Many of these massive kind of e-commerce companies are increasingly moving production even into like rural china Right because there's even lower wages and fewer standards there. So much of it is hidden from our day-to-day lives and we don't even recognize that it's really going on Very much so yeah, I mean when I was doing that trip in china We trumped by train a lot because the remote work in china is excellent He's relatively cheap and it's worth to be fast But it's still because the size of the country right there’s no way you can have free high tech stock exchanges across China. You're not a communist country. Can we drop
Paris Marx is joined by Tim Maughan to discuss the exploitative infrastructures that make the modern world possible, how complex technological systems rob us of our power to control our collective destiny, and why predicting trends isn’t hard when you understand capitalism.
Tim Maughan is the author of “Infinite Detail” and “Ghost Hardware.” He’s also written for BBC Future, New Scientist, and Motherboard, and is writing a new column for OneZero. Follow Tim on Twitter as @timmaughan.
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:
- Read about the trip Tim took with Unknown Fields on a container ship, at manufacturing sites in China, and near a toxic lake in Inner Mongolia that’s the product of mining rare-earth minerals.
- Read the first article in Tim’s new column, No One’s Driving.
- Kim Stanley Robinson says billionaire space visions are “just a fantasy of our culture right now.”
- Media mentioned by Tim: Judge Dredd comics, The Running Man, RoboCop, Rollerball, and Ad Astra.
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