Is There a Way to Make the Automobile a Consumer Technology?

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Enow: What happens is that the automobile gets entrenched, because there are so many companies who will benefit from making it happen. And when we see these tect companies enter into it, they are bringing their particular business models that they have developed in the te sector to the way that transportation moves. It's hard to kind of imagine a more violent and visceril example of a technology, like a consumer technology, ploughing through children and women. Enow: But then i think you know, we need to approach it from a more totalizing perspective. One things that people forget is that, like amsterdam or copenhagen were pushing back against automobility with bicycle culture.

In a special episode to celebrate the release of host Paris Marx’s new book Road to Nowhere, Brian Merchant takes over as guest host to interview Paris about the book, the tech industry’s visions for transportation, and why they don’t solve our mobility challenges.

Paris is the host of Tech Won’t Save Us and the author of Road to Nowhere: What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong about the Future of Transportation. Brian Merchant is a tech journalist, author of The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone, and co-editor of Terraform: Watch/Worlds/Burn. Follow Brian on Twitter at @bcmerchant.

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:

Road to Nowhere is available anywhere you buy books, but Verso has it discounted until July 8 as part of its Summer Reads sale.
An excerpt of Road to Nowhere about the dystopian future the tech industry is creating was recently published in Wired.
Paris recently spoke to StreetsBlog USA about the problem with Apple CarPlay.

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