Attack Ads! The Podcast

Discover the dark side of corporate decisions and the surveillance that comes with modern devices. From decommissioned tech to the chaotic world of chat support, the host hilariously recounts his struggles with a streaming stick and a perplexing activation issue. Dive into the unsettling revelation about persistent listening enabled by an innocuous remote, while exploring privacy policies that offer little protection. Get ready for a thought-provoking discussion on how ad revenue shapes media and the surprising ways companies stay in control.

Delve into the philosophy of Henry George as the podcast explores economic issues exacerbated by technological advancements. The discussion highlights how exclusive land rights allow for rent extraction and how productivity gains often lead to increased rents rather than higher wages. Listeners learn why family farms are disappearing under oligopolistic pressures and the impact of patents on innovation. The conversation further critiques modern technology's role in perpetuating economic inequality, questioning whether escaping such systems is even feasible.

Just in case you don't get enough advertising in the privacy and sanctuary of your home, good news! Refrigideezers will soon show you ads on a screen on the door! It's true! I react to this silliness in this Episode 271: Baffling Ripples of Synergy. Find the Show Notes at: https://attackadspodcast.blogspot.com/2025/10/episode-271-baffling-ripples-of-synergy.html

Dive into the intriguing discussion about how we should treat machine-generated content. Explore the challenges of attributing authorship to corporate-generated texts and how LLMs differ from traditional tools. The duo debates the risks of automation and job displacement, pondering whether abundance could actually harm humanity. They delve into concerns about AI monopolies and the potential impact of big tech. Finally, the conversation shifts to envisioning a future shaped by AI, discussing both the promise and the perils it presents.

Every so often, a book emerges that gets a lot of buzz from the media and gets tongues wagging. Sadly, too often those books say things that stretch credulity to the breaking point and start to smell a lot like a massive propaganda campaign stuffed into a hardcover. I follow the abundant evidence of one such book being bunkum in this Episode 269: An Abundance of Lies. Find the Show Notes Page at: https://attackadspodcast.blogspot.com/2025/09/episode-269-abundance-of-lies.html

While most of us have heard of the Sherman Act, few have savored Senator John Sherman's speech to the Senate in defense of that act. Today, I present to you my reading of an edited version of that speech, in this Bonus Episode: Senator John Sherman's Address to The Senate.

Monopolies are nothing new. Government allowing companies to merge and acquire and metastasize into monopolies, though, that is relatively new. The ideas that support monopolies come from a handful of jerks supported by other jerks, who provide trucks full of money. I focus my hairy eyeball of criticism today on one such full truck funded fuck in this Episode 268: Rich Uncle Money-Bork, Welfare Queen. Find the Show Notes Page at: https://attackadspodcast.blogspot.com/2025/08/episode-268-rich-uncle-money-bork.html

Propaganda is not just a thing that happens in the here and now. Dig well enough, and you might find old institutional knowledge that started originally as a conspiratorial plot designed to sway society. Make such propaganda profitable enough, and we find ourselves in a world described by the title to Episode 267: Breathing Together, Choking Apart. Find the Show Notes Page at: https://attackadspodcast.blogspot.com/2025/07/episode-267-breathing-together-choking.html

When propaganda falls, it can lead to social impacts more powerful than kinetic weapons. The troubles come when the propagandists conceal their manipulation of society with misdirecting propaganda that we have trouble detecting, let alone responding to effectively. Which brings us to today's Episode 266: Garbage Fires and Angry Weasels. Find the Show Notes at: https://attackadspodcast.blogspot.com/2025/07/episode-266-garbage-fires-and-angry.html

As I've quoted before, "ideas need patrons." I'll dive into economic ideas bought by the wealthy and spread by those Chicago school economists in this Episode 265: A Stringent, Crystalline Vision. Find the Show Notes at: https://attackadspodcast.blogspot.com/2025/06/episode-265-stringent-crystalline-vision.html