Digital Sovereignty in a Time of Rising Fascism

Paris Marx is solo this week, providing an update on the podcast, the series of guests planned for May, and what’s coming next for Tech Won’t Save Us!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, and support the show on Patreon.Find out more about Harbinger Media Network at harbingermedianetwork.com.Also mentioned in this episode: Paris wrote about the future of the internet, why Elon Musk is planning for climate apocalypse, the problems with Jeff Bezos’ space future, and why a socialist future won’t look like a capitalist one. Paris was recently on the Digital Void podcast. Support the show

29 Apr 202129min

Paris Marx is joined by Kim Kelly to discuss what it was like on the ground in Bessemer as workers tried to form a union at Amazon, the mood after the results came in, and where the organizing effort against Amazon goes from here.Kim Kelly is a freelance labor reporter who has written for Teen Vogue, The Baffler, Vox, and many others. She is also writing a book for One Signal Publishers called “Fight Like Hell” that will come out in 2022. Follow Kim on Twitter as @GrimKim.🎉 In April 2021, Tech Won’t Save Us celebrates its first birthday. If we get 30 new supporters at $5+ per month, we’ll start a weekly newsletter in addition to the weekly podcast to provide a new way for people to access critical perspectives on technology. If you like the show, become a supporter and help us reach our goal!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, and support the show on Patreon.Find out more about Harbinger Media Network at harbingermedianetwork.com.Also mentioned in this episode: Kim wrote about the workers and organizers behind the Bessemer campaign, and how faith was an important motivating factor. She also reported on it for More Perfect Union. Alex Press outlined the history of civil rights unionism in the US South. Caroline O’Donovan explained how Amazon workers are organizing beyond Bessemer, and why some don’t plan to seek NLRB recognition. Luis Feliz Leon wrote about the growing international movement to challenge Amazon. The Retail Wholesale and Department Store Union challenged the result of the Bessemer union vote over Amazon’s union busting tactics. The New York Times spoke to some workers who voted “no” for the union. Amazon promotes its $15 minimum wage, but it actually pushes down wages in the warehousing sector. The PRO Act is a major change to US labor legislation that would make it easier to unionize. Support the show

22 Apr 202150min

Paris Marx is joined by Elizabeth Renieris to discuss why we should be concerned about proposals for vaccine passports and how they could create a precedent for a larger rollout of digital identity documents.Elizabeth Renieris is a practitioner fellow at Stanford University’s Digital Civil Society Lab and a tech + human rights fellow  at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. Follow Elizabeth on Twitter as @hackylawyer.🎉 In April 2021, Tech Won’t Save Us celebrates its first birthday. If we get 30 new supporters at $5+ per month, we’ll start a weekly newsletter in addition to the weekly podcast to provide a new way for people to access critical perspectives on technology. If you like the show, become a supporter and help us reach our goal!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, and support the show on Patreon.Find out more about Harbinger Media Network at harbingermedianetwork.com.Also mentioned in this episode: Elizabeth wrote about what’s really at stake in the vaccine passport debate. The US federal government has talked about leaving this to the private sector, the EU is planning a “digital green pass” for travel, and Israel rolled out a “green passport” for vaccinated people to gain access to various public and private spaces. Contact tracing apps did not deliver on their big promises. New York’s vaccine passport has already been forged. Rolling out vaccine passports has high costs for businesses who will want to use that infrastructure in other ways. Parts of the Global South may not receive mass Covid vaccinations until 2024. The modern passport regime was created in the 1920s, with the goal being to eventually abolish it. Now borders are being equipped with facial recognition cameras and border guards can check your phone. Support the show

16 Apr 202149min

Paris Marx is joined by Jacob Silverman to discuss the implications of the recent NFT boom, the libertarian ideology that underpins crypto, and where the hype economy goes from here.Jacob Silverman is a staff writer at The New Republic and the author of “Terms of Service: Social Media and the Price of Constant Connection.” Follow Jacob on Twitter as @SilvermanJacob.🎉 In April 2021, Tech Won’t Save Us celebrates its first birthday. If we get 30 new supporters at $5+ per month, we’ll start a weekly newsletter in addition to the weekly podcast to provide a new way for people to access critical perspectives on technology. If you like the show, become a supporter and help us reach our goal!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, and support the show on Patreon.Find out more about Harbinger Media Network at harbingermedianetwork.com.Also mentioned in this episode: Jacob wrote about all the things rich people are spending their money on during the pandemic, including NFTs and cryptocurrencies. Everest Pipkin explained all of the environmental problems with NFTs, and how they’re built into the core of the technology. Some people are buying NFTs, then finding they disappear or can’t be accessed. Bitcoin uses more energy than Argentina, but could consume more than Australia by 2024. Bill Gates said Bitcoin is a “pure ‘greater fool theory’ type of investment.” Anil Dash explained that NFTs were supposed to help artists, not just be another speculative asset. Taylor Lorenz wrote about how creators are monetizing their lives. The New York Times and Forbes (among others) sold NFTs while reporting on them. Tom Brady is the latest celebrity to get into NFTs. The NFT boom may already be going bust. Support the show

8 Apr 202145min

Paris Marx is joined by Chris Gilliard to discuss how decisions by powerful institutions over how to implement new technologies in cities, education, health, and more have the effect of creating a form of digital redlining that hides existing social problems.Chris Gilliard is a Visiting Research Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School Shorenstein Center and teaches at Macomb Community College. You can follow Chris on Twitter as @hypervisible.🎉 In April 2021, Tech Won’t Save Us celebrates its first birthday. If we get 30 new supporters at $5+ per month, we’ll start a weekly newsletter in addition to the weekly podcast to provide a new way for people to access critical perspectives on technology. If you like the show, become a supporter and help us reach our goal!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, and support the show on Patreon.Find out more about Harbinger Media Network at harbingermedianetwork.com.Also mentioned in this episode: Chris wrote about how technology can hide racism in the "frictionless" society. He also wrote about digital redlining in education. Despite redlining being outlawed, the effects can still be seen in many outcomes, including health. See the redlining maps at Mapping Inequality. Amazon originally excluded predominantly Black communities when it rolled out same-day delivery in Boston. In 2019, Facebook was sued by the Department of Housing and Urban Development for allowing discrimination in its housing ads. In 2020, it was found to still be doing it. Bots are getting US vaccine appointments, and programmers are having to help relatives get appointments. Support the show

1 Apr 202149min

Paris Marx is joined by Manu Saadia to discuss the roots of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos’ visions for space, and why they serve the billionaires’ need for control, not the betterment of humanity.Manu Saadia is the author of “Trekonomics: The Economics of Star Trek.”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, and support the show on Patreon.Find out more about Harbinger Media Network at harbingermedianetwork.com.Also mentioned in this episode: Elon Musk said he’s accumulating wealth to make life multiplanetary. Jeff Bezos said he can only think to spend his Amazon “winnings” on space. In “Dark Skies: Space Expansionism, Planetary Geopolitics, and the Ends of Humanity,” Daniel Deudney outlines the two space paradigms discussed in the episode. You can also read a review of it. Werhner von Braun, who was key to the US Apollo Program, was a Nazi scientist who came to the US after World War II. Carl Sagan said “there is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. … For the moment, Earth is where we make our stand.” Elon Musk laughed at this and claimed Mars is the alternative, but Shannon Stirone explained why he is very wrong. Salvage published an editorial on the immediate need to repair the damage done by capitalism. Science fiction mentioned: Ursula Le Guin’s “The Dispossessed,” Octavia Butler, Isaac Asimov, Philip K. Dick, and Robert Heinlein. Support the show

25 Mars 202151min

Paris Marx is joined by Mar Hicks to discuss why we need to know the history of tech and how the British history of sexism and colonialism in computing has lessons for the present-day US tech industry.Mar Hicks is the co-editor of “Your Computer Is on Fire,” along with Thomas S. Mullaney, Benjamin Peters, and Kavita Philip. They are also the author of “Programmed Inequality: How Britain Discarded Women Technologists and Lost Its Edge in Computing” and an Associate Professor of the History of Technology at Illinois Tech. Follow Mar on Twitter as @histoftech.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, and support the show on Patreon.Find out more about Harbinger Media Network at harbingermedianetwork.com.Also mentioned in this episode: Mar wrote about the story of COBOL computer systems in the early months of the pandemic and how Britain killed its tech industry. Google fired top AI ethicists Timnit Gebru and Margaret Mitchell after their research was critical of the company’s practices. Diversity recruiter April Christina Curley was also fired in September 2020. Support the show

18 Mars 202154min

Paris Marx is joined by Tim Schwab to discuss how Bill Gates wields his wealth to shape public policy, the many conflicts of interest of Bill and his Foundation, and how legitimate criticism of power is being positioned as conspiracy.Tim Schwab is an investigative journalist whose recent work on the Gates Foundation has been published by The Nation, the Columbia Review of Journalism, and the British Medical Journal. Follow Tim on Twitter as @TimothyWSchwab.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, and support the show on Patreon.Find out more about Harbinger Media Network at harbingermedianetwork.com.Also mentioned in this episode: Tim wrote about the Gates Foundation’s conflicts of interest, in particular during the pandemic. He also wrote about how Gates’ funding of media and health data produces accountability and transparency problems. Paris had a viral thread about Gates’ intervention in the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, after which an interview said it was a conspiracy theory. After getting the rights to the Oxford vaccine, AstraZeneca ran into trouble in clinical trials. The Associated Press found three factories in Bangladesh alone that could be producing vaccines if patent protections were waived. The Mail and Guardian in South Africa published an article on Bill Gates’ complicity in vaccine apartheid and the author’s Twitter account was locked for tweeting about it. In 2015, Thomas Piketty talked to the BBC about the problems with billionaire philanthropy. Support the show

11 Mars 202153min