217 | Trump vs Iran: Is it for Real?

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David and Helen talk to Shashank Joshi, Defence Editor at the Economist, about the fallout from the killing of Soleimani and the future of American power.  Is Trump a madman or is he a realist (or is he neither)?  What sort of threat does Iran pose to American interests in the region and the wider world?  And what has all this got to do with oil and climate change?  Plus, in the week Trump's impeachment trial gets underway, we ask who or what can limit the power of the presidency.

87 | Facebook vs the World

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With the help of John Naughton and Jennifer Cobbe we unpick the Cambridge Analytica story and get to the heart of the matter: what is Facebook doing to us and can anything make it stop?  We talk about the business of surveillance capitalism and the difference between a scandal and a crisis.  Plus how working in tech is like working on the Manhattan Project and how Cambridge Analytica is like the Australian cricket team.
 

76 | Reformation Then and Now

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Before we get stuck into 2018, we go back to the sixteenth century to explore another technology revolution that overthrew the established order.  John Naughton recently published his 95 theses for the digital age and we talk to John about the theology of technopoly and the Church of Facebook.  Plus we're joined by Helen to discuss the parallels between the current revolt against the elites and what happened five hundred years ago.  From Gutenberg to Zuckerberg: where does this story end?