The Anti-Dystopians

Latest Episodes:

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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?

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

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

Show notes

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