This Machine Kills

This Machine Kills

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This Machine Kills Podcast

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.

20 MIN AGO

369. The Third Most Amazing Race (ft. Gaby Del Valle)

We are joined by Gaby Del Valle who has written a great—and distressingly relevant—essay for The Baffler, which reports on the “eugenic foundations of the war on woke.” We dig into the beliefs of innate biological hierarchy and genetic superiority that underpin so much of mainstream right-wing politics. Whether it’s the convergence of Christian nationalist and tech rationalists around issues like declining birth rates and embryo engineering, or its the resurgence of blood libel with JD Vance’s fascist fairy tale about Haitian migrants, or its the cultural war against woke universities and DEI committees—these various sects are all unified by their use of biological essentialism to justify social domination. ••• Live Free or DEI https://thebaffler.com/salvos/live-free-or-dei-del-valle ••• Follow Gaby: https://x.com/gabydvj Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.x.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.x.com/braunestahl)

1h 12m
6 DAYS AGO

Patreon Preview – 368. Building the Most Lethal University

Keeping with our recent theme of exploring the relations between the military and tech sector, we jump off a great essay in The Baffler to discuss a crucial part of this complex: university research. Universities – especially, academics in STEM faculties – must be understood as defense contractors who are partners with the military (and adjacent agencies); they advance the military’s goals and are dependent on the military’s cash. You can call them “research grants,” you can say their purpose is to “advancing knowledge,” you can extoll the benefits of “supporting academics and higher education,” but those are just euphemisms for the realities of the military-industrial-university complex. ••• War Machine Learning https://thebaffler.com/salvos/war-machine-learning-mccarthy Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.x.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.x.com/braunestahl)

9 min
16 SEPT

367. A Brief History of Apocalypse

To mark the occasion of his new best selling airport book, we take a deeper look at Yuval Noah Harari’s impoverished thought and intellectual style via a great review essay by Daniel Immerwahr. We see how Harari’s doomsday scenarios are based on an extreme form of technological determinism + a romanticized humanism-as-critique + a disinterest in material analysis of political economy + an ironically chatbot-esque style of intellectualism. ••• Yuval Noah Harari’s Apocalyptic Vision https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/10/yuval-noah-harari-nexus-book/679572/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.x.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.x.com/braunestahl)

1h 20m
11 SEPT

Preview – 366. American Dynamism: Or, Libertarian Fascism with Silicon Valley Characteristics

We do a deep dive into Andreessen Horowitz’s American Dynamism Strategy and Little Tech Agenda, which together lay out a clear ideology of how tech startups are integral to the American empire. All this venture capital firm asks for is your belief in a16z as a conduit for the spirit of innovation, your trust in America as a vessel for the progressive spirit, and your optimism in a future led by a16z’s vision. Oh yeah, and also billions of dollars to invest in bringing about “the glory of a Second American Century.” ••• Blackstone set to acquire Australian data centre business AirTrunk https://www.ft.com/content/d7399891-15a4-47fb-b8f3-47970e156956 ••• American Dynamism https://a16z.com/american-dynamism ••• Building American Dynamism https://a16z.com/building-american-dynamism/ ••• The Little Tech Agenda https://a16z.com Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.x.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.x.com/braunestahl)

8 min
5 SEPT

365. The Pentagon Primes in Silicon Valley (ft. Michael Richardson)

We chat with friend of the show Michael Richardson—author of the new book Nonhuman Witnessing—about the ongoing, deepening relationships between Silicon Valley and the US military. We check up on new activities from old enemies—Y Combinator, Anduril, Palantir, among others—and get into the changing cultures on both sides as they converge around defense innovation as a solution for Silicon Valley’s problems of needing another endless pool of capital and the Pentagon’s problems of needing to maintain a dying empire and beat China in an arms race. ••• Michael’s new book – Nonhuman Witnessing: War, Data, and Ecology after the End of the World https://dukeupress.edu/nonhuman-witnessing ••• Start-up incubator Y Combinator backs its first weapons firm https://www.ft.com/content/17f16071-87e0-4675-a152-6d6285b97fd5 ••• Anduril now valued at $14 billion, set to build autonomous weapons factories https://www.axios.com/2024/08/08/anduril-14-billion-autonomous-weapons ••• Army chooses Palantir to build next-generation targeting system https://www.c4isrnet.com/artificial-intelligence/2024/03/06/army-chooses-palantir-to-build-next-generation-targeting-system/ ••• Palantir Ontology https://www.palantir.com/docs/foundry/ontology/overview/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.x.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.x.com/braunestahl)

1h 29m
2 SEPT

Patreon Preview - 364. CopGPT

We chat about a heinous crossover as Axon – major police tech firm, maker of tasers and body cameras – creates a new AI product with ChatGPT that automates police reports using audio recordings from body cameras. We get into this whole political economy of cop power and carceral tech. Then we talk about how all the economists are Big Mad because of proposed bans for price gouging of food. ••• Police officers are starting to use AI chatbots to write crime reports. Will they hold up in court? https://apnews.com/article/ai-writes-police-reports-axon-body-cameras-chatgpt-a24d1502b53faae4be0dac069243f418 ••• The Body Camera: The Language of our Dreams | Alec Karakatsanis https://campuspress.yale.edu/yjll/volume-4/3/ ••• Sometimes You Just Have to Ignore the Economists https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/08/economists-kamala-harris-price-gouging/679547/ ••• Kamala Harris and America’s broken capitalism https://www.ft.com/content/41d31b4b-b0bd-4971-9f0f-543990a27103 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.x.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.x.com/braunestahl)

8 min
29 AUG

363. Go Directly to Jail. Do Not Pass Go.

{Producer’s note: this episode has an electronic buzz in parts due to a dying microphone. I cleaned it up as much as possible, but it couldn’t be totally removed. So it goes!} We go deep on the recent federal antitrust case against Google, which ruled that the company is a monopoly (obviously). We get into the details of the case, before spinning off to talk more broadly about market domination and disaster capitalism, then get back to the potential remedies for addressing Google’s power over search and the implications for techno-economic regulation. ••• Disaster Capitalism Revisited https://theideasletter.substack.com/p/disaster-capitalism-revisited ••• Will Google’s Monopoly Be Vanquished? https://prospect.org/justice/2024-08-09-will-googles-monopoly-be-vanquished/ ••• Google as monopolist https://www.ft.com/content/1d01b2d1-fc70-4d4a-823a-13fb24c9a7ef ••• Monopoly Money https://www.wheresyoured.at/monopoly-money/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.x.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.x.com/braunestahl)

1h 25m
24 AUG

Patreon Preview - 362. Alex Karp’s Freak Flag Flies

We get into a new profile of Alex Karp, CEO of Palantir, which is written by Maureen Dowd, one of the NYT’s most credulous opinion writers, and thus the perfect person to coax Karp into being as weird as he wants to be. This piece reveals a lot of core lore about Karp and shines light on a man who is riddled with contradictions and has turned that affliction of the soul into a superpower. ••• Alex Karp Has Money and Power. So What Does He Want? https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/17/style/alex-karp-palantir.html Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.x.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.x.com/braunestahl)

7 min

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.

Creator

This Machine Kills
Years Active

2020 - 2024
Episodes

390
Rating

Clean
Copyright

© All rights reserved
Show Website

This Machine Kills