This Machine Kills

We dig into Chapter 2 – Transforming Finance – and look at how, in the 1950s and 1960s, the economic study of finance started shifting from merely descriptive approaches to engaging in more analytical theories and mathematical models of how finance does (and should) operate.

Here’s a free pdf of the book: https://uberty.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/MacKenzie-An-Engine-Not-a-Camera.pdf

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

Grab TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/

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 reporter Avi Asher-Schapiro who, along with his colleague Fabio Teixeira, has published an investigation into the crypto carbon credits markets. This collision between green finance and crypto economics reveals many of the worst tendencies of both sectors as financiers take advantage of highly profitable opportunities for price arbitrage. Such as bundling low quality “zombie credits” with high quality carbon credits, labeling these subprime assets as premium, and selling the tokens at the highest price. All in the name of making the markets more efficient at saving the planet, of course.

••• Follow Avi: https://twitter.com/AASchapiro

••• Fears of 'subprime' carbon assets stall crypto rainforest mission https://www.context.news/net-zero/long-read/fears-of-subprime-carbon-assets-stall-crypto-rainforest-mission

Grab TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/

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)

Take beta blockers before this episode. In a companion piece for our episode on Health Communism, we dig into a concrete case that exemplifies everything we talked about with the production of surplus populations for the purpose of extractive abandonment. The ongoing story we discuss in this episode takes all those dynamics and pushes them to their most horrific logical conclusions.

Some references:

••• How a Hospital Chain Used a Poor Neighborhood to Turn Huge Profits https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/24/health/bon-secours-mercy-health-profit-poor-neighborhood.html

••• They Were Entitled to Free Care. Hospitals Hounded Them to Pay. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/24/business/nonprofit-hospitals-poor-patients.html

••• Deaths Linked to Neglect, Error Raise Concerns About Quality of Care at This Safety Net Hospital https://www.propublica.org/article/chicago-roseland-community-hospital-covid-deaths

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

Grab TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/

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 Beatrice Adler-Bolton and Artie Vierkant — co-hosts of Death Panel — to discuss their truly excellent new book, Health Communism, which offers a searing analysis of how our conceptions and systems of health are critical to the maintenance of capitalism. Under capitalism we are all human waste: the sick and surplus that are drains on productive society. If you don’t think you are, then just wait long enough and hopefully you’ll live long enough to meet that fate. Health communism is both the reason for tearing down this system and an alternative that reclaims health for all people—not just the bosses and workers, but for those great many subjected to the extractive abandonment of being marked as surplus.

••• Health Communism: https://www.versobooks.com/books/4081-health-communism

••• Death Panel: https://www.deathpanel.net/

••• Beatrice: https://twitter.com/realLandsEnd

••• Artie: https://twitter.com/avierkant

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

Grab TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/

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)

After an extended riff, we kick off the new TMK Book Club on An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial Models Shape Markets by Donald MacKenzie. In the first chapter we get an intro to some of the big themes, methods, and theories that we’ll get deeper into throughout the book’s sociological analysis of financial economics and market dynamics. This is a foundational book in the social studies of finance. Being an academic text, it is also dense and heady. Read along with us if you have the time and ability. But don’t stress if you can’t. We will, as always, do our best to break things down and add our own discussion of each chapter. Episodes come out biweekly. Here’s a free pdf of the book: https://uberty.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/MacKenzie-An-Engine-Not-a-Camera.pdf

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

Grab TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/

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 our old friends/enemies at the New York Time, then get to some listener mail about effective altruism, all before offering a smart, nuanced, and critical defense of the CIA. You see, it’s not that we are angry, we are just disappointed at the CIA’s continual failure to live up to its own potential for greatness.

Stuff we reference:

••• Has the C.I.A. Done More Harm Than Good? https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/10/10/has-the-cia-done-more-harm-than-good

••• The Responsibility of Intellectuals https://chomsky.info/19670223/

••• It's Lonely in the Metaverse: Decentraland’s 38 Daily Active Users in a $1.3B Ecosystem https://www.coindesk.com/web3/2022/10/07/its-lonely-in-the-metaverse-decentralands-38-daily-active-users-in-a-13b-ecosystem/

••• ‘The Cash Monster Was Insatiable’: How Insurers Exploited Medicare for Billions https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/08/upshot/medicare-advantage-fraud-allegations.html

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

Grab TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/

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 hard look at the White House’s new AI Bill of Rights and discover that the Eye of Sauron is actually ethical according to its principles. We then go in on academia and journalism for, in their own ways, laundering the interests and influence of the tech sector.

Also, the new TMK book club starts next week in the patreon feed! Starting with Chapter 1, we will be going through An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial Models Shape Markets | Donald MacKenzie https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262633673/an-engine-not-a-camera/

Some references:

••• Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights https://www.whitehouse.gov/ostp/ai-bill-of-rights/

••• Biden’s AI Bill of Rights Is Toothless Against Big Tech https://www.wired.com/story/bidens-ai-bill-of-rights-is-toothless-against-big-tech/

••• AI Data Laundering: How Academic and Nonprofit Researchers Shield Tech Companies from Accountability https://waxy.org/2022/09/ai-data-laundering-how-academic-and-nonprofit-researchers-shield-tech-companies-from-accountability/

••• Eighteen pitfalls to beware of in AI journalism https://aisnakeoil.substack.com/p/eighteen-pitfalls-to-beware-of-in

••• On NYT Magazine on AI: Resist the Urge to be Impressed https://medium.com/@emilymenonbender/on-nyt-magazine-on-ai-resist-the-urge-to-be-impressed-3d92fd9a0edd

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

Grab TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/

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 recent events of a report by Tech Inquiry about big tech’s military contracts was pulled by its funders — a major union and a major social democratic party — over Tech Inquiry’s refusal to censor its criticism of Microsoft. We offer our own critical analysis of organizations focused on building short-term, self-interested alliances with capital instead of ones focused on building long-term, worker power that is antagonistic to capital.

Some references:

••• On the censorship of our report on government purchasing from Microsoft, Amazon, and Alphabet https://techinquiry.org/?about=UNI-censorship&guard=

••• Labor union censored report criticizing Microsoft’s military contracts https://theintercept.com/2022/09/07/microsoft-military-union-cwa/

••• German SPD politician justifies murder of Rosa Luxemburg https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/01/18/thie-j18.html

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

Grab TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/

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)

Jathan debriefs on the insurtech conference. Then we discuss Elon Musk’s texts and emails that were made public during discovery for his litigation with Twitter, which show just how idiotic, pathetic, and sycophantic these billionaires truly are. There’s no secret genius masterplan or devious conspiracy. It’s just powerful people sucking off the guy above them and ripping off everybody below them.

Stuff we reference:

••• Elon Musk’s Texts Shatter the Myth of the Tech Genius https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/09/elon-musk-texts-twitter-trial-jack-dorsey/671619/

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

Grab TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/

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 unlocking a recent episode about a topic that remains very relevant.

We dig deep into Effective Altruism and Longtermism, laying out the origins, beliefs, and actions of this ideological moral system and the networks of influence and wealth that it’s plugged into. Along the way we critique the extreme logical conclusions it leads to, the extremely simpleminded fairy tales it’s based on, and the extremist group of moral zealots, useful idiots, and cynical bullshiters that rule this rationalist religion.

Some stuff we reference:

••• The Case for Longtermism https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/05/opinion/the-case-for-longtermism.html

••• The Reluctant Prophet of Effective Altruism https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/08/15/the-reluctant-prophet-of-effective-altruism

••• Stop the Robot Apocalypse https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v37/n18/amia-srinivasan/stop-the-robot-apocalypse

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

Grab TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/

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