📣 💥NEW PTO EXTRA 📣 💥 @leninology.bsky.social puts some excellent listener questions to @redandinexpert.bsky.social in this one-time-only, never-to-be-repeated switcheroo instalment of Interregnum:

I promise this person is not my sock puppet account.

Found this conversation critiquing Spotify really interesting. Some interesting suggestions on how to lessen reliability on Spotify and other big streaming platforms near the end of the episode. I do stream music so not a saint regarding all this

This dialogue exposes how Spotify’s algorithms shape listening habits, erode community, and hollow out music’s cultural connection. Yet, resistance is growing as musicians and listeners imagine alternatives to this monopoly. With @lizpelly.bsky.social on @poltheoryother.bsky.social

Really damn good listen and you should subscribe to PTO too btw, so great

I think one of the reasons why it's tougher to reckon with the failures of COP30 than previous recent COPs is the high expectations that things could be radically different in the Amazon and with Global South left leadership- which overshadowed how bad is climate-class struggle on the periphery.

Listen to the full episode here: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/c...

From the latest episode - @sabrinafernandes.com on the "class conciliation" politics of Lula and the PT - that sees Brazil's domestic capitalist class as genuinely concerned with the well-being of the nation:

"One sometimes hears the Monroe Doctrine invoked in regard Trump’s hemispheric policies, but this is really not your grandfather’s Monroe Doctrine... It is a contradictory mess, inadequate to its own concept..." - @leninology.bsky.social www.patreon.com/posts/145307...

This episode of @poltheoryother.bsky.social is so good but in my mind so so so depressing of our future...everything sounds to me so so so bleak! pca.st/episode/3015...

📻 Sunday listening 📻- @sabrinafernandes.com on the disappointing outcomes of #COP30 and Lula's politics of class conciliation, that seeks to achieve climate and environmental goals whilst placating agri-business and mining interests:

📻 Weekend listening 📻 - @sabrinafernandes.com on the disappointing outcomes of #COP30 and Lula's politics of class conciliation, that seeks to achieve climate and environmental goals whilst placating agri-business and mining interests:

So… big news. (Keep reading.)

Listen to the full episode here: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/c...

As with IAMs, overshoot and carbon removal, geoengineering scenarios are inherently political: "There are these deep contradictions in the sense that almost nobody who is working on studying geoengineering from a scientific perspective really recommends it, and every scientific paper about...

The COP system has reached peak liberal capitalism: we'll let social movements in, but private capital will be there in even higher numbers. Record high, actually. But we still wonder why the end results every year are a few meager victories amidst gigantic delays and strong denialism?

"This was the excuse coming from the COP30 presidency: 'We invited a lot of people from the private sector, but we also had record numbers of indigenous people attending...' But what kind of inclusion is that?" - @sabrinafernandes.com on the presence of industry lobbyists at #COP30.

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📢🇧🇷NEW EPISODE📢🇧🇷 @sabrinafernandes.com on the disappointing outcomes of #COP30 and Lula's politics of class conciliation, that seeks to achieve climate and environmental goals whilst placating agri-business and mining interests:

this is a great, if depressing, discussion. Need to read the book.

Heather, if you listen to last week's excellent Politics Theory Other podcast about the history & strategy of Spotify, you'll want to find an alternative - and quickly, and rightly.

Thanks to @the-syllabus.bsky.social for picking the recent PTO episode with Liz Pelly (on her brilliant book about Spotify) as one of their podcasts of the week. The Syllabus is an amazing non-profit content curation service: www.the-syllabus.com

📻 Sunday listening 📻 Liz Pelly joins PTO to talk all things Spotify. We spoke about the self-serving myths Spotify's founders have peddled about the history of the company, how the platform impacts musicians, and its insidious consequences for music listening:

📻 Weekend listening 📻 Liz Pelly joins PTO to talk all things Spotify. We spoke about the self-serving myths Spotify's founders have peddled about the history of the company, how the platform impacts musicians, and its insidious consequences for music listening:

Saving to peruse later (It's inside baseball for the tech industry, but I want someone to talk about the "Spotify model" as another curse that the company has wished on us.)

@spotify is fucking evil.

ICYMI - Liz Pelly on the self-serving myths Spotify's founders have peddled about the history of the company, how the platform negatively impacts musicians, and how Spotify manipulates the listening habits of users:

reposting so i remember to listen

Good news from Mexico: The government will: "incrementally trim the working week from 48 hours a week to 40 hours per week by 2030. If passed, the official working week limit would be reduced two hours a year starting in 2027" www.independent.co.uk/news/world/a...

1) Putting this out on Spotify wrapped day is top drawer leftist killjoy behaviour, respect 2) Ok I'll start biting the bullet, anyone tried the bandcamp alternatives mentioned here / UK library streaming services?

Really interesting discussion for Spotify Wrapped day 😬

📢💥 Spotify unwrapped 📢💥 - Liz Pelly on the self-serving myths Spotify's founders have peddled about the history of the company, how the platform negatively impacts musicians, and how Spotify manipulates the listening habits of users: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/s...

Spotify doesn't respect artists or music lovers.

Great ep

Looking forward to listening to PTO (as ever)

📢💥NEW EPISODE 📢💥 @lizpelly.bsky.social joins PTO to talk all things Spotify. We spoke about the self-serving myths Spotify's founders have peddled about the history of the company, how the platform impacts musicians, and its insidious consequences for music listening.

[on a prospective Andy Burnham Labour leadership] ‘I don’t think that would be even close enough to save Labour’s hide…Everytime you get a soft left leader of the Labour Party they get absolutely crucified by the rw press and they move to the right anyway’ 100% agree!

ICYMI - @leninology.bsky.social responds to listener questions on the proliferation of AI generated content, the prospects for the Green Party, Sahra Wagenknecht stepping down as leader of the BSW in Germany - and what her political legacy consists of...

100%

"There's a kind of deliberate dressing up in the regalia, and the attitudes of fascism as they - in their blithe and cynical way - pave the way for an actual fascist kind of administration." - @leninology.bsky.social on the Starmer government's announcements on asylum policy:

"If it sounds like it's Nazi shit, it's supposed to. The bourgeois state and its political servants have for some time now been trying to get a bit of the glamour of fascism." [email protected] on Labour's asylum policy announcement:

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The "social factory" as descriptive metaphor for contemporary capitalism disappeared almost as soon as it was uttered. Extraction has since been far more explanatory. So, to read:

📢💥NEW PTO EXTRA 📢💥 - @leninology.bsky.social responds to listener questions on the proliferation of AI generated content, the prospects for the Green Party, Sahra Wagenknecht stepping down as leader of the BSW in Germany - and what her political legacy consists of...

So it's funny that David Keith was the name referenced by Bill Gates here, bc this REALLY GOOD @poltheoryother.bsky.social podcast episode includes a bunch of detail on Gates + Keith's geoengineering efforts pca.st/episode/fa6c...

fantastic interview on the history, state of research, and problems with geoengineering. Very much in line with my writing on SRM

“New Yorkers allowed themselves to hope that the impossible could be made possible.” --Zohran Mamdani For @hammerandhope.bsky.social I wrote about what comes next. hammerandhope.org/article/mamd...

📻 Sunday listening 📻 - Alexander Gallas on popular support for the Thatcher governments of the 1980s, Thatcherism as a "two-nations hegemonic project" and the debates between Stuart Hall and Bob Jessop on how to make sense of Thatcherism: