COPAGANDA with Alec Karakatsanis

Dystopia Now

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For the first half of the episode, we talked about the Semafor reveal of Silicon Valley groupchats and Marc Andreessen’s posting addiction + Èmile’s article on End Times Eschatology. We covered Yudkowsky’s “Fun Theory,” cryogenically freezing your head, and the connection between transhumanists and Christianity.

Then, we talked to author and former public defender Alec Karakatsanis about his new book Copanganda and the way we are all propagandized about policing and crime. Alec is the founder of the Civil Rights Corps, an organization designed to advocate for racial justice and bring systemic civil rights cases on behalf of impoverished people.

This was such a good interview. Apologies for Kate’s slightly bad audio in this, we had some internet issues and had to record on the phone.

Alec Karakatsanis – Resources

• THE BOOK! The New Press – Copaganda: How Police and the Media Manipulate Our Communities
• Substack: Equal Justice Under Law
• Twitter/X: @equalityAlec
• Bluesky: equalityalec.bsky.social
• PDF: The Body Camera by Alec Karakatsanis (Yale Law)

Articles and People We Mentioned

• Truthdig – “The Endgame of Edgelord Eschatology”
• Vox – “Will AI become God? That's the wrong question.”
• The Guardian – “Tech guru Jaron Lanier: 'The danger isn't that AI destroys us. It's that it drives us insane'”
• Wired – “Doug Rushkoff Is Ready to Renounce the Digital Revolution”
• Semafor – “The Group Chats That Changed America”
• Harper’s – “A Letter on Justice and Open Debate”
• Mother Jones – “The Billionaires Who Want to Live Forever”

Chesa Boudin Recall

• Mission Local – $9 Million Spent on the Boudin Recall
• 48 Hills – GOP Donors & Big Money in the Recall

Portugal & Drug Decriminalization

• Scientific American – Portugal’s Drug Decriminalization Success
• TIME – What Can the World Learn from Portugal’s Drug Policy?