Paris Marx is joined by Julia Black to discuss who Curtis Yarvin is and how his anti-democratic, far-right writings have influenced the politics of Silicon Valley and the wider American extreme right.

Julia Black is a features reporter on The Information’s Weekend Team.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.

The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.

Also mentioned in this episode:

• Julia wrote about Curtis Yarvin and his ideas for The Information. She also wrote about the Musk-aligned tech CEOs trying to shape how we think about the future.
• Paris wrote about Marc Andreessen’s Techno-Optimist Manifesto.
• The Dark Enlightenment is an anti-democratic, anti-egalitarian political project.
• Gil Duran wrote about the Reboot Conference and how it put the connections between the tech industry and the Heritage Foundation on display.
• Peter Thiel wanted Balaji Srinivasan to become head of the Federal Drug Administration under the Trump presidency.
• According to Nick Land, hyperstition refers to ideas that bring themselves into being.

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As hyperscale data centers move into communities, they come with significant water and energy demands that some are not willing to put up with. We go to Ireland, Spain, and Chile to learn about the effects of data centers on the ground and why some communities are fighting back. They’re asking whether the tradeoffs they’re being expected to make are really necessary. This is episode 2 of Data Vampires, a special four-part series from Tech Won’t Save Us.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.

The show is hosted by Paris Marx. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.

Also mentioned in this episode:

• People Before Profit TD Brid Smith, Tu Nube Seca Mi Río organizer Aurora Gomez Delgado, and King’s College London lecturer Sebastian Leuede were interviewed for this episode.
• Some pieces by Dara Kerr in NPR, Sarah Emerson and Emily Baker-White in Forbes, and Hannah Daly in The Irish Times were cited.
• A full transcript can be found on the show’s official website.

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Paris Marx is joined by Spencer Ackerman to discuss the past year of Israel's actions in Palestine and the innovations in war technology being used to carry out what the ICJ has deemed a "plausible" genocide in Gaza.

Spencer Ackerman is a Pulitzer-prize winning author of Reign of Terror. He’s a contributor at Zeteo and publishes the Forever Wars newsletter. He’s also writing a new series of Iron Man comics that come out very soon.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.

The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.

Also mentioned in this episode:

• Spencer wrote a piece marking a year since October 7 for Zeteo. He’s also written about the Lebanon pager attack and Israel’s innovation with quadcopters.
• Yuval Abraham has written about the use of AI in Gaza and how Israel is relying on US cloud companies for military purposes.
• Roberto González wrote a paper about the links between Silicon Valley and the military-industrial complex.

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