On the internet being sh*t.

 

Tech critic, author and blogger Cory Doctorow joins us to talk about his new book, The Internet Con. He tells us his ONE SIMPLE TRICK to fix the internet: interoperability. Breaking down the tech giants' walled gardens is the first step to dethroning them. 

 

How does Big Tech depend on intellectual property to cement their monopolies? How can their grip be loosened? How do we make tech work for us?

 

In the After Party, the boys debate Doctorow's anti-monopolist arguments, and look at the wider ways tech is affecting everything from agriculture to services. We conclude by asking what the best way to guarantee freedom of expression is. 

 

Links:

On US politics being stuck.

 

[Patreon Exclusive]

 

We talk to political theorist Benjamin Studebaker about his new book, The Chronic Crisis of American Democracy: The Way is Shut. Studebaker holds that hope is a problem because it's used by professionals to keep people engaged in a system that simply doesn't deliver. Hence the culture wars and the focus on various 'vices'.

 

How are both left and right complicit in this situation? What's the solution? Are we dependent on oligarchs going rogue to shake the system? Do we need to hit rock bottom to rekindle our political imaginations?

On the 3rd and final part of Jurgen Habermas' Legitimation Crisis.

 

[Patreon Tier II & III Exclusive]

 

We wrap up this challenging book by debating some key points. Habermas already felt we lived in a post-truth society. How does his notion differ from the contemporary one concerned with misinformation? And is it possible to get beyond the notion of political authority grounded in (arbitrary) rules and laws – to an order rooted in truth and meaning?

 

Habermas also discusses his Frankfurt School colleagues and 'the end of the individual'. What does this mean? Is there any hope for free, rational, democratic politics?

 

Reading:

Legitimation Crisis, Jurgen Habermas

The Return of the Repressed, Wolfgang Streeck, NLR 104, March–April 2017

On the American drug binge.

 

Forget all the stereotypes – drug use is no longer confined to particular subcultures. US Americans are taking world-historic levels of drugs. Benjamin Fong tells us about his new book, Quick Fixes: Drugs in America from Prohibition to the 21st Century Binge, which covers everything from morphine to mushrooms, SSRIs to speed, caffeine to cocaine. 

 

Ultimately, is all this drug-taking about reckless abandon, or about control?

 

For more, go to patreon.com/bungacast

 

Subscribe to Damage Magazine

 

Links:

Who Deserves Amphetamines, Benjamin Fong, The Point

On Australian and New Zealand at the End of History.

 

Antipodean political scientists Shahar Hameiri and Tom Chodor join us to discuss the history and politics of Australia and New Zealand. If Australia is the “lucky country”, what about New Zealand? What explains the courses both countries took economically and politically over the twentieth century? And where do the two countries find themselves today - did they escape the end of the End of History?

 

Part 2: patreon.com/bungacast

 

Readings:

On everyday, private tyranny. 

 

 

Sohrab Ahmari, one of the editors of Compact Magazine, joins us to talk about his book, Tyranny, Inc. We discuss the sorts of private coercion that are found in the US workplace and marketplace, rather than originate with the state – and how relatively uncommon it is for a conservative like Ahmari to follow that line of critique. 

 

Also: the NY Post's scathing front covers, alliances between socialists and conservatives, the world of JG Ballard's Super Cannes, and critiquing the right from the right and the left from the left. 

On film and left-wing terrorism.

 

[Patreon Exclusive]

 

We talk about Uli Edel’s 2008 film The Baader Meinhof Complex, which tells the story of the Red Army Faction in 1960s and 70s Germany. What sorts of myths do films create? Is the attempt to break down myths in fact a way of re-making those myths? Is a Red Army Faction response possible today - and what does terrorism at the End of the End of History look like?

 

We also discuss the image-sausage-grinder theory of film and reflect on six years of podcast urban guerilla activity.

Links:

Episode on Berlusconi biopic, Loro: UNLOCKED /87/ Berluscoming  

Symptom of the post-political – Terrorism in Contemporary German, British and Hollywood Cinema, Maren Thom (pdf)

"The State I Am In", Christian Petzold (2000)

On geopolitical competition over Africa.

 

This episode was originally for subscribers only. To join, sign up at patreon.com/bungacast

 

In light of the 'new Cold War', we look at what the US, Europe, Russia and China's respective "pitches" are to African countries – what are they selling? And we examine the factors that contribute to Africa's place in geopolitics today: Chinese hunger for raw materials, the global war on terror, the green energy transition, drug and people smuggling, and more.

 

If the original Scramble for Africa (1884-1914) was driven by an attempt to displace European class war onto another terrain, can we say anything analogous is happening today?

 

Links:

On Jürgen Habermas' Legitimation Crisis.

 

[Patreon Tier II & III Exclusive]

 

What made postwar capitalism 'organised'? And why did many believe it had overcome economic crisis?

 

In this second episode on Legitimacy, we go through part 2 of Habermas' book, where its main concerns reveal themselves. How does the role of the state in managing the economy transfer crises into the realm of politics and society? Bourgeois ideology seems pretty thin on its own and doesn't provide enough motivation, so what happens when traditionalism no longer holds sway? Is capitalism just hanging on by a thread: the thread of civic privatism?

 

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On music, pop culture, and the politics of the spectacle.

 

Musician, host of This is Revolution and Sublation columnist, Jason Myles joins us to talk about how every podcast is a failed band, if pop music is dead, and whether the contemporary left is a lifestyle brand feeding into the all-encompassing politics of the spectacle. We also discuss the music of De La Soul and the role of what Jason calls “underclass ideology” in contemporary America. Finally, we reflect on selling out: it used to be a cardinal sin as recently as 25 years ago, but now, if you don't sell out, you're failing. Why?

 

Links:

Stakes is High: Addicted to the Spectacle, Jason Myles, Sublation

Is The Contemporary Left A Lifestyle Brand?, Jason Myles, Sublation

Virtual Insanity: A Freak Show for Left Media, Jason Myles, Sublation