This week we are joined by Paris Marx, host of the podcast Tech Won't Save Us and a tech critic, journalist, author, and international speaker.

We talked about Silicon Valley's changing influence in politics, climate policy, and about reasons for optimism as we think about how to confront Musk and Co. in the political arena.

This is somewhat of a sister episode to our conversation last week with Jacob Silverman about the tech right that explores the political ideologies of the tech billionaires shaping our country, including within the Democratic Party.

To support us on Patreon (and get bonus eps plus a download of our intro song) go here:

patreon.com/DystopiaNow

Further reading:

https://parismarx.com/

https://www.disconnect.blog/

https://www.npr.org/2024/07/12/g-s1-9545/ai-brings-soaring-emissions-for-google-and-microsoft-a-major-contributor-to-climate-change

https://www.wired.com/story/true-cost-generative-ai-data-centers-energy/

https://theconversation.com/data-centre-emissions-are-soaring-its-ai-or-the-climate-240137

https://www.versobooks.com/products/2795-road-to-nowhere?srsltid=AfmBOor_bXPpd8aqF9_mHCdTCfJsbfp-V1qFE-ERNFyRVF2RVRfYj365

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cnvze9dzq8vo

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/08/business/elon-musk-tesla-violence-protests-vandalism.html

To hear the resst of this episode, become one of our Patreon supporters at https://www.patreon.com/DystopiaNow

For this bonus episode we were joined by comedian Kenice Mobley to talk about the different space futures Bezos and Musk have in mind.

Bezos wants us to live in cylinders, Musk wants us to nuke Mars, but both of them want a future where we're all digital beings maximizing value. Some of the wildest information we've talked about so far.

This week our guest is Jacob Silverman, and independent journalist who has written for the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Slate, The New Yorker & The New Republic. He's the co-author of "Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud."

We talked about the growing right wing movement in the tech industry. From the PayPal mafia to President Sh*tcoin today, we dive deep into how a few billionaires are influencing policy from DOGE to how cities treat our unhoused neighbors.

Sorry for slight reduction in audio quality this week, we had some issues with our recording software we will fix for next week! This is a fantastic interview you don't want to miss.

This week we welcomed special guest Albert Fox Cahn who is the Executive Director of S.T.O.P. (the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project). We talked about how AI is impacting policing and pricing. We also returned to the subject of Elon's ketamine addiction.

Special thanks to Deon Wolf who has been helping with our short videos on instagram and youtube.

This week, Kate and Emile dive deeper into Elon Musk's ideology and explore the debate between two Silicon Valley camps, the AI Doomers and the AI Accelerationists.

We explore the effective accelerationism or e/acc movement, a guy named Beff Jezos? Marc Andreessen's Techno Optimist Manifesto, and what Google founder Larry Page really believes.

We also talked about what motivated Emile to do Ph.D research on human extinction.

Why is Elon trying so hard to dismantle the administrative state? This may be an answer you haven't heard yet.

This week, Emile and Kate host journalist Gil Duran (New Republic, The Nerd Reich) for a discussion about Network States, aka libertarian post democracy colonies that have become a popular idea among tech billionaires.

From seasteading to the California Forever tech utopia, from Mars to maybe... the entire US, these guys have their sites set on a feudal structure that makes an Ayn Rand novel look quaint.

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In our first episode we explore the question on everyone's mind: what the hell is Elon Musk doing?

Well, the answer may be, trying (or pretending to try), winning a robot battle 10 billion years in the future when humanity is replaced with digital beings.

Tune in to learn about the ideologies of longtermism and transhumanism and how they may be influencing Elon's actions in the Trump administration.