This Machine Kills

We cruise through recent stories about how our surveillance society continues developing. We’ve got biometric fingerprint scanners to enter the bathrooms at a high school ••• police have decided the h...

19 Sep 20228min

We are joined by Justin Roczniak—of the excellent engineering disasters podcast, Well There’s Your Problem—to talk about the potential freight rail strike that has been brewing for a long time and nea...

16 Sep 20221h 25min

We discuss a powerful new essay on the multiple violences – domestic, data, administrative, racial – wrought by the state family police, aka “child protective services,” which uses an array of tools t...

14 Sep 20227min

We get an update on Jathan’s journey into the heart of darkness as he returns to suburban America after a four years absence – a stranger in a strange homeland. Riffs and distractions ensue until we e...

9 Sep 20221h 14min

We discuss a great new essay from Noah Kulwin that situates the modern crypto grift economy as a reincarnation of the Savings and Loans Crisis of the 80s – as a way of arguing for a longer view of the...

6 Sep 20225min

We discuss a new startup doing the rounds called Sanas that uses AI “accent translation” to make "non-white" call center workers speak English with a white American accent. This is some real retro thr...

2 Sep 20221h 6min

We talk about the booming market for – and community organizing against – landlord technologies that use invasive surveillance to terrorize tenants and automate evictions. In addition to discussing th...

30 Aug 20225min

We are joined by Dan McQuillan to discuss his great new book Resisting AI. As Jathan wrote in a blurb for the book: “With analytical and moral clarity, McQuillan makes the case for recognising the rad...

26 Aug 20221h 29min