In this episode, I speak with RJ Eskow — writer, strategist, former head speechwriter for Bernie Sanders, and one of the more consistent technoprogressive voices in American political life. RJ brings decades of experience across health economics, systems design, corporate data, and left politics to bear on some of the defining questions of this moment. The conversation moves from technomunicipalism and the democratic governance of city data, to the history of privatized public space, to AI as a collective resource built on the labor of all humanity. We discuss what it would mean to treat large language models as a public utility, why our social imaginations have failed to keep pace with our technological ones, and how institutions like a federal jobs guarantee, UBI, and Medicare for All fit together into a coherent vision for managing the transition ahead.
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