Lifestyle Democracy

In this interview, I spoke with the co-founder of Plausible Analytics, Marko Saric, about how they are using their open source software tool to help make the web a bit more “human-friendly” with a privacy-first approach. Plausible Analytics launched in 2020 and has experienced remarkable growth in just a year. At the time of the interview, it had numbered over 2,000 subscribers from all over the world and has reached financial sustainability.Plausible Analytics is “an open-source project dedicated to making web analytics more privacy-friendly. Our mission is to reduce corporate surveillance by providing an alternative web analytics tool which doesn’t come from the AdTech world.”The full transcript of the interview can be found on the link here.

In this interview, I spoke with the Shaun Fensom, a pioneer of worker cooperatives in the internet space with over three decades of experience. As the co-founder of Poptel, one of UK's pioneering Internet Service Providers (ISPs), Shaun connected Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and human rights organizations to the internet, including South Africa's African National Congress (ANC) during apartheid. Collaborating with the US National Cooperative Business Association (NCBA), he launched the .coop top-level domain, empowering cooperatives worldwide. Shaun's recent work includes leading Cooperative Network Infrastructure (CNI), revolutionizing digital infrastructure sharing, and advising city authorities in the UK on deploying digital resources for societal progress. Join us as we explore Shaun's remarkable journey and his endeavors to promote ethical banking and cooperative ideals. The interview notes can be found on the link here.

With the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and robots, there are risks to how humans will be treated if robots and AI algorithms ever take over control of our societies. In this video, Stefan Ivanovski and Arpit Chaturvedi (MPA Cornell University) have a provocative discussion, why robots need rights. The full article can be found on the link here.Stefan Ivanovski is a PhD student at the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University studying the democratization of ownership and management of companies that are shaping the future of work, especially those that rely on remote work and cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence. He is also a lead contributor for the Lifestyle Democracy blog, where he writes on the topics of technology, democracy, and society.Arpit Chaturvedi (MPA Cornell University) is a policy entrepreneur. He is the Founder of the political risk management and policy advocacy firm Insights International. He is a Research Manager to Dr. Kaushik Basu at Cornell University and serves as the Joint-Director of the Global Policy, Diplomacy, and Sustainability Fellowship. He has taught graduate level courses at the San Francisco University, the Indian School of Public Policy, and other institutions across the globe. He is also the author of the book, “Our Egalitarian Universe?”.