The Power of Controlling the Public Square

2min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

"I actually don't think it's the worst thing in the world because it often ends up like catching him and his cohort in lies or in total misrepresentation," he said. "It just all again goes back to this idea of like, how is this all connected? How could free speech absolutism possibly have anything to do with cosmism and pro-natalism?" He added that Twitter acquisition was a big question on everyone's minds. 'Part of it had to be just this realization of like the power of controlling this public square'

Paris Marx is joined by Julia Black to discuss tech billionaires’ embrace of pronatalism and how it’s part of a broader rationalist project to remake society and protect their privileged positions.

Julia Black is a senior correspondent at Insider and previously worked at Esquire and Vox. Follow Julia on Twitter at @mjnblack.

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.

The podcast is produced by Eric Wickham and part of the Harbinger Media Network.

Also mentioned in this episode:

Julia wrote about pronatalism, Lex Fridman, and Sam Altman.
Paris wrote about eugenics in Silicon Valley.
Marc Andreessen wrote “It’s Time to Build” in April 2020.
Timnit Gebru gave a presentation on the TESCREAL bundle of ideologies. Émile Torres made a thread on Twitter about it.

Support the show