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© 2024 Tech Won't Save Us
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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.
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Paris Marx is joined by Molly White, Brian Merchant, and Eric Wickham to discuss the highs and lows (mostly lows) of this year in tech news.Molly White is the creator of Web3 is Going Just Great and Follow the Crypto. Brian Merchant is my co-host on System Crash, a new podcast we’re hosting. He’s also a longtime tech journalist and author of Blood in the Machine. Eric Wickham is the producer for Tech Won’t Save Us, along with a bunch of other podcast, and an independent journalist.Tech Won’t ...
2Paris Marx is joined by Amanda Mull to discuss the data-informed decisions that are changing the way we all experience air travel, mostly for the worse. Amanda Mull is a senior reporter and Buying Power columnist at Bloomberg Businessweek.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. Support the show on Patreon.The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production ...
Our Data Vampires series may be over, but Paris interviewed a bunch of experts on data centers and AI whose insights shouldn’t go to waste. We’re releasing those interviews as bonus episodes for Patreon supporters. Here’s a preview of this week’s premium episode with Aurora Gomez Delgado of Tu Nube Seca Mi Río. For the full interview, support the show on Patreon.Support the show
Paris Marx is joined by Cam Wilson to discuss Australia’s plan to ban under-16s from social media, the interests driving it, and whether it’s the right approach to tackle the harms of those platforms.Cam Wilson is associate editor at Crikey.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. Support the show on Patreon.The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Productio...
Our Data Vampires series may be over, but Paris interviewed a bunch of experts on data centers and AI whose insights shouldn’t go to waste. We’re releasing those interviews as bonus episodes for Patreon supporters. Here’s a preview of this week’s premium episode with Brid Smith, a former TD or Member of Parliament in the Irish Parliament in Dublin. For the full interview, support the show on Patreon.Support the show
Our Data Vampires series may be over, but Paris interviewed a bunch of experts on data centers and AI whose insights shouldn’t go to waste. We’re releasing those interviews as bonus episodes for Patreon supporters. Here’s a preview of this week’s premium episode with Sebastian Lehuede, a lecturer at King’s College London. For the full interview, support the show on Patreon.Support the show
Paris Marx is joined by MV Ramana to discuss the tech industry’s push to have nuclear energy power its data centers and why the reality of nuclear power isn’t as great as its promoters often make it seem.MV Ramana is a Professor and Simons Chair in Disarmament, Global and Human Security at the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs at the University of British Columbia. He is the author of Nuclear Is Not the Solution: The Folly of Atomic Power in the Age of Climate Change.Tech Won’t Save ...
Paris Marx is joined by Becca Lewis to discuss the right-wing project to shape the internet in the 1990s and how we’re still living with the legacies of those actions today.Becca Lewis is a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University.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. Support the show on Patreon.The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is...
Our Data Vampires series may be over, but Paris interviewed a bunch of experts on data centers and AI whose insights shouldn’t go to waste. We’re releasing those interviews as bonus episodes for Patreon supporters. Here’s a preview of this week’s premium episode with Cecilia Rikap, an Associate Professor in Economics at University College London. For the full interview, support the show on Patreon.Support the show
Paris Marx is joined by Brian Merchant to discuss the fallout from the US election, what it means for the tech industry, and more importantly, what it might mean for all of us. They also celebrate the show hitting 250 episodes!Brian Merchant is a longtime tech writer and author of Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech.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 ...
Our Data Vampires series may be over, but Paris interviewed a bunch of experts on data centers and AI whose insights shouldn’t go to waste. Starting this week, we’re releasing those interviews as bonus episodes for Patreon supporters. Here’s a preview of this week’s premium episode with Ali Alkhatib, Logic(s) data editor and former interim director of the Center for Applied Data Ethics. For the full interview, support the show on Patreon.Support the show
Paris Marx is joined by tante to discuss troubling developments in the open source world as Wordpress goes to war with WP Engine and a new definition of open source AI doesn’t require being open about training data.tante is a sociotechnologist, writer, speaker, and Luddite working on tech and its social impact.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. Support the show o...
Paris Marx is joined by Jacob Silverman to discuss all the money Elon Musk is pouring into the US election and what Silicon Valley’s political influence will mean regardless of who becomes president.Jacob Silverman is the author of Gilded Rage: Elon Musk and the Radicalization of Silicon Valley, coming in September 2025 from Bloomsbury. His book Easy Money is now available in paperback.Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of ...
Tech billionaires are embracing extreme right-wing politics. It’s not just to enhance their power, but to try to realize a harmful vision for humanity’s future that could see humans merging with machines and possibly even living in computer simulations. Will we allow them to put our collective resources behind their science fiction dreams, or fight for a better future and a different kind of technology to go along with it? This is episode 4 of Data Vampires, a special four-part series from Te...
Paris Marx is joined by Ulises A. Mejias and Nick Couldry to discuss how Silicon Valley's extractive data collection regime and the power it grants them resembles a much older form of exploitation: colonialism.Ulises A. Mejias is a professor of Communication Studies at SUNY Oswego and Nick Couldry is a professor of Media, Communications and Social Theory at the London School of Economics. They are the co-authors of Data Grab: The New Colonialism of Big Tech and How to Fight Back and among the...
Sam Altman is clear: he’s ready to sacrifice anything for his AI fantasies. But are we? We dig into why generative AI has such extreme energy demands and how major tech companies are trying to rewrite climate accounting rules to cover how much their emissions are rising. AI isn’t just churning out visual slop; it’s also being used to transform how our society works and further reduce people’s power over their lives. It’s a disaster any way you look at it. This is episode 3 of Data Vampires, a...
Paris Marx is joined by Julia Black to discuss who Curtis Yarvin is and how his anti-democratic, far-right writings have influenced the politics of Silicon Valley and the wider American extreme right.Julia Black is a features reporter on The Information’s Weekend Team.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. Support the show on Patreon.The podcast is made in partnershi...
As hyperscale data centers move into communities, they come with significant water and energy demands that some are not willing to put up with. We go to Ireland, Spain, and Chile to learn about the effects of data centers on the ground and why some communities are fighting back. They’re asking whether the tradeoffs they’re being expected to make are really necessary. This is episode 2 of Data Vampires, a special four-part series from Tech Won’t Save Us.Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical per...
Paris Marx is joined by Spencer Ackerman to discuss the past year of Israel's actions in Palestine and the innovations in war technology being used to carry out what the ICJ has deemed a "plausible" genocide in Gaza.Spencer Ackerman is a Pulitzer-prize winning author of Reign of Terror. He’s a contributor at Zeteo and publishes the Forever Wars newsletter. He’s also writing a new series of Iron Man comics that come out very soon.Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its wo...
Amazon, Microsoft, and Google are the dominant players in the cloud market. Around the world, they’re building massive hyperscale data centers that they claim are necessary to power the future of our digital existence. But they also increase their power over other companies and come with massive resource demands communities are getting fed up with. Is their future really the one we want? This is episode 1 of Data Vampires, a special four-part series from Tech Won’t Save Us.Tech Won’t Save Us ...
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I'm reminded of IBM's origins
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Paris!! Talk less! You're always just recapping what your guests have just said. It's aggravating!
This was like listening to 2 high, sophomoric twits yammer over a joint. It was an uncritical, facile, blathering armchair exploration of a lazy, loose hypothesis.
Right?
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This was simply stupid. In addition to many other misrepresentations in this conversation, effective accelerationism and effective altruism were presented as birds of a feather. However, effective accelerationism arose *in opposition* to effective altruism (which the former call "doomers"). To see it in action, see the recent fisco with Sam Altman at OpenAI.
Another episode beating on a straw man. Paris is more interested in guffawing at misrepresentations and wallowing in mischaracterizations than in understanding a topic or testing ideas. It's childishness masquerading as thoughtfulness for the sake of hollow self-righteousness.
@1:05:35: Although I generally agree with most of the criticisms against Israel mentioned in this episode, Paris's equivocation about Oct. 7th was reprehensible. Is he so stupid as to think it undercuts Palestinian advocacy to reproach the vile barbarism of Oct. 7th? It seems as if Paris is so zealously obsequious towards his guests that he often finds himself with a mouthful of foot... and that's the generous interpretation.
You started this episode with a complete misrepresentation of what Summers said. You've made such a habit of strawmanning that I just don't find you credible anymore.
I dislike many things about Elon Musk, but this whole Musk sub-series was quite weak. It included many legitimate criticisms, but it was padded out with too many loose connections, weakly argued criticisms, and vague aspersions.
Tezla?
I'm often impressed by just how off-putting vocal fry is for me. In this case, I couldn't stop the episode fast enough. What's especially strange is how the prevalence of vocal fry has sky-rocketed in the last 10 years (along with other affectations, such as up-talk and some forms of lisping).
Host....please use another word or phrase when confirming or agreeing with something your guest says. The response "Absolutely! " is soooo over used by your generation.
Much too race-centric, even to the point of racializing geography and claiming that each of us inherits the sins (and grievances) of historical people of the same race (even irrespective of a lack of genealogical connection). This is just more "race-first" garbage made combustible with misappropriated words, such as "colonial".
Fascinating discussion.
Summary: P: kind of in particular kind of in particular A: sort of sort of sort of sort of
@50:30: Another lazy commentator who fancies herself a journalist, yet spreads rumors (which were started to undermine unions' negotiating positions) that could be dispelled with a simple Google search. "The Apprentice" began in 2004. It's beginning had nothing to do with the 2007 labor strike. Good grief. Do your job.
@52:50: Paris thinks there's only a weak genetic component of intelligence, and that there's little evidence to the contrary? Good grief, he does like to speak confidently--with hedged hyperbole--about things he clearly knows little about. Ugh, it seems a "liberal education" increasingly entails training people to make smug, ignorant "critiques" and has little to do with learning anything... presumably because that would evince a colonially hegemonic othering of their lived ways of knowing, or some such BS.
@9:15: The guest thinks no one had ever heard of rationalism or effective altruism before 2022?! Talk about solipsism. Just because it's new to her doesn't mean it's new to the universe. She might even discover that if she were to, I don't know, look into things a bit--almost like a journalist would. And she thinks rationalism and effective altruism are "right-wing"? What is this crap? Is she equating effective altruism with the narrow issue of "earning to give"? If so, the criticism shouldn't be against the process that identifies that course as effective, but against the economic system that makes the observation true... or perhaps against its misuse in practice. In any case, she's bad at thinking or bad at communicating. Many podcast guests seem more interested in provocation than in accuracy. Maybe accuracy doesn't "drive engagement"--and yet again, a podcast criticizing tech replicates its vices.