Tech Won't Save Us - Happy Holidays from Tech Won’t Save Us!

Episode Date: December 30, 2021

To end 2021, Paris Marx provides a quick update on the podcast and what’s coming next year.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:Paris’ book Road to Nowhere: What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong about the Future of Transportation comes out in July 2022.Support the show

Hello and happy holidays. There is not a new episode of Tech Won't Save Us this week because I am taking a much needed and I hope you agree much deserved week off. But I did want to make a quick recording to thank you for your support of the show through 2021, for listening to the show, for being interested in all of these conversations that I have with all of these fascinating people who come on the show and share their knowledge and expertise with us every single week. It has just been such a fantastic year for Tech Won't Save Us. The show has covered so many fascinating topics, including our history series back in May that looked at the history of technological systems in France, in Chile, in the Soviet Union, and in the United States itself. And certainly I've done other episodes on history besides that, including

with Mar Hicks on the UK. And then there was the gig economy series in October, where I spoke to people from Canada, Australia, Brazil, India, the UK, and the EU about what's going on with the gig economy in their parts of the world to give us some insight on what's happening on the regulatory level, but also what workers are doing to push back and to improve their working conditions. And besides that, I've had other episodes on the gig economy in the United States and even in Indonesia when I spoke with Rilak Hadri. We've also done plenty of episodes on Amazon and everything that it has been up to this year, but specifically what it's been doing to its workers

and how they have been organizing and trying to push back on the terrible working conditions that it creates. This was also a big year for the space billionaires. Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos both hopped on their rockets and went up into the sky. You know, I think there's some debate about whether they actually went to space or not. But certainly finally seeing them do so did kick off a conversation about whether this is the right way that humanity should be using its resources and whether all of that money that is going into private space travel should actually be going into solving the many social, economic, and environmental

crises that we're dealing with right here on Earth today. And you've probably also noticed that we've had more episodes on crypto and Web3 kind of stuff as this becomes a much more important topic and something that we need to be pushing back on and to clearly understand as there's more and more venture capital and investment flooding into the space to try to make it a reality, to try to make it something that all of us have to use instead of just the really dedicated people who are in on it right now. This year, I said I wanted to look a little bit more at what was going on in the global south. And I think that we have achieved that this

year. I have naturally done a bunch of episodes on things that have been going on in the United States, as well as in Australia, Canada, the UK and the EU. But then I also had episodes on issues in Indonesia with the gig economy, in the Middle East with what Facebook is doing with its moderation practices and how that is hurting queer people in particular. I spoke to Alex Rivera about his film Sleep Dealer and how that dealt with the border around Mexico and the United States and, you know, a larger kind of border politics. I spoke with Olivier Joutel about blockchain solutions that are impacting people on Pacific Islands and how these solutions are not actually solving the problems that they claim to be solving. I spoke to Rafael Groman about what was

going on with the gig economy in Brazil, and then with Sabrina Fernandez to get a broader picture of what is going on with climate change. But naturally, that is a conversation that impacts the global south in many, many ways. And I spoke to Nupur Raval about the gig economy in India. Naturally, there are so many other topics that I could have covered in the Global South, but in the Global North as well. But I think that, you know, through the 50 odd conversations that I've had this year, and then the 95 that I've had while this podcast has been going on, I think that we've covered a lot of really interesting topics. And hopefully you have found that they've given you critical insights into a whole range of technological

topics that maybe, in some cases, you hadn't thought about before or hadn't thought about in that way. And that is obviously the goal of the podcast. And I think that the quality of the show is reflected in the listenership. You know, Tech Won't Save Us has listeners from all around the world. When I post a new episode, usually within the first day, there are already listeners from more than 80 countries. That is incredible. And then that continues to grow in the weeks that follow as more and more people come in and listen. Just to illustrate how much that the show has grown, in December of 2020, so one year ago, the podcast had 12,000 downloads in that month. This month, it already has over 60,000. So that's a five-fold growth over the course of this year, which is incredible. And the show is now closing in on 500,000 total downloads in its life. There is still so much I want to do with

the show and heading into 2022, I have so many plans. I already have so many guests planned out who I want to talk to. And as always, I'm dealing with the problem of there just being too few slots for the number of guests that I want to speak to the number of people whose brains I want to pick to get their critical insights on a whole range of different topics. Now, I'm not going to drop any hints as to who I'm having on yet, because, you know, schedules can always change, right? Maybe I'm planning to speak to somebody, but at the last minute, they're not able to and we have to delay that until another time or something like that. So I'm not going to tell you who I'm speaking to. But I can say that,

you know, the quality that you expect from Tech Won't Save Us, the level of knowledge that our guests bring to the show is something that you can continue to expect. And the episodes will continue to cover a whole range of topics. Going forward, I want to keep looking at history because I feel like history can provide so many insights into the issues that we're dealing with today. While, you know, doing episodes that also deal with events that are happening in the present as well. Like when Brian Merchant came on earlier this year, so we could dig into this whole topic of the metaverse, talk about the science fiction that has inspired it, to talk about what the potential impacts of this kind of technology are, and to talk about

the political economy of it, why this is emerging at this time, because, you know, the tech industry is looking for something to rally around and to pour all of its money into. And so the metaverse provides a framework for that. But another one of those topics, as you know, you've already seen in the past few months is crypto and Web3. And I want to do more episodes on that because I feel like it's a topic that there are so many different angles to look at. And especially as there's this growing push to make it a reality, the critical perspectives are

essential. And so this show will keep delivering them to you. So you have the kind of knowledge and the tools to be able to push back on these arguments that this should be the future of the web or that this is some kind of positive development when it very clearly is not. Another topic that I am really interested in that I'd like to explore further this year is what the tech industry means for media and kind of the content that we consume. I'm really interested in streaming platforms, in what changes to distribution models mean for, you know, the way that we consume film, music, and all of these different things. And I think that there's a larger conversation about how we engage with social media and what these platforms that are so central to our communication are actually doing to us and

to our communication themselves, how we communicate with one another. I think that these are all really important things. I would also be remiss not to mention that my first book, Road to Nowhere, What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong About the Future of Transportation, is being published in July by Verso Books. The book is essentially a critical look at proposals for the future of transportation from the tech industry, from autonomous vehicles, ride-hailing services, micromobility, and so many other topics, and how they do not actually address the fundamental problems with our transportation system because in most cases they seek to use technology to solve problems that require political solutions. I not only provide a critical analysis, but I also look at the history of transportation policy,

in particular in the United States, to illustrate how the status quo of a transportation system we have today came to be, and in so doing, to illustrate what will be required to actually alter it to create something better and more sustainable, and how simply relying on technologies will not be sufficient for that. So in July, I would expect that I'll also be taking a look at some transportation topics as the book comes out to kind of coincide with that, because transportation is a topic that naturally I'm very interested in since I wrote a whole book about it. If you do want to find out more about the book, I will include a link in the show notes. It is available for pre-order now from Verso, but also from many other websites.

If you are interested in reserving a copy for yourself, I would also note that the podcast's new website has been delayed, but it will finally be coming early in the new year. And I'm really excited to finally share that with you and to finally have like a dedicated place on the internet for the podcast. And once that is set up, I'll finally get to work on getting transcripts of previous shows ready. So there will be a new way for people to access and engage with the podcast. So I think that I have gone on long enough for just a little update message. I was initially going to repost an old episode so that at least you'd have some kind of interview. But I think

instead, it's just better to say there are 95 episodes of Tech Won't Save Us so far. Maybe you've listened to them all. Maybe you haven't. Maybe there's an interesting conversation that you want to revisit. And I would say that if you do want something to listen to this week, that's not just my little update. You know, take a scroll through the archives of the show and see if there's one that really stands out to you that you haven't listened to yet or that you want to revisit. Personally, I recently re-listened to my conversation with Tim Mon from last December where we talked about a whole range of things, but supply chains were one of the key things that we focused on. And especially at this moment, like in this

year where supply chain disruptions have been so common for so many things, and we've really seen the impacts of this kind of supply chain system that we set up and how fragile it is. I think that's a fantastic conversation if you were looking for a recommendation from me. But the truth is that every one of these 95 conversations is worth going back to because there are just so many great insights across the history of the show. And, you know, this is not just to speak up the show. I know if you're listening to this, you like the show. I don't need to say this to you, but I think I would just close with a final thank you. You know, thank you for listening to the show. Thank you for your support, for sharing it with friends,

with colleagues, with other people who you think would learn from the episodes and the conversations that I have with the fantastic people who come on the show. And a special thanks to the people who are supporters through Patreon, because without that financial support, I wouldn't be able to continue making this every single week because it is a lot of time and effort that goes into making it. So thank you to those people. And if you do enjoy the show and are able to support the work that I put into making it every single week, you can join them by going to patreon.com slash tech won't save us as well. But I would say just again, happy holidays and happy new year. There is so much great stuff coming in 2022. So just stay tuned. And I hope that you are enjoying a bit of a break over this period as well. And with that, I'll be back in 2022. I'll see you then. Thank you.