This Machine Kills

In our first Patreon premium episode, the TMK boys get loose and personal while talking about our political origin stories. We chat about our weird and twisting paths to where we are now, drop some bombshells about how our lives could have been totally different, how we got radicalized through music and sci-fi, and why dialectical materialism always leads to the most correct takes. Thanks for subs...

Cold open: Channel surfing We’re joined by Danielle Carr, who wrote a killer essay debunking the myth of Neuralink and Elon Musk, to talk about the broader political economy of shitty "science” and shittier "innovators" that have captured the collective imagination. As Danielle writes, “Technology critique should not buy into the hyped fantasies people like Elon Musk peddle. [...] What we have to...

Cold open: Crazy Currency with Jack Jammer We enter the “parliament of extrastatecraft” and discuss the actually existing world order — we're talking the techno-politics of standardization, the transnational institutions that establish the rules and structures for essentially everything, and the geopolitical struggle between the US and China over who will wield the technocratic power of standards...

Cold open: What does a scanner see? Welcome to the first installment of This Movie Kills! This week we discuss the film A Scanner Darkly (2006), an adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s novel. What do you get when you shake together drug psychosis, police paranoia, distorted perception, atmospheric anxiety, and identity crisis? Bad vibes all around! Or, maybe just another day in “a world getting progress...

Cold open: TMK x SoftBank Main show: Sure you might know all about Amazon’s extensive network of hellish warehouses, its horrendously exploitative labor conditions, its cynical partnerships with the police, military, and intelligence agencies, its supervillain of a founder… but how much do you really know about the Amazon ecosystem of surveillance and control? Have you been able to keep up with th...

Cold open: Bro, have you heard about this new startup called GOO_LOG? Main Show: We’re joined by Wendy Liu (twitter.com/dellsystem), author of Abolish Silicon Valley, to dissect the system of venture capital that holds immense influence over what counts as innovation, why technology is created, and who gets to reap the benefits. Chances are – unless you have an invite to the ultra exclusive clubho...

Cold open: 1 trillion dollar glitch Main show: It’s finally time to formally introduce the king of kings into TMK canon, into the pantheon of parasites and villains who seek to control the world. We’re talking SoftBank and its founder Masayoshi Son, the only true accelerationist with the fortitude and fortune to actually force us into the post-capitalist singularity. Here’s the excellent article w...

Cold open: The 79-year-old CEO of AliUber and Senator from California Elizabeth Holmes has announced... Main show: We’re joined by David A. Banks (https://twitter.com/DA_Banks), editor-at-large for Real Life and co-host of the Ironweeds podcast (https://twitter.com/ironweedspod), as we take a tour of the subscription economy where nobody owns anything, platforms control access to everything, monop...

Cold open: Alex Karp’s manifesto of futurism. Main show: Ring the stock exchange bell: Palantir is going public! We do a deep dive into Palantir’s S-1 filing and uncover an emerging schism in Silicon Valley. This episode gets dark as we trace the deep political and philosophical connections between Fascist Futurism and Palantir’s vision of techno-nationalism. You thought this company was evil befo...

Episode now remastered so it sounds 1000x better! Cold open: Agent Zuboff receives her mission. Main show: We politically cancel Shoshana Zuboff, author of The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, for advancing / mainstreaming a reactionary critique. Surveillance capitalism is not a “rogue mutation” of a normal capitalism. Surveillance is not the scapegoat that needs to be sacrificed so we can maintain...

Cold open: You come at the king, you best not miss. Main show: We're locked and loaded with stacks of earnings reports. We've got Uber's finances in our sites. We take aim at the economic underpinning of this lobbyist with an app. It's time for some Uber theory, baby. Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by...

Cold Open: A message from Mr. Clean Networks. Main Show: We're joined by Shoshana Wodinsky (https://twitter.com/swodinsky) who helps us breakdown the emerging digital cold war between the US and China. We get into the lunatics who are making policy and writing columns about the coming Chinese Cyber Imperium. Plus, we descend into the abyss of the American Mind. Read Shoshana's excellent article: h...

Welcome to This Machine Kills! Hello friends and enemies. It's episode one and what a better way to kick things off than by diving into the policing-industrial complex. We get into the intimate crossovers between the tech sector and police departments. And the bizarre similarities between the pathetic goons who spend their days defending Blue Lives and Tech Lives. It's a big party full of the wors...