In this edition: A next-generation Taser, apartment construction using Apple's playbook, robotic butchers and a talk with 'Snow Crash' author Neal Stephenson. 

How do activists, artists and policy makers turn the growing calls for racial equality into meaningful and lasting change? Speakers grappled with the question at The Future of Everything's Future of Equality virtual event yesterday.

The coronavirus pandemic, as well as the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, have shed light on longstanding racial and economic inequalities.

The pandemic may also be exacerbating them in ways that will affect the next generation, said Harvard economist Raj Chetty, who has been tracking economic data throughout. He pointed to data from Zearn, a math-education platform, showing that children in low-income families had a 60% reduction in their ability to complete math problems, while high-income children saw no discernible drop off. "We could be seeing the consequences 20 years from now," he said.

Mr. Chetty’s research has shown that low-income people working in affluent areas have faced a steeper economic toll, as high-income residents sharply cut spending on local businesses. He suggested that an extension of unemployment benefits for up to six months may help counteract the economic crisis.

Alice Marie Johnson, CEO of the Taking Action for Good Foundation, whose life sentence was commuted by President Trump with the help of Kim Kardashian, described how her 21-year prison stay devastated her family. "When these things happen, they don’t just happen to the person going to prison," she said. "It affects their children." Policies that prevent ex-felons from voting and getting jobs perpetuate the cycle: "You can’t fully be free," she said.

Country music artist Mickey Guyton, who is Black, called on more established artists to educate their younger peers on how to retain the rights to their music, and said record labels and music publishers need to hire people of color. "There is a lot of responsibility that needs to happen from the top down, now that the veil has been lifted."

Still, change is happening, said the WNBA's Renee Montgomery, who took the season off to pursue social justice reform. She pointed to the toppling of Confederate monuments, the coming change to Mississippi’s state flag and the companies pulling sponsorships from the Washington Redskins over the NFL team’s name. "You have athletes speaking out together—that’s new," she said. "If nothing else happens, we’ve already done a lot."

What do you think? Are you optimistic? What is the best way to combat inequality?  

Watch the panels here. 

• Harvard Economist Raj Chetty on How to Tackle Inequality in Urban America

• Criminal Justice Reform Advocate Alice Marie Johnson on Her Hopes for Change

• Country Music Artist Mickey Guyton on Diversity in the Music Industry

• WNBA Champion Renee Montgomery on Athletes and Activism

Send me your thoughts, questions and predictions by hitting "reply" to this email.

Speculative Nonfiction. Author Neal Stephenson has been thinking about the virtual world's incursion on the physical world since well before the coronavirus pandemic. The former advisor to Magic Leap and Blue Origin discusses the breakdown of facts on social media, changing attitudes about technology and his work building virtual baby goats. 

Meat Expectations. Meatpacking giant Tyson Foods is developing an automated deboning system destined to handle some of the 39 million chickens slaughtered, plucked and sliced up each week in its plants. The work is one example of the shift from human meat cutters to robotic butchers—a trend accelerated by the coronavirus pandemic, which has slammed meatpacking plants.

The Coronavirus May Forever Change Grocery Shopping. Will the pandemic lead to long-term changes in how we shop for food? To better understand the challenges facing grocery stores, WSJ’s Alexander Hotz spoke with an industry insider, a store owner and a Walmart executive.

• Live-Streaming Craze Turns Into a Lifeline for China’s Stores

• Balloon-powered internet has officially launched over Kenya (New York Times)

• Can robots help children open up about abuse? (Mother Jones)

• The lasting effects of the pandemic, according to dozens of thinkers from tech, science, media, art and other fields (Quartz)

Thanks for reading. I'm Leigh Kamping-Carder, the digital director of The Future of Everything. Follow me on Twitter @Leigh_KC, and reach me by email at leigh.kamping-carder@wsj.com.