This Machine Kills

At long last, we dive into the last chapter of The Dawn of Everything by Graeber and Wengrow. We reflect on this odyssey of a book, pulling out its major themes, discussing the baseline freedoms that are essential for society, considering the nihilistic contradictions inherent to the Enlightenment view of humanity, looking back on how we got stuck in static social relations and dead end political developments, plus more! Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We are joined by Jörg Tittel, creator of the new video game The Last Worker, which is part social satire, part interactive narrative, part adventure game. We discuss the ideas, story, design, and production behind the game where players take on the role of the last human worker in an otherwise fully automated fulfillment center the size of Manhattan that is operated by Jüngle—a near future version of Amazon. The Last Worker is coming out on most platforms, including VR, later this year. ••• The Last Worker: thelastworker.com ••• Jorg on Twitter: https://twitter.com/newjorg ••• 15 minute demo playthrough of the game: https://youtu.be/Bgp7nLOKlM8 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

Now it’s time to get into the real analysis of fintech as laid out by Saule Omarova’s work. We walk through the dominant regulatory approach to financial markets that came from the New Deal; how the 1980s is the true origin of the fintech revolution; how the secondary financial markets have taken over the whole system; how new technologies focused on making micro-level transactions faster, easier, cheaper have led to making macro-level systems more unstable, unrestrained, and untethered from reality. The paper we discuss: ••• New Tech v. New Deal: Fintech as a Systemic Phenomenon | Saule T. Omarova https://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2800&context=facpub Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We set up and begin discussing a paper that can be described as a Rosetta Stone for how to analyze the development, logics, mechanics, and impacts of fintech innovations from the 1980s onward — and the regulatory regime for financial markets that traces back to the New Deal. This paper is dense in the best way, so it demands (and deserves) a lot of focused time/attention. This episode establishes the bones of the analysis; the next one on the premium feed will flesh out the analysis. The paper we discuss: ••• New Tech v. New Deal: Fintech as a Systemic Phenomenon | Saule T. Omarova https://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2800&context=facpub Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We dive back into chapter 11 – Full Circle – of The Dawn of Everything by Graeber and Wengrow. We revisit the Indigenous critique of how human civilization develops and where the political values underlying modern human societies originate. First outlined in the beginning of the book, we now further flesh out the Indigenous critique and drive home its key conclusions. Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

{For this week we're unlocking a classic episode} We talk about the absurdities of proptech – or the real estate technology sector – which is jam packed with out-of-control purchasing by house-flipping algorithms powered by automated valuation models that lead to balance sheets filled with liabilities and it’s all fuelled by way too much free-flowing capital. In other words, a classic recipe for disaster. The article we discuss: ••• House-flipping algorithms are coming to your neighborhood | Matthew Ponsford https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/04/13/1049227/house-flipping-algorithms-are-coming-to-your-neighborhood/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

Paris Marx is back for part two of our discussion about their new book Road to Nowhere: What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong About the Future of Transportation. This time we dig deeper into the winding history of the electric vehicle and why today’s model of electrification without collectivization is not going to solve our problems—just cause new ones. ••• Road to Nowhere | Paris Marx: https://www.versobooks.com/books/3995-road-to-nowhere ••• Follow Paris: https://twitter.com/parismarx ••• Listen to Tech Won’t Save Us: https://twitter.com/techwontsaveus Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

Dear friend of the show, Paris Marx, has an excellent new book just out from Verso called Road to Nowhere: What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong About the Future of Transportation. Paris is back on the show to dive into the book’s historical, grounded, critical analysis with us. This is part 1, with part 2 coming out on the patreon feed later this week. ••• Road to Nowhere | Paris Marx: https://www.versobooks.com/books/3995-road-to-nowhere ••• Follow Paris: https://twitter.com/parismarx ••• Listen to Tech Won’t Save Us: https://twitter.com/techwontsaveus Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

In this real chill episode, the boys get loose, lay back, and just chat. We cover dental work, drug nerds, and oh yeah, that time Jereme got stabbed in Mississippi days after 9/11 for making a joke. Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We have a special investigation from Professor Ed, who takes us on a journey through the history and development of innovation policy and venture capital in China. We begin with the massive government Torch Program that, starting in the 1980s, set about engineering a national innovation sector on a scale never seen before. Then in the 1990s we see China begin liberalizing its markets, opening up for different forms of investment both domestic and international. But doing so in its own unique way – not in the style of structural adjustment shocks but as carefully controlled market reforms. Some stuff we reference: ••• Steve Blank’s series on VC in China: https://steveblank.com/2013/04/10/china-the-sleeper-awakens/ ••• OECD report on China’s innovation policy: https://www.oecd.org/science/inno/39177453.pdf ••• CIGI report on China’s Experience in Building a Venture Capital Sector: https://www.cigionline.org/static/documents/documents/no.248_0.pdf Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)