This Machine Kills

Cold open: CNBC turns on Chamath and Clover: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRWnxUsyVDg We pick back up on the story of Clover Health—which is sure to be a business school case study of investors beware—and talk through Hindenburg Research’s damning report that raises a number of very serious concerns about Clover Health’s business practices, undisclosed Department of Justice investigation, alleged conflicts of interests, and the CEO of Clover’s past experience busting out hospitals in New Jersey. The allegations against Clover are not just an exception, but rather a perfect encapsulation of the corporate chicanery that spreads, like a weed strangling the economy, when a thousand SPACs bloom. TMK shirts are now available here: https://www.bonfire.com/mech-luddite/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! http://patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

Cold open: Chamath, Clover, CNBC https://www.msn.com/en-us/music/video/chamath-palihapitiya-addresses-some-concerns-surrounding-clover-health-spac/vp-BB19KRae SPACs are blowing up. Everywhere you turn, it’s SPAC this, SPAC that. What the frack is a SPAC? After an explainer on this cool new financial innovation, we dive into a juicy story of a SPAC in action – SPACtion, if you will – Clover Health. This hot new insurtech company is being taken public by a SPAC sponsored by Chamath Palihapitiya, famed venture capitalist, wannabe California governor, so-called King of SPACs. But as a long, in-depth report by Hindenburg Research details, could Clover Health be riddled with the kind of corporate malfeasance, deception, and fraud that might lead shrewd entrepreneurs to avoid the disclosures and scrutiny that come with going public the old fashioned way? Are things like "public disclosure" and "business fundamentals" actually socialist plots to destroy capitalism? We detail the allegations against Clover Health made by Hindenburg Research’s investigation. Some stuff we reference: • What Are SPACs, the Trend Blowing Up the Finance World? | Ed Ongweso Jr. https://www.vice.com/en/article/4ade7b/what-are-spacs-the-trend-blowing-up-the-finance-world • Clover Health: How the “King of SPACs” Lured Retail Investors Into a Broken Business Facing an Active, Undisclosed DOJ Investigation | Hindenburg Research https://hindenburgresearch.com/clover/ TMK shirts are now available here: https://www.bonfire.com/mech-luddite/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! http://patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

Cory Doctorow joins us again for an excellent, wide-ranging discussion about his critique of surveillance capitalism, the mind control fallacy that captures critics, how monopoly jurisprudence is trapped in the 80s, sectarian schisms in science fiction, the difficulty of imagining revolutionary moments, and much more. Links to Cory’s work: • Twitter: https://twitter.com/doctorow • Books: https://craphound.com/ • Blog: https://pluralistic.net/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! http://patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl).

Cold open: excerpt from UBIK by Philip K. Dick Outro: amazing new track by Jereme, "End of Time" We’re joined by Cory Doctorow — prolific author, longtime activist, friend of the show — to learn about a critical issue that much of his advocacy work centers on: adversarial interoperability, a.k.a competitive compatibility. Cory explains why this approach to designing and governing technological systems is crucial for knocking down the walled gardens that keep us captive and for breaking up the highly concentrated corporate oligopoly. For ensuring the business of innovation serves people’s needs and for empowering us all with greater self-determination and agency over the things that mediate our lives. To put it simply: for being users, not just used. Cory also joined us for a blockbuster doubleheader — so stick around for the premium episode where we discuss surveillance capitalism, science fiction, and much more. Links to Cory’s work: • Twitter: https://twitter.com/doctorow • Books: https://craphound.com/ • Blog: https://pluralistic.net/ • Adversarial interoperability: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! http://patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl).

Picking back up on the fight between Big Media and Big Tech, we dig deeper into the type of power of platforms wield, how their political influence operates, the prioritization of consumership over citizenship, and their threats to return us to the state of nature — where life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short — if we don’t pledge allegiance to the platform. Some stuff we reference: • Are We All Amazon Primed? Consumers and the Politics of Platform Power by Pepper D. Culpepper and Kathleen Thelen | Comparative Political Studies: https://scihub.wikicn.top/10.1177/0010414019852687 • Joel Kaplan's Policy Team Sways Big Facebook Decisions Like Alex Jones Ban by Ryan Mac and Craig Silverman | Buzzfeed: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/mark-zuckerberg-joel-kaplan-facebook-alex-jones • There’s a Smarter Way to Make Tech Pay for News by Will Oremus | OneZero: https://onezero.medium.com/a-smarter-way-to-make-tech-pay-for-news-9255e3b8dccb Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! http://patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl).

After months of threats, Facebook finally hit the big red off button on the server labeled Australia and Google is making big backroom deals with media barons like Rupert Murdoch. To help us parse through the policy debates and online discourse about the Australian news media bargaining code, we’re joined by J.R. Hennessy (http://twitter.com/jrhennessy), editor of Business Insider Australia. Henno gives us a bigger picture of how the Internet has long left behind those heady days of a free and open utopia as we discuss the changing relationship between Big Tech and Big Media and the role of government regulation. Read Henno’s great piece on his substack: http://jrhennessy.substack.com/p/zucked Some other stuff we reference: • The trouble with the media bargaining code, by Lizzie O'Shea: http://overland.org.au/2020/12/the-trouble-with-the-media-bargaining-code/ • A pox on Facebook, but also on the media bargaining code, by Samantha Floreani: http://www.smh.com.au/national/a-pox-on-facebook-but-also-on-the-media-bargaining-code-20210218-p573qb.html • Big Tech versus journalism: publishers watch Australia fight with bated breath, by Richard Waters et al.: http://www.ft.com/content/2fed6b2a-01ba-4c7e-8e95-d50f74c316bf Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! http://patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl).

We riff on the archetype of the tech guy who can’t bear his California dream being soured by the existence of other people struggling to get by in a city his industry has immiserated. Then dive into the formation of Facebook’s Oversight Board—their very own so-called Supreme Court—and how their cosplaying as Founding Fathers reveals larger lessons for shifts underway in corporate vs. state sovereignty. Some stuff we reference: • California Exit Interview: Fleeing $17 Salads and 'General Lawlessness' by Joe Garofoli: https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/California-Exit-Interview-Fleeing-17-salads-and-15947926.php • Inside the Making of Facebook’s Supreme Court by Kate Klonick: https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/inside-the-making-of-facebooks-supreme-court • Liberalism is Dead by Vicky Osterweil: https://thenewinquiry.com/liberalism-is-dead/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl).

We discuss the limitations of existing approaches – and democratic alternatives – to data governance in informational capitalism with Salomé Viljoen (https://twitter.com/salome_viljoen_), a legal scholar in the NYU School of Law and Cornell Tech Digital Life Initiative, who is doing some of the most exciting and cutting-edge work in this area. Salomé explains how we need to make data collection work for socially beneficial uses and why surveillance of powerful people / important institutions is good, actually. Read her excellent work: • Democratic Data: A Relational Theory For Data Governance: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3727562 • Data as Property? https://phenomenalworld.org/analysis/data-as-property • Find more of Salomé’s work here: https://www.salomeviljoen.com Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl).

It’s part two of us ripping into David Friedman’s anarcho-capitalist fever dream, The Machinery of Freedom. And we get real nutty with it as we detail his libertarian transitional program where school vouchers and surge pricing for streets lead us directly into a new frontier of freedom filled with private protection agencies and free market competition for laws. Are Friedman’s proposals radically dumb and dangerous? Yes. Are they now uncomfortably close to mainstream right-wing ideology? Also yes. The book we discuss: The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to Radical Capitalism by David Friedman http://www.daviddfriedman.com/The_Machinery_of_Freedom_.pdf Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl).

Cold open: excerpt from Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=6021&v=ZypJn0PgAHA Have you ever considered that the most important human right is property rights? Are your thoughts preoccupied with kissing the feet of capitalists? Do you dream of abolishing society and clearing the way for the market god to deliver us into salvation? If so, you might just be the one of the all time greatest failsons of our age: David Friedman – whose life is consumed by trying to live up to the legacy of his father, Milton. In a blockbuster reading series, we liquefied our brains with David Friedman’s handbook for anarcho-capitalism. In this episode we lay out the philosophical foundations for why it’s actually good for everybody to act like children who don’t want to share their toys. I’m sorry in advance. The book we discuss: The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to Radical Capitalism by David Friedman http://www.daviddfriedman.com/The_Machinery_of_Freedom_.pdf Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl).