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Convergence: The Future of the Internet

Last month the FCC voted to repeal net neutrality, opening the door to internet service providers eager to create slow and fast lanes for different types of sites and services. But the fight over a free and equal internet is far from over – Montana just became the first state to pass its own net neutrality laws. So, what sort of Internet will we have in the future? What is at stake in this fight and why?

This month: activist, artist and author Astra Taylor will join Greta Byrum, Co-Director of the Digital Equity Lab at The New School and Director of the Resilient Communities Program at The New America Foundation, plus host Meehan Crist to ask: How will the fight over net neutrality shape our digital future?

Doors 6:30pm, show 7:00pm

21+

Hosted by Meehan Crist, writer-in-residence in Biological Sciences at Columbia University, Convergence brings together two people from vastly different fields to explore how emerging science and tech will affect culture, society, and politics in the near future. Together with a curious and often passionate audience, Meehan and her guests grapple with the questions we need to ask today to help shape the future we want tomorrow. Each event brings out themes and ideas missing when conversations stay siloed.

Astra Taylor is a writer, director, and organizer. Her documentary films include Zizek! and Examined Life. She has written for The New York Times, The L.A. Times, The Baffler, n+1 and other outlets. She helped launch the Rolling Jubilee, co-founded the Debt Collective, and she is coeditor of Occupy!: Scenes from Occupied America. She is the author of The People’s Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age.

Greta Byrum reimagines the way we design, build, control, and govern communications systems. As Co-Director of the Digital Equity Laboratory at The New School, she builds digital justice through collaborative curricula, applied research, local projects, technical support, and national, state and local policy strategy. Previously, Greta founded the Resilient Communities program at New America, where she developed and led Resilient Networks NYC, an initiative bringing training, tools, and equipment for storm-hardened mesh WiFi to five Sandy-impacted neighborhoods. Greta is also co-lead of PNK (Portable Network Kits), an Allied Media Projects sponsored project bringing standalone solar-powered communications kits and tech training to vulnerable communities.

Meehan Crist
is writer in residence in biological sciences at Columbia University. Previously, she was editor at large at Nautilus and reviews editor at The Believer. Her writing explores the intersection of science, culture, and politics: from sensory deprivation tanks and the KUBARK manual to cephalopod consciousness and climate change. Her work has appeared in publications such as the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Atlantic, the New Republic, Tin House, Lapham’s Quarterly, London Review of Books, Scientific American, and Science. You can find her online at meehancrist.com or on Twitter @meehancrist.











When: Thu., Feb. 8, 2018 at 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm
Where: Caveat
21 Clinton St.
212-228-2100
Price: $15 in advance, $20 at the door
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Last month the FCC voted to repeal net neutrality, opening the door to internet service providers eager to create slow and fast lanes for different types of sites and services. But the fight over a free and equal internet is far from over – Montana just became the first state to pass its own net neutrality laws. So, what sort of Internet will we have in the future? What is at stake in this fight and why?

This month: activist, artist and author Astra Taylor will join Greta Byrum, Co-Director of the Digital Equity Lab at The New School and Director of the Resilient Communities Program at The New America Foundation, plus host Meehan Crist to ask: How will the fight over net neutrality shape our digital future?

Doors 6:30pm, show 7:00pm

21+

Hosted by Meehan Crist, writer-in-residence in Biological Sciences at Columbia University, Convergence brings together two people from vastly different fields to explore how emerging science and tech will affect culture, society, and politics in the near future. Together with a curious and often passionate audience, Meehan and her guests grapple with the questions we need to ask today to help shape the future we want tomorrow. Each event brings out themes and ideas missing when conversations stay siloed.

Astra Taylor is a writer, director, and organizer. Her documentary films include Zizek! and Examined Life. She has written for The New York Times, The L.A. Times, The Baffler, n+1 and other outlets. She helped launch the Rolling Jubilee, co-founded the Debt Collective, and she is coeditor of Occupy!: Scenes from Occupied America. She is the author of The People’s Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age.

Greta Byrum reimagines the way we design, build, control, and govern communications systems. As Co-Director of the Digital Equity Laboratory at The New School, she builds digital justice through collaborative curricula, applied research, local projects, technical support, and national, state and local policy strategy. Previously, Greta founded the Resilient Communities program at New America, where she developed and led Resilient Networks NYC, an initiative bringing training, tools, and equipment for storm-hardened mesh WiFi to five Sandy-impacted neighborhoods. Greta is also co-lead of PNK (Portable Network Kits), an Allied Media Projects sponsored project bringing standalone solar-powered communications kits and tech training to vulnerable communities.

Meehan Crist
is writer in residence in biological sciences at Columbia University. Previously, she was editor at large at Nautilus and reviews editor at The Believer. Her writing explores the intersection of science, culture, and politics: from sensory deprivation tanks and the KUBARK manual to cephalopod consciousness and climate change. Her work has appeared in publications such as the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Atlantic, the New Republic, Tin House, Lapham’s Quarterly, London Review of Books, Scientific American, and Science. You can find her online at meehancrist.com or on Twitter @meehancrist.

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