Tech Won't Save Us

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...

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 Fe...

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 . Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective...

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 Tw...

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...

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 an...

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, includi...

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...

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 . Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wid...

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 Golde...

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 Advocac...

Paris Marx is joined by Émile P. 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 P. 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 Twitte...

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, bi...

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 . Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critica...

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 . Tech Won’t Save Us of...

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: T...

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 Pr...

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 @...

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 Th...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 . Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critic...

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...