some of the things I enjoyed in 2025: erotic thrillers & their deconstruction, Cronenberg’s romantic side, a song about a Pornomime that's now about generative AI chatbots imitating intimacy, High Hotep rap, YouTube book reviewers, and my own writing thetechbubble.substack.com/p/some-of-wh...

My most listened to podcasts for the year @dailyzeitgeist.bsky.social w/ @jackob1.bsky.social + @milesofgray.bsky.social It Could Happen Here w/ @coolzonemedia.bsky.social This Machine Kills w/ @edwardongwesojr.com + @jathansadowski.com The Film Reroll @kindafunnyvids.bsky.social Gamescast

Some ~personal news~

It’s been a wild year — and we need to break it down! Join @parismarx.com, @jathansadowski.com, @bcmerchant.bsky.social, and @edwardongwesojr.com tomorrow at 3pm PT / 6pm ET / 11pm GMT for a livestream to wrap up the year in tech. Become a Patreon supporter to join us: patreon.com/techwontsaveus

Eight days ago I said one of the signs the bubble was bursting was if data center REITs like Fermi were in trouble. Yesterday Fermi had a $150m tenant pull out and its stock dropped 40%. All roads lead to The Smiling Man! sherwood.news/markets/ferm... www.wheresyoured.at/premium-the-...

Writing about various aspects of the AI bubble that we should pay more attention to in 2026. Part One is on AI geopolitics: attempts to replace the petrodollar system with a "technodollar" system, Sovereign AI, exporting inference to the gulf, and more thetechbubble.substack.com/p/the-ai-bub...

Writing about various aspects of the AI bubble that we should pay more attention to in 2026. Part One is on AI geopolitics: attempts to replace the petrodollar system with a "technodollar" system, Sovereign AI, exporting inference to the gulf, and more thetechbubble.substack.com/p/the-ai-bub...

I wrote about Kalshi, prediction markets, and the vision of total financialization by turning every opinion into a tradable assets www.fastcompany.com/91457404/kal...

Premium newsletter: The much-demanded 16k word guide to how the AI bubble might actually burst, starting with the collapse of data center debt financing, the end of venture capital funding for AI, OpenAI's death, and how NVIDIA's AI GPU era might come to an end. www.wheresyoured.at/premium-the-...

ICYMI, my latest video with @bcmerchant.bsky.social in which I discuss Israel, surveillance, the luddites, the AI jobs crisis, Dune's butlerian jihad, and resisting the big tech agenda. Also reference the work of @hypervisible.blacksky.app, @edwardongwesojr.com @notechforapartheid.bsky.social

blood thirsty maniac

one thing worth observing here is that so many of these pundits aren't earnestly trying to understand what happened in the world as much as they are shadowboxing with people they don't like on the internet. stringinamaze.net/p/the-pundit...

Fascinating stuff (and yeah, obligatory note that AI is a stupid label, this isn't an LLM etc) But once again, this is also about substituting mere prediction for explanation. Understanding is overhead to capital, predictions are all it cares about. Capital is trying to get rid of science

The New Deal wasn’t built on a promise that there would be “no ceiling” for the richest Americans. Quite the opposite, in fact. FDR knew its politics could only work if he singled out the rich as villains and knew that its policies could only work if the rich paid their fair share in taxes.

on NYC bond markets, Zohran’s tech policy, the AI bubble’s growing debt component, the Gulf’s vision for compute, venture capital in the UK, Epstein’s role in global politics, performative China envy, Pynchon’s defense of the Luddites, and more thetechbubble.substack.com/p/sewer-soci...

Here is the syllabus for the Information & Human Rights course that I taught at @pratt.edu this fall: rebeccawilliams.info/info-619-inf... Many thanks to @edwardongwesojr.com, @samanthahinds.bsky.social, & the lawyers not on Bluesky for being guest speakers & for everyone we read!

I love the abstraction of the "AI" bubble popping. But the very probable effects haunt me. Desire to Pop

My speaker notes & slides from today's panel on 'Resisting GenAI & Big Tech in Higher Education', co-organised with the Climate Justice Universities Union (CJUU). The full recording, slides and resources will be available soon via the CJUU site. danmcquillan.org/resisting_ge...

In the new TMK, we chat with @beccamonteleone.bsky.social about her new book—the Double Bind of Disability—on the politics of disability, technology, and the production of knowledge/power over people's bodies. Becca lays out how to think (critically) about disability. soundcloud.com/thismachinek...

Everybody's trying a little Enron these days

When the Government Doesn't Want You Reporting on ICE A conversation with Chicago Tribune reporter @lauranrodriguez.bsky.social about covering ‘Operation Midway Blitz’ and staying rooted in community

Im not owned! Dont put it in the newspaper that I got owned!

if we want to use tobacco & opioid firms as examples, the real mistake was that we did not draw enough blood. we have to come away with some scalps this time, not More Transparency. they will simply manufacture doubt just like tobacco & opioid firms did.

"In writing this article, I realized that I could endlessly tie much of our reporting on attacks on civil society and human knowledge to the force multiplier that is AI and the AI maximalist political and economic project." www.404media.co/ai-is-superc...

In an effort to win this contest, China is building hegemony by exporting not just its green products but also in a structural shift exporting its technology, engineering, supply chains, and financing. phenomenalworld.org/analysis/bri... www.ft.com/content/e517...

@edzitron.com been warning about it even longer, put me on to it in fact

Wrote about digitally cloning your loved ones, immortality, death cults, and Silicon Valley. Plus: an old essay on Russian Cosmism and its perversion by today’s accelerationists. thetechbubble.substack.com/p/silicon-va...

I do, of course, have a paragraph from "Why We Fear AI" for this

Here’s one of me and the reading gang. @attackerman.bsky.social @kylietcheung.bsky.social @graceroso.bsky.social @edwardongwesojr.com

Exclusive: Based on documents viewed by this newsletter, OpenAI spent over $12.4 billion on inference from 2024 to September 2025. As part of its Microsoft revenue share, it sent $493.8m in 2024/$865.8m Jan-Sep 2025, implying lower revenues than previously reported. www.wheresyoured.at/oai_docs/

It's entirely fitting that one of the first big AI-generated music producers is a Deloitte consultant.

Sharing a great new paper on VC from David Kampmann, LSE really leading the way on the new critical scholarship on VC @jathansadowski.com @mrshoward.bsky.social @edwardongwesojr.com @parismarx.com @profhilaryallen.bsky.social @jacobsilverman.com academic.oup.com/ser/advance-...

NEW YORK CITY: I hear you're in a celebratory mood over there. Well how would you like to use some of that energy to help dismantle big tech? Join me, @parismarx.com, @edwardongwesojr.com, @jathansadowski.com, @veenadubal.bsky.social, and special guests for the Second NYC Luddite Tribunal.

The first African author to win the Nobel in literature, Soyinka has been an outspoken critic of governments worldwide.

Driven by a new cohort of think-tank voices, the second Trump administration is shifting toward hemispheric prioritization and managed disengagement. Our French pick of the week maps the intellectual genealogy of the "restrainers." By @rmomtaz.bsky.social et al. buff.ly/3TnNFoJ

"In less than 36 hours since we announced that we will be sending payments to disabled SNAP recipients in the South—$100 to individuals and $250 to households—we have received more than 12,400 applications, totaling $2.7 million in requests." - they have to close the form tomorrow... no way to cover

i deeply love WIRED and their reporting, but that ed zitron piece was one of the most bad faith, head scratchingly bizarre pieces i’ve ever read

Under Trump, the draconian future of homelessness policy is coming into focus: mass internment. Utah is building a 16-acre site to detain up to 1,300 homeless people inside locked "accountability centers." This is profoundly alarming. Vital reporting from @ellenbarry.bsky.social and Jason DeParle:

Nov 12 at the Francis Kite Club @orbooks.bsky.social in NYC with @kylietcheung.bsky.social @attackerman.bsky.social @graceroso.bsky.social and @edwardongwesojr.com www.eventbrite.com/e/we-had-it-...

flattening AI skepticism to such a one-dimensional state is the real position with low barriers to entry—the providence of useful idiots & dullards! thetechbubble.substack.com/p/the-phony-...

I hear there’s a new wave of Twitter people headed this way. I know we don’t talk about them much anymore, but I made a starter pack ages ago you might like if you’re into critical tech work and Luddites.

have a new piece out of defense tech with nyrb! www.nybooks.com/online/2025/...

we are going to have So Much Fun this year, are you excited? (I am!)

In the new TMK, @triofrancos.bsky.social joins us to discuss the about the many frontiers, tensions, and futures of green capitalism. We go deep into the political economy of lithium and the material infrastructures of extraction. Thea is so sharp and this is such a great conversation.

One of my favorite podcasts (This Machine Kills) has an episode with the amazing @triofrancos.bsky.social on Green Capitalism. Find it where you listen your podcasts at. Kudos to you too @jathansadowski.com & @edwardongwesojr.com for the thoughtful discussion!