We're back next week with fresh episodes! Until then, here's part 2 of our in-depth discussion on Aadhaar. We pick up with part two of our deep dive into Aadhaar, looking at the social issues, political implications, and street-level implementation. Building on the work of Ranjit Singh and Steven Jackson, we first lay out an analysis of what it means to “see like an infrastructure.” Then we dwell on the problems, errors, and glitches involved in making Aadhaar actually work. And what that means ...
Jan 05, 2022•1 hr 25 min
We're taking a break from recording for the holidays. Enjoy this unlocked Patreon episode. As the Federal Trade Commission files suit to block the merger between Nvidia and Arm, we take the opportunity to revisit the excellent and necessary work of the FTC’s Chair, Lina Khan. We discuss a recent profile of Khan in the New Yorker. Then dig deeper into a very long, very important paper by Khan making the legal case for reviving the antitrust doctrine of structural separation and applying it to bre...
Dec 30, 2021•1 hr 38 min
In part two of our discussion with hosts of Left Reckoning, Matt Lech and David Griscom, we pick right back up where we left off. We get into the environmental racism of where Amazon builds its warehouses and the ways that Black, Hispanic, and/or low-income communities are treated as sacrifice zones for the unending expansion of capitalism and technology. We then talk about the predatory model of buy now, pay later companies—one of the most obviously socially harmful “innovations” to pop off dur...
Dec 26, 2021•9 min
Opening song: Venceremos – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11MlvWKfL7s We’re very excited to be joined by the hosts of Left Reckoning, Matt Lech and David Griscom, for an action packed double header of episodes to keep you busy during the holiday season! We have a very energetic discussion about the project of leftism before getting into a critical political economy analysis of the sudden rise of 15-minute delivery apps and the pushback by workers against anonymous automated management. Part two...
Dec 23, 2021•1 hr 11 min
We wrap up with the last chapter of Wendy H.K. Chun’s book, Control and Freedom. We discuss: the book’s value as a lens for analyzing current developments and discourses about “web3” — conceptions of the internet as both a public and private space — the general cultural affect of paranoia and its relation to techno-power — a self-crit session on the utility of “emerging technologies” as a term — Chun’s case studies of facial recognition and webcams. You can grab a pdf of Chun’s book here: https:...
Dec 19, 2021•12 min
We do a close reading of a new article in Foreign Policy by futurist Parag Khanna and venture capitalist Balaji Srinivasan, which stands as a monument to how “web3” is like a brain worm that destroys people’s ability to think. The articles’ ten theses are a testament to the poverty of thought pervasive in the upper echelons of wealth, influence, and technology. Outro: https://soundcloud.com/braunestahl/future-history-of-luddism Some stuff we discuss: ••• Great Protocol Politics | Parag Khanna, B...
Dec 16, 2021•1 hr 28 min
As the Federal Trade Commission files suit to block the merger between Nvidia and Arm, we take the opportunity to revisit the excellent and necessary work of the FTC’s Chair, Lina Khan. We discuss a recent profile of Khan in the New Yorker. Then dig deeper into a very long, very important paper by Khan making the legal case for reviving the antitrust doctrine of structural separation and applying it to break up platform giants like Amazon, Alphabet, and Facebook. Some stuff we reference ••• The ...
Dec 12, 2021•7 min
We kept ignoring DAOs and web3 hoping it would go away, but sadly it hasn’t. So we pick apart each part of the acronym—decentralized, autonomous, organization—and discuss the techno-politics of their promise and practice. We get into blockchain, smart contracts, and corporate governance. Some stuff we reference: ••• Book-Smart, Not Street-Smart: Blockchain-Based Smart Contracts and The Social Workings of Law | Karen E.C. Levy https://estsjournal.org/index.php/ests/article/view/107 ••• DAOs are i...
Dec 09, 2021•1 hr 27 min
Continuing sci-fi week at TMK, we dig into Chapter 4, “Orienting the Future,” of Wendy H.K. Chun’s book. Grounded in Chun’s in-depth analysis of cyberpunk via two paradigmatic examples—the novel Neuromancer and the anime Ghost in the Shell—we lay out a critical take on the cyberpunk genre. We then discuss Chun’s incisive arguments about “high-tech Orientalism” and the colonial politics encoded into cyberpunk and the culture that has flowed from it. You can grab a pdf of Chun’s book here: https:/...
Dec 04, 2021•8 min
We get into a great discussion about the Butlerian Jihad — or the war against all computation that catalyzed the events of the Dune series — and the reactionary politics that inform so much science fiction, the trap of treating feudalism as fate, the need for stories informed by the lessons of Luddism, and much more. Cold open: Alex Jones explains Evangelion https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5X9RUOEOoNQ&t=1s Some stuff we reference: ••• Science Fiction Is a Luddite Literature | Cory Doctorow: ...
Dec 01, 2021•1 hr 6 min
We pick up with part two of our deep dive into Aadhaar, looking at the social issues, political implications, and street-level implementation. Building on the work of Ranjit Singh and Steven Jackson, we first lay out an analysis of what it means to “see like an infrastructure.” Then we dwell on the problems, errors, and glitches involved in making Aadhaar actually work. And what that means for different people who are classified as “high-resolution” or “low-resolution” data subjects. Some stuff ...
Nov 28, 2021•11 min
We start the show looking back at a Wired cover story from 1997 predicting the next 25 years would be The Long Boom. But oops! Turns out all the bad future spoilers came true instead. We dive deep into Aadhaar, the Indian government’s massive biometric identity database that has enrolled the information of more than a billion people. We talk about the technological architecture of the system and how it operates as an identity-as-a-service platform for public and private services. This is part 1 ...
Nov 24, 2021•1 hr 30 min
Cold open: MCI “Anthem” commercial (1997): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioVMoeCbrig We dig into Chapter 3, “Scenes of Empowerment, of Wendy H.K. Chun’s book and talk about the pervasive ideology of the internet as an emancipatory world of virtual equality where things like race, gender, age, and ability cease to exist. And discuss how, despite the obvious naivety (at best) of this belief, it still persists today in various unchanged ways. You can grab a pdf of Chun’s book here: https://au1lib...
Nov 21, 2021•9 min
We’re very pleased to be joined by Britt Young, a PhD candidate in geography at UC Berkeley, who works on the intersection of technology and disability. We dive into the militarized R&D for prosthetics, Britt’s experiences using an advanced “cyborg” arm, the vast inequality in access to workable prosthetics, and question if our society’s approach to assistive tech is consistent with disability justice or represents a vexing politics of ableism. Follow Britt: twitter.com/bhyrights Read Britt’...
Nov 16, 2021•1 hr 9 min
Why don’t people like crypto? Obviously because they’re old fuddy duddies who don’t want to wrap their mind around new technology! We talk about Ed’s reporting trip to Puerto Rico and why the island has become a haven for crypto enclaves. We then end with a nice palate cleanser as Ed tells us about a recent panel he attended with David Wengrow about his and Graeber’s new book. Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fre...
Nov 14, 2021•6 min
We’re joined by Nick Chavez, a mechanical engineer working in R&D, to discuss his incisive essay exploring the capitalist origins and purpose of engineering, the class position and labor process of engineers, and the role of engineers before, during, and after communist revolution. Read Nick’s essay: The Present and Future of Engineers | Brooklyn Rail https://brooklynrail.org/2021/10/field-notes/THINKING-ABOUT-COMMUNISM Music in this episode is from Nick’s glitch group: https://glitchdotcool...
Nov 10, 2021•1 hr 38 min
Metastasis is the process of cancer cells spreading to other parts of the body. Facebook is in its full on metastatic phase. We talk about the big news of Facebook rebranding as Meta – its impotent propaganda campaign, the extractive economy underpinning this vision of society, why the metaverse as its pitched is bullshit, and how the actual metaverse is more likely to be an infinite virtual office we’re all forced to used. Some stuff we reference: ••• Facebook Has No Clue How to Solve Its Image...
Nov 03, 2021•1 hr 8 min
We discuss Chapter 2, “Screening Pornography” of Wendy H.K. Chun’s book. Diving into the cultural panic around cyberporn in the 90s, we talk about how porn online was used as an early battleground for policy debates about commerce, regulation, and censorship on the internet. You can grab a pdf of Chun’s book here: https://au1lib.org/book/2074091/cc12a3 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab your TMK gear: bonfire.com/s...
Oct 30, 2021•7 min
••• Jathan is doing an intensive residency program so we're unlocking an older patreon episode that many comrades in the TMK Discord said was one of their favorites. Enjoy! ••• Rather than our usual doompilled analysis, we take a big dose of dumbpill as we spend the whole episode on a reading series of the stupidest article we have come across in a long time. Malcolm Gladwell – a man whose career is built on being an insanely incurious idiot – got to ride in a Waymo autonomous vehicle. He then w...
Oct 26, 2021•56 min
It’s a good old TMK where we get mad talking about two stories. First, the increasingly influential “state-as-a-platform” model of governance that France is leaning super hard into, which goes beyond neoliberalism by taking seriously the premise: “What if instead of a government, we had AWS.” Second, schools in the UK are rolling-out facial recognition in secondary school cafeterias. Teaching kids that access to anything in life, even just lunch, must be mediated by intrusive systems of surveill...
Oct 24, 2021•7 min
Outro: Eva B - Mukhtasir Baatein https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1T--NV__iJA We’re joined by two excellent scholars — Noopur Raval, research fellow in the AI Now Institute at NYU, and Rida Qadri, PhD candidate in Urban Information Systems at MIT — to talk about their important research on platform workers and economies in the Global South. We discuss practices of agency and social support amongst workers in places like Jakarta and Bangalore; the North-South divide in how these platforms are unde...
Oct 21, 2021•1 hr 42 min
We discuss Chapter 1, “Why Cyberspace?” of Wendy H.K. Chun’s book and dive into the origins, politics, and ideology behind this weird metaphor for the Internet. In the process we trace an evolution of different phases in the Internet's political economy, from the Web 1.0 endless electronic frontier of freedom to the Web 2.0 archipelago of platforms and rentiers, and circling back to many ideological desires born anew in the Web 3.0 vision of a decentralized metaverse. All this and more as we tal...
Oct 17, 2021•6 min
We are very pleased to be joined by returning guest Danielle Carr, anthropologist and historian of science who is finishing her PhD at Columbia, to chat about her excellent new essay on the (anti-)political epistemology of the pop sci style as represented by the work of the genre’s golden boy, Carl Zimmer. We discuss science as both an institution and ideology that, like other such things with authority and power in society, must be subjected to ruthless critical analysis. And yet, nearly all cr...
Oct 13, 2021•1 hr 15 min
Outro: And We Thought That Nation-States Were a Bad Idea by Propagandhi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNWZ6THAUPo We give you our raw reactions to a mind-numbing Bloomberg Opinion piece that “argues” for granting mega-corporations like Facebook and Amazon statehood and giving them a seat at the United Nations. Never have we seen somebody survey an issue as wildly important as “corporate sovereignty” and reach the dumbest, worst conclusions at every turn—all while thinking they are actually ma...
Oct 09, 2021•9 min
For this week's free episode, we are unlocking the first episode of our new TMK Book Club Patreon series, which will be running biweekly for the next few months. If you want to hear more – and check out our large back catalogue of premium episodes – please subscribe on Patreon! We dive into our next instalment of the TMK Book Club – “Control and Freedom: Power and Paranoia in the Age of Fiber Optics” by Wendy H.K. Chun. This is a foundational piece of critical theory and new media studies, and a...
Oct 05, 2021•1 hr 29 min
We dive into our next instalment of the TMK Book Club – “Control and Freedom: Power and Paranoia in the Age of Fiber Optics” by Wendy H.K. Chun. This is a foundational piece of critical theory and new media studies, and a necessary addition in the TMK pantheon. Published in the heady days of 2005, we provide some context about the state of the Internet, culture and politics at the time. Then we discuss the Preface and Introduction. You can grab a pdf of Chun’s book here: https://au1lib.org/book/...
Oct 01, 2021•5 min
We take a hard look at Netradyne, the latest piece of shitty surveillance tech already forced on Amazon delivery drivers—and perhaps coming soon to your car. First we look at Lauren Kaori Gurley’s reporting on how these AI cameras are extremely error prone—but weirdly never in ways that benefit, rather than punish, workers—and then take a deeper dive into how Netradyne is pitching its product to insurance companies. Some stuff we reference: • Amazon Delivery Drivers Forced to Sign ‘Biometric Con...
Sep 29, 2021•1 hr 20 min
To quote the headline for Ed’s article, “Ok, what the fuck is Evergrande and is it going to blow up the global economy?” First question: Evergrande is the second largest real estate developer in China. Its business model is premised on infinite growth, it’s massively indebted to everybody, and it is finally collapsing. Second question: Maybe! We lay out the dynamics leading up to, and unfolding now during, Evergrande’s collapse and discuss the potential consequences of yet another “too big to fa...
Sep 25, 2021•11 min
outro: https://youtu.be/JanZSDIWpmg We start with a quick moratorium on self-deprecating apologia for doompill. Confronting, with sober senses and ruthless analysis, the material conditions of the world is not always a joyful thing. But, importantly, it is not one that calls for nihilism, fatalism, or doom. We then discuss a long excerpt from an upcoming biography of Peter Thiel and finally give this (self-admittedly) evil man the attention he deserves. Not only is Thiel driven by venal desires ...
Sep 22, 2021•1 hr 25 min
Intro: https://youtu.be/7YynqVvgZYI We spend the first half finishing our discussion of David Graeber and David Wengrow’s essay. Then, in the second half, we switch gears and talk about the video of a Tesla trying to mow down pedestrians, the cultural logics of speed, worlds built for objects over people, and the relations between automation, authority and anarchy. Some stuff we discuss: • How to change the course of human history | David Graeber and David Wengrow https://www.eurozine.com/change...
Sep 18, 2021•8 min
