This Machine Kills

We look at the latest way bosses are outsourcing the dirty work of owning capital and managing workers to techno-consultants. Then see why venture capitalists are loudly crying about a light touch rule that will require them to prove they actually did due diligence before spending billions of other people’s dollars. And we wrap things up by checking in on the plight of Amazon under its new CEO And...

We discuss the supermarkets for data – giant grocery chains like Kroger have created powerful capacities for data extraction and monetization. This forces us to expand our analysis of data surveillance beyond the usual suspects in big tech and reckon with the fact that data capital is not a thing that can be excised from the political economic system, but is now an essential component of that whol...

In this installment of What the Fuck is Happening in America: floating “objects” keep getting shot down; a train carrying the toxic gas vinyl chloride has turned Ohio into a sacrifice zone; the Biden administration ramps up its investments in industrial policy, but in such a way that apparently the entire purpose of the economy is to try incentivizing private companies, with tax credits and subsid...

Jumping off an FT op-ed on venture capital and tech hype – which aligns great with TMK thought – we discuss the value and risk models of venture capitalism, then get into the emerging market structures and dynamics for generative AI. It’s not just a web3 redux. We end with Ted Chiang’s fantastic article on lossy compression as an analogy for large-language models. Some stuff we reference: ••• The...

We get some Parisian updates and stories from Ed. Then we enter the mind palace of a libertarian who, with all the annoying pretension of a philosophy major, tried to make ChatGPT say the word. We wrap up with a discussion of the “year of efficiency” in Silicon Valley as the biggest four tech companies are rewarded with over $800 billion in market cap for making massive job cuts, massive stock buy...

Part 1 –– We welcome returning champ Nick Chavez – mechanical engineer, marxist political economist – for a long conversation about his new essay examining the real nitty-gritty aspects of production and labor, knowledge and management. Time to step down from the ivory tower and onto the shop floor. We talk extensively about different modes of manufacturing and the stratification of technical expe...

We dip into the a16z omnibus of predictions for the tech industry in 2023. Time to learn what the thought masters of the universe are trying to wishcast into existence because they have a material interest in making them happen. Stuff we reference: ••• Big Ideas in Tech for 2023: An a16z Omnibus https://a16z.com/2022/12/15/big-ideas-in-tech-2023/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in o...

Ed takes us on a guided tour of Odin Intelligence, SweepWizard, CloudFactory and other tech bullshit that sounds like embarrassing nonsense while also contributing in their own way to monetizing, mobilizing, and heightening the eschaton. Stuff we reference: ••• Police Contractor That Promised to Track Homeless People Hacked https://www.vice.com/en/article/xgyjnq/odin-intelligence-hacked ••• Crime...

It’s been a while since we’ve done a real reading series. So we spend time with a group of rogue entrepreneurs who are taking it upon themselves to save the planet by geoengineering the atmosphere. Stuff we reference ••• A startup says it’s begun releasing particles into the atmosphere, in an effort to tweak the climate https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/12/24/1066041/a-startup-says-its-begun-r...

We spend more time talking about the political economy of AI – the production and application of AI within a capitalist system and how it might (and should) differ within a socialist or communist system. We pay particular attention to discussing the growing and specialized industries for producing, supporting, propping up, and stepping in for AI in a variety of applications. Living labor creates t...

They don’t make things like they used to… No really. They don’t. We discuss how a perfect storm of things like stagnant wages, rising inflation, declining profits, expedited production, among other factors have led to a real drop in the quality of consumer goods along with generally lowered expectations of living conditions and technological innovations. Stuff we reference ••• Your stuff is actual...

We offer some thoughts on where the tech sector is heading right now, how the markets are performing amidst a down turn, and what big trends for tech and capital are looking strong in the new year. Stuff we reference ••• A new era: the end of cheap money https://www.ft.com/content/6d312b6c-9f74-4816-ad7e-7e797c5e0f6b ••• Silicon Valley start-ups race for debt deals in funding crunch https://www.ft...

We do a postmortem on 2022, the year of Web3, talking about the goofs and grifts, speed and scale, crashes and canaries, with our major takeaway and theme being that just as FTX is not anomalous for Web3, nor is Web3 anomalous for Silicon Valley. It is, instead, a product and paragon of the structural conditions and systemic imperatives that define how the political economy of technology operates...

We give some personal updates, then get distracted talking about a new survey on consumer sentiments and insurance technology. It turns out that actually the vast majority of people *do not* want to use surveillance technology and exchange data for any insurance discounts. Remember this when insurance policies that require using devices and sharing data still proliferate. It's not because consumer...

We breakdown ChatGPT, the conversational large language model created by OpenAI. How this system works. How it has been fetishized by consumers and reporters, critics and advocates. Why most of the hand wringing and claim making about the impacts of this technology has been wrongheaded. And why our analysis of the implications for such a system being integrated into everyday life—regardless of how...

If we want to understand the cloud, then we need to study real estate. We are joined by Dan Greene—from the University of Maryland’s College of Information Studies—who has written the premier analysis of who owns the internet. We all know the cloud is a place, but many of us think that place is largely owned by familiar tech giants. Wrong. The actual owners of the bones and pipes of the internet a...

We give some personal updates, then get distracted talking about a new survey on consumer sentiments and insurance technology. It turns out that actually the vast majority of people *do not* want to use surveillance technology and exchange data for any insurance discounts. Remember this when insurance policies that require using devices and sharing data still proliferate. It's not because consumer...

We take a look at the critical ecologies of the cloud with Mél Hogan – Director of the Environmental Media Lab at the University of Calgary – who researches the environmental politics of server farms and data centers. We unpack the ongoing domination of nature by machine and market logics — until there isn’t anything left to dominate. ••• Mel’s twitter: https://twitter.com/mel_hogan ••• Mél’s work...

We continue our analysis of all things green by looking deeper at the operations of a core mechanism directing cash flows into sustainable investments: ESG. What is ESG? How does it work? You think you know? You assume you understand it? Does the acronym stand for environmental and social governance? Or does it actually stand for environment, social, and governance? Would you believe that the plac...

With the UN Climate Change Conference (COP27) recently happening, we dig into the political economy of green policy, green investing, green finance, green technology, green capitalism. What is driving the transition necessary to sustain the billions of lives – and trillions in profits – on Earth? Who are the vanguards of sustainability lighting our way into the future? Stuff we reference: ••• The...

While Jathan is busy with his day job, Ed and Jereme are joined by Ed Zitron and Aaron Thorpe for a shitposters party. Topics include: dystopias, cat ownership as praxis, conspiracy theories about Covid and JFK, and how Las Vegas isn’t doing the crypto bullshit. Also: talking shit about all the usual suspects. Ed’s twitter: https://twitter.com/edzitron Ed’s substack: https://ez.substack.com/ Aaron...

We are taking a break to catch up on stuff. Enjoy this classic (and infuriating) premium episode. Take beta blockers before this episode. In a companion piece for our episode on Health Communism, we dig into a concrete case that exemplifies everything we talked about with the production of surplus populations for the purpose of extractive abandonment. The ongoing story we discuss in this episode t...

We continue our deep dive into a provocative, radical blueprint for democratizing finance and taking control of the economy. We detail Omarova’s detailed proposal for turning the Federal Reserve into the People’s Ledger. On the liabilities side, we discuss the universalization of deposit services (aka FedAccounts) and the elimination of private deposit-taking by commercial banks. On the assets sid...

We dive deep into a provocative, radical blueprint for democratizing finance and taking control of the economy. A recent paper by law professor – and a favorite thinker of TMK – Saule Omarova offers a detailed plan for how to reengineer the Federal Reserve, totally restructuring its balance sheet, and “redefining the role of a central bank as the ultimate public platform for generating, modulating...

We’re pulling the ripcord on this book. After slogging through five chapters, we discuss why this book just isn’t working for our needs with the TMK Book Club and why we are abandoning it. Despite it being an influential book, which is squarely in our interests, its approach to describing the topic makes it difficult and, frankly, not very fun to talk about. So instead we talk about some other con...