspondent, The Canadian Press
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- Welcome to the next generation of fraud
Tuesday, November 1st 2022
When someone steals your credit card information and uses it to buy or order things, you almost always get your money back. It's one of the reasons people trust credit cards, and policies have been in place for decades. But now a new form of payment is on the rise — the e-Transfer — and with it money can be sent between accounts in seconds.
The kicker? There are none of the policies that credit cards have in place with e-Transfers. If some can gain access to your account, or convince you to send them money ... that money is gone. And this opens up a whole new can of worms for people figuring out finance policy, as well as a new world of opportunity for scammers. So what are we going to do about it?
GUEST: Alex Vronces, executive director of Paytechs of Canada, an industry association of technology companies that move money. He blogs at https://themox.substack.com.
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- How to track a Covid variant
Monday, October 31st 2022
Every day, Covid mutates. Many times. Most of the mutations are harmless or ineffective. Some—as everyone knows by now—are not, and can evade immunity and change the virus to better infect humans. Right now, doctors in Canada are worried about emerging variants spiking infections this fall. But how worried should they be?
Today we'll go inside the network of scientists that coordinate their efforts to better understand each emerging variant, how much of a threat it might pose, and what we need to watch out for. Before you read about a new rise in infections in the news, these are the folks sounding the alarms.
GUEST: Dr. Sarah Otto, evolutionary biologist, professor at the UBC’s department of zoology, expert at the Coronavirus Variants Rapid Response Network.
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- Oh no! Young men are having less sex! Should we be worried?
Friday, October 28th 2022
So are women, by the way. So is everyone, regardless of gender. For years, studies have shown that young people aren't having as much sex as in generations past. So it's not a surprise. But a recent study sparked a discussion around what young men, in particular, might do if they can't find a partner.
The numbers were used as the basis for the increasing number of shootings in the United States, and even a proposal of a "right to sex". But what do the numbers actually say? And why, when everyone is having less sex, are young men the focus here?
GUEST: Jude Ellison S. Doyle, feminist author of Trainwreck and Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers
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