Episode 023: Politics and Software with Lorena Mesa

March 15th, 2017 · 52 mins 7 secs

About this Episode

00:16 – Welcome to “Hey! I Made a Bong Out of This Podcast!” …we mean, “Greater Than Code!”

01:26 – Origin Story

Obama For America Campaign

05:46 – Politics and Software; Data Collection

Danah Boyd: Be Careful What You Code For

16:43 – Working in Python for Data Collection

Django Girls

19:46 – The Python Software Foundation (PSF)

23:55 – Communication and Organization Within Communities

MINSWAN: Matz is Nice So We Are Nice

Social Encounter Party

33:49 – Power Structures and Forming Relationships

36:39 – PSF Funding

Reflections:

Jessica: Each of our languages has a metalanguage that people use to talk about the language.

Sam: Needs more sleep

Astrid: Code can and should touch everything: What is it not doing that it should be doing?

Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy

Coraline: Software is not neutral.

Rein: Software is inherently political. It is made for people by people. There’s no way it can’t be political.

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