Episodios
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Paris Marx is joined by Paolo Gerbaudo to discuss how Chinese electric car maker BYD operates, its growing international success against Tesla, and whether it will be able to move into the North American market.
Paolo analyzed the business model of BYD in Phenomenal World.The New York Times wrote an in-depth piece on BYD back in February.Foreign Affairs published an article on the success of the Chinese tech industry in the face of US dominance.After recording, the United States announced a 100% tariff on Chinese-made electric vehicles.In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan put quotas on Japanese car imports, making them more expensive to US consumers to help domestic automakers like GM and Ford.BYD is increasingly challenging on Teslaâs position as top seller of electric vehicles.
Paolo Gerbaudo is the author of The Digital Party and The Great Recoil. Heâs a senior research fellow at the Department of Political History, Theories and Geography of Complutense University in Madrid.
Tech Wonât 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. Support the show on Patreon.
The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.
Also mentioned in this episode:Support the Show.
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Paris Marx is joined by Ed Niedermeyer to discuss Tesla's stagnation as an electric vehicle manufacturer and what that could mean for its future as competitors cut into their market share.
Paris wrote about the problems facing Tesla, written before Musk began the mass layoffs.Ed wrote at the end of last year about the lies that underpinned Teslaâs story being exposed.The Cybertruck is facing significant manufacturing issues in Austin, and recently they all had to be recalled for issues with the accelerator pedal, which caused the company to reveal that only 3,878 vehicles had been delivered to customers.Tesla is laying off a large number of staff, including the Supercharger and new vehicle teams.Elon Musk is doing mass layoffs to reestablish his power over the company, but itâs destabilizing the actual business.Reuters reported that Musk cancelled plans for a low-cost car in favor of robotaxis.Automakers were warning they couldnât phase out Chinese minerals from the battery supply chain by 2025. After recording, the Biden administration announced some rules would be delayed until 2027.BYD has been looking to build a factory in Mexico.
Ed Niedermeyer is the author of Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors and co-host of the Autonocast.
Tech Wonât 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. Support the show on Patreon.
The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.
Also mentioned in this episode:Support the Show.
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Paris Marx is joined by Nicole Lipman to discuss SHEINâs rise to the top of the fast fashion industry and how it exacerbates the sectorâs labor and environment problems.
Nicole did a deep dive into SHEIN and how it operates for n+1.Paris wrote about the Shut Down Shein campaign.Amazon benefits immensely from the US de minimis rule.Ten years after the collapse of the Rana Plaza garment factory in Bangladesh, many problems remain.
Nicole Lipman is a writer and assistant editor at n+1.
Tech Wonât 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. Support the show on Patreon.
The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.
Also mentioned in this episode:Support the Show.
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Paris Marx is joined by Meghan OâGieblyn to discuss parallels between transhumanism and Christian narratives of resurrection, despite the fact many transhumanists identify as staunch atheists.
Meghan wrote about transhumanism and religion for n+1.Paris wrote about the religion of techno-optimism in Disconnect.Amy Kurzweil wrote about her fatherâs chatbot of his own father.In China, AI âdeathbotsâ are being used to help people grieve.Richard Dawkins now identifies as a âcultural Christianâ (not Catholic, as Paris mistakenly said in the episode).
Meghan OâGieblyn is an advice columnist at Wired and the author of God, Human, Animal, Machine.
Tech Wonât 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. Support the show on Patreon.
The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.
Also mentioned in this episode:Support the Show.
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Paris Marx is joined by Alex Shephard to discuss the legalization of sports betting in the United States, the growing influence of gambling in professional sports, and its negative impact on the lives of sports fans.
Alex wrote about sports gambling for The New Republic.The Wall Street Journal recent explored the wider backlash to sports betting in light of the Shohei Ohtani scandal.Last year, the New York Times gutted its unionized sports section to replace it with non-union writers at The Athletic.Psychologist Meredith K. Ginley explained how sports betting apps hook people on regular gambling.
Alex Shephard is a senior editor at The New Republic.
Tech Wonât 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. Support the show on Patreon.
The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.
Also mentioned in this episode:Support the Show.
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Paris Marx is joined by Edward Ongweso Jr. to discuss Kara Swisherâs attempt to rebrand herself as the most feared journalist in Silicon Valley, how she spent her career forwarding the industryâs narratives, and the larger problems with access journalism.
Ed wrote a critical review of Burn Book in The Baffler.In Disconnect, Paris also wrote a critical review of Swisherâs book and explained his journey to becoming a tech critic.In 2021, Kara told CNBC that just because NFTs are digital âdoesnât mean itâs not of value.â The following year she also defended promoting investments in crypto for retirement.
Edward Ongweso Jr. is finance editor at Logics Magazine and co-host of This Machine Kills.
Tech Wonât 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. Support the show on Patreon.
The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.
Also mentioned in this episode:Support the Show.
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Paris Marx is joined by Kat Tenbarge to discuss the proliferation of AI-generated, non-consensual sexual images, their impact on the victims, and the potential fallout for tech companies who helped make it all possible. Note there is some discussion of self-harm and suicide in this episode.
Kat has reported extensively on this issue, including stories about fake nude images of underage celebrities toping search engine results, nonconsensual deepfake porn showing up on Google and Bing too, Visa and Mastercard being used to fund the deepfake economy, and why plans for watermarking arenât enough.Another Body is a documentary that looks at the scale of the problem of non-consensual deepfake explicit images.Microsoftâs Designer AI tool was used to create AI porn of Taylor Swift.Middle and high schools in Seattle, Miami, and Beverley Hills are among those already facing the consequences of AI-generated and deepfake nude images.In 2014, Jennifer Lawrence called the iCloud photo hack a âsex crime.â
Kat Tenbarge is a tech and culture writer at NBC News.
Tech Wonât 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. Support the show on Patreon.
The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.
Also mentioned in this episode:Support the Show.
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Paris Marx is joined by Zach Weinersmith to discuss why building space colonies will be much more difficult than the space billionaires want us to believe.
An excerpt of A City on Mars was published by Space.com.
Zach Weinersmith co-wrote A City On Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through? with Kelly Weinersmith. He also makes the Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal comic.
Tech Wonât 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. Support the show on Patreon.
The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.
Also mentioned in this episode:Support the Show.
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Paris Marx is joined by Jacob Silverman to discuss the motivations behind the proposed TikTok ban and what the effort tells us about US tech policy.
Paris will be speaking in Montreal on March 23 and March 26.Jacob wrote about the GOP megadonor who could benefit from whatever happens to TikTok.Paris wrote about the geopolitics of the TikTok ban and what it says about US power.Taylor Lorenz broke down some of the disputed claims being made about TikTok.Sam Biddle wrote about how Facebook knows they violated Palestinian human rights.Byron Tau explained how US government agencies are getting peopleâs personal data from data brokers.
Jacob Silverman is a tech journalist and the co-author of Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud.
Tech Wonât 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. Support the show on Patreon.
The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.
Also mentioned in this episode:Support the Show.
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In a bonus episode, Paris Marx is joined by Ed Ongweso Jr. and Brian Merchant to share their thoughts on Dune: Part Two, how it relates to the modern tech industry, and whether todayâs Luddites can take anything from Duneâs Butlerian Jihad.
You can watch the entire livestream over on YouTube.For Disconnect, Paris wrote about how the digital revolution has failed.
Ed Ongweso Jr is finance editor at Logic(s) Magazine and cohost of This Machine Kills. Brian Merchant is a technology journalist and the author of Blood In the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech.
Tech Wonât 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. Support the show on Patreon.
The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.
Also mentioned in this episode:Support the Show.
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Paris Marx is joined by Ed Zitron to discuss the publicâs growing disillusionment with the tech industry as it pivoted to chasing profits instead of providing us with anything useful.
Ed wrote about how tech lost its way and the problems with the generative AI hype.Paris wrote the failure of the digital revolution, the material costs of data centers, and Kara Swisherâs new book.A lot of Microsoftâs investment in OpenAI is cloud compute credits.Molly White reviewed Chris Dixonâs new book.
Ed Zitron is the host of Better Offline and writes the Whereâs Your Ed At newsletter. Heâs also the CEO of EZPR.
Tech Wonât 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. Support the show on Patreon.
The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.
Also mentioned in this episode:Support the Show.
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Paris Marx is joined by Dharna Noor to discuss widely-held misconceptions about the effectiveness of plastic recycling and how industry lobbies invented them to protect the market for plastic products.
On Friday, March 8, Paris will be speaking with Ed Ongweso Jr. and Brian Merchant about Dune: Part Two and its connection to the growing Luddite movement. Watch it on our YouTube channel at 11am PT / 2pm ET / 7pm GMT.Our conversation was based in part on the Center for Climate Integrityâs new report called âThe Fraud of Plastic Recycling.âDharna reported on that report and has previously written about plastic materials ending up in landfills, fashionâs use of plastic, and the problem with replacing plastics with other disposables.In 2018, Barack Obama said, âThat whole âsuddenly Americaâs like the biggest oil producer and the biggest gas,â that was me, people.New research has found microplastics in the placentas of unborn babies. The science isnât settled on the effects on microplastics on human health, but thereâs reason to be concerned.
Dharna Noor is the fossil fuels and climate reporter at The Guardian.
Tech Wonât 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. Support the show on Patreon.
The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.
Also mentioned in this episode:Support the Show.
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Paris Marx is joined by Ben Wray to discuss why the European Unionâs Platform Work Directive isnât moving forward, what hope remains for gig workersâ rights in Europe, and what we should make of Uberâs first annual profit.
On March 8, Paris will be doing a livestream about Dune 2 and Luddites with Ed Ongweso Jr and Brian Merchant. Get notified on YouTube.Ben wrote about the failure of the Platform Work Directive, the recent conferences on platform workersâ rights in Brussels, and the Uber CEOâs admission of using driverâs âbehavioral patternsâ to influence pay rates.Paris wrote about the wider context of Uberâs first annual profit.Delivery Heroâs business isnât going well and its share price has been dropping.Glovo is facing serious legal trouble in Spain, and even as some fines have been suspended, others have been added.Food delivery workers in the UK have been on a major strike. Notes from Below have been publishing some dispatches from it.
Ben Wray is the coordinator of the Gig Economy Project and the author of Scotland after Britain: The two souls of Scottish independence.
Tech Wonât 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. Support the show on Patreon.
The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.
Also mentioned in this episode:Support the Show.
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Paris Marx is joined by Grafton Tanner to discuss the dangers and consequences of companies and politicians leveraging nostalgia for their own purposes.
Grafton Tanner is the author of Foreverism. He also teaches at the University of Georgia.
Paris wrote about the material footprint of data centers in Disconnect.Ian McKellen broke down on the set of The Hobbit after acting with no other actors on a green screen.In an interview with Charlie Rose, George Lucas described differences between Soviet and US film industries.Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy told Vanity Fair it wasnât as fun making Star Wars films today as it was making the original trilogy.Jake Gyllenhaal described the difficulty of acting in a Marvel film after Spider-Man: Far From Home.
Tech Wonât 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. Support the show on Patreon.
The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.
Also mentioned in this episode:Support the Show.
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Paris Marx is joined by Zachary Kaiser to discuss the power of tech interfaces, why data isnât an accurate reflection of the world, and why we need to discuss democratic decomputerization.
Paris is speaking in Auckland on February 18 at an event hosted by Tohatoha.Zachary wrote about dream reading technologies for Real Life.Zachary mentions specific works by David Golumbia, Ivan Illich, Aaron Benanav, John Cheney-Lippold, Thomas F. Tierney, Marisa Brandt, Arturo Escobar, and James Ferguson.
Zachary Kaiser is an Associate Professor of Graphic Design and Experience Architecture at Michigan State University. Heâs also the author of Interfaces and Us: User Experience Design and the Making of the Computable Subject.
Tech Wonât 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. Support the show on Patreon.
The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.
Also mentioned in this episode:Support the Show.
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Paris Marx is joined by Nastasia Hadjadji to discuss Emmanuel Macronâs plan to run France like a start-up, how that justified a further dismantling of France's welfare state, and how his desire to create national tech champions is having domestic consequences.
Paris will be speaking in Auckland on February 18 in an event hosted by Tohatoha.Emmanuel Macron aided Uberâs lobbying efforts as Economy Minister under the former Socialist government.France worked hard to attract the crypto industry. Macron even took a selfie with Binanceâs Changpeng Zhao, whoâs now pled guilty to felony charges.The group Technopolice documents police surveillance in France.La Quadrature du Net campaigns against algorithmic video surveillance.Louis Pouzin is considered to have almost created the internet.
Nastasia Hadjadji is a French journalist looking at tech from the lens of political economy and the author of âNo Crypto. Comment Bitcoin a envoĂ»tĂ© la planĂšte.â
Tech Wonât 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. Support the show on Patreon.
The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.
Also mentioned in this episode:Support the Show.
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Paris Marx is joined by Victor Pickard to discuss the continued layoffs in news media, and how they are symptomatic of a deeper, structural crisis in journalism.
Paris will be speaking in Christchurch on February 4 and Wellington on February 8.Victor wrote for Niemen Lab about the need to divorce news and capitalism, and argued for public newspapers in the Washington Post.In the US, two-thirds of newspaper jobs, or 43,000 journalists, have been lost since 2005.Robert McChesney and John Nichols propose a Local Journalism Initiative.Police raided a newspaper in Kansas on August 11, 2023, setting off a major scandal thatâs now seen the police chief suspended.
Victor Pickard is Professor of Media Policy and Political Economy at University of Pennsylvania. Heâs also the author of Democracy Without Journalism?: Confronting the Misinformation Society.
Tech Wonât 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. Support the show on Patreon.
The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation and produced by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.
Also mentioned in this episode:Support the Show.
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Paris Marx is joined by Eric Silver to discuss Spotifyâs big plan to dominate podcasting, why itâs now pulling back from those efforts, and the difference between highly produced and more independent podcasts.
Paris will be in Christchurch on February 4 (details here) and Wellington on February 8 (details here). Heâs hoping to get an Auckland date organized and is open to going to Australia.Spotify pulled back on its podcasting ambitions last year, canceling big shows and laying off staff.After buying Gimlet and Parcast, it merged them into Spotify Originals last year.Ashley Carman posted a slide from a Spotify presentation presenting the RSS feed as âoutdated techâ because itâs harder for them to harvest data from.
Eric Silver is a podcast producer and head of development at Multitude.
Tech Wonât 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. Support the show on Patreon.
The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation and produced by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.
Also mentioned in this episode:Support the Show.
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Paris Marx is joined by Timnit Gebru to discuss the past year in AI hype, how AI companies have shaped regulation, and techâs relationship to Israelâs military campaign in Gaza.
Paris is speaking in Montreal on January 20. Details here.Billy Perrigo reported on OpenAI lobbying to water down the EUâs AI Act.Nitasha Tiku wrote about the push to train students in a particular idea of AI.Politico has been doing a lot of reporting on the influences on AI policy in the US and UK.OpenAI made a submission in the UK to try to get permission to train on copyrighted material.Arab workers in the tech industry fear the consequences of speaking out for Palestinian rights.972 Magazine reported on Israelâs use of AI to increase its targets in Gaza.Jack Poulson chronicles the growing ties between military and tech.Timnit mentioned No Tech for Apartheid, Antony Loewensteinâs The Palestine Laboratory, and Malcolm Harrisâ Palo Alto.
Timnit Gebru is the founder and executive director of the Distributed AI Research Institute.
Tech Wonât 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. Support the show on Patreon.
The podcast is produced by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.
Also mentioned in this episode:Support the Show.
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Paris Marx is joined by Vincent Bevins to discuss the mass protests of the 2010s, the role that social and traditional media played in them, and why the horizontalism of those movements ultimately didnât work.
Read excerpts from If We Burn in The Guardian and In These Times.Vincent mentioned the work of Charles Tilley, Cihan TuÄal, Evgeny Morozov, and Andrey Mir.
Vincent Bevins is a longtime foreign correspondent who has worked for the Washington Post, Financial Times, and LA Times. Heâs the author of The Jakarta Method and If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution.
Tech Wonât 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. Support the show on Patreon.
The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation and produced by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.
Also mentioned in this episode:Support the Show.
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