The Anti-Dystopians

Engineering Territory: Silicon Valley in Space Dec 07, 2023

On this episode of the Anti-Dystopians, your usual host is in the hot seat! Guest host Benjamin Tan, PhD Candidate at Cambridge, asks Alina Utrata about her recent publication in the American Political Science Review about Silicon Valley's outer space colonization projects. They discuss what Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are up to in space, why terrestrial and celestial colonization are not as different as they may seem, what the history of the British East India Company can tell us about SpaceX and Blue Origin, and why indigenous conceptions of property can problematize sovereignty and territoriality and the way we think about political power and rule today.

For a complete reading list from the episode, check out the Anti-Dystopians substack at bit.ly/3kuGM5X.

You can follow Alina Utrata on Twitter @alinautrata and the Anti-Dystopians podcast @AntiDystopians.

All episodes of the Anti-Dystopians are hosted and produced by Alina Utrata and are freely available to all listeners. To support the production of the show, subscribe to the newsletter at bit.ly/3kuGM5X.

Nowhere Land by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4148-nowhere-land

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Digital Misogynoir Sep 18, 2023

In this episode of the Anti-Dystopians, Alina Utrata speaks with Julia Slupska, Olivia Andrews and Hilary Watson about a recent report by Glitch UK entitled "Digital Misogynoir: Ending the dehumanising of Black women on social media." They discuss why Black women are uniquely targeted and harmed online, the importance of centering intersectionality in discussing digital harms, the difficulties of conducting (and finding funding) for this kind of research and why Glitch is calling on tech companies, governments and civil societies to address these issues.

For a complete reading list from the episode, check out the Anti-Dystopians substack at bit.ly/3kuGM5X.

You can follow Alina Utrata on Twitter @alinautrata and the Anti-Dystopians podcast @AntiDystopians.

All episodes of the Anti-Dystopians are hosted and produced by Alina Utrata and are freely available to all listeners. To support the production of the show, subscribe to the newsletter at bit.ly/3kuGM5X.

Nowhere Land by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4148-nowhere-land

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Political Economy, AI and the Politics of Knowledge Aug 28, 2023

For this episode of the Anti-Dystopians, Alina Utrata spoke with Catriona Gray, a PhD at the University of Bath working at the intersection of sociology, politics, and law on the adoption of AI technologies. They discussed the political economy of data and whether frameworks like ‘data is the new oil’ are helpful to understanding these relationships; what is new about the technological structures or dynamics that have been created today; thinking about the inequities between the Global North and the Global South, and how these relates to existing and historical relationships; and the implementation and conceptualization of AI regulation in governments and beyond.

For a complete reading list from the episode, check out the Anti-Dystopians substack at bit.ly/3kuGM5X.

You can follow Alina Utrata on Twitter @alinautrata and the Anti-Dystopians podcast @AntiDystopians.

All episodes of the Anti-Dystopians are hosted and produced by Alina Utrata and are freely available to all listeners. To support the production of the show, subscribe to the newsletter at bit.ly/3kuGM5X.

Nowhere Land by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4148-nowhere-land

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

"Automating Apartheid": Facial Recognition Tech in Palestine Aug 21, 2023

For this episode of the Anti-Dystopians, Alina Utrata talks to Dr Matt Mahmoudi, the lead researcher on the Amnesty International report "Automating Apartheid" examining the deployment of facial recognition technology in Palestine. They discuss the report's findings, including how this facial recognition technology is being deployed against Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and consolidates existing practices of discriminatory policing; why these systems have been 'gamified' and how they connect to other infrastructures and databases; how this is affecting Palestinians’ lives; and whether existing CCTV systems in other settings — including London — could be repurposed for similar kinds of militarized policing.

For a complete reading list from the episode, check out the Anti-Dystopians substack at bit.ly/3kuGM5X.

You can follow Alina Utrata on Twitter @alinautrata and the Anti-Dystopians podcast @AntiDystopians.

All episodes of the Anti-Dystopians are hosted and produced by Alina Utrata and are freely available to all listeners. To support the production of the show, subscribe to the newsletter at bit.ly/3kuGM5X.

Nowhere Land by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4148-nowhere-land

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Data colonialism and its discontents Apr 10, 2023

On this week’s episode of The Anti-Dystopians, Alina Utrata spoke to Paola Ricurate, an associate professor in the Department of Media and Digital Culture at Tecnológico de Monterrey and faculty associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University and the co-founder of the Tierra Comun Network, and Sebastián Leheude, a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Centre of Governance and Human Rights and a Technology & Human Rights Fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights at Harvard University. They discussed Paola and Sebastian’s work on data colonialism, decoloniality and feminism and Latin America. What is the connection between historic forms of colonialism and what technology infrastructures are being built now? Why are tech companies building data centers (and swimming pools) in the desert? How are local communities resisting these infrastructures and what are alternative ways of imagining our future?

For a complete reading list from the episode, check out the Anti-Dystopians substack at bit.ly/3kuGM5X.

You can follow Alina Utrata on Twitter @alinautrata and the Anti-Dystopians podcast @AntiDystopians.

All episodes of the Anti-Dystopians are hosted and produced by Alina Utrata and are freely available to all listeners. To support the production of the show, subscribe to the newsletter at bit.ly/3kuGM5X.

Nowhere Land by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4148-nowhere-land

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Feminism, Reproductive Rights and Tech Apr 03, 2023

On this episode of the Anti-Dystopians, Maha Atal is back to discuss feminism, reproductive rights and technology. Host Alina Utrata asks her: how has the legal landscape of abortion and reproductive rights changed since the overturning of Roe v Wade, and what are technology companies doing about it? Does your GP know who their cloud computing provider is (and do they have access to your sensitive health data)? How do the US and UK feminist movements differ? And why is feminism, gender and the right to bodily autonomy on the frontline against fighting fascism today?

For a complete reading list from the episode, check out the Anti-Dystopians substack at bit.ly/3kuGM5X.

You can follow Alina Utrata on Twitter @alinautrata and the Anti-Dystopians podcast @AntiDystopians.

All episodes of the Anti-Dystopians are hosted and produced by Alina Utrata and are freely available to all listeners. To support the production of the show, subscribe to the newsletter at bit.ly/3kuGM5X.

Nowhere Land by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4148-nowhere-land

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Astrotopia: The Dangerous Religion of the Corporate Space Race Dec 19, 2022

In this episode, Alina Utrata talks Mary-Jane Rubenstein, a professor of Religion and Science in Society at Wesleyan University and the author of the new book Astrotopia: The Dangerous Religion of the Corporate Space Race. They discuss whether Elon Musk acts like a religious leader, how imperial Christianity set the stage for capitalism, the ways science fiction has acted as a mythology for space expansionists, and the history of a Nazi rocket scientist turned Christian evangelical partnered with Disney to promote the new Manifest Destiny of the stars.

For a complete reading list from the episode, check out the Anti-Dystopians substack at bit.ly/3kuGM5X.

You can follow Alina Utrata on Twitter @alinautrata and the Anti-Dystopians podcast @AntiDystopians.

All episodes of the Anti-Dystopians are hosted and produced by Alina Utrata and are freely available to all listeners. To support the production of the show, subscribe to the newsletter at bit.ly/3kuGM5X.

Nowhere Land by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4148-nowhere-land

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A History of Libertarian Exit Nov 21, 2022

In this episode, Alina Utrata talks to Raymond Craib, professor of American History and a Latin Americanist at Cornell University, about his most recent book Adventure Capitalism, A History of Libertarian Exit from the Era of Decolonization to the Digital Age.They discuss the history of libertarian exit and the case of Michael Oliver's Republic of Minerva, why these exit projects seem to have found a new life among tech elites and if Silicon Valley will really be able to cede from the nation-state, whether libertarian exit resembles classic colonialism and the impacts these projects have on the places they attempt to build their new nations.

For a complete reading list from the episode, check out the Anti-Dystopians substack at bit.ly/3kuGM5X.

You can follow Raymond Craib on Twitter @raycraib, Alina Utrata @alinautrata and the Anti-Dystopians podcast @AntiDystopians.

All episodes of the Anti-Dystopians are hosted and produced by Alina Utrata and are freely available to all listeners. To support the production of the show, subscribe to the newsletter at bit.ly/3kuGM5X.

Nowhere Land by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4148-nowhere-land

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Elon Musk’s favorite philosophy: the perils of longtermism Nov 07, 2022

On this episode of the podcast, Alina Utrata speaks with Emile Torres, a PhD candidate at Leibniz University Hannover and the author of the forthcoming book Human Extinction: A history of the Science and Ethics of Annihilation. They discuss their research into Elon Musk’s favorite philosophy, longtermism, and answer all your questions about the philosophy like: do longtermists really want to colonize space and create trillions of digital people? How does effective altruism, transhumanism and utilitarianism relate? Why do longtermists obsession with future people resemble the anti-abortion campaign? And are they related to the eugenicists? For all the reasons why you should be skeptical of What We Owe the Future, listen to this week’s episode of the Anti-Dystopians!

For a complete reading list from the episode, check out the Anti-Dystopians substack at bit.ly/3kuGM5X.

You can follow Emile Torres on Twitter @xriskology, Alina Utrata @alinautrata and the Anti-Dystopians podcast @AntiDystopians.

All episodes of the Anti-Dystopians are hosted and produced by Alina Utrata and are freely available to all listeners. To support the production of the show, subscribe to the newsletter at bit.ly/3kuGM5X.

Nowhere Land by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4148-nowhere-land

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Period-Tracking Post-Roe: Reproductive Justice, Eugenics & Feminist Cybersecurity Oct 27, 2022

In this episode, Alina Utrata talks to Julia Slupska, a DPhil Candidate at the Oxford Internet Institute researching feminist approaches to cybersecurity, and Stefanie Felsberger, a PhD Candidate in Gender Studies at Cambridge University studying surveillance, data capitalism and period tracking apps. They discuss whether you should be worried about your period tracking apps, how reproductive justice, eugenics and the carceral state intersect and what a feminist approach to cyber-security might look like.

For a complete reading list from the episode, check out the Anti-Dystopians substack at bit.ly/3kuGM5X.

You can follow Julia Slupska on Twitter @jayslups and Stefanie Felseberger @Flsbrgr, Alina Utrata @alinautrata and the Anti-Dystopians podcast @AntiDystopians.

All episodes of the Anti-Dystopians are hosted and produced by Alina Utrata and are freely available to all listeners. To support the production of the show, subscribe to the newsletter at bit.ly/3kuGM5X.

Nowhere Land by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4148-nowhere-land

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Anti-Fascist Approach to AI Oct 19, 2022

The Anti-Dystopians is back from its summer hiatus! In this episode, Alina Utrata talks to Dan McQuillan, a Lecturer in Creative & Social Computing in the Department of Computing at Goldsmiths University of London, about his new book “Resisting AI: An Anti-Fascist Approach to Artificial Intelligence.” They discuss how the dangers of automated bureaucracy and algorithmic cruelty, what Max Weber and Hannah Arendt can tell us about AI, whether AI might bring back eugenics in a new coat and how to resist AI and fascism across the world.

You can order Dan's book here: https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/resisting-ai

For a complete reading list from the episode, check out the Anti-Dystopians substack at bit.ly/3kuGM5X.

You can follow Dan McQuillan on Twitter @danmcquillan, Alina Utrata @alinautrata and the Anti-Dystopians podcast @AntiDystopians.

All episodes of the Anti-Dystopians are hosted and produced by Alina Utrata and are freely available to all listeners. To support the production of the show, subscribe to the newsletter at bit.ly/3kuGM5X.

Nowhere Land by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4148-nowhere-land

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Social media and political publics in Kenya Jul 25, 2022

On this episode of the Anti-Dystopians, Alina Utrata talks to Steph Diepeveen, a senior research associate at Cambridge University, research fellow in digitalization at ODI and the author of the book “Searching for a New Kenya: Politics and Social Media on the Streets of Mombasa.” They discuss the way social media use operates in Kenya, the difference between physical and digital public spaces, how Big Tech corporations’ designs affects political discourse and what we can learn about social media by looking outside the Western context.

You can order Steph's book here. For a complete reading list from the episode, check out the Anti-Dystopians substack at bit.ly/3kuGM5X.

You can follow Steph on Twitter @sdiep, Alina Utrata @alinautrata and the Anti-Dystopians podcast @AntiDystopians.

All episodes of the Anti-Dystopians are hosted and produced by Alina Utrata and are freely available to all listeners. To support the production to the show, visit our patreon at bit.ly/3mQFByq.

Nowhere Land by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4148-nowhere-land

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Platform Socialism Jul 10, 2022

Alina Utrata talks to James Muldoon, a senior lecturer at Exeter University and the author of “Platform Socialism: How to Reclaim Our Digital Future from Big Tech.” They discuss how GDH Cole’s guild socialism can be applied to tech corporations, what platforms mean for the future of capitalism, whether we should implement local and democratic control of associations and some real ideas for how to avoid dystopia.

You can order Platform Socialism here http://www.plutobooks.com/9780745346977/platform-socialism/

You can follow James Muldoon on Twitter at @james_muldoon_, Alina Utrata @alinautrata and the Anti-Dystopians podcast @AntiDystopians. Sign up for the Anti-Dystopians email newsletter at bit.ly/3kuGM5X.

All episodes of the Anti-Dystopians are hosted and produced by Alina Utrata and are freely available to all listeners. To support the production to the show, visit our patreon at bit.ly/3mQFByq.

Nowhere Land by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4148-nowhere-land

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Road to Nowhere: Paris Marx on the automobile, Silicon Valley and the future of transportation Jul 04, 2022

On this episode, Alina Utrata talks to Paris Marx, host of the podcast Tech Won’t Save Us, about their upcoming book “Road to Nowhere: What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong about the Future of Transportation.” They discuss the history of the automobile industry, how Tesla is not a “green company,” why Silicon Valley is lying to you about the self-driving car and their vision for the future of public transport.

You can order Paris’s book here.

You can follow Paris Marx on Twitter @parismarx, the Tech Won't Save Us at @techwontsaveus, Alina Utrata @alinautrata and the Anti-Dystopians podcast @AntiDystopians. Sign up for the Anti-Dystopians email newsletter at bit.ly/3kuGM5X.

All episodes of the Anti-Dystopians are hosted and produced by Alina Utrata and are freely available to all listeners. To support the production to the show, visit our patreon at bit.ly/3mQFByq.

Nowhere Land by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4148-nowhere-land

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Time, Space and Social Media: The Politics of Technology and Temporality Jun 20, 2022

Alina Utrata chats with Nanna Saeten, a PhD candidate in Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge about her research on time, temporality and technology. They discuss how technologies of time have been used as tools of nation-building, why high-frequency trading and blockchain depend on human understandings of time as well as algorithms, whether technology is really “speeding up” or changing our experience of time and how social media has changed the way we experience political events across time and space.

You can follow Nanna on Twitter @NannaLS, Alina Utrata @alinautrata and the Anti-Dystopians podcast @AntiDystopians. Sign up for the Anti-Dystopians email newsletter at bit.ly/3kuGM5X.

All episodes of the Anti-Dystopians are hosted and produced by Alina Utrata and are freely available to all listeners. To support the production to the show, visit our patreon at bit.ly/3mQFByq.

Nowhere Land by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4148-nowhere-land

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How (Not) To Regulate Big Tech (Europe’s version) May 23, 2022

On this episode of the Anti-Dystopians, Alina Utrata talks to Jennifer Cobbe, a senior research associate in the computer science department at Cambridge University. They discuss everything that’s wrong with surveillance capitalism, what the Tesco club card has to do with the surveillance state, the incoherent approach of the EU to regulating tech, how Brexit affected the UK’s ability of to control technology corporations, and how the law got us to where we are now.

You can follow Jennifer on Twitter @jennifercobbe, Alina Utrata @alinautrata and the Anti-Dystopians podcast @AntiDystopians. Sign up for the Anti-Dystopians email newsletter at bit.ly/3kuGM5X

All episodes of the Anti-Dystopians are hosted and produced by Alina Utrata and are freely available to all listeners. To support the production to the show, visit: bit.ly/3AApPN4

Articles Mentioned in this Podcast:

Jennifer Cobbe, Algorithmic Censorship by Social Platforms: Power and Resistance

Julie Cohen, Between Truth and Power: The Legal Constructions of Informational Capitalism

Evgeny Morozov, Capitalism’s New Clothes (critique of Shoshana Zuboff)

Vice, Facebook Doesn’t Know What It Does With Your Data, Or Where It Goes: Leaked Document

Nowhere Land by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4148-nowhere-land

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Elon Musk, Twitter and the ‘Great Men’ of Social Media Apr 24, 2022

Alina Utrata sits down with John Naughton, a technology columnist at the Observer, senior research fellow in CRASSH and co-founder of the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy at Cambridge, and Josh Simmons, a postdoc in technology and democracy at Harvard University. They discuss Elon Musk’s recent bid for Twitter, what it shows about the power of digital platforms and wealthy men, and how to think about the challenges of reigning in Big Tech.

You can follow, John Naughton on Twitter @jjn1, Josh Simons @joshsimonlabour, Alina Utrata @alinautrata and the Anti-Dystopians podcast @AntiDystopians. Sign up for the Anti-Dystopians email newsletter at bit.ly/3kuGM5X

All episodes of the Anti-Dystopians are hosted and produced by Alina Utrata and are freely available to all listeners. To support the production to the show, visit: bit.ly/3AApPN4

For more articles, sign up for the Anti-Dystopians email newsletter at bit.ly/3kuGM5X

Nowhere Land by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4148-nowhere-land

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

‘Corporations are Robots’: David Runciman on AI, states and the first singularity Apr 05, 2022

David Runciman is a professor of Politics at Cambridge University and the host of the critically acclaimed podcast Talking Politics. In this episode of the Anti-Dystopians, he speaks to Alina Utrata about why corporations are robots, how singularity might have already come about, why we should think seriously about the political philosophy of Silicon Valley tech entrepreneurs, and what technologies he worries about in the future.

You can follow, Alina Utrata on Twitter @alinautrata and the Anti-Dystopians podcast on @AntiDystopians. Sign up for the Anti-Dystopians email newsletter at bit.ly/3kuGM5X

All episodes of the Anti-Dystopians are hosted and produced by Alina Utrata and are freely available to all listeners. To support the production to the show, visit: bit.ly/3AApPN4

For more articles, sign up for the Anti-Dystopians email newsletter at bit.ly/3kuGM5X

Articles mentioned in this podcast

Silicon Valley’s Vampire: David Runciman on Peter Thiel

I read Dominic Cummings blog so you don’t have to: David Runciman on Dominic Cummings

Elon Musk, Sea Turtles and the dangers of long-termism

Dangerous ideas of longtermism

Nick Clegg in profile in Politico

The Evening Rocket: Jill Lepore’s podcast series on Elon Musk’s ideology

A long-read in the FT about how the US shut down Facebook’s crypto-currency

Books mentioned in this podcast:

The Subprime Attention Crisis by Tim Hwang

The Shock of the Old: Technology and Global History since 1900 by David Edgerton

Nowhere Land by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4148-nowhere-land

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Return of (Amazon) Ring Feb 21, 2022

Alina Utrata speaks with Lauren Bridges, a PhD candidate at the the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania who studies big data infrastructures and surveillance regimes. They talk all about Amazon Ring: Why does Amazon want footage of your front door anyways? How is this surveillance shared with law enforcement agencies across the country? Where does this surveillance fit in with racialized notions of crime and policing? And what happens when Amazon Ring is hacked?

You can follow Lauren Bridges on Twitter @Laurenebridges, Alina Utrata @alinautrata and the Anti-Dystopians podcast on @AntiDystopians. Sign up for the Anti-Dystopians email newsletter at bit.ly/3kuGM5X

All episodes of the Anti-Dystopians are hosted and produced by Alina Utrata and are freely available to all listeners. To support the production to the show, visit: bit.ly/3AApPN4

Articles by Lauren:

Amazon’s Ring is the largest civilian surveillance network the US has ever seen (Guardian Op-ed)

Infrastructural obfuscation: unpacking the carceral logics of the Ring surveillant assemblage (Academic Article)

Other articles:

Who is Amazon? (Anti-Dystopians Podcast)

A Black Woman Invented Home Security. Why Did It Go So Wrong? By Chris Gilliard (Wired)

The IRS Should Stop Using Facial Recognition by Joy Buolamwini (The Atlantic)

For more articles, sign up for the Anti-Dystopians email newsletter at bit.ly/3kuGM5X

Nowhere Land by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4148-nowhere-land

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Feminine Meme: Geeks, memes, incels and toxic masculinity at tech hackathons Feb 14, 2022

Alina Utrata talks to Dr Siân Brooke, a Leverhulme Fellow in the Department of Methodology at the London School of Economics and an associate at the Oxford Internet Institute and the Alan Turing Institute. They discuss gender, memes and hackathons: What exactly is a meme? Do geeks have toxic masculinity? How does gender and femininity get marginalized in tech spaces? And how do fedoras lead down the road to incels?

You can follow Siân Brooke on Twitter @SianJMBrooke, Alina Utrata @alinautrata and the Anti-Dystopians podcast on @AntiDystopians. Sign up for the Anti-Dystopians email newsletter at bit.ly/3kuGM5X

All episodes of the Anti-Dystopians are hosted and produced by Alina Utrata and are freely available to all listeners. To support the production to the show, visit: bit.ly/3AApPN4

Other articles by Siân:

Siân's Website: https://www.sianbrooke.com/
Siân's Thesis: https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:76f836bf-880b-4902-9226-8d668726f4cf
Trouble in Programmers Paradise: gender-biases in sharing and recognising technical knowledge on Stack Overflow: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369118X.2021.1962943
“There are no girls on the Internet”: Gender performances in Advice Animal memes: https://journals.uic.edu/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/9593

Further Reading

OII's Anti-Racists Annotated Bibliography: https://docs.google.com/document/d/146XaYuhUAng6rGV9mChDkvWdYIfwpSXlle1RUxUaBUE/edit?usp=sharing
Hacking Diversity by Dunbar Hester: https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691182070/hacking-diversity
Programmed Inequality by Mar Hicks: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/programmed-inequality

Nowhere Land by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4148-nowhere-land

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The eye of the tiger: conservation technology, rural surveillance and the patriarchy in Indian wildlife reserves Feb 06, 2022

In this episode, Alina Utrata talks to Dr Trishant Simlai, a conservation researcher studying the politics and geographies of wildlife conservation in India, who just received his PhD in the Department of Geography at Cambridge. They discuss wildlife surveillance in the Corbett Tiger Reserve, as well as conservation’s colonial origins, how camera traps can be used to uphold the patriarchy, and when workplace surveillance technologies literally lead to tiger attacks.

You can follow Trishant Simlai on Twitter @trishantsimlai Alina Utrata @alinautrata and the Anti-Dystopians podcast on @AntiDystopians. Sign up for the Anti-Dystopians email newsletter at bit.ly/3kuGM5X

All episodes of the Anti-Dystopians are hosted and produced by Alina Utrata and are freely available to all listeners. To support the production to the show, visit: bit.ly/3AApPN4

Further Reading:

Negotiating the Gaze. Sanctuary Asia, December 2019
Are Conservation Organizations Complicit in Ethnic Discrimination? The Wire 2017
Grasslands of Grey: How the BBC's flawed Kaziranga muckraker has done harm. The Wire 2017:
Are Treacherous Links and Claims an Illusion? Sanctuary Asia 2016
Conservation 'Wars': The global rise of green militarization and trends in India. Economic and Political Weekly, Vol L No 50. 2015.
Digital Surveillance Tech in Conservation and their social implications
Why we must question the militarisation of conservation
How does Conservation Tech Cause Harm?
Conservation Surveillance as a means for state repression?

Nowhere Land by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4148-nowhere-land

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Who is Amazon? Jan 30, 2022

In this episode of the Anti-Dystopians, Rowena Squires, an ancient historian, asks Alina Utrata everything you ever wanted to know about Amazon. How did Amazon go from online bookstore to commercial empire? Is Amazon Alexa really recording everything you say? How was AWS cloud computing invented? And why is the Library of Alexandria such a good origin story for the Amazon Alexa?

You can follow Rowena Squires on Twitter @RowenaSquires, Alina Utrata @alinautrata and the Anti-Dystopians podcast on @AntiDystopians. Sign up for the Anti-Dystopians email newsletter at bit.ly/3kuGM5X

All episodes of the Anti-Dystopians are hosted and produced by Alina Utrata and are freely available to all listeners. To support the production to the show, visit: bit.ly/3AApPN4

Articles mentioned in this episode:

Business reporter Brad Stone's 2013 book “The Everything Store” and the 2020 follow-up “Amazon Unbound”
Alec MacGillis’s book “Fulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-Click America”
The US House Judiciary Report on Monopolies
Franklin Foer’s deep-dive into Jeff Bezos’s brain in the Atlantic
Charles Duhigg’s “Is Amazon Unstoppable?”

For the rest of the articles mentioned in this episode, visit bit.ly/3kuGM5X

Nowhere Land by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4148-nowhere-land

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Grab ‘em by the data: gender, technology and systems of oppression Jan 22, 2022

On this week’s episode, Alina Utrata talks to Stefanie Felsberger, a PhD in Gender Studies at Cambridge University, and Muskan Shafat, an MS in Data and Society at the London School of Economics, about gender and technology. They discuss the myth of neutral tech, how technology is embedded in systems of oppression, why using a dishwasher isn’t considered “technological innovation” and whether some AI is just machine learning for eugenics.

You can follow Stefanie Felsberger on Twitter @Flsbrgr, Muskan Shafat @muskanmaraz, Alina Utrata @alinautrata and the Anti-Dystopians podcast on Twitter @AntiDystopians. Or sign up for the AD email newsletter: bit.ly/3kuGM5X

All episodes of the Anti-Dystopians are hosted and produced by Alina Utrata, and are freely available to all listeners. To support the production to the show, visit: bit.ly/3AApPN4

Books mentioned in the podcast:

Race After Technology by Ruha Benjamin

Algorithms of Oppression by Safiya Noble

Programmed Inequality by Mar Hicks

Weapons of Math Destruction by Cathy O’Neill

What Tech Calls Thinking by Adrian Daub

Nowhere Land by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4148-nowhere-land

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

(Tech) Company Rule Dec 13, 2021

Alina Utrata talks to Dr Maha Atal, a lecturer at the University of Glasgow who studies the political economy of corporate power and was previously an award-winning journalist reporting on the tech industry. They discuss how the history of company-rule and colonization relates to the tech industry, how tech companies exert power in the Global South, why Silicon Valley’s “Janus faces” allows it to escape state regulation, and whether the perception of technology corporations has changed, from the tech-utopian days of the Obama administration to now.

Selected articles by Maha Atal

The Janus faces of Silicon Valley http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/247127/

Is Google evil? http://www.newstatesman.com/scitech/2009/08/online-search-google-datak

You can follow Maha Atal on Twitter @MahaRafiAtal

Alina Utrata on Twitter @alinautrata

And the Anti-Dystopians podcast on Twitter @AntiDystopians

Or sign up for the AD email newsletter: bit.ly/3kuGM5X

All episodes of the Anti-Dystopians are hosted and produced by Alina Utrata, and are freely available to all listeners. To support the production to the show, visit: bit.ly/3AApPN4

Nowhere Land by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4148-nowhere-land

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Human rights and internet infrastructure Nov 29, 2021

Alina Utrata talks to Dr Corinne Cath-Speth, a recent graduate from the doctoral program at the Oxford Internet Institute (OII) and a cultural anthropologist whose research focuses on Internet infrastructure politics, engineering cultures, and technology policy and governance. They discuss the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF): What is it? What are internet protocols? And how can infrastructure uphold or harm human rights?

You can follow Corinne Cath-Speth on Twitter @C___CS

Alina Utrata on Twitter @alinautrata

And the Anti-Dystopians podcast on Twitter @AntiDystopians

Or sign up for the AD email newsletter: bit.ly/3kuGM5X

All episodes of the Anti-Dystopians are hosted and produced by Alina Utrata, and are freely available to all listeners. To support the production to the show, visit: bit.ly/3AApPN4

Selected Reading and Articles by Corinne Cath-Speth:

Corinne Cath on Internet governance cultures: https://hackcur.io/whats-wrong-with-loud-men-talking-loudly-the-ietfs-culture-wars/
Suzanne van Geuns and Corinne Cath, article for the Brookings Institute: https://www.brookings.edu/techstream/how-hate-speech-reveals-the-invisible-politics-of-internet-infrastructure/
Report workshop organized by Beatrice Martini, Niels ten Oever, Corinne Cath: https://data-activism.net/2019/12/off-the-beaten-path-human-rights-advocacy-to-change-the-internet-infrastructure/
'Changing minds and machines: a case study of human rights advocacy in the Internet Engineering Task Force'. PhD Thesis University of Oxford. https://corinnecath.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/CathCorinne-Thesis-DphilInformationCommunicationSocialSciences.pdf
The Technology We Choose to Create: Human Rights Advocacy in the Internet Engineering Task Force’. Telecommunications Policy 45, no. 6 (1 July 2021): 102144. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.telpol.2021.102144.

Nowhere Land by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4148-nowhere-land

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Snake oil or substance? Tech companies talk climate at COP26 Oct 29, 2021

This week Josh Lappen, an environmental historian studying at Oxford University, returns to discuss the climate crisis and tech companies ahead of COP26. Are tech companies’ promises of technological innovation really going to save Earth? Do we need AI for the environment? What does the German government have to do with the adoption of solar panels? And who really are the biggest impediments to stopping climate change? (Hint: it’s not China.) Josh discusses the snake oil and substance at COP26, and how tech companies use the promise of the future to influence the politics of the present.

All episodes of the Anti-Dystopians are hosted and produced by Alina Utrata, and are freely available to all listeners. To support the production to the show, visit: bit.ly/3AApPN4

To follow the Anti-Dystopians new Twitter account, go to:

https://twitter.com/AntiDystopians

To follow Alina Utrata on Twitter, go to:

https://twitter.com/AlinaUtrata

To follow Josh Lappen on Twitter, go to:

https://twitter.com/jlappen1

Articles Mentioned:

Past Anti Dystopians episode with Josh—Nationalize Gmail! https://open.spotify.com/episode/5Aayx7p8uYdKcDeyEvwuzJ?si=48fF-8p7R2KgVPHZ2O-7Rw

Do Carbon Offsets Offset Carbon? https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp9368.pdf

Biden’s First Climate Actions Are Missing Coal’s Long Tail https://www.thenation.com/article/environment/biden-climate-executive-orders-coal/

How Germany helped bring down the cost of PV https://energytransition.org/2016/01/how-germany-helped-bring-down-the-cost-of-pv/

The Dream of Scooping Plastic From the Ocean Is Still Alive—and Problematic https://gizmodo.com/the-dream-of-scooping-plastic-from-the-ocean-is-still-a-1847890573

Outer space and climate solutionism https://bostonreview.net/science-nature/alina-utrata-lost-space

Nowhere Land by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4148-nowhere-land

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Financial imperialism on the blockchain: Bitcoin in El Salvador Sep 26, 2021

This week, Alina Utrata is joined by Mallika Balakrishnan to talk about the protests over the adoption of bitcoin in El Salvador. What exactly is bitcoin (and what's the difference between Bitcoin and other digital currencies)? Why has President Nayib Bukele implemented it as legal tender in El Salvador? And, most importantly, how will this impact the people in El Salvador? All your questions on the blockchain answered by the Anti-Dystopians!

All episodes of the Anti-Dystopians are hosted and produced by Alina Utrata, and are freely available to all listeners. To support the production to the show, visit: bit.ly/3AApPN4

Articles mentioned in this podcast

El Salvador’s Bitcoin Law Is a Farce

For Latin American politicians, Bitcoin is a PR goldmine

Jorge E. Cuéllar, Bitcoin Sanctuaries — Sidecar (New Left Review)

USAID, Bitcoin and the Long Fight over El Salvador’s Sovereignty -- Daniel Alvarenga -- El Faro

Left Out of Bukele’s Bitcoin Decision, Salvadorans Face Deepening Inequality

There Is No Democratic Tradition in El Salvador

In Central America, Rule of Law Is Under Attack. El Salvador Is the Latest Victim.

In El Salvador, Broken Promises Have Forced the Establishment Out

CISPES https://www.cispes.org/

Books mentioned in this podcast

Blockchain Chicken Farm by Xiaowei Wang

Blockchain Democracy by William Magnuson

Nowhere Land by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4148-nowhere-land

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Digital Landscape of Southeast Asia: From Fake News to 5G Sep 19, 2021

We’re back from our summer holiday! To kick off season 2 of the Anti-Dystopians, we’re zeroing in on some of the global aspects of technology—this time in Southeast Asia. Alina Utrata talks to Kyra Jasper and Andreyka Natalegawa about the digital landscape of the region, from Facebook’s relationship with the junta in Myanmar, from fake news laws in Indonesia to Huwaei’s plans for 5g to ASEAN Smart Cities.

To follow the Anti-Dystopians new Twitter account, go to:

https://twitter.com/AntiDystopians

To follow Alina Utrata on Twitter, go to:

https://twitter.com/AlinaUtrata

To follow Kyra Jasper on Twitter, go to:

https://twitter.com/kj_spade

To follow Andreyka Natalegawa on Twitter, go to:

https://twitter.com/a_natalegawa

The Anti-Dystopians is hosted and produced by Alina Utrata. All episodes are freely available, wherever you get your podcasts.

To support the show, visit: bit.ly/3AApPN4

Articles by Kyra and Andreyka

Controlling the Information Space: Big Tech and Free Speech in Southeast Asia

https://www.csis.org/blogs/new-perspectives-asia/controlling-information-space-big-tech-and-free-speech-southeast-asia

Mitigating Cybersecurity Risks for ASEAN Smart Cities

http://www.cogitasia.com/mitigating-cybersecurity-risks-for-asean-smart-cities/

Articles on SE Asia region

Digital trade deal ripe for the Indo-Pacific

https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/digital-trade-deal-ripe-for-the-indo-pacific/

The e-Conomy SEA 2020 report by Google, Temasek and Bain & Company

https://economysea.withgoogle.com

On Myanmar

Months After Coup, Myanmar Accelerates Toward Surveillance State

https://www.csis.org/blogs/new-perspectives-asia/months-after-coup-myanmar-accelerates-toward-surveillance-state

Myanmar junta blocks Facebook to quell dissent

https://www.ft.com/content/65c3f19d-2d54-4f32-9b96-7114d8416e26

On Indonesia

Seeking a Viable Alternative to Indonesia’s Blasphemy Laws

https://thediplomat.com/2020/09/seeking-a-viable-alternative-to-indonesias-blasphemy-laws/

InterpretatIons of artIcle 156a of the IndonesIan CrImInal Code on Blasphemy and relIgIous defamatIon (a legal and human rIghts analysIs)

https://leip.or.id/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/LeIP-Interpretations-of-Article-156A-of-The-Indonesian-Criminal-Code-On-Blasphemy-and-Religious-Defamation-a-Legal-and-Human-Right-Analysis.pdf

Jakarta governor Ahok found guilty of blasphemy

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-39853280

Buni Yani gets 1.5 years in jail for hate speech after selectively edited a video in which former Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama warned Thousand Islands regency residents about people using Quranic verses for political gain.

https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2017/11/14/buni-yani-gets-1-5-years-in-jail.html

Privacy alarm in Indonesia over president's leaked vaccine certificate

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/privacy-alarm-indonesia-over-presidents-leaked-vaccine-certificate-2021-09-03/

On Thailand

Lèse-majesté epidemic in Thailand reaches new milestone

https://www.fidh.org/en/region/asia/thailand/lese-majeste-epidemic-reaches-new-milestone

Thailand government files lese-majesty suit against banned opposition leader

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/21/thailand-government-files-lese-majesty-suit-against-banned-opposition-leader

Nowhere Land by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4148-nowhere-land

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lost in Space: Audio Reading Jul 15, 2021

In this special episode, an audio recording of Alina Utrata's recent article in the Boston Review "Lost in Space" about the tech billionaires attempting to colonize space.

https://bostonreview.net/science-nature/alina-utrata-lost-space

Nowhere Land by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4148-nowhere-land

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and the Colonization of Outer Space May 16, 2021

To kick off the new season of the podcast, Alina Utrata and Shikha Srinivas discuss space colonization and the tech billionaires in outer space. Why are Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk obsessed with getting to the moon and Mars? How are climate change and the quest to become an interplanetary species related? Who will unaccountable private corporations in space ultimately harm? Should we be afraid of cascading satellites and colliding space junk? And how can indigenous principles and knowledge-holders lead us in understanding our obligations to earth and space, and caring for our shared celestial commons?

Since we talked a lot about indigenous communities on this episode, we want to highlight the work and knowledge of indigenous scholars, activists and communities:

Sense of Place Series: Indigenous Perspectives on Earth and Sky

All My Relations: a podcast by three native women, as well as the specific episode about the fight to protect Mauna Kea

The Polynesian Voyaging Society, Hokule’a and more on Polynesian navigation practices.

Native Appropriations, a blog by Dr. Adrienne Keene

More Indigenous Scholars and Scholarly Work

Dr Mark Rifkin

Elizabeth Reese

Professor Linda Smith

Dr. Sarah Deer

Native science : natural laws of interdependence

More about indigenous communities, colonialism and space:

The impact of satellite constellations on space as an ancestral global commons

Anger after Indonesia offers Elon Musk Papuan island for SpaceX launchpad

Astronomers May Not Like It but Astronomy and Colonialism Have a Shared History

The legacy of colonialism on public lands created the Mauna Kea conflict

Other articles:

Mars is a hellhole.

New York Times article about the social life of forests

The myth of the tragedy of the commons

What if Space Junk and Climate Change Become the Same Problem?

A rough sketch on some advanced carbon capture technology

Astronomers are very frustrated with Elon Musk’s satellites

Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos’s space ideology:

Billionaire battles are shaping our future in space

Elon Musk, once again the world's richest person, is selling all his possessions so people know he's serious about colonizing Mars

Elon Musk’s Satellite Internet Project Is Too Risky, Rivals Say

Elon Musk’s War on Regulators:The Tesla and SpaceX chief courts conflict with an alphabet soup of government agencies—and generally gets away with it

Elon Musk’s SpaceX violated its launch license in explosive Starship test, triggering an FAA probe

Jeff Bezos’ Rocket Company Challenges NASA Over SpaceX Moon Lander Deal

Jeff Bezos Lifts Veil on His Rocket Company, Blue Origin

Nowhere Land by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4148-nowhere-land

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Can your computer see you?: A history of the screen, from radar to AR. Mar 28, 2021

This week, the Anti-Dystopians hosts Louisa Shen, a PhD candidate at Cambridge University who has written about the history of the screen. Louisa explains how the screen began as military technology in WWII, how the Cold War overlapped with the mass production of screens (and spying), and how interactive screens now make it seem as if we can see our computers—or maybe that our computers can see us. Will the future of screens be the VR world of Facebook’s Oculus Rift or the AR overlaid life of Google glasses? Or will Amazon’s Alexa turned hologram become the next IoT “screen”?

Nowhere Land by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4148-nowhere-land

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

State, corporation, people: the global dimensions of tech regulation Mar 18, 2021

Kyra Jasper, Josh Simons and Alina Utrata discuss the global dimensions of tech regulation. In this episode, they examine three case studies: Google and Facebook’s reaction to Australia’s new media law, and whether these tech corporations really “faced down a nation-state”. Facebook’s role in Myanmar, where the platform is the de facto internet, and whether the new military junta can shut down Facebook, if Facebook can ban the new rulers, and why Facebook only took action after a coup, and not during the ongoing genocide against the Rohingya. Finally, Twitter and Facebook in India, where the platforms have struggled with how to respond to India’s censorship laws. What can these case studies tell us about the nexus between states, corporations and people across the world?

Sign up for the Anti-Dystopians newsletter

Mentioned in this podcast

Australia shows the way. It’s the job of governments not big tech to run democracies

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/feb/21/australia-shows-the-way-its-the-job-of-governments-not-big-tech-to-run-democracies

Google threatens to shut down search in Australia

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/22/tech/google-threatens-australia-search-news-intl-hnk/index.html

Myanmar Blocks Facebook Access After Online Protests of Military Coup

https://www.wsj.com/articles/myanmar-blocks-facebook-access-after-coup-11612436184?reflink=desktopwebshare_twitter

Myanmar’s Military Deploys Digital Arsenal of Repression in Crackdown

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/01/world/asia/myanmar-coup-military-surveillance.html

'It's digital colonialism': how Facebook's free internet service has failed its users

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jul/27/facebook-free-basics-developing-markets

What a Facebook experiment did to news in Cambodia

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-41801071

Twitter Unblocked Accounts That Criticized India’s Government. Now, Its Employees Are Being Threatened With Jail Time Unless It Blocks Them Again.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/pranavdixit/india-threatens-twitter-jail

In India, Facebook Fears Crackdown on Hate Groups Could Backfire on Its Staff

https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-india-facebook-fears-crackdown-on-hate-groups-could-backfire-on-its-staff-11607871600

India imposes new rules on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/02/25/tech/india-twitter-facebook-social-media-guidelines/index.html

Nowhere Land by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4148-nowhere-land

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nationalize Gmail!: Climate Change, Critical Infrastructure, and the USPS Mar 07, 2021

Alina Utrata talks with Josh Lappen, a fellow Californian and environmental historian researching at Oxford University, who studies some of the most important technology there is: critical infrastructure. They discuss why hundreds of Elon Musks can’t (and won’t) solve climate change, the government funding and politics behind many technology entrepreneurs’ businesses, why low-tech solutions and indigenous practices are critical sources of knowledge, and the surprising number of technological innovations enabled by the US Postal Service (including Amazon’s e-commerce business and commercial flight). Plus, is PG&E really the worst company, what’s going on with the Texas blackouts, and should the government give you an email (and a bank account)?

Addendum from Josh: "When recognizing the climate benefits of indigenous land management, we need to stress that a purely technical approach, which seeks to identify knowledge and incorporate it into existing management regimes, is simultaneously inadequate, amoral, and probably counterproductive. As we stressed during the interview, climate change is a political question which presents problems of distribution that run deeper than its problems of budgeting. In places like California, indigenous land management regimes ended due to enslavement, removal, and genocide of the state's native peoples, and modern land management practices have long depended on ignoring that fact, and the experiences of people who live on the land in general. Durably solving climate change is not just about assembling new tools; it requires rebuilding social and political systems to avoid new iterations of extractivism. In the case of cultural land management practices, that means restoring indigenous communities' role in shaping and caring for the land."

Mentioned in this podcast:

By Josh: How Climate-Driven Disasters Threaten Climate Progress
Bill Tripp, the director of natural resources and environmental policy for the Karuk Tribe Department of Natural Resources, in the Guardian: “Our land was taken. But we still hold the knowledge of how to stop mega-fires.” As well as Jared Dahl Alder, “Cultural Fire on the Mountain: An Introduction to Native Cultural Burning" and Indigenous Conservation Practices Are Not a Monolith: Western cultural biases and a lack of engagement with Indigenous experts undermine studies of land stewardship.
How California’s firefighters are made up of incarcerated people who are paid $1 a day,
An explainer on PG&E and California’s (basically, annual) rolling blackouts and the recent Texas energy grid failures.
If you’re wondering why California doesn’t have a train line between its two most populous cities, here’s a good explainer on the High Speed Rail (spoiler alert: its local politics), more long view coverage from Ralph Vartabedian at the LA Times. Plus, why Elon Musk’s Hyperloop literally won’t solve anything.
“It’s the government, stupid.” Elon Musk is a state-made man. In case you didn’t catch the number, Elon Musk ventures’ Telsa, Solar City and SpaceX have received a total of $4.9 billion dollars from the government in tax breaks, grants and subsidies, and Tesla literally was not profitable until this year.
For more on so-called libertarian tech entrepreneurs who make their fortunes contracting with Big Government, check out our previous Anti-Dystopians podcast about Peter Thiel with Andrew Granato (a mutual friend of me and Josh).
More on the climate impacts of AI language modeling in the memo that Google fired Dr Timnit Gebru over, plus the environmental toll of a Netflix binge.
For more on how Google buses and tech corporations are creating two-tier public/private infrastructure in the Bay, check out Inside a Secretive $250 Million Private Transit System Just for Techies.
And, how Congress is Sabotaging Your Post Office. Plus a really interesting argument about the benefit of state-issues crypto-currencies aka why doesn’t the Fed just give everyone a bank account?
Books:
Marianna Mazzucato’s The Entrepreneurial State
Winifred Gallagher’s How the Post Office Created America
Timothy Mitchell's Rule of Experts
Henri Lefebvre's The Production of Space
Susan Leigh Star's Ecologies of Knowledge
Richard White's The Organic Machine

Nowhere Land by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4148-nowhere-land

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Is Facebook (and Google) a Public Utility? Feb 26, 2021

For this week’s episode, Alina Utrata talks to Josh Simons, a PhD candidate in Government at Harvard University and a Labour candidate for local office in the UK. They discuss Josh’s research — what is machine learning and why is it (always) political? As critical information infrastructure, should Google and Facebook be regulated as democratic utilities? And do we need a whole new understanding of corporations' role in society if we’re going to tackle the tech industry?

Tweet at Alina

Tweet at Josh

Sign up for The Anti-Dystopians newsletter

A transcript of this episode is available here.

Mentioned in this podcast

Josh Simons (co-authored by Dipayan Ghosh) on Brookings: Utilities for democracy: Why and how the algorithmic infrastructure of Facebook and Google must be regulated

Virginia Eubanks’s seminal work on Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police and Punish the Poor. Plus a review on the LSE’s blog

Cory Doctorow, How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism

More on the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority and Digital Markets Unit

Nowhere Land by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4148-nowhere-land

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Digital Periphery: Technology, Migration and Racial Capitalism Feb 10, 2021

On this week’s episode, Alina Utrata talks to Dr. Matt Mahmoudi, who just completed his PhD in Development Studies at Cambridge University as a Jo Cox scholar of Refugee and Migration Studies. They talked about Matt’s research about how technology is affecting migrant and refugee communities in New York City and Berlin, how seemingly innocuous technology, like free WiFi kiosks, can become de facto digital borders, what racial capitalism can tell us about Shoshana Zuboff’s “surveillance capitalism”, and if a decolonial neo-Luddite approach to tech is possible. Plus, why New York City should ban police use of facial recognition scan.

A rough transcript of this episode is available here.

Articles and scholars mentioned in this podcast

A post by Matt on his research on The Sociological Review, Race in the Digital Periphery: The New (Old) Politics of Refugee Representation

Books:

On Racial Capitalism, Black Internationalism, and Cultures of Resistance by Cedric J. Robinson

Extrastatecraft: The Power of Infrastructure Space by Keller Easterling

Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class by Robin Kelley

Notes Towards a Neo-Luddite Manifesto by Chellis Glendinning

The Invention of the Passport by John Torpey

Utopia for Realists by Rutger Bregman

Two Cheers for Anarchism by James Scott

Articles

Leaked Location Data Shows Another Muslim Prayer App Tracking Users

We Have Been Harmonized: Life in China’s Surveillance State (review by John Naughton)

The Subprime Attention Crisis by Tim Hwang (review by Alina Utrata)

Podcast

Previous Anti-Dystopians podcast on gender, colonization and the limits of surveillance capitalism

More information about Amnesty’s campaign to #BanTheScan

Nowhere Land by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4148-nowhere-land

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Social Media and Social Movements: The Rise of the European Far-Right Feb 02, 2021

For this week’s episode, Alina Utrata talked to Julia Rone, a post-doc at the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy at Cambridge University. They discussed the rise of the European far-right online—what's the relationship between online disinformation and political mobilization? Why is the far-right so much better at mobilizing online than the far-left? Can platforms or content moderation policies really stop them? And is any of this about “social media” or is it just about social movements?

Tweet at Alina.

Tweet at Julia.

Sign up for the Anti-Dystopians newsletter.

Articles mentioned in this podcast

Julia Rone’s publications:

On the Minderoo Centre’s blog Power-Switch:

Democratizing digital sovereignty: an impossible task?

Public networks instead of social networks?

On the London School of Economics blog:

Collateral Damage: How algorithms to counter “fake news” threaten citizen media in Bulgaria

Why talking about ‘disinformation’ misses the point when considering radical right ‘alternative’ media

Academic Articles: