Utopias with Dr. Ramesh Srinivasan
The Utopias Podcast with Dr. Ramesh Srinivasan
In the wake of an era where alarmism and crisis branding sells - whether in relation to climate change, new technologies, or polarization, we have a huge opportunity to embrace our capacity for innovation, empathy, and compassion towards one another. To get there it is high time to have creative, productive, and truly progressive conversations about our planetary future, and approach such from every discipline and perspective we can.
Hosted by UCLA professor and public intellectual Ramesh Srinivasan, the “Utopias” podcast presents a new narrative, a vision of life futures based on a set of conversations that celebrate the work and perspectives of “dreamers”, or those who represent and care deeply for the endless potential for human creativity, expression, and optimism. We share the stories of those who believe in the potential for our planet, and are doing the important work to try to empower our tomorrow in a way that we can all benefit from.
This podcast brings back the realms of the scientific, emotional, artistic, legal, poetic, musical, ecological, and spiritual into conversation with one another as together, we imagine and advocate for futures for our planet and species that lift us all up. Dr. Srinivasan’s guests shall run the gamut, bringing artists, journalists, politicians, scientists, environmentalists, monks and religious practitioners, and scholars together. Utopias shall inspire listeners to imagine new futures defined by compassion, an appreciation of diversity alongside unity, and the recognition that we live in an extraordinary time where we are all in ‘it’ together.
Produced by Jack Garland. Music by Albert Ortega
Episodes
31 episodes
30. Douglas Rushkoff
Douglas Rushkoff is an author and documentarian who studies human autonomy in a digital age. His twenty books include Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billion...
29. Ethan Zuckerman
Ethan Zuckerman is a professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst where he teaches public policy, communication and information. He founded the Initiative for Digital Public Infrastructure, an organization that studies the civic and so...
28. Yanis Varoufakis
Yanis Varoufakis is a renowned Greek economist and bestselling author. He served as the Minister of Finance in Greece and co-founded the political party Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (DiEM25). His books include
27. Kaiser Kuo
Kaiser Kuo is the founder and host of Sinica Podcast. He is a journalist for Beijinger magazine and a senior manager in public communications at Baidu. Kaiser also cofounded the Chinese rock band Tang Dynasty.Tulin Chang Maltepe joined m...
26. Peter Bloom and Erick Huerta
Peter Bloom is the founder and general coordinator of Rhizomatica, an organization that promotes new communication technologies that are community owned and managed. He is also the founder and ex-director of Juntos, a human rights organization ...
25. Daron Acemoglu
Daron Acemoglu is an acclaimed economist, author, and professor at MIT. In 2024, he received the Nobel Prize in Economics and the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences. His research focuses on the field of political and economic developm...
24. Andrew Yang
Andrew Yang is an American entrepreneur, lawyer, author and philanthropist, as well as a former 2020 Democratic presidential candidate and 2021 New York City mayoral candidate. He is the founder of the Fo...
23. Astra Taylor
Astra Taylor is a documentary filmmaker, writer, and political organizer. Her works include the documentary What is Democracy? and the books
22. Cory Doctorow
Cory Doctorow is an activist, journalist, and bestselling science fiction author. His books include The Lost Cause,
21. Sayash Kapoor
Sayash Kapoor is a computer scientist and co-author of AI Snake Oil. He is currently a Ph.D. c...
20. Venerable Dr. Pooja Dabral
Venerable Dr. Pooja Dabral is a Buddhist monk and an assistant professor at Nalanda University in Rajgir, India, a university which originally dates back to more than 1500 years. Her research focuses on Buddhist 'middle path' philosophy ...
19. Venerable Geshe Dorji Damdul
Venerable Geshe Dorji Damdul is the director of the Tibet House, the Cultural Center of His Holiness the Dalai Lama in New Delhi, India. He previously served as the English translator to His Holiness the Dala...
18. Sandeep Vaheesan
Sandeep Vaheesan is the legal director at the Open Markets Institute and a former adviser to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. He is a staunch advocate for antitrust regulation and cons...
17. Yanis Varoufakis
Yanis Varoufakis is a renowned Greek economist and bestselling author. He served as the Minister of Finance in Greece and co-founded the political party Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (DiEM25). His books include
16. Shane Boris and Sara Dosa
Sara Dosa is an award-winning documentary director and producer, and Shane Boris is an award-winning documentary writer and producer. Their most recent collaboration, Fire of Love, was nominated for Best Documentary Feature Film at the...
15. Nathan Schneider
Nathan Schneider explores the intersection of democracy and technology as a professor of media studies and the director of the Media Economies Design Lab at the University of Colorado Boulder. He is a founder of the platform cooperativism movem...
14. Elaine McMillion Sheldon
Elaine McMillion Sheldon is an Academy Award-nominated and Peabody and Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker. Much of her film work, including her most recent film King Coal, is rooted in the culture and environment of her home region of App...
13. Nipun Mehta
Nipun Mehta is a designer of large-scale social movements that are rooted in small acts of service. He is the founder of ServiceSpace, a global community working at the intersection of technology, volunteerism and gift culture. Mehta was honore...
12. Maurice Mitchell
Maurice Mitchell has been the National Director of the Working Families Party since 2018, aiming to create a multi-racial working class movement across the United States. More generally, Mitchell is a nationally recognized social movement strat...
11. Maz Jobrani
Maz Jobrani is a comedian, actor, producer, and LA Times best-selling author of "I'm not a terrorist, but I've played one on TV." Jobrani also co-wrote, co-produced, and starred as the main character of indie film "Jimmy Vestwood: Amerikan Hero...
10. Maja Göpel
Dr. Maja Göpel is a political economist, transformation researcher, speaker, and best-selling author. In April she released her newest book, “We Can Do Better: A Departure Into the World of Tomorrow."This interview was recorded in ...
9. Kevin Roose
Kevin Roose is a technology columnist for the New York Time where he is the co-host of “hard fork” an NYT podcast about technology and the future. He is also an author of three bestselling books: Future Proof, Young Money, and the Unlikel...
8. Kathleen Hanna
Kathleen Hanna is a musician, activist, zine writer, and punk legend who pioneered the feminist punk movement "riot grrrl" in the '90s. She was the lead singer of feminist punk band Bikini Kill from the early-to-mid '90s, and then founded the e...