This Machine Kills

We melt our brains discussing two reality tv shows that are taking copaganda to the next level. First up is Ring Nation, a new show produced by Amazon-owned MGM Studios that’s like America’s Funniest ...

15 Aug 20226min

Based on Amazon’s recent acquisitions of One Medical and iRobot—just the latest in a shopping spree of vertical integration—we analyze how these seemingly disparate things all plug into Amazon’s broad...

11 Aug 20221h 17min

Ed is joined by reporter Noah Lanard to talk about his recent profile of Peter Thiel’s apostle: Blake Masters. We track the origins and development of his ideology: from his childhood flirtation with ...

7 Aug 20224min

We dig into a convoluted and confused scheme for people selling shares in their future to venture capitalists, which pushes logics of hyper-financialization in even more perverse directions—all propos...

5 Aug 20221h 6min

At long last, we dive into the last chapter of The Dawn of Everything by Graeber and Wengrow. We reflect on this odyssey of a book, pulling out its major themes, discussing the baseline freedoms that ...

31 Jul 20225min

We are joined by Jörg Tittel, creator of the new video game The Last Worker, which is part social satire, part interactive narrative, part adventure game. We discuss the ideas, story, design, and prod...

27 Jul 20221h 3min

Now it’s time to get into the real analysis of fintech as laid out by Saule Omarova’s work. We walk through the dominant regulatory approach to financial markets that came from the New Deal; how the 1...

24 Jul 20224min

We set up and begin discussing a paper that can be described as a Rosetta Stone for how to analyze the development, logics, mechanics, and impacts of fintech innovations from the 1980s onward — and th...

21 Jul 20221h 6min