Tech Won't Save Us
By Paris Marx
Silicon Valley wants to shape our future, but why should we let it? Every Thursday, Paris Marx is joined by a new guest to critically examine the tech industry, its big promises, and the people behind them. Tech Won’t Save Us challenges the notion that tech alone can drive our world forward by showing that separating tech from politics has consequences for us all, especially the most vulnerable. It’s not your usual tech podcast.
22 episodes
All Episodes
Tim Cook's Legacy: Global Manufacturing, Profit Maximization, and Human Cost
Tim Cook's legacy is the global manufacturing supply chain he built, enabling mass production at the cost of worker well-being, and a business model maximizing profit from existing users.
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Tech Media's CEO-Centric Reporting Fuels Hype and Hides Reality
Tech media often parrots CEO narratives, fueling hype and hiding reality. Gain a critical lens to dissect media, identify hidden agendas, and understand technology's true impact.
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Cybertruck's Design Traps Occupants: Form Over Function Creates Fatal Risks
Radical Cybertruck design prioritizes aesthetics, creating a hidden crisis of passenger entrapment and potential fatality. Learn how form over function can override safety, with deadly consequences.
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Information Overload Fuels Anxiety and Distorted Control
Constant online "monitoring" fuels anxiety by overwhelming agency. Curate trusted sources and disengage from digital feeds to gain mental clarity and genuine understanding.
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Data Centers as Military Targets: AI Accelerates Warfare
Data centers are now tangible military targets, blurring lines between civilian infrastructure and conflict zones. Understand the critical implications for global security and your digital reliance.
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Iran's Asymmetric Warfare: Costly Innovation Challenges Conventional Military Thinking
Iran's asymmetric warfare, driven by historical intervention and Western miscalculations, reveals how low-cost drones can cripple expensive defenses, shifting geopolitical initiative and exposing limits of conventional power.
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Elite Power Dynamics: Social Capital Drives Decisions Over Business Logic
Elite power operates on social capital and perceived status, not business logic, revealing a hidden world where influence is currency and markets are manipulated with impunity.
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Critique of Exploitative Tech: Not Anti-Technology, But Anti-Capitalism
The left critiques exploitative tech, not technology itself. Understand how Silicon Valley's system prioritizes profit over human needs and advocate for genuinely beneficial, human-centered technological futures.
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Luddite Club: Reclaiming Agency From Digital Immersion
Reclaim your agency: discover how technology dictates behavior and erodes skills, and learn to disengage from detrimental aspects for genuine connection and autonomy.
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Humanoid Robots: Hype, Hidden Labor, and Labor Discipline
Humanoid robots are sold as revolutionary, but their human form tricks us into overestimating capabilities, masking a hidden workforce and potentially disciplining human labor.
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Green Transition's Hidden Cost: Intensified Mining and Geopolitical Risks
The green transition demands more mining, creating new geopolitical tensions and replicating fossil fuel harms. Rethinking this path is crucial for a truly just and sustainable future.
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Netflix Acquisition Threatens Cinema's Artistic Legacy
Consolidation threatens cinema's legacy, shifting focus from art to engagement and eroding the theatrical experience through digital control and societal exhaustion.
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X's Grok Chatbot Fuels AI-Generated Abuse and Erodes Online Safety
AI-generated abuse on X amplifies misogyny and profits from harm, deliberately eroding online safety and pushing vulnerable users out.
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AI-Driven Component Scarcity Inflates Consumer Electronics Prices
AI's component demand inflates consumer electronics prices, sparking a counter-movement toward DIY, retro tech, and open-source alternatives for greater control and affordability.
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US Technological Dependence Enables Geopolitical Control and Demands Resilience
US tech dominance weaponizes digital services, controlling nations and individuals. Reclaim digital sovereignty through international alliances and personal resistance against profit-driven platforms.
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OpenAI's Scale Paradigm: Labor, Environmental, and Research Costs
OpenAI's scale-obsessed AI development exploits labor and the environment, stifles research diversity, and erodes public understanding, all without guaranteeing AGI.
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Spotify's Profit-Driven Model Devalues Artists and Homogenizes Music
Spotify prioritizes platform profit over artist pay, using algorithms to shape listening habits and limit music discovery. Explore how this model impacts creators and discover alternatives.
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US Tech Fascism: AI Drives State-Capital Alliance and Economic Precariousness
An alliance of right-wing politics and Silicon Valley capital reshapes governance with AI, prioritizing market expansion over democracy and hollowing out state capacity.
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Australia's Social Media Age Limit: Missed Opportunity for Nuanced Regulation
Australia's social media age limit misses a chance for nuanced regulation, opting for a broad ban over incentivizing platforms to create safer user experiences.
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Europe's Sovereignty Eroded by U.S. Tech Dominance and Labor Model Pressures
Europe's sovereignty erodes as U.S. tech giants shape labor laws and geopolitical decisions, forcing a reevaluation of independent action and worker protections.
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Europe Prioritizes Industrial Policy Over Public Interest in Tech
Europe prioritizes industrial policy and national security over public interest, deregulating to benefit big tech and adopting a US-centric AI race model that risks a race to the bottom.
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Tech Industry's Energy Growth Undermines Climate Goals
Data center energy use is surging, decoupling from revenue and driving fossil fuel reliance, directly undermining tech's climate promises.
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