We riff on the artisanal race science of Caroline Ellison, CEO of Alameda Research, the crypto hedge fund linked to FTX. Then we introduce you to the Harman Ready Care system, yet another of the wonderful innovations on the market contributing, in its own incremental way, to improving the world today. ••• Introducing HARMAN Ready Care: Detects Driver Behaviors and Assists via Context-Aware Interventions for Safer and Smarter Drives https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220914005609/en/Introdu...
Nov 19, 2022•8 min
We dig into the details of FTX’s collapse. FTX is not an isolated event. FTX is not a bad apple. FTX is not uniquely mismanaged. FTX is not a cautionary tale. FTX is not a stunning surprise. FTX is a systemic problem, a vehicle for structural levels of fraud, another in a long line of liquidity crunches for crypto, a litmus test for credible due diligence, a fork in the road for the crypto economy, institutional investors, and government regulators. ••• It Was All a Game for Sam Bankman-Fried ht...
Nov 16, 2022•1 hr 19 min
We dig into Chapter 3 – Theory and Practice – and look at how, in the 1960s and 1970s, theories of finance like random-walk hypothesis and efficient market hypothesis, started leaking out of the university and having real world effects in professional financial practice. Combined with market restructuring caused by the rapid growth of institutional investors in the American economy, these financial theories directly influence the creation of things like index funds, which go on to set financial ...
Nov 15, 2022•7 min
We discuss a recent investigation by ProPublica into the convergence of real estate, private equity, and algorithmic pricing as they profile a particularly odious company (RealPage) that is selling a technology (YieldStar) to property management companies, which directly leading to severe upward pressures on rental pricing and vacancy rates. Troubled by real estate companies extracting higher margins out of renters in a tight market in ways that raise red flags of collusion? Well, just blame a g...
Nov 11, 2022•1 hr 8 min
We talk about the chaos at Twitter as Elon drives the company into the ground, merging classic techniques of a private equity takeover with his patented impulsive incompetence. Stuff we reference: ••• Musk’s Trump-style management rattles Twitter workers awaiting layoffs https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/03/elon-musk-twitter-layoffs-silence-blind/ ••• Twitter job cuts begin as Musk warns of ‘massive’ revenue drop https://www.ft.com/content/b9a2a0ec-d3fe-422d-bc62-fa9ddfd3f06c •••...
Nov 08, 2022•6 min
We are joined by Jacob Silverman – contributing editor at The New Republic – to discuss his profile of David Sacks, a venture capitalist and right-wing media personality who has been on the vanguard of reactionary culture wars and political influence in Silicon Valley. Follow Jacob: https://twitter.com/SilvermanJacob Stuff we reference ••• The Quiet Political Rise of David Sacks, Silicon Valley’s Prophet of Urban Doom https://newrepublic.com/article/168125/david-sacks-elon-musk-peter-thiel ••• T...
Nov 04, 2022•1 hr 18 min
We dig into Chapter 2 – Transforming Finance – and look at how, in the 1950s and 1960s, the economic study of finance started shifting from merely descriptive approaches to engaging in more analytical theories and mathematical models of how finance does (and should) operate. Here’s a free pdf of the book: https://uberty.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/MacKenzie-An-Engine-Not-a-Camera.pdf Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekill...
Nov 02, 2022•6 min
We are joined by reporter Avi Asher-Schapiro who, along with his colleague Fabio Teixeira, has published an investigation into the crypto carbon credits markets. This collision between green finance and crypto economics reveals many of the worst tendencies of both sectors as financiers take advantage of highly profitable opportunities for price arbitrage. Such as bundling low quality “zombie credits” with high quality carbon credits, labeling these subprime assets as premium, and selling the tok...
Oct 28, 2022•1 hr 27 min
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 takes all those dynamics and pushes them to their most horrific logical conclusions. Some references: ••• How a Hospital Chain Used a Poor Neighborhood to Turn Huge Profits https://www.nytimes.com/20...
Oct 24, 2022•5 min
We are joined by Beatrice Adler-Bolton and Artie Vierkant — co-hosts of Death Panel — to discuss their truly excellent new book, Health Communism, which offers a searing analysis of how our conceptions and systems of health are critical to the maintenance of capitalism. Under capitalism we are all human waste: the sick and surplus that are drains on productive society. If you don’t think you are, then just wait long enough and hopefully you’ll live long enough to meet that fate. Health communism...
Oct 19, 2022•1 hr 24 min
After an extended riff, we kick off the new TMK Book Club on An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial Models Shape Markets by Donald MacKenzie. In the first chapter we get an intro to some of the big themes, methods, and theories that we’ll get deeper into throughout the book’s sociological analysis of financial economics and market dynamics. This is a foundational book in the social studies of finance. Being an academic text, it is also dense and heady. Read along with us if you have the time and...
Oct 18, 2022•9 min
We check in on our old friends/enemies at the New York Time, then get to some listener mail about effective altruism, all before offering a smart, nuanced, and critical defense of the CIA. You see, it’s not that we are angry, we are just disappointed at the CIA’s continual failure to live up to its own potential for greatness. Stuff we reference: ••• Has the C.I.A. Done More Harm Than Good? https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/10/10/has-the-cia-done-more-harm-than-good ••• The Responsibility ...
Oct 15, 2022•1 hr 17 min
We take a hard look at the White House’s new AI Bill of Rights and discover that the Eye of Sauron is actually ethical according to its principles. We then go in on academia and journalism for, in their own ways, laundering the interests and influence of the tech sector. Also, the new TMK book club starts next week in the patreon feed! Starting with Chapter 1, we will be going through An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial Models Shape Markets | Donald MacKenzie https://mitpress.mit.edu/97802626...
Oct 11, 2022•8 min
We discuss recent events of a report by Tech Inquiry about big tech’s military contracts was pulled by its funders — a major union and a major social democratic party — over Tech Inquiry’s refusal to censor its criticism of Microsoft. We offer our own critical analysis of organizations focused on building short-term, self-interested alliances with capital instead of ones focused on building long-term, worker power that is antagonistic to capital. Some references: ••• On the censorship of our rep...
Oct 06, 2022•1 hr 2 min
Jathan debriefs on the insurtech conference. Then we discuss Elon Musk’s texts and emails that were made public during discovery for his litigation with Twitter, which show just how idiotic, pathetic, and sycophantic these billionaires truly are. There’s no secret genius masterplan or devious conspiracy. It’s just powerful people sucking off the guy above them and ripping off everybody below them. Stuff we reference: ••• Elon Musk’s Texts Shatter the Myth of the Tech Genius https://www.theatlant...
Oct 03, 2022•8 min
We are unlocking a recent episode about a topic that remains very relevant. We dig deep into Effective Altruism and Longtermism, laying out the origins, beliefs, and actions of this ideological moral system and the networks of influence and wealth that it’s plugged into. Along the way we critique the extreme logical conclusions it leads to, the extremely simpleminded fairy tales it’s based on, and the extremist group of moral zealots, useful idiots, and cynical bullshiters that rule this rationa...
Sep 27, 2022•1 hr 28 min
It’s TMK Live in Vegas! Well, in real life recording live to tape in the same room for the first time ever. We talk about our adventures in Las Vegas. A city that is constituted by many forms of totally controlled, perfectly designed prisons. A city that is representative of the many forms of surplus in capitalism: of luxury and money, of misery and people. Some stuff we reference ••• Addiction by Design: Machine Gambling in Las Vegas https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691160887/add...
Sep 25, 2022•8 min
We are joined by Cory Doctorow and Rebecca Giblin – authors of the excellent new book Chokepoint Capitalism – to discuss how creative labor markets are tightly squeezed on all sides by massive monopolies / monopsonies that create chokepoints to trap suppliers, trap consumers, and trap all the profits in markets for books, music, movies, and every other artistic endeavour. Cory and Rebecca then detail a long list of tactics and solutions for breaking the capitalist stranglehold over cultural prod...
Sep 22, 2022•1 hr 14 min
We cruise through recent stories about how our surveillance society continues developing. We’ve got biometric fingerprint scanners to enter the bathrooms at a high school ••• police have decided the heat on facial recognition has finally died down and have begun lifting moratoriums and expanding its usage ••• an insurance company and tech company buy large stakes in a home security company, in the prologue to every anarcho-capitalist sci-fi story ••• and powerful, price, geolocation trackers hav...
Sep 19, 2022•8 min
We are joined by Justin Roczniak—of the excellent engineering disasters podcast, Well There’s Your Problem—to talk about the potential freight rail strike that has been brewing for a long time and near-future scenarios for the supply chain. We discuss the horrid labor conditions in the industry and the scourge of Precision Scheduled Railroading, a system of management that has transformed the entire railroad sector so it serves one god: The Operating Ratio. follow Justin: https://twitter.com/who...
Sep 16, 2022•1 hr 26 min
We discuss a powerful new essay on the multiple violences – domestic, data, administrative, racial – wrought by the state family police, aka “child protective services,” which uses an array of tools to terrorize and tear apart families, particularly targeting those that are Black and Brown. But first, we pour one out for Real Life Magazine and reflect on its importance – and the huge loss – for the tech media landscape. Some stuff we reference: ••• Birthing Predictions of Premature Death | J. Kh...
Sep 14, 2022•7 min
We get an update on Jathan’s journey into the heart of darkness as he returns to suburban America after a four years absence – a stranger in a strange homeland. Riffs and distractions ensue until we end by talking about Mark Zuckerberg going on the Joe Rogan Experience, Meta’s pivot to Alpha Male Mindset, and the rise of Dark Zuck. Some stuff we reference: ••• Mark Zuckerberg’s Metaverse Pitch Is Falling Flat https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-31/mark-zuckerberg-s-metaverse-flails-o...
Sep 09, 2022•1 hr 15 min
We discuss a great new essay from Noah Kulwin that situates the modern crypto grift economy as a reincarnation of the Savings and Loans Crisis of the 80s – as a way of arguing for a longer view of the historical materialist context of these larger dynamics. New body, old engine. Some stuff we reference: ••• Tales from the Thrifts https://thebaffler.com/salvos/tales-from-the-thrifts-kulwin ••• Would You Take Out a Loan to Buy This Week’s Groceries? https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/29/dining/buy-no...
Sep 06, 2022•6 min
We discuss a new startup doing the rounds called Sanas that uses AI “accent translation” to make "non-white" call center workers speak English with a white American accent. This is some real retro throwback tech solutionism / startup utopianism with a very quotable founder at the helm. While Sanas claims it's all about worker empowerment and global equity, we here at TMKonsulting show how Sanas is likely to be used as a tool of exploitation. Plus contribute to broader shifts in the role of large...
Sep 02, 2022•1 hr 7 min
We talk about the booming market for – and community organizing against – landlord technologies that use invasive surveillance to terrorize tenants and automate evictions. In addition to discussing the broader political economy and social toxicity of this shit, we also introduce a new psycho into the canon. Some stuff we reference: ••• Automating gentrification: Landlord technologies and housing justice organizing in New York City homes https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/02637758221088...
Aug 30, 2022•6 min
We are joined by Dan McQuillan to discuss his great new book Resisting AI. As Jathan wrote in a blurb for the book: “With analytical and moral clarity, McQuillan makes the case for recognising the radical politics of AI and meeting its goose step march head-on.” We get deep into an excellent discussion spanning the political economy and political epistemology of artificial intelligence. Meanwhile, Ed is trapped in Pittsburgh where he is now forced to live as a worker in a defunct steel factory. ...
Aug 26, 2022•1 hr 30 min
We dig deep into Effective Altruism and Longtermism, laying out the origins, beliefs, and actions of this ideological moral system and the networks of influence and wealth that it’s plugged into. Along the way we critique the extreme logical conclusions it leads to, the extremely simpleminded fairy tales it’s based on, and the extremist group of moral zealots, useful idiots, and cynical bullshiters that rule this rationalist religion. Some stuff we reference: ••• The Case for Longtermism https:/...
Aug 21, 2022•6 min
[We are unlocking this episode to share the interview with the main feed. Apologies for the feedback from Noah's audio causing a slight digital buzz when he talks, Jereme cleaned it up as best he could.] Ed is joined by reporter Noah Lanard to talk about his recent profile of Peter Thiel’s apostle: Blake Masters. We track the origins and development of his ideology: from his childhood flirtation with liberalism(?) to his college libertarianism and deeper integration into Thiel’s network of fasci...
Aug 16, 2022•1 hr 9 min
We melt our brains discussing two reality tv shows that are taking copaganda to the next level. First up is Ring Nation, a new show produced by Amazon-owned MGM Studios that’s like America’s Funniest Home Videos for a ubiquitous surveillance society. Next is Hunted, a new Australian show based on a UK series that’s like a mix of The Amazing Race + Live PD + 24. I wish this was all fake. I wish this was all a bit. But it’s more than real: it’s reality tv, baby! Some stuff we reference: ••• 'Ring ...
Aug 15, 2022•6 min
Based on Amazon’s recent acquisitions of One Medical and iRobot—just the latest in a shopping spree of vertical integration—we analyze how these seemingly disparate things all plug into Amazon’s broader strategy for “ambient computing.” In which data from a vast variety of sources and streams are combined and integrated into a range of different services. In which we are always plugged into Amazon’s ever-expanding network through protocols like Sidewalk. In which we are constantly connected to t...
Aug 11, 2022•1 hr 18 min
