How do we challenge techno-utopianism? How do we dismantle systems of oppression in technology?

To answer these questions and more we welcome to the show two editors of the new collection from MIT Press Your Computer Is on Fire, Mar Hicks and Kavita Philip.

Mar Hicks is an author, historian, and professor doing research on the history of computing, labor, and how hidden technological dynamics change the core narratives of the history of computing in unexpected ways. Hicks's multiple award-winning book, Programmed Inequality, looks at how the British lost their early lead in computing by discarding women computer workers, and what this cautionary tale tells us about current issues in high tech. Their current project looks at resistance and queerness in the history of technology.

Kavita Philip is a historian of science and technology who has written about nineteenth-century environmental knowledge in British India, information technology in post-colonial India, and the intersections of art, science fiction, and social activism with science and technology. She is author of Civilizing Natures (2004), and Studies in Unauthorized Reproduction (forthcoming, MIT Press), as well as co-editor of five volumes curating new interdisciplinary work in radical history, art, activism, computing, and public policy.

Full show notes for this episode can be found at Radicalai.org.

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The Final Meltdown