In the new TMK Premium, we offer projections for the year to come in tech. What might happen with our big beautiful bubble of overinflated assets, overinvested infrastructure, and overhyped technology? teaser: soundcloud.com/thismachinek... full episode: www.patreon.com/posts/147028...

Great to have @jathansadowski.com and @bcmerchant.bsky.social back on the show to break down the year in tech with me! The conversation also veered into other areas… like Scooby Doo 😅

Closing out my 2025 reading with a bang(er) from @jathansadowski.com

In the new TMK, we're joined by @abenanav.bsky.social for a deep dive into his essays laying out a detailed vision for a world beyond capitalism. Sit back and enjoy — holiday listening doesn't get much better than this. Part 2 is out in a couple weeks. soundcloud.com/thismachinek...

In the new TMK, we're joined by @abenanav.bsky.social for a deep dive into his essays laying out a detailed vision for a world beyond capitalism. Sit back and enjoy — holiday listening doesn't get much better than this. Part 2 is out in a couple weeks. soundcloud.com/thismachinek...

15. @jathansadowski.com is a senior lecturer at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia; co-host of This Machine Kills, a weekly podcast on technology and political economy; and author of The Mechanic and the Luddite: A Ruthless Criticism of Technology and Capitalism.

For many, the end of the year is an opportunity to catch up on reading or to purchase books as gifts. In 2025, a number of authors joined the Tech Policy Press podcast, providing fresh insights into how technology interacts with people, politics, and power. Check out the list:

Great, long article in Zeit about Neo-Luddism and our Luddite Tribunal in Brooklyn last month. This piece really sets the scene and includes some choice quotes from me and @bcmerchant.bsky.social. Love to see such a sympathetic discussion of Luddism in a major newspaper. www.zeit.de/kultur/2025-...

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

In the new TMK Premium, we go through a number of moral panics about technology — vaping in schools, porn consumption online, social media use by teens — and break down how all the panic-induced reactions ignore the real problems at hand. full episode: www.patreon.com/posts/146101... teaser:

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...

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...

In the new TMK, we discus the Council of Neo-Nicaea and then get into an incredibly harrowing story of abusive practices at Alpha School, charter schools structured around a personalized form of AI authoritarianism. soundcloud.com/thismachinek...

can't stop watching this clip of a tesla Optimus teleoperator taking his headset off before properly logging out the robot

I've been thinking about disability and vulnerability in urban food systems recently and just caught up with this gem. For what is a very rich discussion this was also a fantastic primer for anyone thinking about disability. Highly recommend.

In terms of what’s understood to be socially acceptable behavior, normalizing the filming/taking pictures of people in public who are minding their own business (and putting it online) is one of the worst developments of the past 15 years.

"blicked by a cutie patootie" is a new contender for most beautiful phrase in English

In the new TMK Premium, we learn about the paranoid delusions of a man, Alex Karp, being sacrificed by the new pagans of a global woke religion. If you spend enough time targeting individuals, eventually you too will become a targeted individual. full episode: www.patreon.com/posts/144931... teaser:

Yet another prime case of Potemkin AI. I hate seeing an “AI notetaker” in a zoom call recording everything. In some cases, these notetakers were literally just a guy writing everything down. We too often see vaporous hype leading to the credulous embrace of fraudulent systems.

Yet another prime case of Potemkin AI. I hate seeing an “AI notetaker” in a zoom call recording everything. In some cases, these notetakers were literally just a guy writing everything down. We too often see vaporous hype leading to the credulous embrace of fraudulent systems.

Last night I took part in yet another excellent Luddite Tribunal, this time organized by librarians at a public library, where we put technologies on trial with a very fun, engaged crowd. Today It’s my birthday, so please go smash an infernal machine in my honor. 🛠️

Three years ago I emailed Jathan in response to a PhD call-out. Now I’m two years in (to a different project because I waited too long and missed the opportunity - don’t be like me! send the email!) and it’s been great. Jathan is a wonderful supervisor and this project is both cool and important

my number one piece of advice to people wanting to do a PhD is to pick a topic that makes you so. fucking. angry. truly incredible the level of motivation that unbridled rage can provide

terrific project (and great city) for PhD applicants in climate governance and political economy!

Call for PhD Student! I'm recruiting a PhD student to work with me on a project related to my Future Fellowship at Monash University on the political economy of insurance, risk technology, climate governance, and the crisis of uninsurability. Here's the overview of my fellowship.

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...

In the new TMK Premium, we chat about the New Luddism Conference and Luddite Tribunal in NYC, plus get into the deeply sinophobic China envy that motivates the liberal abundance wonks and prevents them from embracing the light of Luddism. full episode: www.patreon.com/posts/143964... teaser:

do you resent playing AI detective online??? does it make you so, so annoyed to spend time looking for generative AI red flags? me too!!! my latest piece for the guardian is for those of us who are fed! up!

"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 the new TMK, we chat with folks from Amazon Employees for Climate Justice about their campaign to build solidarity among workers, confront the impacts of AI, apply pressure on corporate leadership, and agitate for socio-environmental justice at Amazon and beyond. soundcloud.com/thismachinek...

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.

In the new TMK Premium, we discuss the massive layoffs at Amazon and Meta, and how tech companies are gutting their labor force to sustain (in the short term) their over-leveraged, over-investment into capital expenditure for AI infrastructure. full episode: www.patreon.com/posts/142935... teaser:

The fact that people still respond to Chotiner's requests for interviews is proof that the Dunning Kruger Effect is rampant in politics and beyond. Each person who says yes thinks they are special and will not be made a fool. Some people are correct, but many vastly overestimate their capability.

In the new TMK, I chat with @alybatt.bsky.social about her excellent new book — Free Gifts: Capitalism and the Politics of Nature — and we get into capitalism’s strange relationship to the natural world: one defined by brutal extraction but also strategic neglect. www.patreon.com/posts/142206...

GenAI has never saved anyone any money, nor made them more productive. Companies like Klarna and Duolingo are hiring back the people they laid off in their AI fever; others are hiring expensive consultants to patch up AI botch jobs. But sure, EA will be the first ever company to make it work.

Melbourne folks! I'm going to be part of a Luddite Tribunal organised by the Brunswick Library — you gotta love public libraries and their critical workers — on November 27th at 6:30pm. I'll be joined by Lizzie O'Shea; it'll be a ton of fun! Free registration: www.eventbrite.com.au/e/the-luddit...

2(ish) weeks until the New York launch of Witch Power! So excited for this one!! Here's the link to register: www.eventbrite.com/e/witch-powe...

Melbourne folks! I'm going to be part of a Luddite Tribunal organised by the Brunswick Library — you gotta love public libraries and their critical workers — on November 27th at 6:30pm. I'll be joined by Lizzie O'Shea; it'll be a ton of fun! Free registration: www.eventbrite.com.au/e/the-luddit...

Just in time for Halloween, our @asapjournal.bsky.social cluster on Algorithms and the Occult is out! 👻 Featuring @emmaquilty.bsky.social, @aketchum22.bsky.social, @xrw.bsky.social, @drs.bsky.social, @serife.bsky.social, @thechristinet.bsky.social, @jessrauchberg.bsky.social, and more!

In the new TMK Premium, we engage in an exegesis of Peter Thiel’s deeply scholastic interpretation of the biblical revelations contained within One Piece—plus some choice bits from his Antichrist lecture series. • teaser: soundcloud.com/thismachinek... • full episode: www.patreon.com/posts/141761...

Oh damn, Kohei Saito has entered into the techno-feudalism debate and his argument aligns with what me and @bigblackjacobin have been saying for a long time: Stop saying techno-feudalism, this is called rentier capitalism, and it's the basis for techno-fascism. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

This is a disingenuous / bad faith or stupid / bullshit claim not a serious position. There are experts across Silicon Valley and Wall Street—the two places that “rock star” economist Justin Wolfers respects—who are very skeptical of AI and critical of the obviously ouroboros-like bubble.

@jacobsilverman.com spotted at the State Library of Victoria bookshop in Melbourne!

Brooklyn folks! Come to the launch at Hive Mind Books in Bushwick on November 7th for my lovely wife @emmaquilty.bsky.social's new book WITCH POWER. Emma is a feminist anthropologist whose book offers a captivating, critical, and deeply personal analysis of the witch as a cultural figure.

Sora flopping, bleeding cash on pro subscriptions, lawsuits left and right accusing the company of inventing the emotional torment nexus, age verification lobby with a stranglehold on the adult internet... pivoting to porn is masterful gambit www.404media.co/chatgpt-erot...

In the new TMK, I'm joined by @lalehkhalili.bsky.social to discuss her new book, Extractive Capitalism, about the great many foot soldiers, systems and circuits of extraction that are essential to capitalism—from sand smugglers to management consultants, and much more www.patreon.com/posts/141154...

one thing LLMs have revealed is that the belief that there is a magical incantation that will give you what you want is not just confined to pick-up artists and freemen on the land

In the new TMK Premium, we trace how the sprawling networks of data capture built to funnel profits through the adtech ecosystem and platform economy are also powering an exterminationist techno-politics carried out by fascist agencies and their corporate collaborators. Oops!