Silicon Valley has a solution for everything, but who do its ideas really serve? Every Thursday, Paris Marx is joined by a new guest to critically examine the tech industry, its thought leaders, and the worldview it spreads. They challenge 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. But if tech won't save us, what will? This podcast isn't simply about tearing tech down; it also presents radical ideas for tech designed for human flourishing instead of surveillance, acquisitions, or to boost stock prices. A better world is possible, and so is better technology.

What Elon Musk Won’t Tell You About Settling Mars w/ Zach Weinersmith

March 28, 2024 1:03:26 11.9 MB ( 33.85 MB less) Downloads: 0

Paris Marx is joined by Zach Weinersmith to discuss the impracticalities of space colonies some interested parties keep forgetting to mention. Zach Weinersmith co-wrote A City On Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through? with Kelly Weinersmith. He also makes the Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal comic.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 by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.Also mentioned in this episode:An excerpt of A City on Mars was published by Space.com.Support the show

What the TikTok Ban Reveals About US Tech Policy w/ Jacob Silverman

March 21, 2024 1:02:06 11.83 MB ( 32.96 MB less) Downloads: 0

Paris Marx is joined by Jacob Silverman to discuss the motivations behind the proposed TikTok ban and what the effort tells us about US tech policy.Jacob Silverman is a tech journalist and the co-author of Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud.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 by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.Also mentioned in this episode:Jacob wrote about the GOP megadonor who could benefit from whatever happens to TikTok.Paris wrote about the geopolitics of the TikTok ban and what it says about US power.Taylor Lorenz broke down some of the disputed claims being made about TikTok.Sam Biddle wrote about how Facebook knows they violated Palestinian human rights.Byron Tau explained how US government agencies are getting people’s personal data from data brokers.Support the show

Time for a Butlerian Jihad?: A ‘Dune’ Chat w/ Ed Ongweso Jr & Brian Merchant

March 18, 2024 1:34:05 17.58 MB ( 50.25 MB less) Downloads: 0

In a bonus episode, Paris Marx is joined by Ed Ongweso Jr. and Brian Merchant to share their thoughts on Dune: Part Two, how it relates to the modern tech industry, and whether today’s Luddites can take anything from Dune’s Butlerian Jihad.Ed Ongweso Jr is finance editor at Logic(s) Magazine and cohost of This Machine Kills. Brian Merchant is a technology journalist and the 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 and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.Also mentioned in this episode:You can watch the entire livestream over on YouTube.For Disconnect, Paris wrote about how the digital revolution has failed.Support the show

Silicon Valley Deserves Your Anger w/ Ed Zitron

March 14, 2024 1:01:40 11.52 MB ( 32.96 MB less) Downloads: 0

Paris Marx is joined by Ed Zitron to discuss the public’s growing disillusionment with the tech industry as it pivoted to chasing profits instead of providing us with anything useful. Ed Zitron is the host of Better Offline and writes the Where’s Your Ed At newsletter. He’s also the CEO of EZPR.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 by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.Also mentioned in this episode:Ed wrote about how tech lost its way and the problems with the generative AI hype.Paris wrote the failure of the digital revolution, the material costs of data centers, and Kara Swisher’s new book.A lot of Microsoft’s investment in OpenAI is cloud compute credits.Molly White reviewed Chris Dixon’s new book.Support the show

Plastic Recycling Is a Scam w/ Dharna Noor

March 07, 2024 1:00:47 43.85 MB Downloads: 0

Paris Marx is joined by Dharna Noor to discuss widely-held misconceptions about the effectiveness of plastic recycling and how industry lobbies invented them to protect the market for plastic products.Dharna Noor is the fossil fuels and climate reporter at The Guardian.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 by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.Also mentioned in this episode:On Friday, March 8, Paris will be speaking with Ed Ongweso Jr. and Brian Merchant about Dune: Part Two and its connection to the growing Luddite movement. Watch it on our YouTube channel at 11am PT / 2pm ET / 7pm GMT.Our conversation was based in part on the Center for Climate Integrity’s new report called “The Fraud of Plastic Recycling.”Dharna reported on that report and has previously written about plastic materials ending up in landfills, fashion’s use of plastic, and the problem with replacing plastics with other disposables.In 2018, Barack Obama said, “That whole ‘suddenly America’s like the biggest oil producer and the biggest gas,’ that was me, people.New research has found microplastics in the placentas of unborn babies. The science isn’t settled on the effects on microplastics on human health, but there’s reason to be concerned.Support the show

A Setback for Gig Workers’ Rights in Europe w/ Ben Wray

February 29, 2024 1:01:17 44.22 MB Downloads: 0

Paris Marx is joined by Ben Wray to discuss why the European Union’s Platform Work Directive isn’t moving forward, what hope remains for gig workers’ rights in Europe, and what we should make of Uber’s first annual profit.Ben Wray is the coordinator of the Gig Economy Project and the author of Scotland after Britain: The two souls of Scottish independence.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 by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.Also mentioned in this episode:Ben wrote about the failure of the Platform Work Directive, the recent conferences on platform workers’ rights in Brussels, and the Uber CEO’s admission of using driver’s “behavioral patterns” to influence pay rates.Paris wrote about the wider context of Uber’s first annual profit.Delivery Hero’s business isn’t going well and its share price has been dropping.Glovo is facing serious legal trouble in Spain, and even as some fines have been suspended, others have been added.Food delivery workers in the UK have been on a major strike. Notes from Below have been publishing some dispatches from it.Support the show

How Foreverism Degrades Our Culture w/ Grafton Tanner

February 22, 2024 0:57:14 41.3 MB Downloads: 0

Paris Marx is joined by Grafton Tanner to discuss the dangers and consequences of companies and politicians leveraging nostalgia for their own purposes. Grafton Tanner is the author of Foreverism. He also teaches at the University of Georgia.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 by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.Also mentioned in this episode: Paris wrote about the material footprint of data centers in Disconnect.Ian McKellen broke down on the set of The Hobbit after acting with no other actors on a green screen.In an interview with Charlie Rose, George Lucas described differences between Soviet and US film industries.Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy told Vanity Fair it wasn’t as fun making Star Wars films today as it was making the original trilogy.Jake Gyllenhaal described the difficulty of acting in a Marvel film after Spider-Man: Far From Home.Support the show

How Interfaces Shape Our Relationship to Tech w/ Zachary Kaiser

February 15, 2024 1:02:38 45.18 MB Downloads: 0

Paris Marx is joined by Zachary Kaiser to discuss the power of tech interfaces, why data isn’t an accurate reflection of the world, and why we need to discuss democratic decomputerization.Zachary Kaiser is an Associate Professor of Graphic Design and Experience Architecture at Michigan State University. He’s also the author of Interfaces and Us: User Experience Design and the Making of the Computable Subject.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 made in partnership with The Nation and is produced by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.Also mentioned in this episode:Paris is speaking in Auckland on February 18 at an event hosted by Tohatoha.Zachary wrote about dream reading technologies for Real Life.Zachary mentions specific works by David Golumbia, Ivan Illich, Aaron Benanav, John Cheney-Lippold, Thomas F. Tierney, Marisa Brandt, Arturo Escobar, and James Ferguson.Support the show

France’s Start-Up Nation Is a Neoliberal Hell w/ Nastasia Hadjadji

February 08, 2024 0:54:41 39.46 MB Downloads: 0

Paris Marx is joined by Nastasia Hadjadji to discuss Emmanuel Macron’s plan to run France like a start-up, how that justified a further dismantling of France's welfare state, and how his desire to create national tech champions is having domestic consequences.Nastasia Hadjadji is a French journalist looking at tech from the lens of political economy and the author of “No Crypto. Comment Bitcoin a envoûté la planète.”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 made in partnership with The Nation and is produced by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.Also mentioned in this episode:Paris will be speaking in Auckland on February 18 in an event hosted by Tohatoha.Emmanuel Macron aided Uber’s lobbying efforts as Economy Minister under the former Socialist government.France worked hard to attract the crypto industry. Macron even took a selfie with Binance’s Changpeng Zhao, who’s now pled guilty to felony charges.The group Technopolice documents police surveillance in France.La Quadrature du Net campaigns against algorithmic video surveillance.Louis Pouzin is considered to have almost created the internet.Support the show

What’s Really Killing the News Media? w/ Victor Pickard

February 01, 2024 1:03:39 45.92 MB Downloads: 1

Paris Marx is joined by Victor Pickard to discuss the continued layoffs in news media, and how they are symptomatic of a deeper, structural crisis in journalism.Victor Pickard is Professor of Media Policy and Political Economy at University of Pennsylvania. He’s also the author of Democracy Without Journalism?: Confronting the Misinformation Society.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 made in partnership with The Nation and is produced by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.Also mentioned in this episode:Paris will be speaking in Christchurch on February 4 and Wellington on February 8.Victor wrote for Niemen Lab about the need to divorce news and capitalism, and argued for public newspapers in the Washington Post.In the US, two-thirds of newspaper jobs, or 43,000 journalists, have been lost since 2005.Robert McChesney and John Nichols propose a Local Journalism Initiative.Police raided a newspaper in Kansas on August 11, 2023, setting off a major scandal that’s now seen the police chief suspended.Support the show

How Spotify Tried to Take Over Podcasting w/ Eric Silver

January 25, 2024 0:59:42 43.07 MB Downloads: 0

Paris Marx is joined by Eric Silver to discuss Spotify’s big plan to dominate podcasting, why it’s now pulling back from those efforts, and the difference between highly produced and more independent podcasts.Eric Silver is a podcast producer and head of development at Multitude.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 made in partnership with The Nation and is produced by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.Also mentioned in this episode:Spotify pulled back on its podcasting ambitions last year, canceling big shows and laying off staff.After buying Gimlet and Parcast, it merged them into Spotify Originals last year.Ashley Carman posted a slide from a Spotify presentation presenting the RSS feed as “outdated tech” because it’s harder for them to harvest data from.Support the show

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AI Hype Distracted Us From Real Problems w/ Timnit Gebru

January 18, 2024 1:01:26 44.33 MB Downloads: 0

Paris Marx is joined by Timnit Gebru to discuss the past year in AI hype, how AI companies have shaped regulation, and tech’s relationship to Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. Timnit Gebru is the founder and executive director of the Distributed AI Research Institute. 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 produced by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.  Also mentioned in this episode:Billy Perrigo reported on OpenAI lobbying to water down the EU’s AI Act.Nitasha Tiku wrote about the push to train students in a particular idea of AI.Politico has been doing a lot of reporting on the influences on AI policy in the US and UK.OpenAI made a submission in the UK to try to get permission to train on copyrighted material.Arab workers in the tech industry fear the consequences of speaking out for Palestinian rights.972 Magazine reported on Israel’s use of AI to increase its targets in Gaza.Jack Poulson chronicles the growing ties between military and tech.Timnit mentioned No Tech for Apartheid, Antony Loewenstein’s The Palestine Laboratory, and Malcolm Harris’ Palo Alto.Support the show

What Social Media Meant for the Mass Protest Decade w/ Vincent Bevins

January 11, 2024 0:57:12 41.27 MB Downloads: 0

Paris Marx is joined by Vincent Bevins to discuss the mass protests of the 2010s, the role that social and traditional media played in them, and why the horizontalism of those movements ultimately didn’t work.Vincent Bevins is a longtime foreign correspondent who has worked for the Washington Post, Financial Times, and LA Times. He’s the author of The Jakarta Method and If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution.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 made in partnership with The Nation and is produced by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.Also mentioned in this episode:Read excerpts from If We Burn in The Guardian and In These Times.Vincent mentioned the work of Charles Tilley, Cihan Tuğal, Evgeny Morozov, and Andrey Mir.Support the show

How the Mirror World Distorts Our Reality w/ Naomi Klein

January 04, 2024 1:00:41 43.79 MB Downloads: 0

Paris Marx is joined by Naomi Klein to discuss the problems with personal branding pushed social media, how the left’s insufficient response to the pandemic created an opening for the right, and the fight over the roots of Western society that will shape our future. Naomi Klein is an award-winning journalist, New York Times bestselling author, and a columnist with The Guardian. She is the founding co-director of the UBC Centre for Climate Justice and Professor of Climate Justice at the University of British Columbia. Her newest book is Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World. 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 produced by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.  Also mentioned in this episode:Read excerpts of Doppelganger in The Guardian and Vanity Fair.Naomi mentions Aimé Césaire’s Discourse on Colonialism.Support the show

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The Year In Tech 2023 w/ Gita Jackson, Molly White, & Aaron Thorpe

December 28, 2023 2:05:05 90.15 MB Downloads: 0

2023 is over, so it’s time to go through everything! In a special year-end episode, we review the biggest stories of 2023, what we’re thinking of the AI hype, how science fiction makes us think about the future, the worst villains in the tech industry, and what we’re watching in 2024. Gita Jackson is a journalist and cofounder of Aftermath. Molly White is the creator of Web3 is Going Just Great. Aaron Thorpe is co-host of Everybody Loves Communism. 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 produced by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.  Also mentioned in this episode:If you become a Patreon supporter before the end of the year, you’ll be entered into a giveaway for five signed copies of Joanne McNeil’s Wrong Way and Paris Marx’s Road to Nowhere. Sign up now!Gita recently launched Aftermath, and you can go subscribe!Molly is getting started on TikTok. Go follow her!Aaron posts a lot of cool science fiction art over on Twitter. Give him a follow!You can see the Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos photos we discuss in the Worst Person in Tech segment on Twitter, Bluesky, and Mastodon.Support the show