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 me as a co-host for this interview. Tulin is a third-year undergraduate student at UCLA pursuing a Bachelor's Degree in Public Affairs with a minor in Chinese Languages and Cultures. She is also the Director of Outreach for the show.

This conversation was recorded on November 14, 2025.

Follow Kaiser on Bluesky, X, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Follow me on Bluesky, X, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, and on my website.

Questions or comments? Email podcastutopias@gmail.com.

This podcast may contain explicit language and content that is not suitable for all audiences.

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 for latino immigrants, and the founder of the Media for Justice Project in Nigeria. In 2015, he was named to the MIT Technology Review's "Innovators Under 35" list and Foreign Policy’s "100 Leading Global Thinkers" list.

Erick Huerta serves as policy and advocacy coordinator at Rhizomatica and is an expert of the International Telecommunication Union for connectivity issues in remote and indigenous communities.

This conversation was recorded on July 6, 2023.

Keep up with me on Bluesky, X, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, and on my website.

Questions or comments? Email podcastutopias@gmail.com.

This podcast may contain explicit language and content that is not suitable for all audiences.

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 development and the relationships between political power and institutions and prosperity. He has written six award-winning books about the intersection between economic institutions, statehood, democracy, and technology.

Nishat Anjum joined me as co-host for this interview. Nishat holds a PhD and MA in Economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She currently serves as a fellow in the National Data Innovation Centre at the National Council of Applied Economic Research.

This conversation was recorded on September 23, 2025.

Keep up with Daron and Ramesh. Follow Daron on Bluesky and X. Follow me on Bluesky, X, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, and on my website.

Questions or comments? Email podcastutopias@gmail.com.

This podcast may contain explicit language and content that is not suitable for all audiences.

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 Forward Party and Humanity Forward, an organization that lobbies for anti-poverty measures in Washington DC. Andrew is the first two-time guest on Utopias!

This conversation was recorded on July 11, 2025.

Keep up with Andrew and Ramesh. Follow Andrew on Bluesky, X, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn. Follow me on Bluesky, X, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, and on my website.

Questions or comments? Email podcastutopias@gmail.com.

This podcast may contain explicit language and content that is not suitable for all audiences.

Astra Taylor is a documentary filmmaker, writer, and political organizer. Her works include the documentary What is Democracy? and the books The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together as Things Fall Apart and The People’s Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age, which won an American Book Award in 2015. She is also the co-founder of the Debt Collective, a union for debtors fighting to cancel student debt and bail debt.

This conversation was recorded on July 11, 2025.

Follow Astra on Bluesky and X. Questions or comments? Email podcastutopias@gmail.com.

Keep up with Ramesh on Bluesky, X, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and LinkedIn.

Cory Doctorow is an activist, journalist, and bestselling science fiction author. His books include The Lost Cause, Red Team Blues, The Internet Con, and Picks and Shovels. In 2020, he was inducted into the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.

This conversation occurred on May 8, 2025, as part of a live event sponsored by UCLA DataX, an initiative focused on strengthening research and education in data science and critical data studies. The event was titled Beyond Broligarchy: The Fight for a Better Future.

Learn more about Cory and Ramesh. Follow Cory on Bluesky, X, and LinkedIn. Questions or comments? Email podcastutopias@gmail.com.

Keep up with Ramesh on Bluesky, X, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn.

This podcast may contain explicit language and content that is not suitable for all audiences.

Sayash Kapoor is a computer scientist and co-author of AI Snake Oil. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate at Princeton University's Center for Information Technology Policy. His work focuses on the societal impacts of AI. In 2023, he was named to Time magazine’s “100 Most Influential People in AI.”

This conversation was recorded on February 27, 2025.

Learn more about Sayash, AI Snake Oil, and Ramesh. Follow Sayash on Bluesky, X, and LinkedIn. Keep up with Ramesh on X, YouTube, Instagram, Bluesky, TikTok and LinkedIn. Questions or comments? Email podcastutopias@gmail.com.

References:

• The Fallacy of Inscrutability by Joshua A. Kroll.
• Technology and the Rise of Great Powers by Jeffrey Ding.
• Machine Bias by Julia Angwin, Jeff Larson, Surya Mattu and Lauren Kirchner.

This podcast contains explicit language and content that may not be suitable for all audiences.

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 and psychology and Buddhist Psychology.

This conversation was recorded on January 28, 2025.

Learn more about Ven. Dr. Dabral and Ramesh. Questions or comments? Email podcastutopias@gmail.com.

Check out this list for definitions of technical terms used in the conversation.

Keep up with Ramesh on X, YouTube, Instagram, Bluesky, TikTok, and LinkedIn.

This podcast contains explicit language and content that may not be suitable for all audiences.