Tech Won't Save Us

Paris Marx is joined by Brian Merchant to discuss the development of the iPhone, how Apple manages the press, and how the parts of the company’s supply chain that get too little attention.

Brian Merchant is the author of The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone and Blood in the Machine, coming in 2022. Follow Brian on Twitter at @bcmerchant.

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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:

• In 1968, Douglas Engelbart showed off the “Mother of All Demos.”
• David Nye wrote the American Technological Sublime.
• Paris thinks Apple’s Steve Jobs Theater has big church vibes.
• Disgraced former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes tried to emulate Steve Jobs.
• IBM built the Simon smartphone in the 1990s, but it was ahead of its time.
• In 2011, Apple made $473,000 per retail employee — far more than other retailers. Its revenue per square foot was almost double Tiffany’s. That year, Cory Moll also led a push for an Apple Retail Workers Union, but Apple fought back and he left the company in 2013.
• In 2010, after facing criticism, Steve Jobs said the suicide rate at Foxconn factories was “well below the China average.”
• In December 2020, workers at a Wistron iPhone factory in India ransacked the factory because they weren’t getting paid.
• Jenny Chan, Mark Selden, and Ngai Pun wrote Dying for an iPhone: Apple, Foxconn, and The Lives of China’s Workers (US/UK).
• Apple files annual conflict minerals reports. You can read their 2021 report here.

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Paris Marx is joined by André Brock to discuss the history of Black people’s online activity, the internet’s association with whiteness, and what Black Twitter can tell us about the centrality of Black people to digital culture.

André Brock is an associate professor of media studies at Georgia Tech. He writes on Western technoculture, Black technoculture, and digital media. His award-winning book, Distributed Blackness: African American Cybercultures, theorizes Black everyday lives mediated by networked digital technologies. You can get if from NYU Press, and it’s available through open access. Follow André on Twitter at @DocDre.

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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:

• Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald did portraits of the Obamas, while Kara Walker made “A Subtlety” at the Domino Sugar Refinery.
• Achille Mbembe is a Cameroonian philosopher and social theorist.
• Janelle Monáe, Sun Ra, and John Jennings are notable people engaging with Afrofuturism.
• Books mentioned: Black Software: The Internet & Racial Justice, from the AfroNet to Black Lives Matter by Charlton D. McIlwain and Tools for Conviviality by Ivan Illich.

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Paris Marx is joined by Michael Kwet to discuss how digital technologies are used to entrench the power of the United States and its dominant corporations at the expense of the Global South.

Michael Kwet is a Visiting Fellow of the Information Society Project at Yale Law School. He got his PhD in Sociology at Rhodes University in South Africa. Follow Michael on Twitter at @Michael_Kwet.

🚨 T-shirts are now available!

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:

• Michael wrote about digital colonialism and the need for a Digital Tech Deal.
• Bill Gates wrote a notorious letter in 1976 opposing the sharing of software as it conflicted with Microsoft's business model.
• Tech companies export content moderation, training AI, call center, and even more labor to the Global South.
• Gabriel Winant criticized the dominant liberal perspective on antitrust action.

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Paris Marx is joined by Olivier Jutel to discuss blockchain’s pivot to humanitarianism, the questionable people behind the technology, and how their projects in the Pacific have benefited capitalist and imperial power.

Olivier Jutel is a lecturer at the University of Otago. Follow Olivier on Twitter at @OJutel.

🚨 T-shirts are now available!

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’ first book “Road to Nowhere” comes out in July 2022.
• Olivier wrote a paper about blockchain imperialism in the Pacific and it was covered by Motherboard.
• BCCI was an international bank established in 1972 that was shut down in 1991 for hiding money laundering and other financial crimes.
• Hernando De Soto is a Latin American economist who advised Peruvian dictator Alberto Fujimori and advocates neoliberal policies like land title programs. He now pushes for it to be done through blockchains, and wrote an op-ed with Phil Gramm.
• Brock Pierce is a co-founder of Tether and tried to turn Puerto Rico into a crypto paradise.
• Hillary Clinton described the freedom to connect doctrine.
•  Geoffrey Bond sold Vanuatu citizenship and was connected to Sebastian Greenwood, who was part of the OneCoin Ponzi scheme.
• Binance is under investigation, if not pushed out of, multiple countries.
• Fiji is facing major opposition to land reform plans.
• Books mentioned: David Gerard’s “Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain” and “Libra Shrugged,” Fred Turner’s “From Counterculture to Cyberculture,” Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s “Empire,” Herbert Schiller’s “Communication and Cultural Domination,” Armand Mattelart’s “The Invention of Communication,” Lilli Irani’s “Chasing Innovation,” and Teresia Teaiwa in “Anglo-American Imperialism and the Pacific.”

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Paris Marx is joined by Dan Greene to discuss how the Clinton administration reframed poverty through the lens of the internet and how that transformed the missions of key institutions like libraries and schools.

Dan Greene is an assistant professor at University of Maryland’s College of Information Studies. He is the author of “The Promise of Access: Technology, Inequality, and the Political Economy of Hope.” Follow Dan on Twitter at @Green_DM.

🚨 T-shirts are now available!

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:

• Anna Pacquin starred in a series of commercials for MCI about the internet
• Ben Tarnoff wrote about the privatization of the internet
• Dan wrote an article about the landlords of the internet

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Paris Marx is joined by Shannon Mattern to discuss what we miss when we see the city solely through the lens of the computer, and how other institutions and ways of knowing can help inform richer ways of understanding the city.

Shannon Mattern is a professor of anthropology at The New School for Social Research and President of the Board at the Metropolitan New York Library Council. She is the author of “Code and Clay, Data and Dirt” and “A City Is Not a Computer.” Follow Shannon on Twitter at @shannonmattern.

📚 Get 30% off “A City Is Not a Computer” when you buy it from Princeton University Press and use the code “TWSU” at checkout before the end of September 2021!

🚨 T-shirts are now available!

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:

• Ursula K. Le Guin ranted about the meaning of the word “technology.”
• Google wanted to build a smart city in Toronto, but activists killed it.
• Gökçe Günel wrote “Spaceship in the Desert: Energy, Climate Change, and Urban Design in Abu Dhabi” about the Masdar smart city project.
• Songdo was supposed to be South Korea’s city of the future. It didn’t work out.
• Kevin Rogan wrote about the human labor Sidewalk Labs was hiding.

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Paris Marx is joined by Dhakshayini Sooriyakumaran to discuss Australia’s robodebt scandal where automated decision-making was used against welfare recipients, and how exploitative AI implementations are being deployed by governments in social welfare and at the borders.

Dhakshayini Sooriyakumaran is a proud Tamil person and a PhD candidate at Australian National University whose work focuses on digital identification systems and border policing regimes. Follow Dhakshayini on Twitter as @Dhakshayini_S.

🚨 T-shirts are now available!

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:

• Dhakshayini wrote about robo-governance and why we need to oppose it.
• Robodebt eventually resulted in a A$1.8 billion settlement in favor of welfare recipients.
• Robo-planning was another proposed system for Australia’s disability insurance scheme that has been canceled. A blockchain trial was also considered.
• Australia is trialing a controversial cashless welfare card, and plans to increase the use of biometrics.
• Scarlet Wilcock researched the history of “welfare cheat” narratives in Australia.
• Canada has been using automated decision making to process visa applications.
• Just Futures Law and Mijente released a report called “ICE: Digital Prisons.”
• Israeli company NSO’s Pegasus technology was weaponized against activists, politicians, and journalists.
• The Australian Human Rights Commission released a report on human rights and technology, while the European Data Protection Supervisor has called for a ban on biometrics.

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Paris Marx is joined by Peter Labuza to discuss how streaming is reconfiguring Hollywood, what that means for the film and television we consume, and whether it’s time to consider antitrust action against the streaming giants.

Peter Labuza is a lecturer at San Jose State University whose work focuses on the legal, financial, and political history of creative industries. He’s currently writing a book about the history of entertainment law in Hollywood. Follow Peter on Twitter as @labuzamovies.

🚨 T-shirts are now available!

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:

• Peter wrote an op-ed for the LA Times about what streaming is doing to culture and the need for antitrust action.
• Paris has written about the consolidation in entertainment companies, the need to consider state action, and Amazon’s acquisition of MGM.
• David Graeber wrote that British culture from the sixties was a product of the welfare state.
• Joshua Glick wrote about how Netflix is changing documentary production.
• Jennifer Holt provides an overview of media deregulation in “Empires of Entertainment: Media Industries and the Politics of Deregulation, 1980-1996.”
• FilmCritHulk wrote about the impacts of streaming and industry consolidation on labor, unions, and more.
• In 2020, a judge ended the Paramount Decrees.
• The Writer’s Guild recently went on strike over streaming residuals.
• Salt of the Earth was a film made by blacklisted filmmakers.

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Paris Marx takes a solo episode to discuss the billionaire space race. Specifically, how billionaires are selling grand futures of space travel as a PR scheme to get huge public contracts that will allow them to control the infrastructure of space.

🚨 T-shirts are now available!

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 billionaire space race, and it was translated into German, Italian, and Turkish.
• New Mexico’s $220-million Spaceport America that’s used by Virgin Galactic is a joke.
• SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service has been way overhyped.
• If we went to Mars, we would get cancer.
• Adam Mann had a great essay on how we should think about Mars, and whether it’s “ours.”
• Elon Musk says we can be indentured servants on Mars, and people will die.
• Paris has written about Jeff Bezos’ space colonies, and compared them to Blade Runner and The Expanse.
• Jeff Bezos stepped down as Amazon CEO to take on the role of Executive Chairman.
• Ursula K. Le Guin argues science fiction isn’t about the future, nor is it predictive.
• Amazon’s emissions rose 19% in 2020 and it’s helping Big Oil.
• Paris wrote about the real climate future billionaires are creating.

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Paris Marx is joined by Alex Rivera to discuss his 2008 film Sleep Dealer and how it imagined exploitative technologies being implemented in a future Mexico of hardened borders and limited migration.

Alex Rivera is a filmmaker and digital media artist whose work explores themes of globalization, migration, and technology. His feature films include Sleep Dealer and The Infiltrators. Follow Alex on Twitter as @Alex_Rivera.

🚨 T-shirts are now available!

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:

• You can rent or buy Sleep Dealer from the official website.
• Paris wrote about Sleep Dealer and what it illustrates about technology for Jacobin.
• Border walls are still going up around the world.
• Smart tech is often designed to hide the human labor that makes it work.
• Kiwibot delivery robots are driven by Colombian workers making $2/hour.

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