On this special episode of POWER PLAYS, Jacob Helberg from Stanford University's Center on Geopolitics and Technology introduces listeners to the global tech-fueled struggle between the U.S.-led democracies and China-led autocracies that is redefining international politics. The stakes of this "Gray War", as Helberg terms it in his new book THE WIRES OF WAR, are high and time is running out for America to address and win this war. If China reaches a point of self-sufficiency and what Helberg describes in the show as "escape velocity", it will be too late for the U.S. to prevent China from achieving its political vision of a more autocratic world safe for the Chinese Communist Party.

A transcript of today's conversation can be found online: https://www.powerplays.xyz/podcast/s2-e9

Disclaimer: Simon & Schuster provided POWER PLAYS with an advance copy of THE WIRES OF WAR prior to its publication to inform this interview. However, this is not a sponsored episode.

Amber Case is a futurist and a Mozilla Fellow exploring how the future of money can generate new business models for compensating creators. She is also an advisor to the Puma Browser and has previously held fellowships at the Institute for the Future, MIT Media Lab, and Harvard's Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society. Today on POWER PLAYS she tells Ayden Férdeline why she is excited for the Internet of 2031 - and what she imagines it might look like.

A transcript of this conversation can be found online: https://www.powerplays.xyz/podcast/s2-e8

Today on POWER PLAYS presented by Grant for the Web, Interledger Foundation executive director Briana Marbury speaks with Ayden Férdeline about financial inclusion and advancing open payment standards and technologies that seamlessly connect our global society.

You can find a transcript of today's conversation here: https://www.powerplays.xyz/podcast/s2-e7

Kokayi Issa is a Grammy-nominated artist and a Grant for the Web Ambassador. He speaks with POWER PLAY's Ayden Férdeline about how Black creators can benefit from web monetization technologies like Coil and Cinnamon.

A transcript of today's conversation can be found here: https://www.powerplays.xyz/podcast/s2-e6

Lior Zalmanson, a new media artist and an assistant professor at Tel Aviv University, researches the business models that underpin online content. Today on POWER PLAYS he shares brand-new research into how small creators on platforms like Patreon and YouTube have monetized their work. He finds, contrary to popular belief, that a content creator having a personal connection with a consumer has a detrimental impact on whether they make a financial contribution to their work or not. There's a few caveats to that statement, so make sure to listen to this conversation in full to hear his more nuanced take!

A transcript of this conversation can be found online: https://www.powerplays.xyz/podcast/s2-e5

In 1994, Johan "Julf" Helsingius ran an online post office box that allowed people to anonymously share information over the Internet. But after secret religious documents belonging to the Church of Scientology found their way onto the server, Helsingius found himself in the midst of a multi-year legal battle with the Church that saw his name and face splashed everywhere from The New York Times to Time Magazine. 25 years later, he speaks with POWER PLAY's Ayden Férdeline about the state of Internet freedom in Finland today, the stress of this dispute, and the lessons he's learned from this battle.

A transcript of this conversation is available online: https://www.powerplays.xyz/podcast/s2-e4  

Professor Nathan Schneider of the University of Colorado Boulder speaks with POWER PLAY's Ayden Férdeline about the rise of platform cooperativism and his vision for a fairer Internet. He suggests that we combine the rich heritage of cooperatives with the promise of 21st-century technologies in order to create a new kind of online economy, one free from the economics of monopoly, exploitation, and surveillance.

A transcript of today's conversation can be found here: https://www.powerplays.xyz/podcast/s2-e3

Today on POWER PLAYS presented by Grant for the Web, Richard Whitt - an 11-year veteran of Google's policy team and now Fellow in Residence with the Mozilla Foundation - speaks with Ayden Férdeline about how we can create a future where the Artificial Intelligence lurking behind our various digital interfaces doesn’t automatically cede to an institution's priorities and incentives over a person's well-being.

A transcript of today's conversation can be found here: https://www.powerplays.xyz/podcast/s2-e2

Reading List: 

• Richard Whitt's law journal article, "Hacking the SEAMs: Elevating Digital Autonomy and Agency for Humans" (Colorado Technology Law Journal, 2021): https://ctlj.colorado.edu/?p=720