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.
GoFundMe Profits from People’s Pain w/ Nora Kenworthy
Paris Marx is joined by Nora Kenworthy to discuss how people rely on GoFundMe to access healthcare and the further inequities that adds to an already deeply unequal healthcare system.
Nora Kenworthy is the author of Crowded Out: The True Costs of Crowdfunding Healthcare and an Associate Professor in the School of Nursing and Health Studies at the University of Washington Bothell.
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:
- Nora is doing an online event with the Debt Collective on June 13.
- GoFundMe bought many of its competitors through the 2010s.
- In 2020, GoFundMe posted in a campaign it set up in response to Covid: “We’re in a growth industry: pain.”