Novara FM: Luddites, Hackers, Saboteurs
'To be a good Marxist is to be a Luddite.' Gavin Mueller joins James Butler to explore rebellions against technology and the seductions of technological thought.
Tag: technology
Analysis: No, Benefit Claimants Still Aren’t Exploiting the System
Josh Gabert-Doyon
The digitisation of Universal Credit is reinforcing old prejudices about benefit fraud, fuelling a new moral panic. Josh Gabert Doyon explains what's actually going on.
Opinion: The Rapid Development of Covid Vaccines Shows How Healthcare Will Completely Change. But Who Will Benefit?
Aaron Bastani
The scientific response to Covid-19 illustrates humanity’s immense capacity for problem-solving, writes Aaron Bastani. But in order for us all to benefit from new healthcare technologies, we must dismantle an economic system that is holding us back.
Report: The Lawyers Leading the UK’s Fight Against Unjust Algorithms
Josh Gabert-Doyon
Foxglove, a small law firm in London, has reshaped the conversation over tech regulation in the UK over the course of just a few months. Josh Gabert-Doyon speaks to Cori Crider and Martha Dark who started the firm, about holding big tech to account.
Downstream: Can Lab-Grown Meat Save the World? Aaron Bastani Meets Michael Selden
On this week’s Downstream, Aaron Bastani meets Mike Selden, co-founder of Finless Foods - a cellular agriculture business in California - to find out whether lab-grown meat can live up to the hype.
The Bastani Factor: Control, Power and Resistance in the 21st Century. Interview With Cory Doctorow
What is the relationship between technology, society and politics? Is the former merely a tool for social control, or can it also open up new vistas of possibility and freedom? How can one become the other, and what does resistance look like in a world where culture, and digital culture, are increasingly constitutive of one […]
Opinion: The TikTok Saga Shows How the Internet and Technology Are Political
Aaron Bastani
The TikTok and Huawei stories distill how China’s rise is not solely economic and political, argues Aaron Bastani. For the first time in 250 years, an Asian power is vying for long-term technological leadership with the West.
Opinion: How Big Tech Helped Cities Become an Incubator for the Greatest Currency of Our Age: Loneliness
Sophie McKay
Technology and cities are making us lonelier than ever, writes journalist Sophie McKay, giving opportunistic new businesses the chance to sell us innovative, expensive and ultimately empty solutions to a perfectly normal emotion.
The Left Must Embrace the Radical Potential of Technology – Or Face Political Defeat
Aaron Bastani
While mainstream thinking today seeks to separate questions of technology from politics, the left has a long history - from Marx onwards - of visionary thinking about the radical potential of technology. For the left to ignore this potential at our present moment of multiple crises would lay the foundation for political defeat, argues Aaron Bastani.
Novara FM: Clear Bright Future: Paul Mason on Radical Humanism
James Butler is joined by Paul Mason to discuss his new book, Clear Bright Future. In a time of political repression and looming technological dystopia, can resistance be found in a renewed understanding of humanity itself?
Are You Gonna Go Huawei? 5G and the Rise of AI Nationalism
James Meadway
The recent row over the future of 5G in Britain has shone a spotlight on Huawei, and it's no coincidence questions concerning technology are underpinning the US-China trade dispute. James Meadway explains what debates over 5G and artificial intelligence ought to tell us about the state of global capitalism.
Novara FM: After Work?
James Butler is joined by Will Stronge, director of the think tank Autonomy, to discuss the future of work.
Novara FM: Extinction Rebellion? George Monbiot on the Politics of Climate Change
On #NovaraFM, James Butler is joined by George Monbiot to discuss the launch of Extinction Rebellion, and the politics of the climate movement.
Forget Surveillance Capitalism – It’s Time to Build a Digital Commons
Mathew Lawrence
To build a future of shared digital plenty we need to transform and democratise the ownership of data and technological infrastructure, argues Mat Lawrence.
Novara FM: Vijay Prashad: Neoliberalism, Global Capital & the Indian Left
In a #NovaraFM special from TWT, James Butler is joined by Vijay Prashad to discuss neoliberalism, the transformations of global capitalism and the Indian Left.
Novara FM: A New Dark Age?
On #NovaraFM, James Butler is joined by James Bridle, to discuss the politics of technology, silicon prometheanism, how to think about the present – and why nothing seemed to happen after the Snowden leaks.
Now is the Time for Worker Power in the Tech Industry
Wendy Liu
Among the upper echelons of the tech industry there is strong hostility to the idea of organised labour. But the tech sector is too important to cede control of it to capital, and lately there have been more and more reasons why tech workers need to build collective power, writes Wendy Liu.
The Chilling Future of Artificial Intelligence in the Workplace
RJ Quinn
Increasing use of artificial intelligence in the workplace is forcing people to police themselves more than ever, argues RJ Quinn.