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Tech Won't Save Us – Paris Marx
Silicon Valley wants to shape our future, but why should we let it? Every Thursday, Paris Marx is joined by a new guest to critically examine the tech industry, its big promises, and the people behind them. Tech Won't Save Us challenges the notion that tech alone can drive our world forward by showing that separating tech from politics has consequences for us all, especially the most vulnerable. It's not your usual tech podcast.
Copyright: © 2023 Tech Won't Save Us
Will AR Glasses Die Like Google Glass? w/ Quinn Myers Jan 26, 2023
Paris Marx is joined by Quinn Myers to discuss the launch of Google Glass, why the product failed so badly, and what lessons we can learn from it as tech companies make another push for AR glasses.
Quinn Myers is the author of Google Glass and a freelance writer who used to write for MEL. You can follow him on Twitter at @quinmyers.
Tech Won't Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.
The podcast is produced by Eric Wickham and part of the Harbinger Media Network.
Also mentioned in this episode:
Please participate in our listener survey this month to give us a better idea of what you think of the show: https://forms.gle/xayiT7DQJn56p62x7
Apple is planning to release a mixed-reality headset, but its AR glasses have reported been delayed due to ongoing technical issues.
Mark Zuckerberg said you'll be able to text people during a meeting on your glasses.
Google released a video called "One Day" that vastly overpromised what Glass would deliver.
Sergey Brin's affair with an employee working on Glass was revealed in 2013.
After 8 years, the "Twitter tax cut" finally ended in 2019.
Residents protested against Google's use of public bus stops in San Francisco.
The PRISM revelations showed the NSA had access to tech company servers.
The Daily Show skewered Google Glass in a 2014 segment.
Don't Fall for the AI Hype w/ Timnit Gebru Jan 19, 2023
Paris Marx is joined by Timnit Gebru to discuss the misleading framings of artificial intelligence, her experience of getting fired by Google in a very public way, and why we need to avoid getting distracted by all the hype around ChatGPT and AI image tools.
Timnit Gebru is the founder and executive director of the Distributed AI Research Institute and former co-lead of the Ethical AI research team at Google. You can follow her on Twitter at @timnitGebru.
Timnit wrote about the exploited labor behind AI tools and how effective altruism is pushing a harmful idea of AI ethics.
Karen Hao broke down the details of the paper that got Timnit fired from Google.
Emily Tucker wrote an article called "Artifice and Intelligence."
In 2016, ProPublica published an article about technology being used to "predict" future criminals that was biased against black people.
In 2015, Google Photos classified black women as "gorillas." In 2018, it still hadn't really been fixed.
Artists have been protesting AI-generated images that train themselves on their work and threaten their livelihoods.
OpenAI used Kenyan workers paid less than $2 an hour to try to make ChatGPT less toxic.
Zachary Loeb described ELIZA in his article about Joseph Weizenbaum's work and legacy.
What the US-China Divide Means for Tech w/ Louise Matsakis Jan 12, 2023
Paris Marx is joined by Louise Matsakis to discuss the growing divide between the US and China, the long history of Western concern about the East, and why we should pay attention to who these anti-China narratives benefit.
Louise Matsakis is a technology reporter at Semafor who previously worked at NBC News, Rest of World, and Wired. You can follow her on Twitter at @lmatsakis.
Louise wrote about YouTube videos predicting China's collapse, the rise of Shein, and the prospect of TikTok bans.
Many US states are banning TikTok from government-issued devices.
In 2000, Bill Clinton said that trying to place restrictions on the internet was like trying to nail Jello to a wall. China proved him wrong.
India has already banned TikTok and a number of other Chinese apps.
Speakers of the Khmer language in Cambodia used voice chat on Messenger because keyboards weren't designed to work with their language.
Shein is taking off in Mexico.
Why Tech Billionaires Want to Shape Our Future w/ Rose Eveleth Jan 05, 2023
Paris Marx is joined by Rose Eveleth to discuss the end of her long-running podcast, why thinking about the future is important, and how tech billionaires try to shape our idea of the future to serve their ends.
Rose Eveleth is the creator and host of the Flash Forward podcast and the author of Flash Forward: An Illustrated Guide to Possible (And Not So Possible) Tomorrows. You can follow them on Twitter at @roseveleth.
Elon Musk says Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a big inspiration, but he seems to have missed its message.
Karen Hao and Gideon Lichfield explained how Facebook's PR team nitpicked one of their stories
Books mentioned: Ruha Benjamin's Viral Justice: How We Grow the World We Want and Jimmy Soni's The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley.
The New York Times recently wrote about a group of Luddite teens.
Tommy Douglas won CBC's Greatest Canadian contest for winning public healthcare. You can see the episode here.
The Year in Tech w/ Brian Merchant, Chris Gilliard, & Gita Jackson Dec 29, 2022
Paris Marx is joined by Brian Merchant, Chris Gilliard, and Gita Jackson to discuss the year in tech, including Elon Musk's Twitter takeover, the biggest stories of the year, what they'll be watching in 2023, and the worst person in tech of 2022.
Brian Merchant is the author of The One Device and Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech. Chris Gilliard is a Just Tech Fellow at the Social Science Research Council. Gita Jackson is a tech and culture journalist. You can follow them on Twitter at @bcmerchant, @hypervisible, and @xoxogossipgita.
Paris wrote about Netflix and streaming services for Business Insider.
Brian wrote about how 2022 was a disastrous year for the tech industry for The Atlantic.
Chris and Kishonna Gray wrote about digital migration and what it means for Black users for Wired.
Gita wrote a review of Dwarf Fortress's Stream release.
Part of the show discusses a Twitter policy that was briefly launched to restrict sharing of links from several other social media platforms. It was rescinded after the initial discussion.
FTX Goes to Zero w/ Molly White Dec 22, 2022
Paris Marx is joined by Molly White to discuss the ongoing collapse of the crypto industry, what to make of the implosion of FTX and Alameda Research, and what happens next with Sam Bankman-Fried.
Molly White is the creator of Web3 Is Going Just Great and a fellow at the Harvard Library Innovation Lab. You can follow her on Twitter at @molly0xFFF.
Since recording, Sam Bankman-Fried has been extradited from the Bahamas to the United States, and it's been revealed that Caroline Ellison and FTX co-founder have plead guilty and are cooperating with authorities against Bankman-Fried.
Molly has been analyzing the collapse of FTX on her newsletter.
Paris wrote about effective altruism and longtermism for the New Statesman.
Journalists at Forbes wrote about Caroline Ellison and her history.
After Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested, effective altruist Kelsey Piper published a series of direct messages she exchanged with her supposed friend.
The Southern District of New York's attorney's office, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission have all filed charges against Sam Bankman-Fried.
There are rumors that Caroline Ellison is working with authorities against Sam Bankman-Fried.
US Justice Department is split on when to charge Binance executives. There are also growing questions about Binance's books.
Tech Billionaires Are Coming for Workers w/ Wendy Liu Dec 15, 2022
Paris Marx is joined by Wendy Liu to discuss what it was like to work in tech in the 2010s and why structural changes in the industry are empowering an increasingly reactionary capitalist class to strike back at workers and upend the expectations of the boom period.
Wendy Liu is a writer and the author of Abolish Silicon Valley: How to Liberate Technology from Capitalism. You can follow her on Twitter at @dellsystem.
Casey Newton and Zoe Schiffer wrote about how tech CEOs are inspired by what Musk is doing at Twitter
Mel Krantzler and Patricia Krantzler wrote Down and Out in Silicon Valley: The High Cost of the High-tech Dream
Jacob Silverman wrote about David Sacks and the reactionary turn of tech billionaires
Paris wrote about how longtermism is designed to justify the position of billionaires in society
Julia Black wrote about the embrace of pronatalism within the tech industry
Trusting Tech Billionaires is a Recipe for Disaster w/ Douglas Rushkoff Dec 08, 2022
Paris Marx is joined by Douglas Rushkoff to discuss why internet visions of the 1990s were wrong to ignore corporate power, how the dot-com boom was like a Ponzi scheme, and why we desperately need to stop elevating tech billionaires.
Douglas Rushkoff is an author and documentarian who studies human autonomy in a digital age. His most recent book is Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires and he's the host of Team Human podcast. You can follow him on Twitter at @rushkoff.
An excerpt from Survival of the Richest was published in The Guardian.
Paris was recently on the Team Human podcast to discuss Road to Nowhere with Douglas.
Tech Isn't Fixing the Crisis on Our Streets w/ David Zipper Dec 01, 2022
Paris Marx is joined by David Zipper to discuss how Silicon Valley pitched new technologies as the fix for a whole range of transport problems, and how that really just distracted us from solutions while allowing issues like road deaths, emissions, and traffic to get even worse.
David Zipper is a Visiting Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School's Taubman Center for State and Local Government and a contributing writer at Bloomberg CityLab. You can find his articles and sign up for his newsletter at DavidZipper.com and follow him on Twitter at @DavidZipper.
David wrote about why traffic safety is getting worse in the US, and compared it to Canada, Finland, France, and Japan. He also wrote about the history of self-driving cars, the danger posed to pedestrians on the roads, the problem with infotainment systems, and what's wrong with positioning car tech as the solution to our problems.
Paris wrote about how Elon Musk designed the Hyperloop to try to get California's high-speed line canceled.
AAA puts the annual cost of car ownership in the US at over $10,000 a year in 2022. In Canada, CAA put it at $8600 to $13,000 a year in 2017 — a number that is surely even higher now.
Peter Norton wrote about how the auto industry took over US roads in the early 1900s in Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City.
Why Advertising Shapes the Tech Economy w/ Daniel Joseph Nov 24, 2022
Paris Marx is joined by Daniel Joseph to discuss why advertising is central not just to the tech economy, but modern capitalism itself, and how the business models of companies are increasing shaped by serving ads and collecting data to inform them.
Daniel Joseph is a Senior Lecturer of Digital Sociology at Manchester Metropolitan University. He's also written for a number of publications, including Briarpatch Magazine, Motherboard, and Real Life Magazine. Follow Daniel on Twitter at @DanjoKaz00ie.
Daniel wrote about how advertising and the need to create audiences is much more central to the tech economy than is often discussed.
Shoshana Wodinsky explained why so many companies are getting into advertising, including hotel chains, retailers, and more.
Unity faced criticism for merging with IronSource, a known advertising malware distributor.
After reporting a subscriber decline earlier this year, Netflix launched an ad-supported tier in October.
Companies like Apple and Uber are expanding their efforts to increase advertising revenue.
Ramon Lobato wrote Netflix Nations: The Geography of Digital Distribution.
Why Visual Effects Look the Way They Do w/ Julie Turnock Nov 17, 2022
Paris Marx is joined by Julie Turnock to discuss the history of the visual effects industry, the role that George Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic played in setting industry standards, and what its current form dominated by Disney means for visual effects workers.
Julie Turnock is an associate professor of Media and Cinema Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and the author of The Empire of Effects: Industrial Light and Magic and the Rendering of Realism. Follow Julie on Twitter at @JulieTurnock.
Paris will be speaking at Marxism Festival in Dublin on November 19, the Lighthouse Bookshop on November 24, and details on an event in London on November 25 are coming soon.
In a series of recent articles, visual effects workers have been speaking out about conditions in the industry.
The Mandalorian introduced ILM and Disney's new visual effect technology dubbed "Stagecraft" that uses LED video walls instead of green screens.
The declining quality of effects in major films is forcing people to look at labor and production practices.
Disney accounted for nearly 40% of box office returns in 2019, and made 80% of the top earning films of the year.
Elon Musk's Twitter Takeover is a Disaster w/ Hussein Kesvani Nov 10, 2022
Paris Marx is joined by Hussein Kesvani to discuss the mess of Elon Musk's Twitter takeover, the problem with his solution to blue check privilege, and what we should learn from how he posts.
Hussein Kesvani is a journalist and the co-host of Trashfuture and Ten Thousand Posts. Follow Hussein on Twitter at @hkesvani.
Paris wrote about Elon Musk's new plan to allow users to pay $8 to get a blue check, priority on their posts, and other features as part of an updated Twitter Blue.
Private texts revealed from the Delaware court showed the rich and powerful groveling to Elon Musk.
A long list of companies have stopped advertising on Twitter after Musk's takeover. He blamed it on activists.
Roko's Basilisk brought Elon Musk and Grimes together.
Elon Musk has decreed that people making fun of him by impersonating him on Twitter will be banned.
Tech Billionaires Are Reshaping US Politics w/ Jacob Silverman Nov 03, 2022
Paris Marx is joined by Jacob Silverman to discuss Elon Musk's Twitter takeover, the politics of the PayPal Mafia tech billionaires, and how they're trying to reshape US political discourse to serve themselves.
Jacob Silverman is a journalist who writes for The New Republic, The Baffler, Slate, and many others. He's also the co-author of Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud with Ben McKenzie. Follow Jacob on Twitter at @SilvermanJacob.
Jacob wrote about Musk's Twitter acquisition for The Baffler and the politics of David Sacks and these other tech billionaires for The New Republic.
Paris wrote about Musk's Twitter acquisition for NBC News and Marc Andreessen's housing politics for Business Insider.
The Delaware court case revealed text messages between Elon Musk and all the people trying to gain his favor.
Saudi Arabia had an intelligence operation running through Twitter, which led some former employees to be charged with spying. Saudi Arabia has imprisoned people over their tweets.
There were accusations that Twitter had an Indian official associated with the far-right Modi government on payroll.
Banks are expecting to suffer major losses on the loans provided to Musk to acquire Twitter.
The LA Times reported that Twitter bots helped build the cult of Musk.
In 2016, Thiel and Sacks' Diversity Myth comments were resurrected and Thiel has to issue a statement.
Mark Zuckerberg is Burning Meta to the Ground w/ Dave Karpf Oct 27, 2022
Paris Marx is joined by Dave Karpf to discuss Meta's misguided attempt to turn Facebook into a metaverse company, how Wired Magazine has evolved, and why the tech billionaires are destroying the world.
Dave Karpf is an Associate Professor of Media and Public Affairs, George Washington University. He's also the author of The MoveOn Effect: The Unexpected Transformation of American Political Advocacy and Analytic Activism: Digital Listening and the New Political Strategy. Follow Dave on Twitter at @davekarpf.
Dave wrote about the history of WIRED Magazine's future predictions and why VR never dies.
People Make Games made a video looking at what's going on in VRChat.
Meta's legs demo wasn't real.
Douglas Rushkoff's new book Survival of the Richest looks at how the rich are trying to protect themselves from the crises they're making worse.
Science fiction books mentioned: Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, Ernest Cline's Ready Player One, and William Gibson's The Peripheral.
Don't Fall for the Longtermism Sales Pitch w/ Émile Torres Oct 20, 2022
Paris Marx is joined by Émile Torres to discuss the ongoing effort to sell effective altruism and longtermism to the public, and why they're philosophies that won't solve the real problems we face.
Émile Torres is a PhD candidate at Leibniz University Hannover and the author of the forthcoming book Human Extinction: A History of the Science and Ethics of Annihilation. Follow Émile on Twitter at @xriskology.
Émile recently wrote about the ongoing effort to sell longtermism and effective altruism to the public.
Peter Singer wrote an article published in 1972 arguing that rich people need to give to charity, which went on to influence effective altruists.
NYT recently opined on whether it's ethical for lawyers to defend climate villains.
Nathan Robinson recently criticized effective altruism for Current Affairs.
How Tech is Remaking the Food System w/ Jim Thomas Oct 13, 2022
Paris Marx is joined by Jim Thomas to discuss how digital technologies are being integrated into the industrial food system, how it empowers agribusiness firms and major tech companies, and its implications for farmers and farm workers.
Jim Thomas is the research director at ETC Group, which has over 25 years international experience tracking the impact of emerging technologies on human rights, biodiversity, equity and food systems. Follow Jim on Twitter at @jimetc or follow @ETC_Group.
ETC Group recently released its Food Barons 2022 report, providing a snapshot of the world's the biggest players up and down the industrial food and agriculture chain, with a lot of insight on the use of technologies throughout the food system.
The ETC Group has also put together a children's book and video to make information about the digital takeover of food more accessible.
The war in Ukraine is only exacerbating preexisting problems in the global food system.
The Gates Foundation uses its vast wealth to shape the global food system so it works as Bill Gates wants it to and benefits major agribusiness and tech companies. Groups in Africa have long been speaking out about Gates' plans for agriculture on the continent.
The UN finds that food systems are responsible for 80% of deforestation, 29% of emissions, and a leading share of biodiversity loss. It also reports that 70% of the world's agricultural land is owned by 1% of all farms, mainly large agribusiness firms.
The International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems put together a report on what a long food movement could look like.
Why Green Capitalism Won't Fix Climate Change w/ Adrienne Buller Oct 06, 2022
Paris Marx is joined by Adrienne Buller to discuss how the tech and finance industries are selling us false solutions to the climate crisis that are designed for their own benefit.
Adrienne Buller is the Director of Research at Common Wealth and the author of The Value of a Whale: On the Illusions of Green Capitalism. Follow Adrienne on Twitter at @adribuller.
Adrienne originally wrote about the problem with the finance industry's approach to climate change for Novara Media. She recently wrote about the failure of green capitalism for the Guardian and the power BlackRock wields for Jacobin.
Common Wealth recently produced a report on Asset Management Capitalism.
Elon Musk called ESG a scam after Tesla was booted from the S&P 500's ESG fund.
Ulrich Brand and Markus Wissen wrote The Imperial Mode of Living: Everyday Life and the Ecological Crisis of Capitalism.
Why Google's Toronto Smart City Failed w/ Josh O'Kane Sep 29, 2022
Paris Marx is joined by Josh O'Kane to discuss how Sidewalk Labs decided to build a city "from the internet up" in Toronto, the concerns that existed with the project, and why it ultimately fell apart.
Josh O'Kane is an award-winning technology reporter at the Globe and Mail and the author of Sideways: The City Google Couldn't Buy. Follow Josh on Twitter at @joshokane.
An excerpt of Josh's book was published in the Globe and Mail.
Josh wrote about how Canada's Liberal government under Justin Trudeau isn't as friendly with tech companies as it was earlier in its time in power.
Around the time of Sidewalk Toronto, opponents were able to defeat Amazon's HQ2 project in New York, Google's Berlin startup hub, Apple's planned central Stockholm store, and its planned store in Melbourne's Fed Square.
Bianca Wylie was one of the prominent critics of the project, and was called the "Jane Jacobs of the smart city."
In 2019, documents leaked showing Sidewalk Labs wanted a lot more power and access to more land than was agreed upon, and that further fueled opposition.
In May 2020, Wylie wrote about the cancelation of the project and the lessons that should be learned.
Science Fiction As Tech Criticism w/ Brian Merchant and Claire Evans Sep 22, 2022
Paris Marx is joined by Brian Merchant and Claire Evans to discuss their new science fiction anthology, how it uses the genre to critically interrogate the technologies being rolled out around us, and how it pushes back on the desire of tech billionaires to use science fiction to get the public to buy into their corporate futures.
Brian Merchant is a tech journalist and author of The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone. Claire L. Evans is the author of Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet and singer of the Grammy-nominated pop group YACHT. They are the cofounders of Terraform at VICE's Motherboard and the co-editors of Terraform: Watch/Worlds/Burn. Follow Brian on Twitter at @bcmerchant and follow Claire at @TheUniverse.
Brian and Claire wrote about their science fiction anthology and what you can expect from it.
Some of the stories mentioned in our conversation are "Busy" by Omar El Akkad, "One Day, I Will Die on Mars" by Paul Ford, and "Devolution" by Ellen Ullman.
Brian also wrote about the metaverse and the science fiction that inspired it for Vice.
Langdon Winner wrote about the concept of epistemological Luddism in his book Autonomous Technology. Zachary Loeb expanded on it in a great essay called "Luddism for These Ludicrous Times."
Cory Doctorow wrote about science fiction being a Luddite literature.
Electric Vehicles Are Driving a Mining Boom w/ Thea Riofrancos Sep 15, 2022
Paris Marx is joined by Thea Riofrancos to discuss how the push for electric vehicles is driving governments in the United States and Europe to onshore mining after decades of doing the reverse, what that means for companies in the sector, and how movements are pushing back against this resource-intensive vision for a green transition.
Thea Riofrancos is an Andrew Carnegie Fellow, an Associate Professor of Political Science at Providence College, and a member of the Climate + Community Project. She's also the author of Resource Radicals: From Petro-Nationalism to Post-Extractivism in Ecuador. Follow Thea on Twitter at @triofrancos.
Thea wrote about the push to onshore mining activities and what it means for climate justice, and recently published an academic article on the "security-sustainability nexus" relating to lithium onshoring.
EV raw material costs doubled during the pandemic, forcing many automakers to raise prices.
A lithium mine in Portugal was scrapped after local opposition, but other projects continue to move ahead.
The US Inflation Reduction Act included many benefits for mining companies and tied EV tax credits to mineral supply chains.
Surveillance Won't Protect Students w/ Chris Gilliard Sep 08, 2022
Paris Marx is joined by Chris Gilliard to discuss the push to expand surveillance technologies in schools during the pandemic and in response to school shootings, and why they're making life worse for students without addressing the problems they claim to solve.
Chris Gilliard is Just Tech Fellow at the Social Science Research Council at a recurring columnist at Wired. Follow Chris on Twitter at @hypervisible.
Chris recently wrote about why school surveillance won't protect kids from shootings.
Chris and David Golumbia wrote about luxury surveillance for Real Life.
Pia Ceres wrote about how students' school devices are still tracking what they do on them.
Amazon is launching a new show called "Ring Nation" to make Ring surveillance videos seem less invasive.
Studies by the Center for Democracy and Technology have found negative effects from surveillance on student expression and increasing their contact with police.
After nine members of Axon's AI ethics board resigned, plans for a taser drone in schools seem to still be inching forward.
Todd Feathers reported on how school monitoring tools could flag searches for sexual and reproductive health resources.
Pasco County in Florida deployed a predictive policing system targeting children.
Some books mentioned: David Noble Progress Without People and Forces of Production, and Dan Greene wrote The Promise of Access: Technology, Inequality, and the Political Economy of Hope.
Amazon's Highly Subsidized Foray Into Middle-Earth w/ Thomas Coughlan Sep 01, 2022
Paris Marx is joined by Thomas Coughlan to discuss Amazon's foray into Tolkien's fantasy world, the big subsidies it received to film in New Zealand, and how its decision to move the series to the UK is giving fuel to demands to reassess the support for Hollywood productions.
Thomas Coughlan is a senior political reporter at NZ Herald, and formerly was a journalist at Stuff and Newsroom. Follow Thomas on Twitter at @coughlthom.
Thomas wrote for Stuff about the effort by the New Zealand government to attract Amazon to New Zealand and how it hoped the relationship would go beyond the TV series. For the NZ Herald, he also wrote that Amazon's decision to move the series away from New Zealand will have implications for tourism and wasn't communicated to the government until the last minute.
Benjamin Clark wrote about how film subsidies have been essential to attracted big Hollywood productions to New Zealand.
Madelaine Chapman dug into how much Peter Jackson has benefited from those subsidy schemes.
Amazon is spending about $464 million on the first season of The Rings of Power.
Amazon announced it was moving future seasons of the show to the UK in August 2021, causing frustration in New Zealand.
There were concerns about safety on the set of The Rings of Power after stunt workers were injured and they didn't seem to be properly reported to authorities.
In November 2021, Unity acquired the technology division of Jackson's Weta Digital.
There's also a growing debate in New Zealand over whether it should be the site of major data centers.
Who's Winning in China's Fight Against 996? w/ JS Tan Aug 25, 2022
Paris Marx is joined by JS Tan to discuss how Chinese tech workers fought against "996" work practices and whether the its phaseout is being driven by that movement or by the changing needs of the government and tech companies.
JS Tan is a graduate student at MIT, a former tech worker, and a member of Collective Action in Tech, a project to advance the tech worker movement. Follow JS on Twitter at @organizejs.
JS wrote about why China's 996 work schedules are changing and the factors driving it.
Rest of World also had recent reporting on changes to 996 practices.
Collective Action in Tech has an embedded organizer program that is open for applications.
The Verge wrote about Justin Sun, a controversial figure in crypto.
In 2020, Ant Group's US IPO was canceled.
China has launched a number of policies to crack down on its tech industry in recent years.
How the Modem World Shaped the Internet w/ Kevin Driscoll Aug 18, 2022
Paris Marx is joined by Kevin Driscoll to discuss the networks and services built by volunteers and hobbyists on top of the telephone network before the internet took over the in the 1990s, and what it can teach us about the internet and social media today.
Kevin Driscoll is the author of The Modem World: A Prehistory of Social Media and an associate professor in the Department of Media Studies at the University of Virginia. Follow Kevin on Twitter at @kevindriscoll.
Kevin wrote about The Modem World in Wired.
textfiles.com is a good source for historical documents about the modem world.
Find out more about Paris' event with Sabrina Fernandes in Berlin on August 26!
Keep Capitalism Out of Space w/ Chanda Prescod-Weinstein Aug 11, 2022
Paris Marx is joined by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein to discuss the science behind the new space telescope, the problems with the billionaire space race, and why we need to challenge the capitalist and colonial forces driving the the effort to commercialize space.
Chanda Prescod-Weinstein is the author of The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred. She's also an assistant professor of Physics and core faculty member in Women's and Gender Studies at the University of New Hampshire, and a columnist at New Scientist and Physics World. Follow Chanda on Twitter at @IBJIYONGI.
Chanda wrote "Becoming Martian" for the Baffler earlier this year, and called last year for the James Webb Space Telescope to be renamed.
Paris wrote about the billionaire space race for Tribune Magazine.
Of the five initial images released from the JW Space Telescope, Chanda described the First Deep Field and noted the accessibility of its alt-text on Twitter.
As part of Joe Biden's trip to Saudi Arabia in July 2022, the country signed onto the Artemis Accords. The Accords have faced criticism as a US-centric and commercial set of bilateral agreements that seek to set new norms beyond international law.
Saturday Night Live made fun of the billionaire space race.
In July, the head of Roscosmos indicated it planned to pull out of the International Space Station, though an official notice has not been made. The segment Paris mentioned on AlJazeera can be found here.
Starlink is undemocratically altering how we see the night sky, which some Indigenous groups are calling "astro-colonialism."
Gil Scott-Heron released "Whitey on the Moon" in 1970.
Chanda called attention to the Just Space Alliance.
Competition Won't Fix Canada's Telecom Woes w/ Fenwick McKelvey Aug 04, 2022
Paris Marx is joined by Fenwick McKelvey to discuss the massive outage at Rogers, why it's challenging the narrative that more competition will fix Canada's telecom sector, and the need for better regulation and even public ownership.
Fenwick McKelvey is the author of Internet Daemons: Digital Communications Possessed. He's also an associate professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Concordia University and a director of Machine Agencies at the Milieu Institute. Follow Fenwick on Twitter at @mckelveyf.
Find out more about Harbinger Media Network at harbingermedianetwork.com.
Fenwick spoke to CBC about the Rogers outage and previously spoke to Daniel Joseph about changing the way we think about media platforms in Canada.
Paris has previously argued for telecom nationalization in Canada and has written about the history of Canadian telecom.
After the outage, Canadian innovation minister François-Philippe Champagne forced telcos to come up with a new agreement on several key areas of emergency cooperation.
The Competition Bureau is objecting to a proposed merger between Rogers and Shaw.
Last year, the Rogers family was engaged in a protracted feud that affected management of the company.
ZeD was an "open-source television" series aired by Canada's public broadcaster from 2002 to 2006.
The Real Legacy of Stewart Brand w/ Malcolm Harris Jul 28, 2022
Paris Marx is joined by Malcolm Harris to discuss the legacy of Stewart Brand and why the myth we're often told about him overstates the reality of his impact.
Malcolm Harris is the author of Kids These Days, Shit is Fucked Up and Bullshit, and his forthcoming book Palo Alto. He also writes for New York Magazine. Follow Malcolm on Twitter at @BigMeanInternet.
Malcolm Harris wrote a critical review of John Markoff's Whole Earth: The Many Lives of Stewart Brand.
Benjamin Kunkel also wrote a critical review of Whole Earth.
The Stewart Brand documentary We Are As Gods about his quest to bring back wholly mammoths to solve climate change is slowly being rolled out after two years of delay and seeming lack of sales interest.
Brand's Long Now Foundation is building a 10,000-year clock in Texas that's funded by Jeff Bezos.
We also mention Fred Turner's From Counterculture to Cyberculture.
How the Cloud Reshaped the Internet w/ Dwayne Monroe Jul 21, 2022
Paris Marx is joined by Dwayne Monroe to discuss what it's like to work in a data center, how the cloud came to hold a dominant position, and the consequences of its control by companies like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google.
Dwayne Monroe is a cloud technologist and aspiring Marxist theorist of technology, with twenty years of experience architecting large-scale computational systems. Follow Dwayne on Twitter at @cloudquistador.
Dwayne wrote about cloud computing for Logic Magazine. He's also written about a public cloud and the metaverse on his blog.
Amazon's cloud infrastructure in the eastern United States experienced a major outage in December 2021.
Residents in various parts of the world have been questioning the logic of building data centers, including in the United States and New Zealand.
In July, the network of Canadian telecom giant Rogers went down, leaving millions without service.
The Dangers of Tech that Tracks Everything We Do w/ Shoshana Wodinsky Jul 14, 2022
Paris Marx is joined by Shoshana Wodinsky to discuss how the digital infrastructure that companies have built out over the past couple decades to track everything we do in order to serve us ads places us at risk, and how that's come into focus since the overturning of abortion rights in Roe v Wade in the United States.
Shoshana Wodinsky is a privacy reporter at Gizmodo. Follow Shoshana on Twitter at @swodinsky.
Shoshana wrote about getting an abortion in the age of surveillance and why every company is becoming an ad network. With her colleagues at Gizmodo, she also wrote about how Facebook perpetuated climate denial and killed news feed changes that would anger conservatives.
Anti-abortion groups targeted ads at people who had visited abortion clinics.
Data brokers have been selling data on people who visit abortion clinics, including Planned Parenthood.
Tech Won't Fix the Transport System w/ Paris Marx Jul 07, 2022
In a special episode to celebrate the release of host Paris Marx's new book Road to Nowhere, Brian Merchant takes over as guest host to interview Paris about the book, the tech industry's visions for transportation, and why they don't solve our mobility challenges.
Paris is the host of Tech Won't Save Us and the author of Road to Nowhere: What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong about the Future of Transportation. Brian Merchant is a tech journalist, author of The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone, and co-editor of Terraform: Watch/Worlds/Burn. Follow Brian on Twitter at @bcmerchant.
Road to Nowhere is available anywhere you buy books, but Verso has it discounted until July 8 as part of its Summer Reads sale.
An excerpt of Road to Nowhere about the dystopian future the tech industry is creating was recently published in Wired.
Paris recently spoke to StreetsBlog USA about the problem with Apple CarPlay.
15 Years of the iPhone w/ Brian Merchant Jun 30, 2022
Paris Marx is joined by Brian Merchant to discuss the impact of the iPhone after 15 years, including its effects on how we work, how we use technology, and what it's meant for Apple.
Brian Merchant is a tech journalist, author of The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone, and co-editor of Terraform: Watch/Worlds/Burn. Follow Brian on Twitter at @bcmerchant.
In 2011, Cory Moll tried to unionize Apple stores. In June 2022, a store in Maryland became the first to vote to form a union.
Apple's claims about privacy are, at least to some degree, a clever marketing campaign.
Paris previously wrote about some of Apple's environmental messaging.
The previous episode with Brian on the iPhone is episode 78 (Sep 16, 2021), and I also spoke to Jenny Chan about the conditions at Foxconn factories where iPhones are manufactured on episode 27 (Sep 17, 2020).
Canada's Digital Contact-Tracing Experiment w/ Bianca Wylie Jun 27, 2022
To kick off a new monthly bonus series on tech in Canada, Paris Marx is joined by Bianca Wylie to discuss Canada's COVID Alert app, the problems with the digital contract-tracing experiment, and why we need a public post-mortem so lessons are learned for next time.
Bianca Wylie is a partner at Digital Public, a co-founder of Tech Reset Canada, and a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation. Follow Bianca on Twitter at @biancawylie.
This series on Canadian tech is made in partnership with Passage, a left-wing publication in Canada. Passage published an edited transcript of the conversation.
On June 17, 2022, Health Canada decommissioned the COVID Alert app.
In April, Bianca wrote that the government needed to shut down the COVID Alert app because it wasn't working (if it ever had). She also began writing a series on the app on her Medium blog that month.
In July 2020, Bianca and her colleague Sean Mcdonald were already asking questions about the app and the planning around it.
Other digital contact-tracing apps were launched in many other countries, including Australia, France, and Iceland, with poor results.
Technology of the Oppressed w/ David Nemer Jun 23, 2022
Paris Marx is joined by David Nemer to discuss how residents of Brazil's favelas reshape technologies developed in the Global North to serve their needs, and how technology alone does not solve social oppression.
David Nemer is an assistant professor in the Department of Media Studies and in the Latin American Studies program at the University of Virginia. He's also the author of Technology of the Oppressed: Inequity and the Digital Mundane in Favelas of Brazil. Follow David on Twitter at @DavidNemer.
Paris' new book Road to Nowhere: What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong about the Future of Transportation is out on July 5! It's currently on sale at Verso Books.
Ahead of hosting the World Cup, Brazil forced thousands of favela residents from their homes.
Grace Blakeley recent spoke to David Adler about Colombia's election and the use of TikTok.
Dan Greene wrote The Promise of Access: Technology, Inequality, and the Political Economy of Hope and Lindsay Ems wrote Virtually Amish: Preserving Community at the Internet's Margins.
Streaming Wars: Revenge of the Cinema? w/ Gita Jackson Jun 16, 2022
Paris Marx is joined by Gita Jackson to discuss how streaming has altered the film and television industry, what happens as their business models are coming under question, and whether cinemas have reason to celebrate streaming's woes.
Gita Jackson is a staff writer at Motherboard, Vice's tech vertical. Follow Gita on Twitter at @xoxogossipgita.
Gita wrote about why Eternals was still bad even though it was diverse, Netflix laying off Tudum writers, and some of the challenges Netflix faces.
Paris wrote about the end of the Paramount Decrees, the need to break up the media giants, and the problem with the new Spider-Man movies.
EA considered a merger with NBC Universal, and had talks with other companies.
Raven Software at Activision Blizzard and Bioware contractors at Keywords Studios have voted to unionize. Microsoft's Phil Spencer said the company would recognize the Raven Software union if its acquisition of Activision Blizzard goes through.
CNN+ was shut down after a few weeks of operation.
Netflix is changing its content investment strategy as investors lose confidence.
Netflix's share price plummeted in April after reporting it lost subscribers. The following week, the cinema celebrated the negative turn on streaming at CinemaCon.
The Mandalorian pioneered a new kind of film set with massive LED screens instead of green screen.
Privatizing the Internet Was a Mistake w/ Ben Tarnoff Jun 09, 2022
Paris Marx is joined by Ben Tarnoff to discuss why the problems with the modern internet, including its excessive concentration in the hands of a few companies and the way its dominant firms shape our interactions to generate profit, find their root in the decision to privatize the network. To fix them, that needs to be changed.
Ben Tarnoff is the author of Internet for the People: The Fight for Our Digital Future and the co-founder of Logic Magazine. Follow Ben on Twitter at @bentarnoff.
An excerpt of Ben's book was published in the New York Times.
Victor Pickard wrote about the history of public media in Democracy Without Journalism.
Newt Gingrich and George Gilder, once featured by Wired for their visions for the internet, have now become big crypto fans.
The United States has terrible broadband access.
Major tech companies are buying up undersea internet cables.
Tarleton Gillespie wrote about the politics of platforms and what the term suggests.
Jathan Sadowski compares platforms to shopping malls.
Tressie McMillan Cottom wrote about the predatory inclusion of the internet.
Community internet has shown success in the United States, while provincial public telcos have a history of positive outcomes in Canada.
Tech Media Needs to Do Better on Crypto and Elon Musk w/ Ed Zitron Jun 02, 2022
Paris Marx is joined by Ed Zitron for a wide-ranging discussion on the responsibility tech media has to its readers, the problems with crypto, and why bosses like Elon Musk are desperate to force workers back into the office.
Ed Zitron is the CEO of EZPR and writes the Where's Your Ed At newsletter. Follow Ed on Twitter at @edzitron.
New Tech Won't Save Us merch is now available in our store (including tote bags!).
Ed wrote about the problem with Kara Swisher's aggressive response to a listener asking why Pivot had run an ad telling people to put their retirement savings into crypto. (Listen to the ad here.)
Elon Musk wrote a set of emails telling workers they need to return to the office for a *minimum* of 40 hours a week, or they can "pretend to work elsewhere."
Ed has written many times about employers pushing their workers back to the office.
In March, Kevin Roose wrote a Latecomer's Guide to Crypto, and Ed was one of the critics that Molly White got to contribute to an edited version.
Sam Harnett wrote an essay on how the early, uncritical coverage of the gig economy helped legitimize its exploitative business model.
The Dangerous Ideology of the Tech Elite w/ Phil Torres May 26, 2022
Paris Marx is joined by Phil Torres to discuss why longtermism isn't just about long-term thinking, but provides a framework for Silicon Valley billionaires to justify ignoring the crises facing humanity so they can accumulate wealth and go after space colonization.
Phil Torres is a PhD candidate at Leibniz University Hannover and the author of the forthcoming book Human Extinction: A History of Thinking About the End of Humanity. Follow Phil on Twitter at @xriskology.
Phil wrote about the dangers presented by longtermism and its relationship to Elon Musk.
Paris wrote about Jeff Bezos' vision of life in space and why Elon Musk is planning for climate catastrophe.
Elon Musk was tweeting about birth rates again (he has some odd views on who should be having kids) and retweeted someone praising a paper by longtermist Nick Bostrom.
After moving to Texas, its governor said Elon Musk liked the state's "social policies" (in reference to abortion limitations) to little pushback, then Musk forced California employees to move to Texas.
(Un)Stablecoins and the Crypto Crash w/ Bennett Tomlin May 19, 2022
Paris Marx is joined by Bennett Tomlin to discuss last week's crash of Terra and Luna, the problems with stablecoins, and whether this collapse will finally force regulators to take action on cryptocurrency.
Bennett Tomlin is a co-host of Crypto Critics' Corner and writer of the FUD Letter. Follow Bennett on Twitter at @BennettTomlin.
Paris wrote about the Terra/Luna collapse and why we can't let those who promoted crypto scams escape blame for their actions.
Bennett references George Soros' attack on the British pound in 1992, also known as Black Wednesday.
Do Kwan was behind the failed Basis Cash stablecoin.
Vitalik Buterin backed a proposal for an FDIC-like response to rescue "small holders" who lost money in the Luna collapse.
Investors recently pulled $7 billion out of Tether, which still won't be open about its reserves. It was hacked in 2017.
FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried described yield farming as a Ponzi scheme.
Justin Sun has already launched a copycat of the failed Terra algorithmic stablecoin. The Verge did a deep dive on him in March.
a16z says the crypto winter is here.
The Argument for Half-Earth Socialism w/ Drew Pendergrass & Troy Vettese May 12, 2022
Paris Marx is joined by Drew Pendergrass and Troy Vettese to discuss the environmental crises of climate change and mass extinction we face, and why taking them seriously while providing for everyone requires a radical change to how we structure society.
Drew Pendergrass is a PhD candidate in environmental engineering at Harvard University and Troy Vettese is an environmental historian and a Max Weber fellow at the European University Institute. They are the co-authors of Half-Earth Socialism: A Plan to Save the Future from Extinction, Climate Change and Pandemics. Follow them on Twitter at @pendergrassdrew and @TroyVettese.
Earth is currently undergoing its sixth major extinction, due to the actions of humans on the planet.
The most recent IPCC report looked at demand-side solutions to the climate crisis.
The meat industry is responsible for double the emissions of plant-based foods, as well as for an enormous amount of water and 80% of all agricultural land.
Aaron Benanav is the author of Automation and the Future of Work.
There is also a Half-Earth Socialism videogame on half.earth.
How IBM Workers Took On Racism and Apartheid w/ ann haeyoung May 05, 2022
Paris Marx is joined by ann haeyoung to discuss IBM worker organizing in the 1970s and 1980s against racism and apartheid, and how those stories are important to informing tech organizing in the present.
ann haeyoung is a media artist interested in technology and labor. She is also a former tech worker and organizer, and a graduate student at UCLA.
ann wrote about IBM organizing for Wired, and put together a four-part series on her research for Tech Workers Coalition.
Science for the People published an article about tech worker organizing in the 1960s and 1970s.
Logic Magazine spoke to Joan Greenbaum about the early days of tech worker organizing.
Tech Won't Save Us is looking for a producer.
The Financialization of Everything w/ Edward Ongweso Jr. Apr 28, 2022
Paris Marx is joined by Edward Ongweso Jr. to discuss Elon Musk's Twitter acquisition, how technology is enabling an extension of speculation and gambling, and why those pressures need to be opposed.
Edward Ongweso Jr. is a staff writer at Motherboard/Vice and a co-host of This Machine Kills. Follow Edward on Twitter at @bigblackjacobin.
🎉 This month is the show's second birthday. To celebrate, we want to get 100 new supporters at $5/month or above to bring on a producer to help make the show. Help us hit our goal by joining on Patreon. You can also follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter.
Edward wrote about Elon Musk's Twitter acquisition and the casino economy we increasingly find ourselves in.
Paris wrote about Elon's Twitter purchase for Jacobin before it was confirmed, and Tribune afterward.
Max Read also wrote about the acquisition and what it might mean.
CNN spoke to meme stock traders who made a lot of money and the difficulty of what came after.
TrueAnon did a recently episode on mobile gambling.
Tim Hwang wrote "Subprime Attention Crisis: Advertising and the Time Bomb at the Heart of the Internet."
We Can't Allow Tech Solutions to Delay Climate Action w/ Molly Taft Apr 21, 2022
Paris Marx is joined by Molly Taft to discuss why we need to act now to reduce emissions, what role carbon removal technologies can play, and how Silicon Valley is trying to shift our focus to future technologies rather than taking drastic action today.
Molly Taft is a staff writer at Earther. Follow Molly on Twitter at @mollytaft.
Molly wrote about the dire warnings in the most recent IPCC report and why we need to be paying attention to carbon removal technologies.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres said, "Climate activists are sometimes depicted as dangerous radicals. But, the truly dangerous radicals are the countries that are increasing the production of fossil fuels."
Groups are urging the United States and European Union not to invest in new fossil fuel infrastructure and production.
Canada approved Bay du Nord, a new deep-sea oil project in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Major tech companies, especially Amazon, have been helping oil companies extract more oil. Microsoft has also been helping them oppressively manage their workforces.
Kate Aronoff explained part of the problem with Bill Gates' approach to climate change.
Who's to Blame When a Self-Driving Car Kills Someone? w/ Lauren Smiley Apr 14, 2022
Paris Marx is joined by Lauren Smiley to discuss what we've learned about the Uber crash since in happened in March 2018, what that's meant for the vehicle operator who's been charged, and whether the justice system made the right call in blaming her instead of Uber.
Lauren Smiley is a WIRED contributor and freelance journalist based in San Francisco. Follow Laren on Twitter at @laurensmiley.
Lauren interviewed Rafaela Vasquez and dug into the substance of the past four years of information on the Uber crash for WIRED.
Last summer, Vasquez' legal team argued the grand jury hadn't heard to full version of events before indicting her.
In 2019, the NTSB's final report placed primary blame on the operator, but secondary blame on Uber, the pedestrian, and the state.
In 2015, Lauren wrote about the "shut-in economy" and social divides being entrenched by on-demand services.
How to Unionize Amazon w/ Justine Medina & Karen Ponce Apr 07, 2022
Paris Marx is joined by Justine Medina and Karen Ponce to discuss how the Amazon Labor Union succeeded in unionizing Amazon's JFK8 warehouse in Staten Island, what it's like working for Amazon, and where the movement to unionize Amazon goes next.
Justine Medina is a packer at the JFK8 warehouse and is on the organizing committee of the Amazon Labor Union. Karen Ponce is a stower at JFK8 and the interim secretary of Amazon Labor Union. Follow Justine on Twitter at @jnmedina8989 and Karen at @Karennn_928.
You can support the Amazon Labor Union by donating to its Solidarity Fund.
Justine spoke to Labor Notes and wrote about why the ALU won.
The ALU is making 8 immediate demands of Amazon.
Chair of the ALU's Worker Committee Angelika Maldonado spoke to Jacobin about the union win.
Lauren Kaori Gurley wrote about the Amazon Labor Union's successful union vote at JFK8.
In early 2020, Amazon fired Chris Smalls and tried to smear him as "not smart or articulate," but their internal memos leaked.
Jacobin and Briarpatch published articles on the need to salt at Amazon.
Chris Smalls says workers from 50 facilities have contacted the ALU.
The ALU is demanding to meet with Amazon in early May to begin bargaining.
Amazon is planning to ban a ton of words in its chat app.
Amazon forcing people to work in warehouses without air conditioning was a scandal in 2011.
Web3 is Not Going Great w/ Molly White Apr 01, 2022
Paris Marx is joined by Molly White to discuss the big Axie Infinity hack, what's wrong with the New York Times' Latecomer's Guide to Crypto, and what Molly's years as a Wikipedia editor have taught her about the problem with web3's vision of total commercialization.
Molly White is a software engineer and the creator of web3 is going just great. Follow Molly on Twitter at @molly0xFFF.
Molly and a bunch of other crypto critics put together an (Edited) Latecomer's Guide to Crypto.
You can read Kevin Roose's original Latecomer's Guide here.
Molly wrote about the $625 million Axie Infinity hack and harassment on the blockchain.
Interest in NFTs and their values have plummeted in recent months.
Tech Won't Save Us has a new website. Check it out at techwontsave.us.
Digital Tech Didn't Democratize the Film Industry w/ Will Tavlin Mar 24, 2022
Paris Marx is joined by Will Tavlin to discuss the history of the film industry, how the digital revolution was promised to democratize film, and how it actually helped cement the power of Hollywood and Silicon Valley.
Will Tavlin is a writer and fact checker based in New York City. Follow Will on Twitter at @wtavlin.
Will wrote about how Hollywood killed celluloid film to empower itself for n+1.
Paris wrote about the repeal of the Paramount Decrees and what tech companies are doing to cinema.
Marvel films' heavy reliance on CGI has downsides, and Disney is increasingly looking to making whole sets virtual, if not even the actors on them.
David Noble wrote about ideas of technological progress in Progress Without People: New Technology, Unemployment, and the Message of Resistance.
Can Higher Interest Rates Tame Big Tech And Inflation? w/ Grace Blakeley Mar 17, 2022
Paris Marx is joined by Grace Blakeley to discuss how low interest rates and quantitative easing fueled the tech economy's post-recession growth, why raising them won't fix the problems that's created, and whether higher interest rates are the solution to rising inflation.
Grace Blakeley is a staff writer at Tribune Magazine and host of A World to Win. She's also the author of Stolen: How to Save the World from Financialisation and The Corona Crash: How the Pandemic Will Change Capitalism. Follow Grace on Twitter at @graceblakeley.
Grace wrote about how interest rate hikes are used against workers, what we should learn from the Gamestop short squeeze, and how the pandemic has produced closer links between the state and major corporations.
Benjamin Braun and Adrienne Buller explained the concept of asset manager capitalism.
In the face of rising inflation, NFT values are down 48% since November.
High energy prices tend to drive inflation, and Russia and Ukraine are major wheat exporters.
In the UK, wages are falling at the fastest rate since 2014. In the US, wages are falling when accounting for inflation, after decades of wage stagnation.
How Peter Thiel Wields His Power in Silicon Valley w/ Moira Weigel Mar 10, 2022
Paris Marx is joined by Moira Weigel to discuss Peter Thiel's history, how the network he cultivated has influenced Silicon Valley, and his recent move into funding Republican candidates.
Moira Weigel is an assistant professor at Northeastern University, a faculty associate at the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard Law School, and a founding editor of Logic magazine. She also co-edited Voices from the Valley: Tech Workers Talk about What They Do--And How They Do It. Follow Moira on Twitter at @moiragweigel.
Moira wrote about Peter Thiel and the importance of his network in The New Republic.
Paris wrote about why Peter Thiel isn't an outlier in Silicon Valley.
Reason Magazine asked "wasn't Peter Thiel supposed to be a libertarian?"
In February 2020, Peter Thiel stepped down from Facebook's board.
Books mentioned: The Contrarian by Max Chafkin, From Counterculture to Cyberculture by Fred Turner, Zero to One by Peter Thiel and Blake Masters, The PayPal Wars by Eric Jackson, Predict and Surveil by Sarah Brayne.
War in the Content Economy w/ Ryan Broderick & Hussein Kesvani Mar 03, 2022
Paris Marx is joined by Ryan Broderick and Hussein Kesvani to discuss how war gets filtered through social media and the content economy, and what that means for how we make sense of it.
Ryan Broderick writes the Garbage Day newsletter and hosts Content Mines. Hussein Kesvani is a writer and the co-host of Trashfuture and Ten Thousand Posts. Follow Ryan on Twitter at @broderick and Hussein at @HKesvani.
Ryan has written two issues of Garbage Day trying to make sense of what's happening in the war.
Hussein wrote a very good tweet.
Sam Biddle wrote about how Facebook is allowing users to praise the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion.
Taylor Lorenz wrote about Instagram meme pages capitalizing on the conflict.
Journalists have been saying some pretty racist things about why the war in Ukraine is different than those in the Middle East.
Chris Stokel-Walker wrote about how TikTok is designed for war.
Jonah Peretti wrote an article called "Capitalism and Schizophrenia."
NBC's Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel wondered aloud on Twitter whether NATO should start World War III.
Hillary Clinton neglected the consequences of the US arming Afghan "insurgents" against the Soviet Union in the 1980s.
The media isn't applying the right level of scrutiny to Ukrainian war stories, like Snake Island.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine could have consequences for semiconductors.
Can Tesla Survive Elon Musk? w/ Edward Niedermeyer Feb 24, 2022
Paris Marx is joined by Edward Niedermeyer to discuss how Elon Musk got involved in Tesla, promised things he couldn't deliver to raise funds, and where it goes next now that he's becoming a more controversial figure.
Edward Niedermeyer is the author of Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors and a co-host of The Autonocast. Follow Ed on Twitter at @Tweetermeyer.
California is suing Tesla over "rampant racism" at its Fremont factory, with another Black worker suing the company earlier this week.
Tesla vehicles are continually found to have very poor build quality, and customers report the service experience can be frustrating too.
Tesla allowed people to play games on vehicle touchscreens while driving in December 2021 before being pushed to remove the feature.
Tesla tried to automate parts of the production process that other companies had already tried to automate — and it failed too.
The number of people being killed by cars in the United States is increasing — particularly among pedestrians.
US auto safety regulators haven't kept up with changes in vehicle dangers.
The New Yorker reported on the problems in the early years of Google's self-driving project.
Last year a customer in China protested at the Shanghai auto show over her Tesla's brake failure, forcing regulators to take a closer look at the company.
Cringe Raps and $5 Billion in Stolen Bitcoin w/ Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai Feb 17, 2022
Paris Marx is joined by Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai to discuss the arrest of Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan for trying to launder the $5 billion in Bitcoin stolen in the 2016 Bitfinex hack, how they were moving the money, how the authorities found them, and what lessons the case might hold.
Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai is senior staff writer at Motherboard. Follow Lorenzo on Twitter at @lorenzofb.
Lorenzo wrote about the arrest of the couple and Heather Morgan's cringe raps as Razzlekhan. Along with Motherboard colleagues, he also dug deep into the couple's history and online presence.
The Bitcoin they held and tried to launder came from the 2016 hack of Bitfinex.
People who knew Morgan told the New York Times her social media presence was "part of an elaborate act to confront social pressures."
In 2014, Mt. Gox was hacked and shut down. It was an exchange handling 70% of Bitcoin transactions.
Criminals laundered $8.6 billion in cryptocurrency in 2021, up 30% from the year before.
AlphaBay was a darkweb crypto marketplace that was seized by authorities in 2017.
On Feb 14, Heather Morgan was released on bail, but Ilya Lichtenstein remained in detention.
The Poorly Paid Workers Powering Automation w/ Phil Jones Feb 10, 2022
Paris Marx is joined by Phil Jones to discuss the hidden microworkers behind supposedly AI-powered automation from major tech companies, how it differs in the Global North and South, and what it means for how we think about the future.
Phil Jones is the author of Work Without the Worker: Labour in the Age of Platform Capitalism and a researcher at Autonomy. Follow Phil on Twitter at @philjones7771.
Phil wrote about digital piecework for The Guardian and had an excerpt about refugee labor in Rest of World.
Turkopticon helps workers on Amazon's Mechanical Turk gain some information on the contractors offering tasks on the platform.
In 2020, Gizmodo did surveys to find out about workers' experiences on Mechanical Turk. There were a lot of horror stories.
In 2014, workers on the platform sent emails to Jeff Bezos to ask for better conditions.
Crypto Winter Is Coming w/ Jacob Silverman Feb 03, 2022
As the podcast celebrates episode 100, Paris Marx is joined by Jacob Silverman to discuss the huge drop in crypto prices, the coming threat (to crypto) of interest rate hikes and regulation, the human impact of crypto schemes, and where things may be going next.
Jacob Silverman is a staff writer at The New Republic and writes about crypto with the actor Ben McKenzie. Follow Jacob on Twitter at @SilvermanJacob.
Jacob and Ben McKenzie wrote about Tether. Zeke Faux also wrote an essential article on the stablecoin, and Jacob recommends Crypto Critics Corner.
Crypto prices have plunged, and that's hurt regular people.
New York's Attorney General reached a settlement with Tether last year.
VC firm Andreessen Horowitz is making a big lobbying push in Washington, DC to get favorable crypto regulations.
Matt Damon and Spike Lee are among the celebrities to take crypto money and help pump the industry.
US regulators are looking at crypto regulations, and Biden administration is planning an executive order to move it forward.
China banned crypto mining, Russia proposed a ban on crypto, and many countries have suffered power outages due to crypto mining.
Stephen Diehl wrote explained how crypto is about arbitraging securities regulation.
Diane Jeantet wrote about a massive series of Bitcoin pyramid schemes in Brazil.
Microsoft Wants to Dominate the Games Industry w/ Rob Zacny Jan 27, 2022
Paris Marx is joined by Rob Zacny to discuss the potential consequences of Xbox's acquisition of Activision Blizzard, and what subscriptions and consolidation might mean for the future of games and the industry.
Rob Zacny is a senior editor at Waypoint and co-host of Waypoint Radio. Follow Rob on Twitter at @RobZacny.
Rob discussed the consequences of the proposed acquisition with his colleague Patrick Klepek.
Microsoft plans to buy Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion.
In November, Phil Spencer said he was troubled by the harassment and abuse at Activision Blizzard.
QA workers at Activision's Raven Software are seeking to unionize. The company said it won't recognize the union, and is reorganizing the division.
A new Game Developers Conference found 55% think the industry should unionize.
On January 18, the US Federal Trade Commission began a process to rewrite its merger guidelines.
Google shut down its Stadia game studios at least in part due to Microsoft's acquisition of Zenimax.
At GDC in 2005, a developer rant session featuring Warren Spector, Jason Della Rocca, Greg Costikyan, Brenda Laurel, and Chris Hecke presented a grim picture of where the industry was going.
How Evangelicals Emulate Startup Culture w/ Corrina Laughlin Jan 20, 2022
Paris Marx is joined by Corrina Laughlin to discuss how evangelical Christians have adapted to modern technologies, how churches have emulated startups, the growth of the faith tech sector, and whether there's anything that can be learned from their tech experiments.
Corrina Laughlin is the author of Redeem All: How Digital Life Is Changing Evangelical Culture. She's also an instructor of media studies at Loyola Marymount University. Follow Corrina on Twitter at @CKLaughlin.
Corrina wrote an article about why evangelicals are early adopters for The Atlantic.
Pew estimates about 24% of US adults identify as born again or evangelical Protestants.
The 1925 Scopes Trial was over the teaching of evolution in Tennessee schools.
Life.Church makes a ton of high production value resources available to churches looking to start up and expand what they're doing.
The prosperity gospel is a pro-capitalist theological tradition preached by some very wealth pastors, including Kenneth Copeland.
Envisioning Platform Socialism w/ James Muldoon Jan 13, 2022
Paris Marx is joined by James Muldoon to discuss his vision for platform socialism and the different ways we could reorganize platforms to serve the public good over corporate profit.
James Muldoon is the author of Platform Socialism: How to Reclaim our Digital Future from Big Tech. He's also a senior lecturer at the University of Exeter and the Head of Digital Research at Autonomy. Follow James on Twitter at @james_muldoon_.
James wrote about why web3 won't save the internet.
Paris wrote about what's wrong with discourses about decentralization and why we should nationalize Amazon.
Francesca Bria was interviewed by Crypto Syllabus about web3, decentralization, and her experience with municipal tech projects.
Facebook's Project Amplify ensured users saw positive stories about the company.
Antonio Negri and Dalla Costa were among the Italian Autonomist Marxists thinking about the social factory. Karl Marx wrote about the concept of surplus value.
G.D.H. Cole wrote about guild socialism. James also mentions the work of Otto Neurath.
How Roblox Exploits Children w/ Quintin Smith Jan 06, 2022
Paris Marx is joined by Quintin Smith to discuss how Roblox profits from the labor of children, built an exploitative in-game economy, and needs to be regulated as soon as possible.
Quintin Smith is a journalist working with People Make Games and Shut Up & Sit Down. Follow Quintin on Twitter at @Quinns108.
Quintin did an investigation of Roblox for People Make Games. Watch part 1 and part 2.
Roblox went public on March 9, 2021, hitting a valuation of $45 billion. It's now over $50 billion and benefiting from the metaverse hype.
More than half of US kids and teens under 16 are on Roblox. It's estimated that half the platform's users globally are under 13 years old.
Cecilia D'Anastasio reported on fascist role-playing games in Roblox.
Games featuring sex and nudity are not always caught by Roblox, exposing kids to them.
Happy Holidays from Tech Won't Save Us! Dec 30, 2021
To end 2021, Paris Marx provides a quick update on the podcast and what's coming next year.
Paris' book Road to Nowhere: What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong about the Future of Transportation comes out in July 2022.
Silicon Valley Doesn't Get Science Fiction w/ Annalee Newitz Dec 23, 2021
Paris Marx is joined by Annalee Newitz to discuss what's wrong with Silicon Valley's understanding of science fiction, and how tech leaders use it to justify terrible futures.
Annalee Newitz is the author of Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age and The Future of Another Timeline. They are also the co-host of Our Opinions Are Correct and a writer for NYT Opinion and New Scientist. Follow Annalee on Twitter at @Annaleen.
🚨 T-shirts are now available!
Annalee wrote about what tech companies don't get about science fiction for New Scientist.
Paris wrote about the dystopian future proposed by the metaverse.
The Verge spoke to Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss, but the interviewer suggested The Matrix was trying to predict where technology was going.
In 1985, Ursula K. Le Guin wrote about science fiction and the future.
Facebook is already failing to combat harassment in VR, and its incoming CTO thinks doing so in the metaverse is "practically impossible."
People mentioned: Frankenstein author Mary Shelley, JPL engineer Jack Parsons, and Trekonomics author Manu Saadia.
Annalee's reading suggestions: Ring Shout by P Djeli Clark, Murderbot series by Martha Wells, Infomocracy by Malka Older, An Excess Male by Maggie Shen King, Rosewater by Tade Thompson, Waste Tide by Chen Qiufan, Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie, and Broken Earth by N.K. Jemisin.
The Video Game Industry Needs Unions w/ Gita Jackson Dec 16, 2021
Paris Marx is joined by Gita Jackson to discuss the revelations of sexual harassment and discrimination at Activision Blizzard, how workers have organized in response to them, and what it all could mean for the future of the video games industry.
Gita Jackson is a senior writer at Motherboard, Vice's tech vertical. Follow Gita on Twitter at @xoxogossipgita.
In July, California's fair employment department sued Activision Blizzard, revealing shocking interal details, including a "Cosby Suite" and harassing prospective workers at a job fair.
In November, it was revealed that CEO Bobby Kotick knew about it and had settled harassment lawsuits. Afterward, workers walked out but the board stood behind Kotick.
The heads of Playstation and Xbox released statements criticizing Activision Blizzard's leadership.
Workers are now passing around union cards under the name A Better ABK as the company sends anti-union statements. They have also set up a strike fund.
The EA Spouse Letter was written in 2004.
Gita wrote about Comic Book Workers United, the union seeking recognition at Image Comics.
The Mandalorian used Unreal Engine to create virtual sets, and Unity just bought part of Weta Digital to expand its virtual production.
Since recording, Vodeo Games has formed the first video game union in North America.
Web3 is a Scam, Not a Revolution w/ Stephen Diehl Dec 09, 2021
Paris Marx is joined by Stephen Diehl to discuss why technologists are divided on crypto, what's wrong with blockchain, why crypto assets are scams, and why web3 is a rebranding effort.
Stephen Diehl is software engineer and crypto skeptic based in London. Follow Stephen on Twitter at @smdiehl.
Stephen has written about how to understand crypto assets, the problem with "decentralization", the speculative mania inherent to crypto, why web3 is bullshit, and more on his blog.
Some guy bought a beer with crypto and it showed one of the big flaws with using crypto as a means of payment.
Andreessen Horowitz one of the main players lobbying for lax crypto regulations in the United States.
How Albania's pyramid scheme crisis in the 1990s holds lessons for the today's crypto mania.
David Golumbia was on episode 67 (July 1, 2021) and Olivier Jutel was on episode 75 (August 26, 2021).
Who Inspired Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos' Space Visions? w/ Fred Scharmen Dec 02, 2021
Paris Marx is joined by Fred Scharmen to discuss Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos' visions for space colonization, the inspiration they draw from the work of Wernher von Braun and Gerard O'Neill, and what's wrong with basing our future on those ideas.
Fred Scharmen is the author of Space Forces: A Critical History of Life in Outer Space. He teaches architecture and urban design at Morgan State University's School of Architecture and Planning and is the co-founder of the Working Group on Adaptive Systems. Follow Fred on Twitter at @sevensixfive.
Paris wrote about the billionaire space race and Jeff Bezos' vision for space colonization.
Wernher von Braun was a Nazi before becoming chief architect of NASA's Saturn V rocket. He appeared in a 1955 Disney program about space flight, but his past was also criticized, including in a song by Tom Lehrer.
Elon Musk has cited Isaac Asimov's "Foundation" as an inspiration and Jeff Bezos saved The Expanse when it was cancelled.
Jeff Bezos' ideas about space colonization come directly from Gerard O'Neill's vision of space colonies floating in space.
Adam Mann asked in the New Yorker whether Mars was really ours for the taking.
The Just Space Alliance presents an alternative to the billionaire framing of space.
Don't Give Surveillance for Christmas w/ Chris Gilliard Nov 25, 2021
Paris Marx is joined by Chris Gilliard to discuss the ethics of tech media recommending surveillance devices, aspects of "smart" technologies you might not have considered, and why we should think twice about surrounding ourselves with cameras and microphones.
Chris Gilliard is a Visiting Research Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School Shorenstein Center. Follow Chris on Twitter at @hypervisible.
Chris wrote about the history of home surveillance, and the concept of luxury surveillance with David Golumbia.
Caroline Haskins went in-depth on what Ring does to communities.
Health apps and fitness trackers help rich people but don't do much for poor people.
The New York Times thinks the Theranos scandal soured the media on Silicon Valley. (We don't buy it.)
US Infrastructure Bill will require monitoring systems for drunk driving in new vehicles as early as 2026.
Amazon has worked to kill or undermine privacy legislation across 25 US states.
In 2019, video circulated of a man talking to someone's 8-year-old daughter after he hacked the Ring camera in her bedroom.
In the US, wage theft matches all other property theft combined, but the media sensationalizes shoplifting while ignoring wage theft.
Chris recommended people read Simone Brown's Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness.
The Wirecutter Union is asking people not to visit the website from November 25-29.
Net-Zero Uses Technofixes to Delay Climate Action w/ Sabrina Fernandes Nov 18, 2021
Paris Marx is joined by Sabrina Fernandes to discuss what came out of COP26, what it actually means to have net-zero emissions by 2050, and all the mechanisms that countries are developing to delay necessary action to reduce emissions.
Sabrina Fernandes is an IRGAC postdoctoral fellow at Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung. She's the producer of Tese Onze and a contributing editor at Jacobin. Follow Sabrina on Twitter at @safbf.
Sabrina and Claudia Horn wrote about COP26 and what Brazil's far-right government was up to at the conference.
Paris wrote about why Elon Musk won't save us from the climate crisis.
The International Rights of Nature Tribunal has a resource on the false solutions to the climate crisis.
Melissa Moreano and Juliane Schumacher wrote about REDD+ and the discourse around forests at COP26.
Daniel Aldana Cohen worked on the Green New Deal for Public Housing.
COP26 agreed on the Glasgow Climate Pact, but pledges would still result in 2.4º of warming.
Climate scientists say net-zero is about "a need to protect business as usual, not the climate."
Jeff Bezos should cut Amazon emissions, not focus on forests.
Amazon's emissions increased by 15% in 2019 and 19% in 2020.
Painting the street white causes people to absorb the heat that streets aren't.
Juice Media did good videos on the problems with net-zero and carbon capture.
How Amazon is Changing the Books We Read w/ Mark McGurl Nov 11, 2021
Paris Marx is joined by Mark McGurl to discuss how Amazon is reshaping the publishing industry and altering the form of the novel itself.
Mark McGurl is a Professor of Literature at Stanford University. He's also the author of The Program Era: Postwar Fiction and the Rise of Creative Writing and Everything and Less: The Novel in the Age of Amazon. Follow Mark on Twitter at @markjamesmcgurl.
Jeff Bezos' valedictorian speech was about space colonization.
Paris wrote about Jeff Bezos and Amazon's early days.
US publishers, authors, and booksellers have written to Congress about Amazon's effective monopolization of book sales, with more than 50% of the US book market.
Jane Friedman explains how Amazon shut down many of its writer-oriented programs, makes exclusivity hard to avoid, and dominates Kindle charts.
Novels and authors mentioned: Sally Rooney's Beautiful World, Where Are You, Colson Whitehead's Harlem Shuffle, David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, Rachel Cusk, and Ben Lerner.
Why the Metaverse Must Be Stopped w/ Brian Merchant Nov 04, 2021
Paris Marx is joined by Brian Merchant to discuss Mark Zuckerberg's big plans for the metaverse, everything that's wrong with it, the concept's scifi origins, and why Silicon Valley is desperate to make it happen.
Brian Merchant is the author of The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone and Blood in the Machine, coming in 2022. Follow Brian on Twitter at @bcmerchant.
Brian wrote about the dystopian origins of the metaverse for Motherboard and why Silicon Valley wants it to succeed for The Atlantic.
Paris wrote about how the metaverse is a way to get us to spend more time and money in digital spaces for Business Insider.
Matthew Ball made the business case for the metaverse last year.
Apple's changes to iOS privacy settings cost Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Snapchat an estimated $9.85 billion in revenue.
Emails sent by Oculus CEO Jason Rubin in 2018 asserted that consumers want the metaverse (something that's not at all clear).
David Karpf wrote about how VR keeps failing and getting revived for Wired.
Apple's AR headset or glasses are supposedly coming in 2022.
Microsoft is trying to get in on the metaverse with workplace applications of its own.
Brian hosted a series for Motherboard about the themes of Dune.
Can Nostalgia Inspire a Better Future? w/ Grafton Tanner Oct 28, 2021
Paris Marx is joined by Grafton Tanner to discuss how social and environmental crises fuel nostalgia, how companies profit from it, and whether it can be reoriented to inspire a better future.
Grafton Tanner is the author of "The Hours Have Lost Their Clock: The Politics of Nostalgia" from Repeater Books. Follow Grafton on Twitter at @GraftonTanner.
Paris reviewed Grafton's book in Jacobin.
TikTok has already gone through a phase of nostalgia for the early pandemic and its lockdowns.
Malls have been closing for years, but many people have nostalgia for their heyday.
In 1996, Jennifer Light compared emerging digital spaces to shopping malls.
Matthew Ball wrote one of the key essays on what the metaverse should look like (from a corporate perspective).
A message mentioned in the opening crawl of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker was broadcast exclusively in Fortnite.
When Amazon bought MGM, it said it wanted to redevelop much of its accumulated intellectual property.
At the end of the 2010s, some people questioned what algorithms were doing to our sense of time.
The internet doesn't get properly preserved and its history is being permanently lost.
Tim Maughan wrote about how the world is too complex.
Nishant Shahani's "Queer Retrosexualities: The Politics of Reparative Return" and Badia Ahad-Legardy's "Afro-Nostalgia: Feeling Good in Contemporary Black Culture."
What Gig Work Means for Women in India w/ Noopur Raval Oct 21, 2021
Paris Marx is joined by Noopur Raval to discuss India's gig economy, the specific conditions of women who provide services through beauty and wellness apps, and how workers organize to improve their conditions.
Noopur Raval is a postdoctoral research fellow at the AI Now Institute at New York University. Follow Noopur on Twitter at @tetisheri.
Noopur wrote about organizing in the gig economy and the conditions of workers in beauty and wellness.
Julia Ticona and her colleagues wrote about tech's impacts on domestic work.
More than 100 women who worked through a beauty app recently went on strike outside the company's office.
Aditi Surie has written about platforms and informal work in India.
Beating Uber at the UK Supreme Court w/ Yaseen Aslam Oct 19, 2021
Paris Marx is joined by Yaseen Aslam to discuss the UK Supreme Court ruling that Uber drivers are not self-employed, the long fight to reach that point, and the next steps in the push for gig workers' rights in the UK.
Yaseen Aslam is the president of the App Drivers and Couriers Union and a lead claimant in the Aslam v Uber case. Follow Yaseen on Twitter at @Yaseenaslam381 and the ADCU at @ADCUnion.
In February, the UK Supreme Court upheld a previous ruling the Uber drivers were not self-employed, but were covered by a "worker" status. The following month, Uber reclassified workers, but didn't observe the Court's definition of what it meant to be a worker.
On September 28, Uber drivers in 8 UK cities went on strike, demanding better hourly rates and the full implementation of the Supreme Court ruling/
The ADCU sued Uber in the Netherlands over automated dismissal and not providing drivers their data under the GDPR. In April, the court made Uber reinstate 5 drivers.
In October, the ADCU announced it was suing Uber over its racially biased facial recognition algorithms.
Find out more about the ADCU.
Solidarity in Canada's Gig Economy w/ Jennifer Scott & Brice Sopher Oct 14, 2021
Paris Marx is joined by Jennifer Scott and Brice Sopher to discuss the campaign to unionize Foodora and the fight for gig workers' rights in Canada.
Jennifer Scott is a gig worker and president of Gig Workers United. Brice Sopher is also a gig worker and vice president of Gig Workers United. Follow Jennifer on Twitter at @PalimpsestJenn, Brice at @this_is_walmer, and Gig Workers United at @GigWorkersUnite.
If you're in Canada, sign the Gig Workers' Bill of Rights.
Paris wrote about why Uber's Flexible Work+ would be a disaster in Canada.
In February 2020, the Ontario Labour Board ruled that Foodora workers could unionize. The company soon after announced plans to leave Canada, but workers voted 88.8% in favor of unionization. In August, they negotiated a $3.46 million settlement with the company.
Sara Mojtehedzadeh (episode 79) made a podcast series about the Foodora campaign called Hustled.
Canada's Conservative Party presented a gig work plan written by an Uber lobbyist.
Ontario has a committee looking at the future of work that gig workers fear will pave the way for Flexible Work+.
Find out more about Gig Workers United (CUPW) and Uber Drivers United (UFCW).
Gig Work is Not a Novelty in Brazil w/ Rafael Grohmann Oct 12, 2021
Paris Marx is joined by Rafael Grohmann to discuss the state of app-based work in Brazil, organizing by food delivery workers to demand better conditions, and even a recent strike by click farm workers.
Rafael Grohmann is a professor at UNISINOS, coordinator at DigiLabour Research Lab, and principal investigator in Brazil of Fairwork Project. Follow Rafael on Twitter at @grohmann_rafael.
DigiLabour is organizing a PhD symposium on October 27-28. Find out more here.
Some of the people and work mentioned in this episode: Callum Cant, Fabian Ferrari and Mark Graham, Noopur Raval, Rosana Pinheiro Machado, Cheryll Soriano and Jason Cabañes, and Wendy Brown.
DigiLabour is looking into worker-owned platforms in Brazil.
Vice wrote about gig work organizing in Latin America and talked a lot about the Anti-fascist deliverers.
Rafael and his colleagues also looked at political struggle around gig work and the importance of communication.
The Fight for Gig Workers' Rights in Europe w/ Ben Wray Oct 07, 2021
Paris Marx is joined by Ben Wray to discuss the state of the gig economy in Europe, including the Spanish riders law, recent court ruling on employment status in the Netherlands, strikes in Germany and Greece, and the forthcoming platform workers directive from the European Commission.
Ben Wray is a coordinator at the Gig Economy Project and a freelance journalist. Follow Ben on Twitter at @Ben_Wray1989.
Sign up for the Gig Economy Project's newsletter for updates on what's going on in Europe.
A Dutch court ruled that Uber drivers are employees.
Spain's Riders Law came into effect, but the companies didn't comply.
Glovo dark supermarkets workers in Barcelona went on strike in August.
E-food workers in Greece went on strike and won a huge victory.
Gorillas fired workers for wildcat strikes.
The European Commission will deliver platform work regulations in December. It's been meeting a lot with gig companies.
Migrant Workers in Australia's Gig Economy w/ Tyler Riordan Oct 05, 2021
Paris Marx is joined by Tyler Riordan to discuss the state of the gig economy in Australia, the ongoing efforts to improve their conditions, and Tyler's research on migrant food couriers in Brisbane.
Tyler Riordan is a PhD candidate in hospitality and anthropology at the University of Queensland. Follow Tyler on Twitter at @tyler_riordan.
The deaths of gig economy workers have become a major focus on governments and the media over the past year
Australia's federal government has an ongoing Senate committee on gig work
Uber settled a case in December 2020 to avoid a ruling on employment status, but another test case has been filed in Federal Court
Foodora pulled out of Australia in 2018
Menulog announced it was making some workers employees earlier this year
How Race Was Central to Prop 22 w/ Veena Dubal Sep 30, 2021
Paris Marx is joined by Veena Dubal to discuss how Proposition 22 and the contract status of gig workers is reminiscent of the United States' history of racial wage codes, which codified lower wages for Black workers.
Veena Dubal is a Professor of Law at UC Hastings. Follow Veena on Twitter at @veenadubal. Go back to episode 10 (May 21, 2020) for Veena's first appearance on the podcast.
If you've ever assigned an episode of the podcast in a college or university course, let me know by Twitter DM, email, or through this form.
Read Veena's essay on The New Racial Wage Code.
Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois had opposing philosophies for Black social and economic progress.
Robert C. Weaver and David Roediger wrote about differential wages.
Uber put up a billboard saying, "If you tolerate racism, delete Uber." Drivers were not happy.
Uber and Lyft held up workers' unemployment claims, and Lyft charged for PPE.
After Prop 22, gig companies raised fees despite promising not to, and workers reported earning even less money.
In August, Prop 22 was found to be unconstitutional.
New York City recently passed new protections for delivery couriers after organizing by Los Deliveristas Unidos.
Find out more about Rideshare Drivers United.
The Amazon Union Drive Comes to Canada w/ Sara Mojtehedzadeh Sep 23, 2021
Paris Marx is joined by Sara Mojtehedzadeh to discuss the Teamsters' organizing at Amazon warehouses in Canada and the working conditions that workers face at those facilities.
Sara Mojtehedzadeh is a labour reporter at the Toronto Star and the host of Hustled, a podcast about Foodora workers' fight for a union. Follow Sara on Twitter at @SaraMojtehedz.
In June, the Teamsters voted to put resources behind unionizing Amazon.
The Teamsters Canada applied for a union vote in Edmonton, Alberta, and said it's organizing at nine warehouses. Amazon is hiring 15,000 workers and raising wages.
During the pandemic, the Canadian government signed a deal with Amazon to deliver PPE. The contract fell apart.
After an Amazon worker died in Indiana, the governor intervened to overturn the citations.
California is regulating productivity quotas at warehouses.
Discussions are picking up about sectoral bargaining in Canada.
Sara wrote about the high injury rates at Amazon's Canadian warehouses and the temporary closure of its Brampton, Ontario warehouse after a Covid outbreak.
Find out more about Teamsters Canada's Amazon campaign and the Warehouse Workers Centre.
What Apple Won't Tell You About the iPhone w/ Brian Merchant Sep 16, 2021
Paris Marx is joined by Brian Merchant to discuss the development of the iPhone, how Apple manages the press, and how the parts of the company's supply chain that get too little attention.
In 1968, Douglas Engelbart showed off the "Mother of All Demos."
David Nye wrote the American Technological Sublime.
Paris thinks Apple's Steve Jobs Theater has big church vibes.
Disgraced former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes tried to emulate Steve Jobs.
IBM built the Simon smartphone in the 1990s, but it was ahead of its time.
In 2011, Apple made $473,000 per retail employee — far more than other retailers. Its revenue per square foot was almost double Tiffany's. That year, Cory Moll also led a push for an Apple Retail Workers Union, but Apple fought back and he left the company in 2013.
In 2010, after facing criticism, Steve Jobs said the suicide rate at Foxconn factories was "well below the China average."
In December 2020, workers at a Wistron iPhone factory in India ransacked the factory because they weren't getting paid.
Jenny Chan, Mark Selden, and Ngai Pun wrote Dying for an iPhone: Apple, Foxconn, and The Lives of China's Workers (US/UK).
Apple files annual conflict minerals reports. You can read their 2021 report here.
The Creation of a Black Cyberculture w/ André Brock Sep 09, 2021
Paris Marx is joined by André Brock to discuss the history of Black people's online activity, the internet's association with whiteness, and what Black Twitter can tell us about the centrality of Black people to digital culture.
André Brock is an associate professor of media studies at Georgia Tech. He writes on Western technoculture, Black technoculture, and digital media. His award-winning book, Distributed Blackness: African American Cybercultures, theorizes Black everyday lives mediated by networked digital technologies. You can get if from NYU Press, and it's available through open access. Follow André on Twitter at @DocDre.
Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald did portraits of the Obamas, while Kara Walker made "A Subtlety" at the Domino Sugar Refinery.
Achille Mbembe is a Cameroonian philosopher and social theorist.
Janelle Monáe, Sun Ra, and John Jennings are notable people engaging with Afrofuturism.
Books mentioned: Black Software: The Internet & Racial Justice, from the AfroNet to Black Lives Matter by Charlton D. McIlwain and Tools for Conviviality by Ivan Illich.
Big Tech Entrenches US Power w/ Michael Kwet Sep 02, 2021
Paris Marx is joined by Michael Kwet to discuss how digital technologies are used to entrench the power of the United States and its dominant corporations at the expense of the Global South.
Michael Kwet is a Visiting Fellow of the Information Society Project at Yale Law School. He got his PhD in Sociology at Rhodes University in South Africa. Follow Michael on Twitter at @Michael_Kwet.
Michael wrote about digital colonialism and the need for a Digital Tech Deal.
Bill Gates wrote a notorious letter in 1976 opposing the sharing of software as it conflicted with Microsoft's business model.
Tech companies export content moderation, training AI, call center, and even more labor to the Global South.
Gabriel Winant criticized the dominant liberal perspective on antitrust action.
Blockchain Won't Save the Global South w/ Olivier Jutel Aug 26, 2021
Paris Marx is joined by Olivier Jutel to discuss blockchain's pivot to humanitarianism, the questionable people behind the technology, and how their projects in the Pacific have benefited capitalist and imperial power.
Olivier Jutel is a lecturer at the University of Otago. Follow Olivier on Twitter at @OJutel.
Paris' first book "Road to Nowhere" comes out in July 2022.
Olivier wrote a paper about blockchain imperialism in the Pacific and it was covered by Motherboard.
BCCI was an international bank established in 1972 that was shut down in 1991 for hiding money laundering and other financial crimes.
Hernando De Soto is a Latin American economist who advised Peruvian dictator Alberto Fujimori and advocates neoliberal policies like land title programs. He now pushes for it to be done through blockchains, and wrote an op-ed with Phil Gramm.
Brock Pierce is a co-founder of Tether and tried to turn Puerto Rico into a crypto paradise.
Hillary Clinton described the freedom to connect doctrine.
Geoffrey Bond sold Vanuatu citizenship and was connected to Sebastian Greenwood, who was part of the OneCoin Ponzi scheme.
Binance is under investigation, if not pushed out of, multiple countries.
Fiji is facing major opposition to land reform plans.
Books mentioned: David Gerard's "Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain" and "Libra Shrugged," Fred Turner's "From Counterculture to Cyberculture," Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's "Empire," Herbert Schiller's "Communication and Cultural Domination," Armand Mattelart's "The Invention of Communication," Lilli Irani's "Chasing Innovation," and Teresia Teaiwa in "Anglo-American Imperialism and the Pacific."
How Neoliberalism Seized the Internet w/ Dan Greene Aug 19, 2021
Paris Marx is joined by Dan Greene to discuss how the Clinton administration reframed poverty through the lens of the internet and how that transformed the missions of key institutions like libraries and schools.
Dan Greene is an assistant professor at University of Maryland's College of Information Studies. He is the author of "The Promise of Access: Technology, Inequality, and the Political Economy of Hope." Follow Dan on Twitter at @Green_DM.
Anna Pacquin starred in a series of commercials for MCI about the internet
Ben Tarnoff wrote about the privatization of the internet
Dan wrote an article about the landlords of the internet
How Smart is the Smart City? w/ Shannon Mattern Aug 12, 2021
Paris Marx is joined by Shannon Mattern to discuss what we miss when we see the city solely through the lens of the computer, and how other institutions and ways of knowing can help inform richer ways of understanding the city.
Shannon Mattern is a professor of anthropology at The New School for Social Research and President of the Board at the Metropolitan New York Library Council. She is the author of "Code and Clay, Data and Dirt" and "A City Is Not a Computer." Follow Shannon on Twitter at @shannonmattern.
📚 Get 30% off "A City Is Not a Computer" when you buy it from Princeton University Press and use the code "TWSU" at checkout before the end of September 2021!
Ursula K. Le Guin ranted about the meaning of the word "technology."
Google wanted to build a smart city in Toronto, but activists killed it.
Gökçe Günel wrote "Spaceship in the Desert: Energy, Climate Change, and Urban Design in Abu Dhabi" about the Masdar smart city project.
Songdo was supposed to be South Korea's city of the future. It didn't work out.
Kevin Rogan wrote about the human labor Sidewalk Labs was hiding.
How Australia Used Tech Against Welfare Recipients w/ Dhakshayini Sooriyakumaran Aug 05, 2021
Paris Marx is joined by Dhakshayini Sooriyakumaran to discuss Australia's robodebt scandal where automated decision-making was used against welfare recipients, and how exploitative AI implementations are being deployed by governments in social welfare and at the borders.
Dhakshayini Sooriyakumaran is a proud Tamil person and a PhD candidate at Australian National University whose work focuses on digital identification systems and border policing regimes. Follow Dhakshayini on Twitter as @Dhakshayini_S.
Dhakshayini wrote about robo-governance and why we need to oppose it.
Robodebt eventually resulted in a A$1.8 billion settlement in favor of welfare recipients.
Robo-planning was another proposed system for Australia's disability insurance scheme that has been canceled. A blockchain trial was also considered.
Australia is trialing a controversial cashless welfare card, and plans to increase the use of biometrics.
Scarlet Wilcock researched the history of "welfare cheat" narratives in Australia.
Canada has been using automated decision making to process visa applications.
Just Futures Law and Mijente released a report called "ICE: Digital Prisons."
Israeli company NSO's Pegasus technology was weaponized against activists, politicians, and journalists.
The Australian Human Rights Commission released a report on human rights and technology, while the European Data Protection Supervisor has called for a ban on biometrics.
How Streaming is Reshaping the Film Industry w/ Peter Labuza Jul 29, 2021
Paris Marx is joined by Peter Labuza to discuss how streaming is reconfiguring Hollywood, what that means for the film and television we consume, and whether it's time to consider antitrust action against the streaming giants.
Peter Labuza is a lecturer at San Jose State University whose work focuses on the legal, financial, and political history of creative industries. He's currently writing a book about the history of entertainment law in Hollywood. Follow Peter on Twitter as @labuzamovies.
Peter wrote an op-ed for the LA Times about what streaming is doing to culture and the need for antitrust action.
Paris has written about the consolidation in entertainment companies, the need to consider state action, and Amazon's acquisition of MGM.
David Graeber wrote that British culture from the sixties was a product of the welfare state.
Joshua Glick wrote about how Netflix is changing documentary production.
Jennifer Holt provides an overview of media deregulation in "Empires of Entertainment: Media Industries and the Politics of Deregulation, 1980-1996."
FilmCritHulk wrote about the impacts of streaming and industry consolidation on labor, unions, and more.
In 2020, a judge ended the Paramount Decrees.
The Writer's Guild recently went on strike over streaming residuals.
Salt of the Earth was a film made by blacklisted filmmakers.
Demystifying the Billionaire Space Race Jul 22, 2021
Paris Marx takes a solo episode to discuss the billionaire space race. Specifically, how billionaires are selling grand futures of space travel as a PR scheme to get huge public contracts that will allow them to control the infrastructure of space.
Paris wrote about the billionaire space race, and it was translated into German, Italian, and Turkish.
New Mexico's $220-million Spaceport America that's used by Virgin Galactic is a joke.
SpaceX's Starlink satellite internet service has been way overhyped.
If we went to Mars, we would get cancer.
Adam Mann had a great essay on how we should think about Mars, and whether it's "ours."
Elon Musk says we can be indentured servants on Mars, and people will die.
Paris has written about Jeff Bezos' space colonies, and compared them to Blade Runner and The Expanse.
Jeff Bezos stepped down as Amazon CEO to take on the role of Executive Chairman.
Ursula K. Le Guin argues science fiction isn't about the future, nor is it predictive.
Amazon's emissions rose 19% in 2020 and it's helping Big Oil.
Paris wrote about the real climate future billionaires are creating.
"Sleep Dealer" and the Border Politics of Tech w/ Alex Rivera Jul 15, 2021
Paris Marx is joined by Alex Rivera to discuss his 2008 film Sleep Dealer and how it imagined exploitative technologies being implemented in a future Mexico of hardened borders and limited migration.
Alex Rivera is a filmmaker and digital media artist whose work explores themes of globalization, migration, and technology. His feature films include Sleep Dealer and The Infiltrators. Follow Alex on Twitter as @Alex_Rivera.
You can rent or buy Sleep Dealer from the official website.
Paris wrote about Sleep Dealer and what it illustrates about technology for Jacobin.
Border walls are still going up around the world.
Smart tech is often designed to hide the human labor that makes it work.
Kiwibot delivery robots are driven by Colombian workers making $2/hour.
Tech Criticism Before the Techlash w/ Zachary Loeb Jul 08, 2021
Paris Marx is joined by Zachary Loeb to discuss the history of tech criticism with a focus on Joseph Weizenbaum and Lewis Mumford, as well as why the techlash is a narrative that suits Silicon Valley.
Zachary Loeb is a PhD candidate at the University of Pennsylvania whose dissertation research looks at Y2K. Follow Zachary on Twitter as @libshipwreck, and check out his Librarian Shipwreck blog.
Zachary wrote about Y2K, Lewis Mumford's criticisms on technology, the life and thought of Joseph Weizenbaum, and theses on techno-optimism.
Books mentioned: "Dismantlings: Words against Machines in the American Long Seventies" by Matt Tierney.
Bitcoin is a Right-Wing Technology w/ David Golumbia Jul 01, 2021
Paris Marx is joined by David Golumbia to discuss the ideology of cyberlibertarianism, the right-wing politics of cryptocurrencies and blockchains, and why the left shouldn't embrace them.
David Golumbia is an associate professor at Virginia Commonwealth University and the author of "The Politics of Bitcoin: Software as Right-Wing Extremism." He's also writing a new book called "Cyberlibertarianism" from Minnesota University Press. Follow David on Twitter as @dgolumbia.
David wrote about cyberlibertarianism for Jacobin Magazine.
Keith Spencer interviewed David about his book for Salon in 2018.
Elon Musk's tweets affect cryptocurrency prices, while China is cracking down on crypto mining.
Marc Andreessen says "crypto is a right wing idea" in an interview with Noah Smith.
El Salvador's right-wing authoritarian president made Bitcoin a form of legal tender.
Tether misled people about how much USD was backing its stablecoin.
About 20% of Bitcoin — worth billions of dollars — is lost and recoverable.
Other resources: Langdon Winner's "Do Artifacts Have Politics?" and "Cyberlibertarian Myths and the Prospects for Community"; Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron's "The Californian Ideology"; Fred Turner's "From Counterculture to Cyberculture"; Paulina Borsook's "Cyberselfish" (article); and John Perry Barlow's "A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace."
VCs Want to Disrupt the Media w/ Eoin Higgins Jun 24, 2021
Paris Marx is joined by Eoin Higgins to discuss why tech companies and venture capital firms are launching their own media verticals, what Marc Andreessen hopes to get out of Clubhouse and Substack, and why Jeff Bezos may have a better approach to media.
Eoin Higgins is a freelance journalist and writes on Substack under The Flashpoint. Follow Eoin on Twitter as @EoinHiggins_.
Eoin wrote about what venture capital firms are doing in media and Marc Andreessen's favoriting of alt-right tweets.
In 2016, Marc Andreessen wrote a tweet about colonialism in India that received a lot of backlash.
Coinbase started a "media arm" to "become a source of truth" in the face of critical reporting.
Anna Wiener recently wrote about how tech may be shifting from a narrative of disruption to one of building institutions (to serve themselves).
Sam Harnett critically examined tech journalism and its history, especially with regard to reporting on the gig economy.
Zoe Schiffer and Megan Farokhmanesh detailed how venture capitalists used Clubhouse to organize against critical coverage of the industry and go after journalists like Taylor Lorenz.
Ed Zitron wrote about how tech journalism's shift from an enthusiast press to an industrial press was something venture capitalists and powerful people in the industry were not happy about.
Facebook Is A Battleground w/ Avi Asher-Schapiro and Maya Gebeily Jun 17, 2021
Paris Marx is joined by Avi Asher-Schapiro and Maya Gebeily to discuss how Facebook isn't fully enforcing its ban on conversion therapy in Arabic, what that means for LGBTQ people in Arabic-speaking countries, and how social media has become a battleground.
Avi Asher-Schapiro is a journalist covering technology for the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Maya Gebeily is the Middle East Correspondent at the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Follow Avi on Twitter as @AASchapiro and follow Maya as @GebeilyM.
Avi and Maya wrote about how Facebook is letting conversion therapy posts continue being shared on the platform in Arabic.
Maya wrote about social media companies blaming glitches for disappearing posts about Sheikh Jarrah in Jerusalem.
In September, Buzzfeed published an internal letter by Sophie Zhang on how Facebook was ignoring its impacts on the politics of countries around the world. Zhang has gone on to to do work with The Guardian and Rest of World.
The United Nations says conversion therapy "may amount to torture" and should be banned.
Lebanon provides more freedom for LGBTQ people, but there are still barriers.
Saudi Arabia infiltrated Twitter to identify dissidents, and in 2020 convicted a Yemeni blogger for supporting gay rights.
In September 2020, Algerian police arrested 44 people for attending a "gay wedding," using the decoration as evidence against them.
Israeli security agencies work to ensure Facebook censors Palestinian content at their request.
Embracing Glitch Feminism w/ Legacy Russell Jun 10, 2021
Paris Marx is joined by Legacy Russell to discuss how glitch feminism challenges existing ideas of what constitutes the body and the effects of having those conceptions embedded within our technological systems.
Legacy Russell is the associate curator of exhibitions at The Studio Museum in Harlem, and will become executive director and chief curator of The Kitchen in September. She's the author of "Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto" and is currently writing "Black Meme." Follow Legacy on Twitter as @LegacyRussell.
Donna Haraway, Sadie Plan, and Katherine Hayles on cyberfeminism.
Alondra Nelson on afrofuturism.
Nathan Jurgenson's work on digital dualism and IRL.
The Sunset of the Californian Ideology? w/ Richard Barbrook Jun 03, 2021
Paris Marx is joined by Richard Barbrook to discuss how the Californian Ideology illustrated the neoliberalism of Silicon Valley, whether it's still relevant in the present, and how games can be used for political purposes.
Richard Barbrook is the author of "Imaginary Futures: From Thinking Machines to the Global Village" and "Class Wargames: Ludic subversion against spectacular capitalism." He's a senior lecturer in the School of Social Sciences and Humanities at the University of Westminster. Follow Richard on Twitter as @richardbarbrook.
Read the original Californian Ideology essay in Mute Magazine and Richard's thoughts on the 20th anniversary in "The Internet Revolution: From Dot-com Capitalism to Cybernetic Communism."
France Insoumise presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon released a game called Fiscal Combat that helped inspire Corbyn Run.
Richard mentions Guy Debord's "A Game of War" and Bertell Ollman's "Class Struggle" board games.
Other resources: Marshall McLuhan, Fred Turner's "From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism," and Guy Debord's "The Society of the Spectacle."
Why the Soviet Union Didn't Build the Internet w/ Benjamin Peters May 27, 2021
Paris Marx is joined by Benjamin Peters to discuss the proposals for national computer networks in the Soviet Union, the challenges they faced in getting approval, and what lessons they hold for how we think about networks.
Benjamin Peters is the author of "How Not to Network a Nation: The Uneasy History of the Soviet Internet" and the co-editor of "Your Computer Is On Fire." He's also the Hazel Rogers Associate Professor at the University of Tulsa and affiliated faculty at Yale Law School. Follow Ben on Twitter as @bjpeters.
Ben summarized his research on the Soviet network proposals for Aeon.
Project Cybersyn Shows All Tech is Political w/ Eden Medina May 20, 2021
Paris Marx is joined by Eden Medina to discuss Project Cybersyn, a technological system created by Chile's socialist government in the 1970s to manage production, and what it can teach us about political technology and innovation outside the Global North.
Eden Medina is the author of "Cybernetic Revolutionaries: Technology and Politics in Allende's Chile." She's also an associate professor at MIT and the Rita E. Hauser Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. Follow Eden on Twitter as @edenmedina.
In 2020, Marian Schlotterbeck spoke to Jacobin about the fifty year anniversary of Salvador Allende's election.
Independent and left-wing delegates won major victories in the election for Chile's constitutional assembly, making it hard for right-wing delegates to stall the process.
In October 2020, Chileans voted overwhelmingly to draft a new constitution, following protests that began in 2019.
Dictator Augusto Pinochet oversaw a brutal regime from 1973 to 1990, and the crimes of that period are still being prosecuted.
How Many Times Has the Internet Already Died? w/ Kevin Driscoll May 13, 2021
Paris Marx is joined by Kevin Driscoll to discuss the history of France's Minitel system, the insights it provides about the modern platform economy, and whether the internet will one day be shut down too.
Kevin Driscoll is the co-author of "Minitel: Welcome to the Internet" with Julian Mailland. He's also a professor at the University of Washington and the author of the forthcoming book "The Modem World: A Prehistory of Social Media." Follow Kevin on Twitter as @kevindriscoll, or find out more about his Minitel research at minitel.us or @MinitelResearch.
In November 2020, Paris wrote about the potential future of the internet if the value of digital ads collapsed.
Vice published an article about the artists on Canada's pre-internet network, Telidon.
In "The Internet Revolution," Richard Barbrook wrote that he thought Britain would eventually import Minitel after experiencing it.
Other resources mentioned: "The Computerization of Society" by Simon Nora and Alain Minc, and "The Platformization of the Web" by Anne Helmond.
How State Funding Built Silicon Valley w/ Margaret O'Mara May 06, 2021
Paris Marx is joined by Margaret O'Mara to discuss how the state and military have been at the center of the US tech industry since the very beginning, but how it was written out of the popular narrative during the neoliberal turn in the 1980s.
Margaret O'Mara is the author of "The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America" and a professor at the University of Washington. Follow Margaret on Twitter as @margaretomara.
"Regional Advantage: Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128, with a New Preface by the Author" by AnnaLee Saxenian
Another relevant book: "From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism" by Fred Turner
Celebrating One Year of Tech Won't Save Us! Apr 29, 2021
Paris Marx is solo this week, providing an update on the podcast, the series of guests planned for May, and what's coming next for Tech Won't Save Us!
Paris wrote about the future of the internet, why Elon Musk is planning for climate apocalypse, the problems with Jeff Bezos' space future, and why a socialist future won't look like a capitalist one.
Paris was recently on the Digital Void podcast.
What's Next for Amazon Workers? w/ Kim Kelly Apr 22, 2021
Paris Marx is joined by Kim Kelly to discuss what it was like on the ground in Bessemer as workers tried to form a union at Amazon, the mood after the results came in, and where the organizing effort against Amazon goes from here.
Kim Kelly is a freelance labor reporter who has written for Teen Vogue, The Baffler, Vox, and many others. She is also writing a book for One Signal Publishers called "Fight Like Hell" that will come out in 2022. Follow Kim on Twitter as @GrimKim.
🎉 In April 2021, Tech Won't Save Us celebrates its first birthday. If we get 30 new supporters at $5+ per month, we'll start a weekly newsletter in addition to the weekly podcast to provide a new way for people to access critical perspectives on technology. If you like the show, become a supporter and help us reach our goal!
Kim wrote about the workers and organizers behind the Bessemer campaign, and how faith was an important motivating factor. She also reported on it for More Perfect Union.
Alex Press outlined the history of civil rights unionism in the US South.
Caroline O'Donovan explained how Amazon workers are organizing beyond Bessemer, and why some don't plan to seek NLRB recognition.
Luis Feliz Leon wrote about the growing international movement to challenge Amazon.
The Retail Wholesale and Department Store Union challenged the result of the Bessemer union vote over Amazon's union busting tactics.
The New York Times spoke to some workers who voted "no" for the union.
Amazon promotes its $15 minimum wage, but it actually pushes down wages in the warehousing sector.
The PRO Act is a major change to US labor legislation that would make it easier to unionize.
Vaccine Passports Are Not the Solution w/ Elizabeth Renieris Apr 16, 2021
Paris Marx is joined by Elizabeth Renieris to discuss why we should be concerned about proposals for vaccine passports and how they could create a precedent for a larger rollout of digital identity documents.
Elizabeth Renieris is a practitioner fellow at Stanford University's Digital Civil Society Lab and a tech + human rights fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School's Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. Follow Elizabeth on Twitter as @hackylawyer.
Elizabeth wrote about what's really at stake in the vaccine passport debate.
The US federal government has talked about leaving this to the private sector, the EU is planning a "digital green pass" for travel, and Israel rolled out a "green passport" for vaccinated people to gain access to various public and private spaces.
Contact tracing apps did not deliver on their big promises.
New York's vaccine passport has already been forged.
Rolling out vaccine passports has high costs for businesses who will want to use that infrastructure in other ways.
Parts of the Global South may not receive mass Covid vaccinations until 2024.
The modern passport regime was created in the 1920s, with the goal being to eventually abolish it. Now borders are being equipped with facial recognition cameras and border guards can check your phone.
Bursting the NFT Bubble w/ Jacob Silverman Apr 08, 2021
Paris Marx is joined by Jacob Silverman to discuss the implications of the recent NFT boom, the libertarian ideology that underpins crypto, and where the hype economy goes from here.
Jacob Silverman is a staff writer at The New Republic and the author of "Terms of Service: Social Media and the Price of Constant Connection." Follow Jacob on Twitter as @SilvermanJacob.
Jacob wrote about all the things rich people are spending their money on during the pandemic, including NFTs and cryptocurrencies.
Everest Pipkin explained all of the environmental problems with NFTs, and how they're built into the core of the technology.
Some people are buying NFTs, then finding they disappear or can't be accessed.
Bitcoin uses more energy than Argentina, but could consume more than Australia by 2024.
Bill Gates said Bitcoin is a "pure 'greater fool theory' type of investment."
Anil Dash explained that NFTs were supposed to help artists, not just be another speculative asset.
Taylor Lorenz wrote about how creators are monetizing their lives.
The New York Times and Forbes (among others) sold NFTs while reporting on them.
Tom Brady is the latest celebrity to get into NFTs.
The NFT boom may already be going bust.
Digital Redlining in the Frictionless Society w/ Chris Gilliard Apr 01, 2021
Paris Marx is joined by Chris Gilliard to discuss how decisions by powerful institutions over how to implement new technologies in cities, education, health, and more have the effect of creating a form of digital redlining that hides existing social problems.
Chris Gilliard is a Visiting Research Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School Shorenstein Center and teaches at Macomb Community College. You can follow Chris on Twitter as @hypervisible.
Chris wrote about how technology can hide racism in the "frictionless" society. He also wrote about digital redlining in education.
Despite redlining being outlawed, the effects can still be seen in many outcomes, including health. See the redlining maps at Mapping Inequality.
Amazon originally excluded predominantly Black communities when it rolled out same-day delivery in Boston.
In 2019, Facebook was sued by the Department of Housing and Urban Development for allowing discrimination in its housing ads. In 2020, it was found to still be doing it.
Bots are getting US vaccine appointments, and programmers are having to help relatives get appointments.
Elon Musk Isn't Saving Humanity w/ Manu Saadia Mar 25, 2021
Paris Marx is joined by Manu Saadia to discuss the roots of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos' visions for space, and why they serve the billionaires' need for control, not the betterment of humanity.
Manu Saadia is the author of "Trekonomics: The Economics of Star Trek."
Elon Musk said he's accumulating wealth to make life multiplanetary. Jeff Bezos said he can only think to spend his Amazon "winnings" on space.
In "Dark Skies: Space Expansionism, Planetary Geopolitics, and the Ends of Humanity," Daniel Deudney outlines the two space paradigms discussed in the episode. You can also read a review of it.
Werhner von Braun, who was key to the US Apollo Program, was a Nazi scientist who came to the US after World War II.
Carl Sagan said "there is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. … For the moment, Earth is where we make our stand." Elon Musk laughed at this and claimed Mars is the alternative, but Shannon Stirone explained why he is very wrong.
Salvage published an editorial on the immediate need to repair the damage done by capitalism.
Science fiction mentioned: Ursula Le Guin's "The Dispossessed," Octavia Butler, Isaac Asimov, Philip K. Dick, and Robert Heinlein.
How Britain Killed its Computing Industry w/ Mar Hicks Mar 18, 2021
Paris Marx is joined by Mar Hicks to discuss why we need to know the history of tech and how the British history of sexism and colonialism in computing has lessons for the present-day US tech industry.
Mar Hicks is the co-editor of "Your Computer Is on Fire," along with Thomas S. Mullaney, Benjamin Peters, and Kavita Philip. They are also the author of "Programmed Inequality: How Britain Discarded Women Technologists and Lost Its Edge in Computing" and an Associate Professor of the History of Technology at Illinois Tech. Follow Mar on Twitter as @histoftech.
Mar wrote about the story of COBOL computer systems in the early months of the pandemic and how Britain killed its tech industry.
Google fired top AI ethicists Timnit Gebru and Margaret Mitchell after their research was critical of the company's practices. Diversity recruiter April Christina Curley was also fired in September 2020.
Is Bill Gates a "Good" Billionaire? w/ Tim Schwab Mar 11, 2021
Paris Marx is joined by Tim Schwab to discuss how Bill Gates wields his wealth to shape public policy, the many conflicts of interest of Bill and his Foundation, and how legitimate criticism of power is being positioned as conspiracy.
Tim Schwab is an investigative journalist whose recent work on the Gates Foundation has been published by The Nation, the Columbia Review of Journalism, and the British Medical Journal. Follow Tim on Twitter as @TimothyWSchwab.
Tim wrote about the Gates Foundation's conflicts of interest, in particular during the pandemic. He also wrote about how Gates' funding of media and health data produces accountability and transparency problems.
Paris had a viral thread about Gates' intervention in the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, after which an interview said it was a conspiracy theory.
After getting the rights to the Oxford vaccine, AstraZeneca ran into trouble in clinical trials.
The Associated Press found three factories in Bangladesh alone that could be producing vaccines if patent protections were waived.
The Mail and Guardian in South Africa published an article on Bill Gates' complicity in vaccine apartheid and the author's Twitter account was locked for tweeting about it.
In 2015, Thomas Piketty talked to the BBC about the problems with billionaire philanthropy.
How Algorithms Are Transforming Work w/ Callum Cant Mar 04, 2021
Paris Marx is joined by Callum Cant to discuss the UK Supreme Court ruling that Uber drivers are workers, his experience organizing as a Deliveroo worker, and how algorithmic management is transforming work.
Callum Cant is the author of "Riding for Deliveroo: Resistance in the New Economy." He's also the head of communications at Momentum and an editor at Notes from Below. Follow Callum on Twitter as @CallumCant1.
The UK Supreme Court ruled that Uber drivers are not self-employed. It's a win for workers.
In 1976, workers at Lucas Aerospace produced the Alternative Corporate Plan, otherwise known as the Lucas Plan, that reimagined how production could be used to address social needs.
Thinkers mentioned: Stan Weir, Romano Alquati, Eric Blanc's "Red State Revolt," E.P Thompson.
Why We Need a Luddite Politics of Tech w/ Gavin Mueller Feb 25, 2021
Paris Marx is joined by Gavin Mueller to discuss who the Luddites really were, what they can teach us about how we think about technology today, and why they show the need for a decelerationist politics of the future.
Gavin Mueller is the author of "Breaking Things at Work: The Luddites Are Right About Why You Hate Your Job." He's also a lecturer in Media Studies at the University of Amsterdam and a member of the editorial collective of Viewpoint Magazine. Follow Gavin on Twitter as @gavinmuellerphd.
An excerpt of Gavin's book was recently published in Logic Magazine, and previously criticized fully automated luxury communism.
Gavin recommends E.P Thompson's "The Making of the English Working Class"
Courts ruled that Uber drivers in the UK are workers, and Deliveroo couriers in Amsterdam are employees.
Australia's Plan to Make Tech Pay for News w/ Lizzie O'Shea Feb 18, 2021
Paris Marx is joined by Lizzie O'Shea to discuss how Australia's plan to make Google and Facebook pay news publishers entrenches a data-extractive business model and aligns the interests of tech giants and media companies against those of the public.
Lizzie O'Shea is a human rights lawyer and the founder of Digital Rights Watch. She's also the author of "Future Histories: What Ada Lovelace, Tom Paine, and the Paris Commune Can Teach Us about Digital Technology." Follow Lizzie on Twitter as @Lizzie_OShea.
Lizzie wrote about the problems with this plan for Overland Journal and Nikkei Asia.
Paris wrote about why we shouldn't link big tech and news giants for Tribune Magazine.
Facebook restricted news sharing in Australia, while Google has signed deals with News Corp, Nine Entertainment, Seven West Media, and more for its News Showcase.
Australia has among the most concentrated media ownership in the world. Former prime ministers Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull called for a royal commission on Rupert Murdoch's media empire.
Australia's competition regulator released a digital platforms report with recommendations that included the bargaining code in 2019.
Canada and the European Union may copy Australia's model. French publishers are already getting paid by Google.
How Indonesian Gig Workers Are Organizing w/ Rida Qadri Feb 11, 2021
Paris Marx is joined by Rida Qadri to discuss how gig workers in Jakarta created networks of mutual aid in the face of a lack of support from companies and the government, and how their experiences show the importance of workers' local knowledge for delivery platforms.
Rida Qadri is a PhD candidate in Urban Information Systems at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Follow Rida on Twitter as @qadrida.
Rida wrote about how delivery platforms in Jakarta show the importance of the human workers and their local knowledge.
Paris wrote about Uber's dark side, including its lack of support for drivers in Mexico and Brazil who faced violence.
Gojek and Grab may merge, which would cause problems for gig workers in Southeast Asia.
Amazon's Vigorous Opposition to Unions w/ Lauren Kaori Gurley Feb 04, 2021
Paris Marx is joined by Lauren Kaori Gurley to discuss how Amazon surveils workers to stop them from organizing, the difficult working conditions in warehouses and for delivery drivers, and whether Jeff Bezos become Executive Chair will change anything.
Lauren Kaori Gurley is a labor reporter at Motherboard/Vice. Follow Lauren on Twitter as @LaurenKGurley.
Lauren wrote about how Amazon's Global Security Operations Center has a massive surveillance operation involving Pinkertons, and how the company monitors Facebook groups and internal listservs. She also spoke to workers about how they felt about it.
Paris wrote that Jeff Bezos' legacy as CEO is one of brutal exploitation and that can't be forgotten.
Ken Loach's Sorry We Missed You shows how the gig economy ruins people's lives.
During the pandemic, there were Amazon walkouts across the United States and global protests during the pandemic. Workers in Bessemer, Alabama are also voting on unionization.
Amazon stole delivery drivers' tips and has been forced to repay them $61.7 million.
How Nostalgia Serves Corporate Power w/ Grafton Tanner Jan 28, 2021
Paris Marx is joined by Grafton Tanner to discuss how social media constantly resurfaces the past, why film and television uses nostalgia to keep us engaged, and whether there's a way to wield nostalgia in pursuit of a better world.
Grafton Tanner is the author of "The Circle of the Snake: Nostalgia and Utopia in the Age of Big Tech" and "Babbling Corpse: Vaporwave and the Commodification of Ghosts." Grafton is also writing "The Hours Have Lost Their Clock: The Politics of Nostalgia" for Repeater Books, due out in October 2021. Follow Grafton on Twitter as @GraftonTanner.
Paris wrote about consolidation in the film and television industries.
Disney lobbied to extend copyright terms and what it might mean when Mickey Mouse goes into the public domain.
George Lucas describes how commercialism limits what kind of movies can be made (17:18-18:40).
Hollywood is using AI to help decide which films get made.
A Harry Potter television series is in early development at HBO Max.
Books mentioned in this episode: "The Future of Nostalgia" by Svetlana Boym, "New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future" by James Bridle, "Protocol: How Control Exists After Decentralization" by Alexander Galloway, "The End of Forgetting: Growing Up with Social Media" by Kate Eichhorn, "Radical Nostalgia: Spanish Civil War Commemoration in America" by Peter Glazer, and "Left in the Past: Radicalism and the Politics of Nostalgia" by Alastair Bonnett.
Movies and shows mentioned in this episode: Ready Player One, San Junipero (Black Mirror), eXistenZ, The Matrix, and The Merchants of Cool.
How YouTube Normalizes Right-Wing Extremism w/ Becca Lewis Jan 21, 2021
Paris Marx is joined by Becca Lewis to discuss YouTube's history of incentivizing extreme content, how the storming of the US Capitol shows the power of media spectacle, and why we should see social media platforms as media companies.
Becca Lewis is a PhD candidate in Communication at Stanford University. She's also written for a number of publications, including NBC News, Vice News, and New York Magazine. Follow Becca on Twitter as @beccalew.
Read Becca's report for Data & Society, "Alternative Influence: Broadcasting the Reactionary Right on YouTube." You can also read her articles on YouTube radicalization, the final report on the Christchurch shooting, and why Trump's Twitter ban was an editorial decision.
Jacob Hamburger explains why the "intellectual dark web" and its claims about political correctness are nothing new.
Alex Nichols explains how New Atheism was a precursor to the IDW and alt-right influencers.
The video of Ben Affleck pushing back against Sam Harris' Islamophobia on Bill Maher's show, which was supposedly Dave Rubin's "classical liberal" awakening.
Zeynep Tufekci describes how YouTube's recommendation algorithm recommends increasingly more extreme videos.
Twitter workers demanded Trump be banned before Jack Dorsey announced the decision.
People who inspire how Becca thinks about platforms: Robyn Caplan at Data & Society and Tarleton Gillespie at Microsoft Research.
Why We Need a Democratic Approach to Data w/ Salomé Viljoen Jan 14, 2021
Paris Marx is joined by Salomé Viljoen to discuss existing proposals to expand individual data rights or treat it as a form of labor, why we instead need to see data governance as a collective democratic project, and how that would give us the power to decide what data is collected and what it's used for.
Salomé Viljoen is an affiliate at Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, and a joint postdoctoral fellow at NYU School of Law's Information Law Institute and the Cornell Tech Digital Life Initiative. Follow Salomé on Twitter as @salome_viljoen_.
Read Salomé article about data egalitarianism for Phenomenal World.
People who write about informational capitalism: Shoshana Zuboff and Nick Couldry on one side, and Jathan Sadowski and Julie Cohen on the side that Salomé prefers.
People talking about data as property or labor: Andrew Yang through the Data Dividend Project, Eric Posner and Glen Weyl in "Radical Markets," and Jaron Lanier.
Proto-data egalitarian examples: Andrea Nahler's proposal for a civic data trust, Barcelona's civic data trust, the US Census, and learning from libraries' management of public information.
The Frictionless World of Silicon Valley w/ Anna Wiener Jan 07, 2021
Paris Marx is joined by Anna Wiener to discuss her journey into the tech industry, how Silicon Valley's desire for a "frictionless" world is affecting culture, and why it's important to analyze Substack's claims about the future of journalism.
Anna Wiener is the author of "Uncanny Valley" (available in paperback on Bookshop) and a contributing writer at the New Yorker. Follow Anna on Twitter as @annawiener.
Read Anna's articles on Substack, Section 230, and Salesforce Park in San Francisco.
Ava Kofman, Francis Tseng, and Moira Weigel explain how Amazon self-publishing has become a haven for white supremacists.
Venture-capitalist firm Andreessen Horowitz wrote about what they see as the "passion economy."
Platforms for Public Good w/ Mathew Lawrence & Thomas Hanna Dec 30, 2020
Paris Marx is joined by Mathew Lawrence and Thomas Hanna to discuss the problems with platforms, why antitrust alone is not enough to fix them, and how we can encourage the creation of democratic platforms that serve the public good.
Mathew Lawrence is the founder and director of Common Wealth. He's also the co-author of "Planet on Fire: A Manifesto for the Age of Environmental Breakdown." Preorder it now from Verso Books and follow him on Twitter as @DantonsHead.
Thomas Hanna is the research director at The Next System Project. He's the author of "Our Common Wealth: The Return of Public Ownership in the United States." Follow him on Twitter as @ThomasMHanna.
Mathew and Thomas wrote a new report with Nils Peters called "A Common Platform: Reimagining Data and Platforms."
Eric Levitz wrote about how venture capitalists are like US central planners.
Dan Hind wrote a previous report called "The British Digital Cooperative."
The Complex Systems that Govern Our Lives w/ Tim Maughan Dec 23, 2020
Paris Marx is joined by Tim Maughan to discuss the exploitative infrastructures that make the modern world possible, how complex technological systems rob us of our power to control our collective destiny, and why predicting trends isn't hard when you understand capitalism.
Tim Maughan is the author of "Infinite Detail" and "Ghost Hardware." He's also written for BBC Future, New Scientist, and Motherboard, and is writing a new column for OneZero. Follow Tim on Twitter as @timmaughan.
Read about the trip Tim took with Unknown Fields on a container ship, at manufacturing sites in China, and near a toxic lake in Inner Mongolia that's the product of mining rare-earth minerals.
Read the first article in Tim's new column, No One's Driving.
Kim Stanley Robinson says billionaire space visions are "just a fantasy of our culture right now."
Media mentioned by Tim: Judge Dredd comics, The Running Man, RoboCop, Rollerball, and Ad Astra.
How Urban Tech Increases Corporate Control w/ David Banks Dec 17, 2020
Paris Marx is joined by David Banks to discuss how tech solutions to increase corporate control in cities will be sold to us as fun and convenient, and what that will actually means for access and equity in urban life.
David Banks is a visiting assistant professor at the University at Albany. He's the editor-at-large at Real Life, and has written for The Baffler, e-flux architecture, and Current Affairs. Follow David on Twitter as @DA_Banks.
Read David's articles for Real Life on the subscriber city and e-flux architecture on software as infrastructure.
Paris wrote about the end of the Paramount Decrees, including what it could mean for the future of cinemas.
How people are fighting back against landlords attempts to use tech against tenants ("proptech").
Slavoj Žižek gives a father/son example of totalitarianism (from ~0:00-3:00).
David Harvey's "Right to the City" essay mentions how homeownership makes people more conservative.
Red Vienna remains a great example of public housing.
Kevin Rogan wrote about how smart-city technologies are designed to hide human labor.
Books in this show: "Radicalized" by Cory Doctorow, "Urban Warfare" by Raquel Rolnik, "Capital City" by Samuel Stein, and "Loft Living" by Sharon Zukin
Why Game and Tech Workers Are Organizing w/ Emma Kinema Dec 10, 2020
Paris Marx is joined by Emma Kinema to discuss how workers are organizing in the video game and tech industries, the challenges faced by those workers, and the importance of organizing to improve workplaces, but also larger economic structures.
Emma Kinema is a former tech and games worker who is a Campaign Lead with the Communications Workers of America on the Campaign to Organize Digital Employees. She also co-founded Game Workers Unite. Follow Emma on Twitter as @EmmaKinema.
Find out more about Harbinger Media Network at harbingermedianetwork.com and Passage at readpassage.com.
Emma spoke about labor organizing in the video games industry at XOXO Festival.
Paris wrote about why game workers are organizing in Australia, Canada, and France.
In January 2020, GDC's State of Games Industry report found 54% of game workers thought they should unionize.
Workers at Riot Games walked out in May 2019. Workers at Blizzard Entertainment walked out in October 2019. Workers at Lovestruck went on strike and got an average raised of 78%.
Rockstar's co-founder said there were 100-hour weeks ahead of Red Dead Redemption 2. Bioware workers said "depression and anxiety are an epidemic" within the company. CD Projekt Red said there wouldn't be crunch on Cyberpunk 2077, then enforced it anyway.
Fighting for Gig Workers' Rights After Prop 22 w/ Wilfred Chan Dec 03, 2020
Paris Marx is joined by Wilfred Chan to discuss how gig companies misled California voters to back Prop 22, whether the Biden administration will be an ally to gig workers, and the need for solidarity in the fight to preserve (and expand) labor rights.
Wilfred Chan is a contributing writer at the Nation. He has also written for Dissent, The Guardian, NBC News, and more. Read his recent piece on the fight for labor rights after Prop 22. Follow Wilfred on Twitter as @wilfredchan.
Tech Won't Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter.
If you want to join the Discord and check out the new supporter tiers, head over to Patreon.
Find out more about Harbinger Media Network and follow it on Twitter as @harbingertweets.
The Economic Policy Institute published an explainer on California's Assembly Bill 5 (AB5) and worker misclassification
The gig companies bought endorsements and sent out fake progressive mailers for Prop 22. The head of California's NAACP stepped down after the election for taking $1.7 million to back ballot measures.
VP-elect Kamala Harris' brother-in-law Tony West is chief legal officer at Uber, and now there are calls to make him Attorney General in a Biden administration
Biden's transition team is full of people from Big Tech with concerning pasts, including from Uber and Lyft
Uber and Lyft's share prices soared after Prop 22 won
Find out more about Rideshare Drivers United and New York Taxi Workers Alliance
How Spotify is Built On Artist Exploitation w/ Liz Pelly Nov 26, 2020
Paris Marx is joined by Liz Pelly to discuss how the Spotify model of streaming music continues a long trend of exploitation in the music industry and why musicians need to organize around a vision for a different world of music.
Liz Pelly is a freelance writer and critic who has spent the past decade working with community arts spaces. She is also a contributing editor and columnist at The Baffler. Follow Liz on Twitter as @lizpelly.
Read the plan for the future of the show and supporter benefits on Patreon.
Liz's work looks at many aspects of Spotify, including the model it's pushing on musicians and increasingly on podcasters
Paris has written about how consolidation and the emergence of streaming is having similarly negative effects in film and television
Naomi Klein explains how New Deal arts programs funded 225,000 musical performances which reached 150 million Americans — and much more
Cherie Hu tweeted a diagram showing how different streaming and music companies have stakes in one another
The Verge obtained Sony Music's contract with Spotify
How Galaxy 500 and Pavement had random songs take off on Spotify
Spotify CEO says artists need to record music more frequently
Henderson Cole's proposal for an American Music Library
The Union of Musicians and Allied Workers launched the Justice at Spotify campaign
The Injury Crisis in Amazon Warehouses w/ Will Evans Nov 19, 2020
Paris Marx is joined by Will Evans to discuss how excessive productivity targets are causing high rates of injury at Amazon warehouses, how executives have misled the public about the problem, and what that suggests about the impacts of the company's "customer obsession."
Will Evans is a reporter at Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting. Read his investigation about Amazon's safety crisis. Follow Will on Twitter as @willCIR.
Paris reflected on what Will's investigation suggested about the relationship between consumerism and workers' rights for NBC News.
Will did an earlier investigation about safety (or the lack thereof) at Tesla.
Brian Merchant wrote an "op-ed from the future" looking at how technology hides the harm to workers in a fictional fully automated Amazon warehouse.
How Video Games are Shaped by Capitalism w/ Daniel Joseph Nov 12, 2020
Paris Marx is joined by Daniel Joseph to discuss the relationship between video games and capitalism, how the gaming experience has become increasingly commercialized, and what the new consoles — Xbox Series X|S and Playstation 5 — herald for the future of the industry.
Daniel Joseph is a Senior Lecturer of Digital Sociology at Manchester Metropolitan University. Read his articles for Real Life about video games and capitalism and platformization, and for Briarpatch about what better platforms might look like. Follow Daniel on Twitter as @DanjoKaz00ie.
** Support the show on Patreon and read the plan for the future.
"If Xbox is Netflix, then Playstation is cinema" by Christopher Dring at GamesIndustry.biz
How PS4 better positioned itself against Xbox One, including a short video about trading games
Nintendo was charged with price fixing in the 1990s in the United States and Europe
In 2015, Valve and Bethesda had to backtrack on plans to commercialize modding
53% of PS4 game sales were digital in 2019. That grew to 74% in the early part of 2020.
David Nieborg and Thomas Poell's work on platforms; Sarah Grimes' work on commercialization of children's gaming; the App Studies Initiative; and T.L. Taylor's "Watch Me Play: Twitch and the Rise of Game Live Streaming"
Jobs Suck, But Not Because of Automation w/ Aaron Benanav Nov 05, 2020
Paris Marx is joined by Aaron Benanav to discuss why jobs are getting worse because the economy's slowing down, not because technology is speeding up, and why that requires a vision of post-scarcity centered around human relationships instead of technological change.
Aaron Benanav is an economic historian and social theorist. He is a post-doctoral researcher at Humboldt University of Berlin and author of "Automation and the Future of Work." Follow Aaron on Twitter as @abenanav.
Prop 22 passed in California, stopping gig workers from becoming employees
Paris explains the limits of a basic income, how Aaron's book helps us think about the future, and the problems with luxury communism
Aaron explains why automation isn't wiping out jobs
Aaron's science fiction reading list: "The Dispossessed," "The Word for World is Forest," and "Always Coming Home" by Ursula K. Le Guin; "Red Star" by Alexander Bogdanov; "Hard to be a God" and "Noon: 22nd Century" by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky; "News from Nowhere" by William Morris; "Looking Backward" by Edward Bellamy; "The Conquest of Bread" by Peter Kropotkin; "Trouble on Triton" by Samuel R. Delaney; "Star Maker" by Olaf Stapledon; and "Utopia" by Thomas Moore.
Section 230 Protects Free Expression Online w/ Evan Greer Oct 29, 2020
Paris Marx is joined by Evan Greer to discuss Republican and Democratic desires to amend or revoke Section 230, why the proposals won't solve problems with Big Tech, and the international implications of US decisions about moderation.
Evan Greer is an activist, musician, and writer. She is the deputy director at Fight for the Future, which is currently running campaigns to protect Section 230 called Save Online Free Speech and to ban facial recognition technology. Follow Evan on Twitter as @evan_greer.
Evan wrote about the problems with algorithmic amplification for Wired
There is no anti-conservative bias on social media and Facebook's algorithms connected extremists with hate groups
Facebook removes the accounts of anti-government activists internationally and an internal memo by a former employee says it doesn't care about its impacts if Western media won't find out about it
SESTA/FOSTA made life harder for sex workers, but has also empowered a movement for decriminalization
Zoom deleted meetings discussing its own censorship
What Rural China Teaches Us About the Future of Tech w/ Xiaowei Wang Oct 22, 2020
Paris Marx is joined by Xiaowei Wang to discuss how technology is being used to connect rural China to global supply chains, what that means for life and work in those communities, and how China also holds inspiration for a different way of organizing production and technological development.
Xiaowei Wang is a technologist, artist, and writer. They are the creative director at Logic Magazine and author of "Blockchain Chicken Farm: And Other Stories of Tech in China's Countryside." Follow Xiaowei on Twitter as @xrw.
Find out more about Harbinger Media Network and follow it on Twitter as @harbingertweets. You can also find out more about 49th Parahell on its website.
How China's Sanlu milk scandal shattered trust in the food system
Garrett Hardin, who came up with the tragedy of the commons, was a racist, eugenicist, nativist, and Islamophobe — and those ideas are baked into the concept
Elinor Ostrom won the Nobel Prize in Economics for her work on the governance of commons, rebuking Hardin's ideas
Xiaowei wrote about the Chinese concept of "shanzhai" provides a vision of an open-source future of technological development
Why Google's Ad Business Could Implode w/ Tim Hwang Oct 15, 2020
Paris Marx is joined by Tim Hwang to discuss how digital ad markets became financialized, why Google and Facebook have an incentive to hide how poorly digital ads actually work, and how a financial bubble in digital advertising could usher in a better future of the internet.
Tim Hwang is a writer, researcher, and former global public policy lead for artificial intelligence and machine learning at Google. He is also the author of "Subprime Attention Crisis: Advertising and the Time Bomb at the Heart of the Internet." Follow Tim on Twitter as @timhwang.
Find out more about Harbinger Media Network and follow it on Twitter as @harbingertweets. You can also find out more about Alberta Advantage on their website.
The United Kingdom's Information Commissioner isn't so sure Cambridge Analytica was as good at changing our minds as it made us all believe.
When Procter and Gamble cut their digital ad spend by $200 million, its reach increased by 10%.
A Google report found that 56% of ad impressions may not even be seen by humans.
Facebook's "pivot to video" was based on false metrics and caused a lot of journalists to lose their jobs.
Paris wrote a critical review of The Social Dilemma for Jacobin.
Silicon Valley is Embracing Anti-China Nationalism w/ JS Tan Oct 08, 2020
Paris Marx is joined by JS Tan to discuss the internet's connection with neoliberalism, China's protectionist measures to develop its own tech industry, and how the new tensions between the United States and China are leading Silicon Valley to embrace nationalism.
JS Tan is a former tech worker and writer. He also started Collective Actions in Tech. He recently wrote articles about the tech angle on the Cold War for Foreign Policy and Trump's attempted TikTok ban for Jacobin. Follow JS on Twitter as @organizejs.
Find out more about Harbinger Media Network and follow it on Twitter as @harbingertweets. You can also find Kino Lefter on Twitter.
The solidarity between tech workers in the United States and China
Key insights into tech worker activism from the Collective Actions in Tech database
Mark Zuckerberg's speech at Georgetown University
Peter Thiel's tech nationalism op-ed in the New York Times
Eric Schmidt's tech nationalism op-ed in the New York Times
Major Publishers Want to Shut Down Digital Lending w/ Maria Bustillos Oct 01, 2020
Paris Marx is joined by Maria Bustillos to discuss the important work of the Internet Archive, why it opened a digital National Emergency Library during the pandemic, how access to culture is essential for the social good, and why the major publishers are trying to permanently restrict digital lending in a narrow-minded bid for short-term profit.
Maria Bustillos is the founding editor of Popula and Brick House. She recently wrote about the major publishers' lawsuit against the Internet Archive for The Nation. Find out more about Brick House and follow Maria on Twitter as @mariabustillos.
Tech Won't Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter.
Nail Gaiman explained how piracy is the digital equivalent of lending and increased the sales of his books.
How long copyright terms make our culture disappear.
Microsoft simply turned off access to all the ebooks it sold with DRM.
Amazon deleted copies of George Orwell's "1984" from people's Kindles.
The new North American trade agreement extended Canadian copyright terms by 20 years.
It's unlikely that US copyright terms will be extended again. The Authors Guild would even be open to reducing terms by 20 years.
How Google & Facebook Dominate Digital Ads w/ Shoshana Wodinsky Sep 24, 2020
Paris Marx is joined by Shoshana Wodinsky to discuss how digital ad markets work, how Google and Facebook maintain their dominance, and why the TikTok saga wasn't really about China getting people's data at all.
Shoshana Wodinsky is a data reporter at Gizmodo. She recently wrote how banning TikTok won't do anything about data going to China and how the US Congress might break up the tech monopolies. Follow Shoshana on Twitter as @swodinsky.
How Foxconn Treats the Workers Who Built Your iPhone w/ Jenny Chan Sep 17, 2020
Paris Marx is joined by Jenny Chan to discuss the difficult lives of Foxconn factory workers, the company's relationship with Apple, the structural roadblocks to better working conditions, and how Chinese workers are trying to push back.
Jenny Chan is the co-author of "Dying for an iPhone: Apple, Foxconn, and The Lives of China's Workers" with Mark Selden and Pun Ngai. It's available from Haymarket Books and Pluto Press. She is also an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
A Better Internet Requires Ending the Monopolies w/ Cory Doctorow Sep 10, 2020
Paris Marx is joined by Cory Doctorow to discuss how the problems we associate with Big Tech aren't the result of mind-control systems, but corporation consolidation. Cory argues we need to stop buying the overblown sales pitch, stop collecting so much data, and enforce antitrust legislation against the tech monopolies.
Cory Doctorow is a science fiction author, activist, and journalist. His most recent non-fiction book, "How to Defeat Surveillance Capitalism," is available for free at OneZero. You can also preorder his next fiction book, "Attack Surface," on Kickstarter or anywhere else books are sold. Cory has a daily blog at Pluralistic.net and you can follow him on Twitter as @doctorow.
Thinking about Tech in the Present Tense w/ Ben Tarnoff Sep 03, 2020
Paris Marx is joined by Ben Tarnoff to discuss why we should look to the Luddites for inspiration, how history could inform a better future of technology, and what tech organizing might look like under a Joe Biden administration.
Ben Tarnoff is a co-founder of Logic Magazine and co-authored "Voices from the Valley: Tech Workers Talk About What They Do–and How They Do It" with Moira Weigel. The book will be released in October and can be preordered now. Follow Ben on Twitter as @bentarnoff.
"To decarbonize we must decomputerize: why we need a Luddite revolution" by Ben Tarnoff
"From Manchester to Barcelona" by Ben Tarnoff
"The Making of the Tech Worker Movement" by Ben Tarnoff
"The Making of the English Working Class" by E.P. Thompson
"The Machine Breakers" by Eric Hobsbawm
"Present Tense Technology" by David Noble
We Can't Talk About Tech Without Talking About Resources w/ Thea Riofrancos Aug 27, 2020
Paris Marx is joined by Thea Riofrancos to discuss why we should care about the supply chains of technology, what that resource extraction means for people in Latin America, and how we should think about a less resource-intensive future.
Thea Riofrancos is the author of "Resource Radicals: From Petro-Nationalism to Post-Extractivism in Ecuador" and co-author of "A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal." She is also an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Providence College and a Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute. Her argument against green extractivism was published by Logic Magazine. Follow Thea on Twitter as @triofrancos.
"Planetary Mine: Territories of Extraction under Late Capitalism" by Martín Arboleda
"Could a Green New Deal makes us happier people?" by Kate Aronoff
"Do Androids Dream of Electric Cars?: Public Transit in the Age of Google, Uber, and Elon Musk" by James Wilt
How Tech Journalism Legitimized the Gig Economy w/ Sam Harnett Aug 20, 2020
Paris Marx is joined by Sam Harnett to talk about how the flaws in tech journalism provide a distorted view of what "tech" companies are actually doing and why it looks like California will finally force ride-hail drivers to be recognized as employees (without Uber and Lyft).
Sam Harnett is a reporter covering labor and tech at KQED in the Bay Area. He recently made a radio series called "How We Got to Here" and is the co-creator of The World According to Sound. Sam has an essay about the problems with tech journalism in "Beyond the Algorithm: Qualitative Insights for Gig Work Regulation." Follow Sam on Twitter as @SamWHarnett.
For more related articles, see Sam's article about how Uber and Lyft evaded regulations for eight years, Paris' article on why California should kick them out if they won't comply with labor law, and Veena Dubal's criticism of the franchise model they're now considering.
What the History of TV Can Teach Us About Netflix w/ Tom Evens Aug 13, 2020
Paris Marx is joined by Tom Evens to discuss how the history of the television industry can give us important insights into the state of streaming video services and how regulators might respond to ensure they serve the public good instead of just their private goals.
Tom Evens is the co-author of "Platform Power and Policy in Transforming Television Markets" and a Professor of Media, Innovation and Communication Technologies at Ghent University. Follow Tom on Twitter as @EvensTom.
How to Defeat an Apple Store w/ Tania Davidge Aug 06, 2020
Paris Marx is joined by Tania Davidge to discuss the campaign to stop Apple from building a store in the middle of Melbourne's Federation Square and how the company's vision of a town square differs from what a true public space should be.
Tania Davidge is architect, artist, educator, writer, and researcher. She is the president of Citizens for Melbourne, a public space advocacy group, and the co-founder of the architectural research practice OoPLA. She recently wrote about the need to preserve Melbourne's Federation Square as a key public gathering space. Follow Tania on Twitter as @taniadavidge.
The Boring Company is a Complete Joke w/ Alissa Walker Jul 30, 2020
Paris Marx is joined by Alissa Walker to discuss how Elon Musk's Boring Company transportation system has changed over the past few years, what his plans in Las Vegas mean for workers and transit users, and why tech companies are distracting us from a real vision of better cities.
Alissa Walker is the urbanism editor at Curbed, co-host of LA Podcast, and a contributor to KCRW's Greater LA. She recently reported on the latest updates on the Boring Company and its project in Las Vegas, and did a great breakdown of how the whole concept has evolved back in January. Follow Alissa on Twitter as @awalkerinLA.
Space Mining Brings Capitalism to the Cosmos w/ Julie Michelle Klinger Jul 23, 2020
Paris Marx is joined by Julie Michelle Klinger to discuss the myths around rare earth elements and how they're fueling a movement to enclose and mine space. But a better, more collaborative future that treats space as a commons is still possible, and the Global South may show us the way forward.
Julie Michelle Klinger is the author of "Rare Earth Frontiers: From Terrestrial Subsoils to Lunar Landscapes" and an Assistant Professor of Geography & Spatial Sciences at the University of Delaware. Her argument about why space is not the final frontier was recently published on urbanNext. Follow Julie on Twitter as @Prof_Klinger.
The Global South Holds a Better Future of Tech w/ Juan Ortiz Freuler Jul 16, 2020
Paris Marx is joined by Juan Ortiz Freuler to discuss the recent global negotiations on the taxation of multinational corporations, how Africa is demanding the digital labor of its citizens be accounted for, how these tensions threaten to fragment the web, and why the Global South may hold a better future of technology that transcends the capitalist, centralized, and individualist platforms which currently dominate.
Juan Ortiz Freuler is an Affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University and a member of the Tierra Común network of researchers. He recently made the case for a digital non-aligned movement. Follow Juan on Twitter as @juanof9.
Smart Tech Is Designed For Control w/ Jathan Sadowski Jul 09, 2020
Paris Marx is joined by Jathan Sadowski to discuss the politics of smart technology, how it enables powerful actors to further control the population, and why we should be more comfortable dismantling technologies that don't serve the public good.
Jathan Sadowski is the author of "Too Smart: How Digital Capitalism is Extracting Data, Controlling Our Lives, and Taking Over the World" and a Research Fellow in the Emerging Technologies Research Lab at Monash University. He recently wrote about how smart tech is a means for corporate control and the need to dismantle urban surveillance systems. Follow Jathan on Twitter as @jathansadowski.
Why Uber Failed at Micromobility w/ Aaron W. Gordon Jul 02, 2020
Paris Marx is joined by Aaron W. Gordon to discuss how VC-backed tech companies upended the bike-share industry, how that specifically played out in the case of Uber and Jump, and why the dockless bike and scooter model is failing.
Aaron is a senior staff writer at Motherboard. He recently reported on Uber's mismanagement of Jump Bikes. Follow Aaron on Twitter as @A_W_Gordon.
You can also read Paris' thoughts on the future of micromobility.
Technofascism in India w/ Banu Subramaniam & Debjani Bhattacharyya Jun 25, 2020
Paris Marx is joined by Banu Subramaniam and Debjani Bhattacharyya to discuss Indian politics under Narendra Modi and the BJP; how contract-tracing apps and geofencing are being used to monitor people during COVID-19; and how Hindu nationalism is informing responses to the pandemic on WhatsApp.
Banu Subramaniam is a professor of Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the author of "Holy Science: The Biopolitics of Hindu Nationalism." Debjani Bhattacharyya is an assistant professor of History at Drexel University and the author of "Empire and Ecology in the Bengal Delta: The Making of Calcutta." They recently wrote about technofascism in India and how people are using WhatsApp in response to COVID-19. You can follow Debjani on Twitter at @itihaashtag.
Amazon Wants to Dominate Everything w/ Brian Merchant Jun 18, 2020
Paris Marx is joined by Brian Merchant to discuss how Amazon's response to COVID-19 has put its workers in danger, how big tech companies are partnering with oil and gas companies, and why the pandemic makes it clear that shopping at Amazon is unethical.
Brian Merchant is a senior editor at OneZero and the author of "The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone". He recently wrote how the pandemic is accelerating the Amazonification of the economy and why it's unethical to continue giving Amazon money. Follow Brian on Twitter as @bcmerchant.
Tech Giants Don't Care About Black Lives w/ Edward Ongweso Jr. Jun 11, 2020
Paris Marx is joined by Edward Ongweso Jr. to discuss how the labor practices, tech products, and global supply chains of tech companies prove they don't care about Black lives — regardless of what they've said in recent statements. Edward also explains why we should defund the police.
Edward Ongweso Jr. is a staff writer at Vice. He recently wrote about tech companies' response to Black Lives Matter and what it would mean to defund the police. Follow Edward on Twitter as @bigblackjacobin.
Art is More Than Ones and Zeroes w/ Nika Roza Danilova Jun 04, 2020
Paris Marx is joined by Nika Roza Danilova to discuss how COVID-19 is affecting artists, the privileged worldview of tech, the human essence of art, and why that can't be replicated by artificial intelligence. She also provides advice on how to best support artists and her hopes for what a better world for artists might look like.
Nika Roza Danilova makes music under the name Zola Jesus. Her fifth studio album, Okovi, was released in 2017. Read her essay "On AI and Silicon Fascist Privilege" for more insight on her perspective, and check out Koir, a website she co-founded to help artists livestream their performances. Follow Nika on Twitter as @zolajesus.
A Cooperative Vision for Technological Innovation w/ Dan Hind May 28, 2020
Paris Marx is joined by Dan Hind to discuss the problems with the existing tech industry and its links to the state, and his proposal for reorienting technological development to promote human flourishing and a cooperative economy.
Dan Hind is the author of "The Return of the Public: Democracy, Power and the Case for Media Reform" and recently wrote a report called "The British Digital Cooperative: A New Model Public Sector Institution" for The Next System Project and Common Wealth. He's also written for the Guardian, the New Socialist, and the New Scientist. Follow Dan on Twitter as @danhind.
Uber's War on Drivers w/ Veena Dubal May 21, 2020
Paris Marx is joined by Veena Dubal to discuss how Uber's misclassification of drivers of independent contractors denies them rights and protections granted to other workers; how that's causing even more problems during the pandemic; the ongoing fight in California to get drivers recognized as employees under Assembly Bill 5; and how ride-hailing services ushered in a second wave of deregulation in the taxi industry.
Veena Dubal is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of California, Hastings. Her work focuses on the intersection of law, tech, and precarious worker. She recently wrote about how Uber drivers are faring during the pandemic for The Guardian and the longer history of taxi regulation for Logic Magazine. Follow Veena on Twitter as @veenadubal.
How Tech Platforms Affect Our Digital Lives w/ Joanne McNeil May 19, 2020
Paris Marx is joined by Joanne McNeil to discuss how our experience online has evolved over the past three decades, the class backgrounds of tech founders, how the AIDS crisis robbed us an important contribution to the early web, and whether COVID-19 will change how we use platforms in the future.
Joanne McNeil is the author of "Lurking: How a Person Became a User." She has written for the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, WIRED, the Baffler, and more. Follow Joanne on Twitter as @jomc.
History Shows Radical Futures Are Possible w/ Lizzie O'Shea May 14, 2020
Paris Marx is joined by Lizzie O'Shea to discuss how learning about history can empower us to imagine more radical futures, how COVID-19 could create the opportunity to demand a better world, and how the praise for essential workers could help us rethink our ideas about work and the economy.
Lizzie O'Shea is the author of "Future Histories: What Ada Lovelace, Tom Paine, and the Paris Commune Can Teach Us about Digital Technology." She is also the founder and chair of Digital Rights Watch. She recently wrote about how there is no such thing as unskilled labor for The Baffler. Follow Lizzie on Twitter as @Lizzie_OShea.
The photo of the Paris Commune mentioned in the episode can be found here.
Tech Billionaires Think They're Better Than You w/ Rob Larson May 12, 2020
Paris Marx is joined by Rob Larson to discuss how tech billionaires use philanthropy to massage their images, how they're creating a world that leaves nearly everyone else worse off, and how we need to respond with an online socialism to bring tech platforms under worker control.
Rob Larson is the author of "Bit Tyrants: The Political Economy of Silicon Valley" and an economics professor at Tacoma Community College. He also recently wrote about how billionaire-funded philanthropy is a public-relations scam for Jacobin and how the tech platforms are on their best behavior during COVID-19 for Current Affairs. Follow Rob on Twitter as @IronicProfessor.
Fighting Back Against the Tech Monopolies w/ Grace Blakeley May 07, 2020
Paris Marx is joined by Grace Blakeley to discuss how neoliberal capitalism benefits the tech monopolies, how they're thriving as the COVID-19 pandemic continues, and how workers fight back after the defeat of Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn.
Grace Blakeley is the author of "Stolen: How to Save the World from Financialisation," a staff writer at Tribune Magazine, and serves on the Labour Party's National Policy Forum. She also recently wrote about how COVID-19 is accelerating tech monopolization for Novara Media. Follow Grace on Twitter as @graceblakeley.
Elon Musk is a Cult Leader w/ Ilari Kaila May 05, 2020
Paris Marx is joined by Ilari Kaila to talk about Elon Musk's latest unhinged tweeting episode, his self-serving calls to end COVID-19 lockdowns, and how the outlandish promises he makes and stories he makes result in a cult-like devotion by those who follow him.
Ilari Kaila is a Finnish-American writer and Composer-in-Residence at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. His work has been published by Aeon Magazine, Jacobin Magazine, Muftah Magazine, the Finnish Broadcasting Company, and others. Read his blog post about how Elon Musk is a cult leader at LimitedHangoutBlog.com and follow him on Twitter as @IlariKaila.
How Tech Distracts Us From the Bigger Picture w/ Bianca Wylie Apr 30, 2020
Paris Marx is joined by Bianca Wylie to talk about the response to COVID-19, how governments' emphasis on tech solutions ignores (and potentially entrenches) social inequalities, and how we might take control of technology to ensure it works for the public good.
Bianca Wylie is the co-founder of Digital Public and Tech Reset Canada, and a Senior Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation. Follow Bianca on Twitter as @biancawylie.
After listening to the interview, consider reading Chris Gilliard on luxury surveillance, Jay Pitter on forgotten densities, and Nora Loreto on long-term care facilities.
Bursting the Reality Bubble w/ Ziya Tong Apr 27, 2020
Paris Marx is joined by Ziya Tong to talk about how COVID-19 is helping us to see the world in a new way, and how that might open the door to reimagining how we organize society. Our "reality bubbles" about work, the food system, technology, and our relationship to nature are being severely challenged, but the question remains whether we can seize this moment to build a better world in the pandemic's aftermath.
Ziya Tong is the author of "The Reality Bubble: Blind Spots, Hidden Truths, and the Dangerous Illusions that Shape Our World", a former co-host of Daily Planet on the Discovery Channel, and sits on the board of World Wildlife Fund International. Follow Ziya on Twitter as @ziyatong.
Transit is the Future w/ James Wilt Apr 23, 2020
Paris Marx is joined by James Wilt to talk about how COVID-19 is affecting transportation systems, the flaws in tech's auto-oriented visions of the future, and why we need to fight for better transit systems to more equitably serve everyone.
James Wilt is the author of "Do Androids Dream of Electric Cars?: Transit in the Age of Google, Uber, and Elon Musk". He's also written for Canadian Dimension, Briarpatch, and Passage. Follow James on Twitter as @james_m_wilt.
Tech's Response to COVID-19 w/ Wendy Liu Apr 20, 2020
Paris Marx is joined by Wendy Liu to talk about how the tech industry is responding to COVID-19, how tech workers may find their jobs at risk in the aftermath, and why we need to change the system to build tech for the public good instead of in service to private capital.
Wendy Liu is the author of "Abolish Silicon Valley: How to Liberate Technology from Capitalism." She has also written for Tribune Magazine, Logic Magazine, and the New Statesman. Follow Wendy on Twitter as @dellsystem.
A Brief Introduction Apr 11, 2020
Tech Won't Save Us challenges the notion that technology alone can solve our problems. Full episodes coming very soon.
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