Tech Won't Save Us - History Shows Radical Futures Are Possible w/ Lizzie O'Shea

Episode Date: May 14, 2020

Paris Marx is joined by Lizzie O’Shea to discuss how learning about history can empower us to imagine more radical futures, how COVID-19 could create the opportunity to demand a better world, and how the praise for essential workers could help us rethink our ideas about work and the economy.Lizzie O’Shea is the author of “Future Histories: What Ada Lovelace, Tom Paine, and the Paris Commune Can Teach Us about Digital Technology.” She is also the founder and chair of Digital Rights Watch. She recently wrote about how there is no such thing as unskilled labor for The Baffler. Follow Lizzie on Twitter as @Lizzie_OShea.The photo of the Paris Commune mentioned in the episode can be found here.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.Support the show

That's how we should be arranging the economy, not around things that make money, but around things that are essential to our survival. Hello and welcome to Tech Won't Save Us, a podcast that wonders how Elon Musk can get away with everything he gets away with and never face any consequences. I'm your host, Paris Marks, and today I'm speaking with Lizzie O'Shea. Lizzie is the author of Future Histories, What Ada Lovelace, Tom Payne, and the Paris Commune can teach us about digital technology. She's also the founder and chair of Digital Rights Watch and has written for a number of publications, including the New York Times, The Guardian, and the Sydney Morning Herald.

Before I get into today's episode and we start the interview, I just want to say that this is the eighth episode of Tech Won't Save Us. It's four weeks of the podcast and it's been fantastic to see the response and that a lot of people are liking it. Thank you so much if you're a listener and if you've been listening since the beginning or you know whenever you started and if you like it thank you. If you want to support the podcast because you like it there are a few ways that you can do that. Firstly you can go to Apple Podcasts and leave a five-star review so more people can find it and, you know, see that it's something that other people are liking. So far, we have five-star reviews in Australia, in Canada, in Germany, in New Zealand, in Sweden, in the United

Kingdom, and in the United States. And obviously, I would love to see those in even more countries. So if you can leave one, that would be great. And finally, it takes a lot of time to put this podcast together. So if you want to support me and the work that I'm doing on this podcast, my other writing, you know, what have you, your support on Patreon would be greatly appreciated. And that's at patreon.com slash Paris Marks. There should be a link in the show notes. And if not, you can find it on our Twitter, which is at Tech Won't Save Us, or you can find it on our website, which is techwontsave.us. So thank you again so much, and enjoy the interview with Lizzie O'Shea. Lizzie O'Shea, welcome to Tech Won't Save Us.

Thank you so much for having me. Ah, it's so great to speak with you today. So I wanted to start, you have this fantastic book that came out last year called Future Histories. And part of what you look at is the way that our understanding of history can kind of shape the way that we see the present and the future, right? And how right now, often the histories that we're presented with kind of justify this present that we're living in, this capitalist present, this present where there's massive inequality

and where a lot of workers are treated like crap, basically. And it kind of closes off our idea of what is possible and where we can actually go in the future. So I was hoping you could just talk a bit about how the way that we understand history can open up or close down the possibilities that we see for the future. Yeah, I think it's a great question. So part of my key motivation for writing this book is to use history to allow the present to become the cause of a different future. And so what I mean by that is that what we're often told about the past will set in place some boundaries around what we think we can imagine as an alternative future. And that's particularly true, I feel, around technology. Somewhere like Silicon Valley, for example, likes to tell a particular story about itself, about its past, and it uses that, the elite within

the tech industry, to justify technology taking a particular form and shaping our future. And so my argument was to provide some context to debates that we have about technology, to debates we have about the history of technology itself, and in doing so, make a claim that the future can be quite different from what those in Silicon Valley that are often the most prominent voices, the elite and the people who run and own companies, we can have a different future from what they're suggesting. It's essentially a left-wing tradition of understanding history, of looking to the past as inspiration, but also guidance. So when I was an activist for a long time in my younger years on lots of different campaigns,

one thing I used to do if I felt despondent or struggled with insurmountable obstacles or a campaign that felt like it was struggling to succeed was I'd often look back to the past and find inspiration from others who struggled with similar problems and overcome them, have had moments of transformative change which they turned into a new way of doing things and a displacement of the accepted wisdom and I found it a source of solace. I mean I also found it as a form of guidance that you can avoid mistakes from the past by looking at movements there so that when that question takes form in your current world, you can answer it differently. And that has always been an immense source of inspiration

and solace for me. And so I thought it might be true for others as well. And particularly in the space around technology, where technology is often treated as almost like a force of nature it's treated as something that's unassailable that doesn't have an agenda and that society is something that technology does things to rather than a group of people with agency and desire to change and I think it's really critical that we displace that idea because otherwise those that are actually defining the parameters of possibility when it comes to technology, but also telling a story about our past will be those that are powerful.

And it just becomes the accepted wisdom that we assume to be true rather than starting to question and critique what's possible. And in doing so, plant the seeds of an alternative future and so that's my general philosophical approach it's hardly new and it's it's something that's around on the left a lot but I've often found with technology the left has often been somewhat hesitant to engage in these issues and I wanted to be part of a group of people who are trying to do that and we're growing in number of course but I want to be part of a group of people who are trying to do that. And we're growing in number, of course. But I wanted to make it clear that technology is a left-wing issue.

It's a progressive issue that we can have something to say about. And also that those who are interested in technology and are living through that working with it can find space on the left to talk about the issues that they're confronting in their daily life as activists or workers, and that we can start to build a diverse movement of people who understand these topics and can work together to change the future for the better. And I think that's a fantastic kind of way of seeing history and the possibility of technology when approaching it, right?

Because when we do think of technology and when we just accept the story that so many of the tech leaders in Silicon Valley tell us, we would just understand it to be like entrepreneurs in their basements, working within the free market and free enterprise to like churn out these amazing innovations, right? When we actually look back at the history of Silicon Valley, we can see that there was massive public sector investment that went in from the federal government, from the state, in order to build this agglomeration of universities and companies and public research and everything that was going on in this space, right? And that is so largely excluded from so much of what we understand as the history of technology.

And so part of that is reflected in the politics of Silicon Valley and of tech, as you were just talking about, right? And you cite this paper from Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron, or rather an article about the Californian ideology, right? And how that kind of sees technology, kind of has this worldview, right? Of technological determinism, free market capitalism, and kind of divorcing these things of politics and kind of mixed with this like countercultural spirit. So how does the politics of Silicon Valley and of the tech elites in particular, the people who are kind of leading Silicon Valley,

how does that affect the way that they present history and also their visions of the future? The makers of the television show Silicon Valley, which I think is a great show and some of your listeners may have watched, they talk about how they used to make visits to Silicon Valley every year to kind of do some research for the show. And they describe Silicon Valley as hippie culture run headlong into rampant capitalism, which I think is kind of an encapsulation of the Californian ideology, which is the essay you were talking about before, which is worth reading,

because even though it's a number of decades old, it still feels extremely accurate as a description of how Silicon Valley thinks of itself and how it operates. This combination of a sense that they're innovative, breaking the norms, not traditional in any way, and yet also just practicing the same old modes of profit making and exploitation that have been part of a long tradition of capitalism. So it's this, it's a slightly disjointed vision of itself, but they see it as completely coherent and whole. And I think it helps to understand then some of the thinking that comes out of it. You're absolutely right to point out how public investment has been a big part of technological development throughout human

history, at least in the last couple of centuries, but particularly in relation to networked computing. And that's often written out. So regulation and government investment becomes, according to the Californian ideology, that kind of philosophy becomes something that holds innovation back instead of what it actually is, which is a great cultivator of innovative change and development of technology. I think that's absolutely true as a way of marking out the kind of material basis for how the technology industry works. But also there's other ways in which you can gain insight into how these people think. And there's political and historical examples of this. So one of them that I wanted to raise that, again, your listeners may be familiar with, but was certainly new to me when I started writing this book. There's a venture capitalist called Ben Horowitz, who you may know, he's a founder of a very influential

venture capitalist firm, and well known in Silicon Valley. And he's got an interesting history, because his parents were communists, who then became right wing. And he's got an interesting history because his parents were communists who then became right-wing and he's got his own particular set of politics. But he goes around and talks about how one of his favourite icons from history was actually Toussaint L'Ouverture, excuse my French for all your French-speaking listeners, but he was the leader of one of the leaders of the Haitian Revolution, which I think is kind of discombobulating because how is it that a venture capitalist identifies with a revolutionary leader? And if you look at his presentations where he talks a lot about this character from history

and how transformative he was, I mean, the Haitian Revolution is an extremely interesting period in history because it's possible to argue it was an extension of the French Revolution to sites of colonialism, Haiti being one. And I mean, I don't mean to summarise it in one sentence, but I think there's a lot to learn from the Haitian Revolution. But it was a very transformative period in history that really asked questions of what universal rights meant for people who weren't white. But anyway, back to Horowitz, his argument was, well, Boutisse-Had Loverture managed to overcome all these difficulties and cultural challenges to transform his nation. And you too, as an entrepreneur, can transform your culture and change the world. And he's essentially positioning entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, I suppose, as ancillary to that, as being like revolutionary leaders from the past who made these enormous changes, completely transformed

our understandings of rights and the possibility of having a society based on equality and brotherhood and egalitarianism, all those kinds of ideas that were being thrown around at the end of the 18th century. Here's their claiming that as a capitalist and for entrepreneurs that they can be transformative in culture in the same way, which it just occurred to me that we're not doing our job properly if that's allowed to happen, because it's just so plainly wrong. Because, you know, there's all sorts of analysis around how slavery is part of building capitalism throughout the United States as it was growing then into a nation and obviously in Europe as well. And, you know, I probably don't need to explain why it's wrong. But what I think

is deeply wrong for me about it is just that this kind of cultural claim, political, cultural, historical claim by Horowitz is allowed to go unchecked, essentially. And I'm so appalled by that. I really think we need to build a tradition of writing and thinking about left-wing radical social movements and revolutionaries, and understand how they fit into the development of technology today and that is not to valorize those who have power in the industry it's actually to say that workers organizing that people resisting that those arguing for for public investment in infrastructure and stuff like that to allow innovation and development of technology they're the people who are making the world a better place and not those who have money and power, which is what I think a lot of them like to think of themselves as. I think that's a fantastic point. It also makes me think of Mark Fisher's book, Capitalist Realism,

which is obviously about how capitalism closes off our ability to think about the future. He talks about how capitalism brings in the dissent and like just makes it part of the system, right? It just sounds exactly like what you're talking about there, about bringing in this like the ideas of this Haitian revolutionary to represent the ideals of entrepreneurial techno-capitalism, right? And you know, we see it in so many other ways with like car commercials using like Che Guevara, right? And Apple always talks about being revolutionary and revolutionizing everything

with like these small little tweaks to its really expensive luxury products, right? Totally. It's then so interesting to think about how they frame it and also how their products then kind of affect the way that we interact with each other, like how we see each other in this world, right? And we're in this moment now where we are and in a way kind of perceive, I guess, the impact that we can have on the world and kind of the relationships that we can even have

between each other. I'm glad that you raised Mark Fisher because obviously he was an intellectual giant. We're grateful to have had him, but he unfortunately passed away. But one of the kind of quotes that has come from him and others is that it's easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of capitalism. And that is something that I think is part of building up this hegemony of cultural, historical, political understandings of capitalism, which is, you know, absorbing resistance and radicalism back

into the system that you were talking about before. But in fact, I feel that it's almost as though that's starting to change now, in part because of these crises, in part because of things like climate change, all these kinds of things are starting to become, it's starting to become clear that the system is incapable of delivering what it promises to many people. And so then the question is, how long can it last? What can we build as an alternative? And in terms of this particular moment as well, where huge amounts of people are spending far more time online than they would normally, I do think this starts to come to the fore a bit because people do need a right to the internet and right to the infrastructure that works to be able to do their job and all that kind of stuff.

But it does also raise other questions around what is your experience of online life like? And I did write a bit about this in the book, as you described, that essentially so much of our social engagements on many platforms, it's driven by profit. I mean, it often feels like they're public spaces, somewhere like Facebook or Twitter feels like a public space or a utility, but it's very much not. It's a privately owned profitable company, and they make their money through advertising and increasingly other services as well, but advertising is a huge part of their revenue. And that really means that we're kind of being packaged up

and groomed in a particular way to identify features about us that are relevant to advertisers, but also to keep us understanding our worth and value through the idea and the lens of consumerism. And I think when you spend lots of time online or more than you normally would because of a process like COVID, I think it does become apparent that, you know, that both that can be quite confining and that also you actually want to use these platforms for other things, for genuine human connection. And that's the priority for most people. So I think there's some, there's kind of a potential consciousness that we can start to tap into there. But it's absolutely true that it's still extremely exploitative. So if you

look at exploitative industries like for-profit higher education in the United States is an obvious one, which tends to be subsidised by the state, hugely profitable, doesn't service students well, often leaves people in large amounts of debt. But the other one that comes to mind, particularly in Australia, is gambling, because Australians lose more per capita pretty much than anywhere else in the world to gambling. So we have an enormous problem with it. And this is a perfect time where it becomes very exploitative to push these kinds of industries and things like payday lenders. There's all sorts of ways in which very nasty exploitative industries can really make use

of some of that grooming that happens about you. So collecting knowledge from people who might not be your customers, but to define who your customers might be, and then zeroing in and exploiting those people to make money from them. And those industries of exploitation just seem like, you know, a world in which we have to use the internet all the time to live our lives just seem unfair, inappropriate, wrong, something that we ought to change.

And so that's what I'm sort of hoping might come out of this as well, a greater appreciation of how we can be exploited in how our online lives are shaped by these profit-making platforms and some alternative ways in which we might wish to change that as a result. And there's all sorts of political implications as well, which others have talked about to a large degree. But I'm reasonably hopeful that we can start to practice the Freudian idea. Freud, who I think was not a perfect thinker, but has a lot to offer the left in terms of understanding our particular political moment, to both understand ourselves and then turn that into change. And that's, I think, one of the key contributions of Freud, that once we know how we're being shaped and influenced, we can start to transform that. And that's what I sort of hope might come out of this particular moment in terms of how we

socialize and engage in social life online. I think that's such an interesting point you make about gambling, because it brings back a stat I remember from Canada. And obviously, I'm sure many listeners will know that Alberta is like the site of major oil extraction in Canada. But there was a report out a few years ago about how even though like there was such a massive oil industry in Alberta, the royalties were so low that the province actually made more from gambling and taxes on alcohol than it did from the oil revenues, which was like crazy. Oh my God. Isn't that horrendous? Yeah. And obviously Canada is a very resource driven economy, even though, you know, we're one of these like major economies in the world. So I wouldn't be surprised if we share something

like that with Australia, because you are also like still a very resource dependent economy as well. Right? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, somewhere like Victoria, where I'm from, we have a Australia because you are also like still a very resource dependent economy as well right yeah absolutely I mean somewhere like Victoria where I'm from we have a progressive premier from the Labor Party and he likes to present himself as being extremely progressive but we've got a we've got a population around seven million people I think more or less and they take a billion more than a billion dollars in revenue tax revenue from from gambling, and that's pokies alone. So that's a particular form of video game, a video game machine, yeah.

So there's other forms of gambling that happen in the state which doesn't go into the coffers of state treasury. But it's so counterintuitive to me because, of course, gambling is associated with increased mental health problems, increased domestic violence, homelessness, all sorts of social problems that you end up spending money on as a government, which you do because you've taken, you're able to do that because you've taken the money out of the pockets of gamblers. And, you know, it's an issue that is close to my heart in part because it's always for people who spend

the most. They don't put gambling venues and the like in wealthy suburbs because those people tend to gamble less. So it's absolutely a class issue as well. And it's just, it strikes me as just deeply exploitative. And I'm not a wowser about it. And I think there's arguments and discussions to be had about that. But I also think you can't ignore the massive human toll of an industry that's completely predatory in my view and it doesn't offer anywhere near any kind of social returns that match the devastating damage that's caused and it's it's and the damage that's also stigmatized so i i think this is also a moment um during the covid crisis to talk about how we might be able to change that completely because

sport is not happening so sports betting is a big part of the gambling industry but also venues with video poker machines are closed and so here's a chance to say well let's not turn this back on you know like let's think about what when we restart the economy or the machine of the economy what do we want to leave behind and what do we want to take with us and this is the exact moment I think we need to be asking those kinds of questions. And that's true across the board on all issues, both in technology and social political ones more generally. I feel like that intersects with so many of the problems that we are seeing with COVID-19 as well, right? And how governments don't seem to be responding in a way that always puts people, and especially the most vulnerable people first, but rather is so focused on maintaining business and ensuring business can survive and especially the largest

businesses, right? Like, I don't know specifically the situation in Australia, but here in Canada, like, the focus has very much been on making sure businesses can survive, making sure businesses can pay their rents, making sure businesses can pay their workers, which is like a decent thing we could talk about, you know, if there are better ways to support workers than making sure they're still attached to a company that might not treat them the greatest. But I feel like there are a lot of similarities

between that kind of an issue and all of the other issues that we're facing right now. Yeah, look, I agree with you. I mean, there's some things I think we could argue we shouldn't let go of, like childcare, for example, in Australia has just been made free. I mean, it's private providers, so it's a privatized system of childcare delivery. So I don't really want to be subsidizing private businesses equally. Let's say, yeah, let's keep that. I think childcare should be free, you know. And so, yeah, there's some things we want to take from this crisis that we want to hold on to. And you can't justify not spending money on managing the risk

associated with scientific evidence. So that's true for COVID. It's also true for obviously climate change. So there's all sorts of transformative ways in which we could make this crisis a practice run for eventually what might happen with climate. And we can make sure we start to prioritise people rather than companies and the economy. But I mean, you're right. Like the other way in which it comes to the fore in Australia in terms of promoting opening the economy over the potential human toll of doing that is that the fore in Australia in terms of promoting opening the economy over the potential human toll of doing that is that at least in Australia I mean I must admit I'm not

exactly sure what's happening in Canada but I know that there's other countries who are experimenting with this because I follow it of course is there's an argument that we now all have to download an app that assists with contact tracing so it collects quite intimate information about who you've been in contact with contact contact tracing purposes held by government. And the argument is that you're not doing your social duty if you don't download this app. You're not protecting frontline health workers. And we need to do this essentially because we have to open the economy. We have to keep businesses running. And there's a real question around how, well, I think this is a good little example because

it shows how, you know, technology is treated as the silver bullet. People are talking about people who don't download the app now as being like anti-vaxxers and downloading an app is not the same as having a vaccine. That's the first thing I'll say. And then, of course, there's a social context to using this technology, which is that if you haven't got properly resourced contact tracing teams, then you, of course, will not be able to make use of that technology to be able to assist with stopping the spread of the virus. And the other component, of course, is digital inclusion and accessibility. The people who are most vulnerable probably to contracting the virus

or have suffering terrible consequences as a result of contracting it tend to be people who are less likely to be online, less likely to be able to use an app like this. And this is not something that factors into the conversation. So we have this very blunt, heavy handed conversation where if you don't download an app with immense surveillance potential, which I think can be stated without looking like you're wearing a tinfoil hat, it's a very reasonable thing to be critical of government pushing, trying to influence people to download an app that collects information about who you've been in touch with, that you get this situation where they're pushing this app as a way in which we can then reopen the economy and get the system

started again. And the human consequences associated with doing that aren't talked about. And in fact, if you raise them, then you're somehow not prepared to assist our frontline health workers who take risks on our behalf every day. And I think we really need to change how we have these debates. And I'm kind of, I'm heartened to see that things are moving in Australia, that we are starting to have more sophisticated debates about these things, that I would like to see similar things happening around the world because to me it throws up all those traditional issues about technology about health versus the economy about people versus profit they come to the fore in these kinds of debates and it's a real opportunity for us to reset it and argue for a different way of doing things yeah i completely agree and i was speaking to bianca wiley last week of the week before you know on this very question and how this focus on contact tracing apps kind of distracts us from the bigger questions of, you know, are we putting money into places for domestic violence victims? Because, you know, there are reports that that's increasing because people are all trapped at home, right? Are we making sure that homeless people

have a place to go and are not on the streets? Are we making sure that we're putting the money into our health services? Like all these bigger questions of public spending and public services can be put to the side because now there's this app that is going to solve the problem, right? And that's a really big problem with the way that technology is so often focused and so often presented to us. So it is encouraging to see these debates evolving, if hopefully that is what is happening right now. The other parallel I'd like to draw, which I don't think is alarmist, I think it's accurate, is that, you know, laws that get introduced in periods of crisis have a long shadow. So, you know, in the wake of the 9-11 terrorist events in the United States, in Australia, for example, in the two decades since, we've passed over 80 pieces of legislation that give powers to national security and law enforcement agencies. And some of it was

supposed to be temporary, very little of it has been. And it's very hard to unpick that. And some of it was supposed to be temporary, very little of it has been. And it's very hard to unpick that. And I feel like as a digital rights activist, I spent a huge amount of time arguing that national security and law enforcement, their powers have to have limits. And it's constantly referable back to that crisis. So, I mean, Naomi Klein is the obvious person that comes to mind in this context, talking about how moments of crisis can create situations where people show deference to authority and the authorities do not miss that chance. They introduce reforms and they push hard for their own agenda. They have to take some time to gather themselves and have to show that they're able to handle the crisis, but ultimately they have their own agenda as well. And criticising it often feels like it can be a lonely experience or you can often be told that you're alarmist.

But I think if we use past conduct as a predictor of future conduct, I think we've got a good example there of how that crisis has lasted in relation to terrorism, has lasted a very long time. And I worry that this is something similar because it's conceivable that a health crisis like this could last many, many years. I mean, even if we get a vaccine, there's still arguments that you could have to be quite careful around not allowing something similar to happen. And the fear that comes out of this particular period of time, it is susceptible to being

exploited by politicians who use simplistic arguments and have planned for this kind of moment. And our job is to try and hold them to account. You know, I think that's exactly right. And the fear and kind of the deference to authorities that comes in times like this is really important as well, right? I've been thinking a lot lately about how the experience of being on social media has changed or at least like on twitter right um because i feel like now i feel like people are getting a bit more agitated but i also feel like you scroll through and so much more than before there's like death and the prospect of death right and i think that really kind of weighs on people like even if not everyone is really even actively seeing it right because like i remember it started back in march with

the stories from italy and kind of what was going on over there because i think it would be fair to argue that we didn't pay so much attention while it was going on in china it was only when it really hit europe that you know we started to pay a bit more attention to what was happening, you know, generally and like in our media, at least in Canada and the United States. Then there are more relations between, you know, Europe and North America. And then when it hits North America and there are just more and more kind of people saying like, I've lost a family member or, you know, I've lost a friend or like whatever, right? And like, I think there must be kind of like a mental impact that that comes from that, especially when it's all being locked at home. And so reliant on these

technologies, they say, like use of Facebook and stuff has gone up a lot since this crisis began. And it has actually had me thinking a lot about the Paris Commune, because that has been going on around this time. And there's this photo that I always remember, I'll have to put it in the show notes so people can go take a look at it. And it's a photo of the barricades, but it's not like the one of just the people kind of standing in front of the barricade, kind of like cheering and happy. It's from above and you can see the barricade and the street and the buildings on either side, but nobody's posing. And so because of the way the camera technology worked at the time, it's just like all of these ghosts and shadowy figures in the image. of this photo being taken had likely been killed because once the Paris commune was put down

at the end of May in La Semaine Saint-Glant, the Bloody Week, it was like over 10,000 people were killed, right? And in the writing after that, they talk about how there was like a major mental effect on the people of Paris by having gone through that and having seen so many people killed in such a short period of time especially kind of you know after experiencing a war and then this really significant change to their day-to-day lives and obviously COVID-19 now is being presented kind of as like, in this war-like framing, you know, we have to fight a war against this virus. And, you know, obviously it's killing hundreds of thousands of people around the world. So

like, obviously my thinking has been focused on kind of this negative framing in the terms of the Paris Commune. But you provide a lot of hopeful examples from history and pieces of history that we can learn from to see kind of like a more positive way to move forward and to imagine better futures kind of from the bottom up. So what is the positive example that you see from the Paris Commune or even from any of the other kind of examples that you give in the book from Indigenous history, post-colonial movements, and these other things that you reference?

I think it's a really interesting parallel because I think there's real problems for the left as well because part of the experience that I think witnessing this death in proximity but also the distance of social media is that I think there's now a progressive kind of deference to authority. There's this real desire for leaders to take a strong and heavy stand to lock us down. Certainly here, there was this big progressive movement to get a lockdown immediately. And the idea that schools were remaining open was this terrible insult to us that we all need to demand the state take a strong approach and require us all to stay home, which is not traditionally a kind of purview of the left to be arguing for

more power for authority. And balancing how this will work, I think, politically coming out of this crisis is quite tricky, because obviously, it does require the state to make rules and to synthesise the evidence and make policies. But equally, I think we do have to find space to say that it's not just state authority that's giving us a path out of this crisis. It's actually people practising the politics of care and solidarity, looking after each other, doing the right thing, washing their hands, trying to stay home when they can, and making sure they limit contact with others at a pretty significant personal price. And I guess that's where I come to with the commune.

I mean, I'm not sure how much your listeners might know about it, but it's a period of radical history in the late 19th century in Paris where communards took over the city. And there's much that's been written on it. And often it's through the lens that you described that the commune was eventually crushed after existing for a short period of a month or more and there was mass slaughter. And in part I think that was a reaction to the potential that was unleashed by the commune because the commune did really transform our understanding of how you might arrange society, so how you might organise work, how you might organise

cultural production, how you might organise social relations, the role of the church. It introduced policies that were radically transformative in relation to all these different aspects of life. And it's kind of beautiful to read about it. It's exciting and interesting. One of the points that I try to make is that these ideas are in fact far more radical than a lot of what it passes for radicalism today would be able to muster. And it's kind of wonderful to read about it. But of course, what you're reading is also an understanding that it was ultimately crushed in a very bloody manner. And the question then becomes, what's the legacy of the commune? How does it live in our consciousness as a historical period? And who gets to claim that legacy and what do we learn from it?

And ultimately, the chapter I wrote about this in, it talks about how one of the reactions to that was a form of technological utopianism where a lot of writers wrote about how the way to escape the kind of misery of the Industrial Revolution was to escalate and accelerate the development of technology, often preserving the social relations that existed, you know, in all their forms that was sometimes in many ways oppressive. But that's the escape route in investing in technological change and making it transform the rest of society as a result, which I think gets it in the reverse order, basically. And there's many on the left who claimed that the Paris Commune, in fact, was an experiment in radical democracy that gave

us an insight that we ought to accelerate democracy instead of technology, say. And I think we're going through a similar period where people aren't given the credit they deserve for helping to resist this crisis. There's a deference to the state, the authoritarianism of the state, which is worth remembering, has its own negative potential. And then in fact, then technology and investment in technology is the kind of pathway through this particular crisis. And I think we ought to remember that we owe it to each other that solidarity and politics of care is the primary way in which we've made it through this crisis. And we can continue to do so without relying on the oppressive authority of the state. And while I think the state has a role to

play, I think we should be careful about offering too much deference to those in power at this particular moment. And that's a tricky task, because I think there's real difficulties with progressives who don't feel that way, who are very interested in investing in authoritarianism, left authoritarianism potentially as a path through this crisis. So I think this is a really critical moment to talk about that. Obviously, I completely agree, right? There is hope in what we're seeing, right? And there is also concern in the way that certain things are escalating.

When this crisis began, obviously there was a lot of death and a lot of negative stories, but there was also a lot of hope for what could come out of the crisis, right? There's been organizing for a Green New Deal now for over a year, and there's been pushing for more significant social changes, whether that is on healthcare, on various social policies, like you talk about in Australia, potentially trying to keep free daycare. Here in Canada, we're talking a lot about making long-term care, like elderly homes and things like that, part of the national healthcare system because of the effect that COVID-19 has had on the elderly population here. So obviously there are discussions about positive things that could come out of this. And in your thinking about these different kind of

histories and how these histories can inform the futures that we might look to in the future, really, or that we might imagine in the future. Because obviously, we're in this moment where there's probably more opportunity because it is a crisis than we've had in a long time, even though crises are terrible. But if they're going to happen, we should at least try to take advantage of them and get something good out of them. Right. Um, so what do you see as hopeful right now? Um, whether that's just for society in general or the way that technology can be used and

developed as we move forward. Yeah. And I should say, I don't mean to be flippant in thinking about these topics in the sense that I think the kind of converse to what you're describing also, there's another side to it in the sense that there's a lot of right-wingers who are calling for the reopening of the economy and saying, well, let's sacrifice a small number of people. Certainly. Yeah. And so I completely accept that that is just an appalling political position and that there's utility, of course, in arguing against that. This is why I think it is a very tricky issue for both the left and the right to navigate and informed or careful

considerate debate is really needed. And it's difficult because I'm not sure this moment is particularly conducive to it, but I would encourage those who are seeking to engage in it to carry on because I think it's very important. So, you know, we do also have to say that that kind of approach to this health crisis is appalling and that it is possible to have a society that makes enough to look after everybody without having to resort to a devastating health crisis in order to do so. So, I mean, one of the things I think is really exciting to come out of this moment is that we do start to think really clearly about what kind of work is important and what kind

of work is not important and we've talked about this but I did write an article that happened to come at a particular moment I'd written it a bit earlier but it got published just as this crisis was unfolding about the important role of unskilled work which is usually treated as prior to this particular crisis I think was often frowned upon. Huge numbers of people work in jobs in the United States, for example, that don't require a high school education or a college degree. And they're often treated as low class citizens and paid extremely poorly for it. My claim in that article is that unskilled work doesn't exist. And it sounds a bit simplistic, but the point really is that unskilled labour is often

treated as a category for justifying paying people less, even though the work they do can be very difficult. And the work that they do is also essential. It's not always easy, but it is important work that allows us to be able to survive the society. Now, it's not true for all unskilled work, but I think it's important to kind of question these categories and what they're doing politically and sociologically rather than just assuming or taking them as given. And this moment gives us the opportunity to do that in quite an obvious way, because the people who help you get your groceries from the supermarket, the people who might make food for you that you get in a takeaway, you know, version,

or the people who deliver food to you. Largely these people are considered unskilled in their traditional sense, but they're actually doing life-affirming work in the sense that without them our society would come to a halt. And the people whose work now it's clear is somewhat less necessary are people like hedge fund managers and financiers and people who get paid really big bucks, like even lawyers

speaking against myself. I think my job's important, but I reckon there's a lot of lawyers who do a lot of work that maybe is unnecessary. And so this moment, I think, is really presenting people with that stark reality that what we should be designing our economy around is perhaps around feeding, clothing, housing, looking after each other. And then other things come secondary to that. And cultural production, I should say as well, which I think is an essential part of any human society. But really, that's how we should be arranging the economy, not around things that make money, but around things that are essential to our survival. And I like to think that this is an opportunity for those workers who've started organising in their own different ways. And we've seen some of that around people who work for

different kinds of insecure platforms that have largely been stripped of any rights as workers. There's an increasing sense that those people do do important work that justifies them having rights and that these companies shouldn't be allowed to continuously exploit them. And I'm hopeful that that may be something that comes out of this particular moment that we didn't have before that will make society a much better place. You and me both. Well, I think that's a fantastic place to leave it. Thanks so much, Lizzie. It's been great speaking to you. Thank you so much for having me both. Well, I think that's a fantastic place to leave it. Thanks so much, Lizzie. It's been great speaking to you. Thank you so much for having me on. It's been great

speaking to you, Paris. Lizzie O'Shea is the author of Future Histories, What Ada Lovelace, Tom Paine, and the Paris Commune Can Teach Us About Digital Technology. It was published by Verso Books, and you can buy it on versobooks.com, and you can get it anywhere else that sells books. You can follow Lizzie on Twitter at Lizzie underscore O'Shea. If you like our conversation, please leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts. You can follow Tech Won't Save Us on Twitter at Tech Won't Save Us, and you can follow me, Paris Marks, on Twitter at Paris Marks. Thanks so much for listening.