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PODCAST

This Machine Kills

This Machine Kills

A podcast about technology and political economy /// Agitprop against innovation and capital /// Hosted by Jathan Sadowski and Edward Ongweso Jr., Produced by Jereme Brown /// Hello friends and enemies Listen anywhere that fine podcasts are distributed. Subscribe at patreon.com/thismachinekills to get premium episodes every week.

technology

All Episodes

00:07:27

Preview – 278. TMK BC5: Mute Compulsion, Ch. 1

This Machine Kills ·

2023/08/29

We discuss chapter one – Conceptualising Power and Capital – which lays the groundwork for analyzing these two fundamental concepts and their relation. Mau goes through mainstream social and political theories of power, showing how they are all deficient in various ways and what features a theory of power must possess. Then he lays out what it means to understand capital as a social logic and how this logic can exercise power in ways that are meaningful and material. ••• Mute Compulsion: A Marxist

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01:15:53

*Unlocked* – 275. TMK BC5: Mute Compulsion, Introduction

This Machine Kills ·

2023/08/24

[We are unlocking the intro episode for the new book club. The first taste is free, find the rest on the premium feed.] We kick off the TMK book club with the excellent new book – Mute Compulsion by Søren Mau – which offers a foundational analysis of power, value, capital, and social reproduction. Mau’s book is written with a real analytical clarity that advances our critical, theoretical understanding of the relations and operations of those things in society and our lives. We set the context for

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00:09:18

Patreon Preview – 277. All the World’s a Casino / And...

This Machine Kills ·

2023/08/22

In another instalment of What the Fuck is Happening in America, we talk about how sports betting has totally saturated society since the Supreme Court overturned a ban in 2018, then we discuss the next wild frontier of online casinos driven by gambling platforms and megastar streamers, then finally we gaze into the dark abyss of The Machine Zone. Stuff we reference ••• The dark side of the US sports betting boom https://www.ft.com/content/2e1a235a-8a46-47f3-b040-5ca21a04ebf4 ••• Cigars, Booze,

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01:17:41

276. China’s Zombie Economy and Capital Crackdown

This Machine Kills ·

2023/08/18

We start with a visit to that smart city we all love, New Orleans, and see how the police department’s facial recognition surveillance is going. Then we revisit China, this time to lay out the broader conditions of its zombie economy and attempts by the state to reassert its power over capital by enforcing discipline on the tech and real estate sector, and giving them strong guidance about how they can work to better serve the state’s interest. We discuss this further in the context of China’s

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00:07:18

Patreon Preview – 275. TMK BC5: Mute Compulsion,...

This Machine Kills ·

2023/08/15

We kick off the TMK book club with the excellent new book – Mute Compulsion by Søren Mau – which offers a foundational analysis of power, value, capital, and social reproduction. Mau’s book is written with a real analytical clarity that advances our critical, theoretical understanding of the relations and operations of those things in society and our lives. We set the context for the book and our approach before discussing the Introduction chapter, which established the book’s motivating questions

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01:31:32

274. Uber’s Politics of Low Expectations (ft. Katie...

This Machine Kills ·

2023/08/12

We are joined by Katie Wells and Kafui Attoh to discuss their new book – Disrupting DC: The Rise of Uber and the Fall of the City – which offers a rich analysis of Uber and its operations in Washington DC as a case study in the political economy of urban crisis. We get into how Uber thrives by taking advantage of the low expectations that people have of their city governments, public services, and the economy. The common sense of neoliberalism means that decision-makers and consumers understand Uber

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00:06:30

Patreon Preview – 273. Checking on Enemies, Old and New

This Machine Kills ·

2023/08/07

We check in on some enemies of the show to see what’s new with them. Uber has finally posted an operating profit for the first time in history – and it only took more than $31 billion in losses, plus a lot more exploitation and immiseration, to get there. Dan Ariely, a famous behavioral economist, has ironically been caught using fraudulent data for a study about honesty that has been used as the basis for insurance initiatives to combat fraud. Finally, Alex Karp, CEO of Palantir, has written an

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01:05:12

272. Locked into Starlink’s Low Earth Iron Cage

This Machine Kills ·

2023/08/04

We dig into the a new investigation on the exponential growth of Starlink – Elon Musk’s satellite internet communication network – its geopolitical centrality to the war in Ukraine and international telecommunication policies, and the immense power this grants Musk as the man who has singular control over a private global infrastructure system that everyone from the Pentagon on down has grown dependent upon. ••• Elon Muskʼs Unmatched Power in the Stars

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00:06:42

Premium – 271. Kill the Ecomodernist in Your Head

This Machine Kills ·

2023/08/02

We jump off the absurd twitter debate about degrowth and bananas in global communism to discuss much deeper issues about why any alternative to capitalism cannot simply be premised on being better managers of capitalist machines. Despite the arguments of ecomodernists—and the poverty of thought it engenders—there is not a linear development of progress and innovation which either moves forward (to the right) or backward (to the left). Break free of bourgeois ideology! Throw off the shackles of

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00:07:52

Patreon Preview – 270. The Kayfabe of Climate Capital

This Machine Kills ·

2023/07/26

We talk about the kayfabe of the green transition as the woke capitalists at Blackrock appoint Aramco to its board of directors, meanwhile the social justice warriors in the mining industry are doing land acknowledgements before ripping out rare earth minerals needed for renewable energy. These are the champions of a sustainable planet for human life. They are not the champions we deserve, nor are they ones we need, but they are the only ones we have. Stuff we reference: ••• Total life insurance:

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02:10:40

269. The Mythology of Cybersyn (ft. Evgeny Morozov)

This Machine Kills ·

2023/07/22

We are excited to be joined again by Evgeny Morozov, host of The Santiago Boys, a new narrative podcast series about the history of Cybersyn, the geopolitics of its creation in Cold War Latin America, and the legacy of Salvador Allende, Fernando Flores, and the man who looms largest of all: Stafford Beer. This podcast series is not like any story of Cybersyn you might have read before. Morozov has take a mountain of research — over 200 hundred original interviews, deep archival investigations, all

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01:31:45

268. High Quality, Certified Organic, Entertainment...

This Machine Kills ·

2023/07/21

We start chatting about Jathan going on television to talk about AI – friend or foe? hype or hysteria? – then discuss SAG-AFTRA going on strike and the potential future divisions between artificial content vs organic products in the entertainment industry. Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin)

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01:14:56

*Unlocked* – For a Political Theory of Insurance

This Machine Kills ·

2023/07/14

[Unlocking this one from the paywall] We start by talking about Ed’s new sci-fi / cosmic horror story in the latest issue of Logic(s). We cruise by the aborted cage fight between Zuck and Musk. Then somehow make our way to a long discussion of behavioral insurance technologies and start sketching out a political theory of insurance and its institutional forms in society. Stuff we reference: ••• The Circle | Ed's new story https://logicmag.io/supa-dupa-skies/the-circle/ Subscribe to hear more

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00:07:36

Patreon Preview – 267. Psychonauts for Capital

This Machine Kills ·

2023/07/13

We start off with the very funny legal letter that Musk’s lawyers sent to Zuckerberg threatening legal action for Threads stealing IP from Twitter. Then we get into reporting on the rampant use of psychedelics in Silicon Valley. But they aren’t taking drugs for cool reasons, but rather to become more productive and creative with microdosing. This is yet another way to chemically create the most productive workforce, who are also more resilient against the soul crushing brutality of a capitalist

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01:13:58

266. Your Own Personal Intelligence

This Machine Kills ·

2023/07/07

We look into a new startup – Inflection AI – that has raised $1.5 billion, was co-founded by tech elites, and just released an AI chatbot, Pi, that is meant to be your ultra friendly, personal companion, coach, creative partner and more. We place our bet that this won’t be the last time we hear about Inflection AI. Everything about this company — its funding partners, founders’ pedigrees, AI product, and public mission – points to Inflection AI becoming even bigger and unavoidable. Stuff we

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00:08:23

Patreon Preview – 265. For a Political Theory of...

This Machine Kills ·

2023/06/30

We start by talking about Ed’s new sci-fi / cosmic horror story in the latest issue of Logic(s). We cruise by the aborted cage fight between Zuck and Musk. Then somehow make our way to a long discussion of behavioral insurance technologies and start sketching out a political theory of insurance and its institutional forms in society. Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski

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01:12:10

264. Every Dealership a Fiefdom, Every Middleman a...

This Machine Kills ·

2023/06/27

We are joined by Alex Sammon – politics reporter at Slate – to discuss one of the best pieces of gonzo reporting in recent memory. Alex journeyed into the heart of darkness at the center of American capitalism: the National Automobile Dealers Association. We discuss why a critical analysis of car dealers is necessary for understanding the real composition of class power and wealth in society. The politics of how car dealerships became a network of deeply entrenched fiefdoms with the power of king

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00:07:36

Patreon Preview – 263. Running Wild

This Machine Kills ·

2023/06/22

We get into Ed’s new column for The Nation, what he’s got planned, the long arc of arguments he’s building, and how the key to good tech criticism is to talk about technology by using it as a way to talk about other things. After a while discussing the hows and whys of good old historical materialist analysis, things then go off the rails in the best ways. Ed’s column: https://www.thenation.com/authors/edward-ongweso-jr/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every

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01:16:49

262. – How Israel Battle Tests Occupation for the...

This Machine Kills ·

2023/06/19

We are joined by Antony Loewenstein — author of The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World — to discuss his extensive reporting on the Israeli occupation of Palestine, the policing tactics and surveillance technologies that are tested on Palestinians before sold as part of lucrative global export industry, and how the dynamics of occupation never stay within their cordoned zones but always expand to capture increasingly more people and places. •••

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00:06:07

Patreon Preview – 261. The Reality Distortion Field...

This Machine Kills ·

2023/06/15

The tech asset bubble is now so massive that its reality distortion field is affecting the major indices like the S&P 500, warping their ability to serve as useful signals and indicators about the economy, and causing passive investors that peg trillions of dollars to these indices to become mechanically over-exposed to a handful of tech companies. All our fates are increasingly and intricately tied to the volatile financials of a few corporations. Very cool! Stuff we reference ••• Rise of the tech

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