This Machine Kills

We discuss Chapter 4 — The Human Corporeal Organisation — and look more deeply at how, as Mau writes, “The double mediation at the heart of the human metabolism—the mediation of tools and the mediation of social relations—explains why it can take infinite different forms.” We can never escape mediation of any kind, whether social (by living alone) or technological (by rejecting tools). We must understand how such mediation is crucial to human nature, and then critically engage with the power of mediation, reject those forms dominated by the logic of capital, and create the forms of mediation that work for our ends.

••• Mute Compulsion: A Marxist Theory of the Economic Power of Capital – Søren Mau https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/2759-mute-compulsion

Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills

Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We take a deeper dive into the intellectual chicanery, moral corruption, and sociopathic tendencies at the heart of behavioral economics and its most famous “experts.” This is truly one of those cases where all your skepticism, cynicism, and antagonism for this entire field was not only justified, it was probably less intense than they deserved. This field needs more than a reckoning. We should raze the empire and salt the earth.

Stuff we reference

••• They Studied Dishonesty. Was Their Work a Lie? https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/10/09/they-studied-dishonesty-was-their-work-a-lie

Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills

Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We check in on a forgotten friend, Sam Bankman-Fried, on the eve of his big trial for one of the largest frauds in history. But this time with a nice addition of the freak beat as SBF’s parents enter the scene and come to his defense. On one hand, the legal defense for SBF is that he is just a dumb oaf who made some stupid mistakes. On the other, the moral defense for SBF, fronted by his parents, is that he is a big beautiful boy who is literally incapable of speaking “an untruth.”

Stuff we reference

••• If It's Doomsday This Must Be Belfast https://captainplanet.fandom.com/wiki/If_It%27s_Doomsday_This_Must_Be_Belfast

••• Inside Sam Bankman-Fried’s Family Bubble https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/10/02/inside-sam-bankman-frieds-family-bubble

Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills

Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We are joined by Brian Merchant—LA Times tech columnist, author of Blood in the Machine, dear friend of TMK, general in the Ludd Army—to talk about his extraordinary new book. Brian has produced a masterwork on the history and legacy of Luddism. A deeply researched, thrilling narrative, filled with sharp insights, this book is the definitive story of the Luddite Rebellion and the birth of industrial capitalism.

••• Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech | Brian Merchant https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/brian-merchant/blood-in-the-machine/9780316487740/

Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills

Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We discuss chapter 3 of Mute Compulsion – The Social Ontology of Economic Power – and get into questions about the structure of social reality, why it is necessary to crack into these philosophical questions, how theories of social ontology form the whole basis of political ideologies and programs like neoliberalism and communism, why critiques of capitalism / technology based on ideas of human nature are common, easy, and weak, and why we need to build our critical theories on an ontology of social relations, not natural essence.

••• Mute Compulsion: A Marxist Theory of the Economic Power of Capital – Søren Mau https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/2759-mute-compulsion

Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills

Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

[Due to illness, we are unlocking this classic episode — which has only become more relevant as the news coverage and regulatory response to PFAS forever chemicals has only increased since our recording.]

We take a deeper look at the political ecology of the “forever chemicals” that are integral to the existing microchip manufacturing process, the very serious damage they are wreaking on human health and the environment, the industrial interests that are aggressively pushing back against any attempt to regulate these chemicals, and the CEO of Chemours who has come forth as an ardent defender of the polymers in our blood.

Stuff we reference

••• The crackdown on risky chemicals that could derail the chip industry https://www.ft.com/content/76979768-59c0-436f-b731-40ba329a7544

••• EU ban on forever chemicals would hit bloc’s green transition, warns top industry boss https://www.ft.com/content/197ca0c8-0a4d-4794-bc46-796139821f3d

••• The dystopian lake filled by the world’s tech lust https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150402-the-worst-place-on-earth

••• Mark E. Newman https://www.chemours.com/en/about-chemours/leadership/mark-e-newman-leadership-bio

Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills

Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We discuss an interview with the latest tech billionaire, Alexandr Wang of Scale AI, to push the jingoistic position that Silicon Valley has a duty to ensure American supremacy in every domain—military, geopolitics, technology, economy—and land lucrative contracts in the process.

••• Alexandr Wang: US technologists should help preserve US military and economic leadership https://www.ft.com/content/98b0a060-0e2e-4001-a4b6-8c388c106988

Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills

Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We are joined by Quinn Slobodian — author of Crack-Up Capitalism: Market Radicals and the Dream of a World Without Democracy — to discuss the libertarian extremism that forms the intellectual foundation for right-wing movements. We can see how the fringe beliefs of anarcho-capitalists — like Murray Rothbard (neo-confederate secessionist) and David Friedman (medieval LARPer) — are gaining broader influence, even becoming mainstream. On one hand, they are raving lunatics, ideological zealots, and explicit racists. On the other hand, the utopias they desire can be found manifested in the zones and policies — like gated communities and gutted education systems — that have been surging for decades.

••• Quinn’s book: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250753892/crackupcapitalism

••• Quinn’s twitter: https://twitter.com/zeithistoriker

Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills

Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We discuss chapter two – Power and Marxism – which offers a survey of how Marxist theories of power have largely been caught between the two poles of violence and ideology. With power-as-violence, the focus has been on the changing roles of the state, its relationship with capital, and the ways it physically controls people. With power-as-ideology, the focus has been on the role of institutions and culture in shaping how people think, thus exercising forms of mental control over people. While both these traditions are valuable and necessary, as Mau argues, they offer a duality of power, rather than a trinity. That missing link? Mute compulsion.

••• Mute Compulsion: A Marxist Theory of the Economic Power of Capital – Søren Mau https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/2759-mute-compulsion

Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills

Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We are joined by one of our favorite friends — Meredith Whittaker — for a giant discussion that bridges her two latest articles. First a historical analysis of Charles Babbage and the smoking gun that directly links plantation logics of control with the industrial design of computation. Then a political economy of “open” AI and the material power that dominates the entire stack for these systems.

••• Follow Meredith: https://twitter.com/mer__edith

••• Origin Stories: Plantations, Computers, and Industrial Control | Meredith Whittaker https://logicmag.io/supa-dupa-skies/origin-stories-plantations-computers-and-industrial-control/

••• Open (For Business): Big Tech, Concentrated Power, and the Political Economy of Open AI | David Gray Widder, Meredith Whittaker, Sarah Myers West https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4543807

Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills

Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)