This Machine Kills

Continuing sci-fi week at TMK, we dig into Chapter 4, “Orienting the Future,” of Wendy H.K. Chun’s book. Grounded in Chun’s in-depth analysis of cyberpunk via two paradigmatic examples—the novel Neuromancer and the anime Ghost in the Shell—we lay out a critical take on the cyberpunk genre. We then discuss Chun’s incisive arguments about “high-tech Orientalism” and the colonial politics encoded into cyberpunk and the culture that has flowed from it. You can grab a pdf of Chun’s book here: https://au1lib.org/book/2074091/cc12a3 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 get into a great discussion about the Butlerian Jihad — or the war against all computation that catalyzed the events of the Dune series — and the reactionary politics that inform so much science fiction, the trap of treating feudalism as fate, the need for stories informed by the lessons of Luddism, and much more. Cold open: Alex Jones explains Evangelion https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5X9RUOEOoNQ&t=1s Some stuff we reference: ••• Science Fiction Is a Luddite Literature | Cory Doctorow: https://onezero.medium.com/science-fiction-is-a-luddite-literature-56ed9cfc5470 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 pick up with part two of our deep dive into Aadhaar, looking at the social issues, political implications, and street-level implementation. Building on the work of Ranjit Singh and Steven Jackson, we first lay out an analysis of what it means to “see like an infrastructure.” Then we dwell on the problems, errors, and glitches involved in making Aadhaar actually work. And what that means for different people who are classified as “high-resolution” or “low-resolution” data subjects. Some stuff we discuss: ••• Seeing Like an Infrastructure: Low-resolution Citizens and the Aadhaar Identification Project | Ranjit Singh and Steven Jackson https://secureservercdn.net/166.62.108.22/163.112.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/SLAI_RSSJ.pdf ••• A New AI Lexicon: Resolution | Ranjit Singh https://medium.com/a-new-ai-lexicon/a-new-ai-lexicon-resolution-8f3430654ee4 ••• From Margins to Seams: Imbrication, Inclusion, and Torque in the Aadhaar Identification Project | Ranjit Singh and Steven Jackson https://secureservercdn.net/166.62.108.22/163.112.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/From_Margins_to_Seams_RSSJ.pdf ••• Biometric Marginality: UID and the Shaping of Homeless Identities in the City | Ursula Rao https://www.jstor.org/stable/23391467 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 start the show looking back at a Wired cover story from 1997 predicting the next 25 years would be The Long Boom. But oops! Turns out all the bad future spoilers came true instead. We dive deep into Aadhaar, the Indian government’s massive biometric identity database that has enrolled the information of more than a billion people. We talk about the technological architecture of the system and how it operates as an identity-as-a-service platform for public and private services. This is part 1 of a much broader discussion laying the foundations for analysing Aadhaar. Part two, looking at the social issues and political implications of Aadhaar, will be released on the TMK Patreon feed. Some stuff we discuss: ••• The Long Boom | Wired (1997) https://archive.org/details/eu_Wired-1997-07_OCR/page/n123/mode/2up ••• All Those 23andMe Spit Tests Were Part of a Bigger Plan | Bloomberg https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-11-04/23andme-to-use-dna-tests-to-make-cancer-drugs ••• Give Me a Database and I Will Raise the Nation-State | Ranjit Singh https://secureservercdn.net/166.62.108.22/163.112.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Give_Me_a_Database_RS.pdf ••• Seeing Like an Infrastructure: Low-resolution Citizens and the Aadhaar Identification Project | Ranjit Singh and Steven Jackson https://secureservercdn.net/166.62.108.22/163.112.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/SLAI_RSSJ.pdf ••• A New AI Lexicon: Resolution | Ranjit Singh https://medium.com/a-new-ai-lexicon/a-new-ai-lexicon-resolution-8f3430654ee4 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)

Cold open: MCI “Anthem” commercial (1997): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioVMoeCbrig We dig into Chapter 3, “Scenes of Empowerment, of Wendy H.K. Chun’s book and talk about the pervasive ideology of the internet as an emancipatory world of virtual equality where things like race, gender, age, and ability cease to exist. And discuss how, despite the obvious naivety (at best) of this belief, it still persists today in various unchanged ways. You can grab a pdf of Chun’s book here: https://au1lib.org/book/2074091/cc12a3 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’re very pleased to be joined by Britt Young, a PhD candidate in geography at UC Berkeley, who works on the intersection of technology and disability. We dive into the militarized R&D for prosthetics, Britt’s experiences using an advanced “cyborg” arm, the vast inequality in access to workable prosthetics, and question if our society’s approach to assistive tech is consistent with disability justice or represents a vexing politics of ableism. Follow Britt: twitter.com/bhyrights Read Britt’s work: britthyoung.com Some stuff we reference: ••• The Politics of Ableism | Gregor Wolbring: https://sci-hub.mksa.top/10.1057/dev.2008.17 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)

Why don’t people like crypto? Obviously because they’re old fuddy duddies who don’t want to wrap their mind around new technology! We talk about Ed’s reporting trip to Puerto Rico and why the island has become a haven for crypto enclaves. We then end with a nice palate cleanser as Ed tells us about a recent panel he attended with David Wengrow about his and Graeber’s new book. 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’re joined by Nick Chavez, a mechanical engineer working in R&D, to discuss his incisive essay exploring the capitalist origins and purpose of engineering, the class position and labor process of engineers, and the role of engineers before, during, and after communist revolution. Read Nick’s essay: The Present and Future of Engineers | Brooklyn Rail https://brooklynrail.org/2021/10/field-notes/THINKING-ABOUT-COMMUNISM Music in this episode is from Nick’s glitch group: https://glitchdotcool.bandcamp.com/album/glitch-with-friends-compilation-vol-2 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab your 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)

Metastasis is the process of cancer cells spreading to other parts of the body. Facebook is in its full on metastatic phase. We talk about the big news of Facebook rebranding as Meta – its impotent propaganda campaign, the extractive economy underpinning this vision of society, why the metaverse as its pitched is bullshit, and how the actual metaverse is more likely to be an infinite virtual office we’re all forced to used. Some stuff we reference: ••• Facebook Has No Clue How to Solve Its Image Problem, Leaked Doc Shows | Shoshana Wodinksy https://gizmodo.com/facebook-has-no-clue-how-to-solve-its-image-problem-le-1847945657 ••• The Real Reason Facebook Changed Its Name | Brian Merchant https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/10/facebook-metaverse-mark-zuckerberg/620538/ ••• Zuckerberg Announces Fantasy World Where Facebook Is Not a Horrible Company | Jason Koebler https://www.vice.com/en/article/qjb485/zuckerberg-facebook-new-name-meta-metaverse-presentation ••• Why Facebook has become Meta | Hannah Murphy, Madhumita Murgia https://www.ft.com/content/29762a96-419f-41b2-9e96-fa7423abb125 ••• Founder’s Letter, 2021 | Mark Zuckerberg https://about.fb.com/news/2021/10/founders-letter/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab your 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 discuss Chapter 2, “Screening Pornography” of Wendy H.K. Chun’s book. Diving into the cultural panic around cyberporn in the 90s, we talk about how porn online was used as an early battleground for policy debates about commerce, regulation, and censorship on the internet. You can grab a pdf of Chun’s book here: https://au1lib.org/book/2074091/cc12a3 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab your 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)