Tech Won't Save Us

Paris Marx is joined by Aaron Benanav to discuss why jobs are getting worse because the economy’s slowing down, not because technology is speeding up, and why that requires a vision of post-scarcity centered around human relationships instead of technological change.Aaron Benanav is an economic historian and social theorist. He is a post-doctoral researcher at Humboldt University of Berlin and author of “Automation and the Future of Work.” Follow Aaron on Twitter as @abenanav.Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter.Find out more about Harbinger Media Network and follow it on Twitter as @harbingertweets.Also mentioned in this episode: Prop 22 passed in California, stopping gig workers from becoming employees Paris explains the limits of a basic income, how Aaron’s book helps us think about the future, and the problems with luxury communism Aaron explains why automation isn’t wiping out jobs Aaron’s science fiction reading list: “The Dispossessed,” “The Word for World is Forest,” and “Always Coming Home” by Ursula K. Le Guin; “Red Star” by Alexander Bogdanov; “Hard to be a God” and “Noon: 22nd Century” by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky; “News from Nowhere” by William Morris; “Looking Backward” by Edward Bellamy; “The Conquest of Bread” by Peter Kropotkin; “Trouble on Triton” by Samuel R. Delaney; “Star Maker” by Olaf Stapledon; and “Utopia” by Thomas Moore. Support the show

5 Nov 202048min

Paris Marx is joined by Evan Greer to discuss Republican and Democratic desires to amend or revoke Section 230, why the proposals won’t solve problems with Big Tech, and the international implications of US decisions about moderation.Evan Greer is an activist, musician, and writer. She is the deputy director at Fight for the Future, which is currently running campaigns to protect Section 230 called Save Online Free Speech and to ban facial recognition technology. Follow Evan on Twitter as @evan_greer.Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter.Find out more about Harbinger Media Network and follow it on Twitter as @harbingertweets. Also mentioned in this episode: Evan wrote about the problems with algorithmic amplification for Wired There is no anti-conservative bias on social media and Facebook’s algorithms connected extremists with hate groups Facebook removes the accounts of anti-government activists internationally and an internal memo by a former employee says it doesn’t care about its impacts if Western media won’t find out about it SESTA/FOSTA made life harder for sex workers, but has also empowered a movement for decriminalization Zoom deleted meetings discussing its own censorship Support the show

29 Okt 202046min

Paris Marx is joined by Xiaowei Wang to discuss how technology is being used to connect rural China to global supply chains, what that means for life and work in those communities, and how China also holds inspiration for a different way of organizing production and technological development.Xiaowei Wang is a technologist, artist, and writer. They are the creative director at Logic Magazine and author of “Blockchain Chicken Farm: And Other Stories of Tech in China’s Countryside.” Follow Xiaowei on Twitter as @xrw.Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter.Find out more about Harbinger Media Network and follow it on Twitter as @harbingertweets. You can also find out more about 49th Parahell on its website.Also mentioned in this episode: How China’s Sanlu milk scandal shattered trust in the food system Garrett Hardin, who came up with the tragedy of the commons, was a racist, eugenicist, nativist, and Islamophobe — and those ideas are baked into the concept Elinor Ostrom won the Nobel Prize in Economics for her work on the governance of commons, rebuking Hardin’s ideas Xiaowei wrote about the Chinese concept of “shanzhai” provides a vision of an open-source future of technological development Support the show

22 Okt 202043min

Paris Marx is joined by Tim Hwang to discuss how digital ad markets became financialized, why Google and Facebook have an incentive to hide how poorly digital ads actually work, and how a financial bubble in digital advertising could usher in a better future of the internet.Tim Hwang is a writer, researcher, and former global public policy lead for artificial intelligence and machine learning at Google. He is also the author of “Subprime Attention Crisis: Advertising and the Time Bomb at the Heart of the Internet.” Follow Tim on Twitter as @timhwang.Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter.Find out more about Harbinger Media Network and follow it on Twitter as @harbingertweets. You can also find out more about Alberta Advantage on their website.Also mentioned in this episode: The United Kingdom’s Information Commissioner isn’t so sure Cambridge Analytica was as good at changing our minds as it made us all believe. When Procter and Gamble cut their digital ad spend by $200 million, its reach increased by 10%. A Google report found that 56% of ad impressions may not even be seen by humans. Facebook’s “pivot to video” was based on false metrics and caused a lot of journalists to lose their jobs. Paris wrote a critical review of The Social Dilemma for Jacobin. Support the show

15 Okt 202041min

Paris Marx is joined by JS Tan to discuss the internet’s connection with neoliberalism, China’s protectionist measures to develop its own tech industry, and how the new tensions between the United States and China are leading Silicon Valley to embrace nationalism.JS Tan is a former tech worker and writer. He also started Collective Actions in Tech. He recently wrote articles about the tech angle on the Cold War for Foreign Policy and Trump’s attempted TikTok ban for Jacobin. Follow JS on Twitter as @organizejs.Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter.Find out more about Harbinger Media Network and follow it on Twitter as @harbingertweets. You can also find Kino Lefter on Twitter.Also mentioned in this episode: The solidarity between tech workers in the United States and China Key insights into tech worker activism from the Collective Actions in Tech database Mark Zuckerberg’s speech at Georgetown University Peter Thiel’s tech nationalism op-ed in the New York Times Eric Schmidt’s tech nationalism op-ed in the New York Times Support the show

8 Okt 202034min

Paris Marx is joined by Maria Bustillos to discuss the important work of the Internet Archive, why it opened a digital National Emergency Library during the pandemic, how access to culture is essential for the social good, and why the major publishers are trying to permanently restrict digital lending in a narrow-minded bid for short-term profit.Maria Bustillos is the founding editor of Popula and Brick House. She recently wrote about the major publishers’ lawsuit against the Internet Archive for The Nation. Find out more about Brick House and follow Maria on Twitter as @mariabustillos.Tech Won't Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter.Find out more about Harbinger Media Network and follow it on Twitter as @harbingertweets.Also mentioned in this episode: Nail Gaiman explained how piracy is the digital equivalent of lending and increased the sales of his books. How long copyright terms make our culture disappear. Microsoft simply turned off access to all the ebooks it sold with DRM. Amazon deleted copies of George Orwell’s “1984” from people’s Kindles. The new North American trade agreement extended Canadian copyright terms by 20 years. It’s unlikely that US copyright terms will be extended again. The Authors Guild would even be open to reducing terms by 20 years. Support the show

1 Okt 202045min

Paris Marx is joined by Shoshana Wodinsky to discuss how digital ad markets work, how Google and Facebook maintain their dominance, and why the TikTok saga wasn’t really about China getting people’s data at all.Shoshana Wodinsky is a data reporter at Gizmodo. She recently wrote how banning TikTok won’t do anything about data going to China and how the US Congress might break up the tech monopolies. Follow Shoshana on Twitter as @swodinsky.Tech Won't Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter. Support the show

24 Sep 202038min

Paris Marx is joined by Jenny Chan to discuss the difficult lives of Foxconn factory workers, the company’s relationship with Apple, the structural roadblocks to better working conditions, and how Chinese workers are trying to push back.Jenny Chan is the co-author of “Dying for an iPhone: Apple, Foxconn, and The Lives of China’s Workers” with Mark Selden and Pun Ngai. It’s available from Haymarket Books and Pluto Press. She is also an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.Tech Won't Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter. Support the show

17 Sep 202050min