On Inhuman Power.
[Unlocked episode from Bungacast 'Reading Club', originally released 6 December 2022] 
Contemporary capitalism is possessed by the Artificial Intelligence (AI) question – one of the few areas today in which capitalists still seem to have ambition. Why is this so, and is there something about AI that gets to the nub of what capitalism is, as a mode of production?
Is capitalism without humanity anything more than a dystopian Skynet nightmare? And would the creation of a surplus humanity still be capitalism? Would it be techno-feudal, or something else?
Reading:
Inhuman Power: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Capitalism, Nick Dyer-Witheford, Atle Mikkola Kjøsen and James Steinhoff, Pluto Books

UNLOCKED: /306/ AI Capitalism: Inhuman Power

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On Zone of Interest and Holocaust film.
 
[Patreon Exclusive]
 
We discuss the winner of the Oscar for Best International Feature Film – one that split opinion, among critics and on the pod too!


How does the film fit in the pantheon of Holocaust films? Is it a Holocaust film?


How well does it deal with its obvious subject matter: the banality of evil?


Is the film neutral and detached or preachy, condescending, moralising?


What to make of the commentary around the film, including director Jonathan Glazer's statements? How does it relate to Israel/Palestine?


What to make of present-day Auschwitz? Should it be preserved?


Link:

The Zone of Interest is an extreme form of 'Holokitsch', Richard Brody, New Yorker


Is The Zone of Interest simply uninteresting? Toby Marshall, Substack


The Zone of Interest is about the danger of ignoring atrocities – including in Gaza, Naomi Klein, The Guardian


The Zone of Interest Reminds Us How Easy It Is to Ignore a Genocide on Your Doorstep, Juliet Jacques, Novara


The Banality of Evil is No Longer Banal, Maren Thom, Café americain


One-star review of Zone of Interest

/414/ Zone of Banality or the Authority of Evil?

On Mexico's elections.
 
[Full episode at patreon.com/bungacast]
 
Mexico goes to the polls this Sunday with the ruling centre-left MORENA party holding a commanding lead. Anthropologist Roger Lancaster joins us to preview the election and look at outgoing President AMLO's record.

What are the stakes in this election?


Has Mexico bucked the trend of class realignment? Where is the 'Brahmin Left'?


What is "republican austerity" and has this actually combatted corruption?


What do make of AMLO's use of the military? Militarising public life or domesticating the military?


What has AMLO done for the working class? And what might it do for itself?


What is AMLO's populism and has he rekindled class consciousness?

Links:
The AMLO Project, Edwin Ackerman, Sidecar
The Mexican Question, Ramon Centeno, Sidecar
The Struggle to Be Gay—in Mexico, for Example, Roger Lancaster

/413/ Left-Populism That Works? (I) ft. Roger Lancaster

On Futuromania and closing and opening of musical horizons.
 
We talk to renowned music critic Simon Reynolds about his new book. A counterpart of sorts to his famous Retromania (2011), Futuromania looks at the exciting futuristic music of the past and present. We discuss its themes to try understand whether the culture is still about to throw up something new.


Is talk about popular music stuck between the poles of “rockism” and “poptimism”?


How did Donna Summer and Giorgio Moroder invent "electronic dance music"?


Why is "future music" good? What are its pitfalls?


How did Daft Punk run out of futurity?


Why is Auto-Tune actually not the worst invention?


How are genres like trap technically exciting but thematically glum?


Is there any way of bringing the future back?


Links:

Futuromania: Electronic Dreams, Desiring Machines, and Tomorrow's Music Today, Simon Reynolds


blissblog, Simon Reynolds blog


Futuromania companion playlist with Reynolds' introductions, on NTS: https://www.nts.live/shows/guests/episodes/simon-reynolds-9th-april-2024


Futuromania companion playlist on Spotify


No Bells music blog

/412/ No Future But Future Music ft. Simon Reynolds

On Alex Garland’s new film, Civil War.
 
[Patreon Exclusive]
 
The boys discuss a film that seems designed to say something in the context of a US election year. But what? We ask:


What kind of film is this: a dystopian fantasy, a war movie, a road movie?


Why the focus on the media? Does the film celebrate or satirise journalists?


Does Garland’s dystopia tell us anything about the landscape of US politics today?


Why is political polarisation between liberals and populists seen in terms of civil war? 


What would a civil war look like in geopolitical terms, along the lines Garland suggests?


What side would you choose?


Links:

Where will America's Civil War be fought?, Michael Lind, UnHerd


The Civil War Will Not Be Mediated, Nina Power, Compact


Civil War is a terrifying film, but Trump: The Sequel will be a real-life horror show, Simon Tisdall, The Guardian

/411/ What Kind of American Are You?

On Isaac Deutscher's classic Stalin: A Political Biography.
 
[Patreon Tier III & IV Exclusive]
 
We start off dealing with your questions from the first two Reading Clubs of the year, before Phil takes us through the famous biography of the Soviet leader. We discuss:


Deutscher's work in historical context


Stalin’s parents' experience as serfs and the significance of his boyhood education in an Orthodox seminary


How the oppression of the Russian Empire and the promises of Soviet industrialisation shaped young Stalin's lifecourse


Whether, compared to other Bolshevik leaders, Stalin would have succeeded anytime, anywhere


Was Stalin honest in his commitment to the revolution? Was Trotsky right that Stalin was just a cynic?


How did Stalin compare to the other leaders at Yalta, such as the aristocratic Churchill?


How do we compare Stalin to Cromwell or Napoleon?


And what's behind cheeky internet Stalinism today?


Links:


Message of the Non-Jewish Jew, Isaac Deutscher, Marxists.org


On Orwell: 1984 - The Mysticism of Cruelty, Isaac Deutscher, Marxists.org


I must start completely alone: Gonzalo Pozo on Isaac Deutscher’s wartime years in London, LRB

UNLOCKED: /306/ AI Capitalism: Inhuman Power

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