The Mythos of Technology and Capitalism w/ Jathan Sadowski

Technology and capitalism? In your mythology podcast? It’s more likely than you’d think! We’re joined by Jathan Sadowski, professor and podcaster, to discuss the myth of inevitability, the modern Eleusinian Mysteries of Silicon Valley, and why technologists need to read better sci-fi. 

Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of capitalism, US politics, AI, racism, slave labor, and animal sacrifice. 

Guest

Jathan Sadowski is a Senior Lecturer in the Emerging Technologies Research Lab // Department of Human Centred-Computing // Faculty of Information Technology // Monash University // Melbourne, Australia. He is the author of The Mechanic and the Luddite: A Ruthless Criticism of Technology and Capitalism. He is also the cohost of a weekly podcast on technology and political economy: This Machine Kills.

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Cast & Crew

- Co-Hosts: Julia Schifini and Amanda McLoughlin

- Editor: Bren Frederick

- Music: Brandon Grugle, based on "Danger Storm" by Kevin MacLeod

- Artwork: Allyson Wakeman

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About Us

Spirits is a boozy podcast about mythology, legends, and folklore. Every episode, co-hosts Julia and Amanda mix a drink and discuss a new story or character from a wide range of places, eras, and cultures. Learn brand-new stories and enjoy retellings of your favorite myths, served over ice every week, on Spirits.

Transcript

[theme]

AMANDA:  Welcome to Spirits, a boozy dive into mythology, legends and folklore. Every week, we pour a drink and learn about a new story from around the world. But today, Julia, I'm stone cold sober because it's time to take down capitalism one book and three people at a time. I'm Amanda.

JULIA: I'm Julia.

AMANDA: And we're joined today by Jathan Sadowski. Jathan, do you go by doctor? Do you do by PhD? Do they call it differently in Australia?

JATHAN: I do have a PhD. I do have a doctor in front of my name, but I absolutely do not go by that at all.

JULIA: Fair, fair enough. I feel like if I had a doctorate, I would be owned by doctor, whatever, the, like— every day.

AMANDA: Yeah.

JULIA: I would get my coffee, and I would be like, "Yes. Dr. Schifini. I wanted the hazelnut latte. You're correct."

AMANDA: That's me.

JATHAN: I feel like it gets old and embarrassing very quickly.

JULIA: Fair enough. Fair enough.

AMANDA: Shout out. Well, you are here, Jathan, for many reasons, including that you are the author of a two books, one of which has been recently published, called The Mechanic and the Luddite: A Ruthless Criticism of Technology and Capitalism. Would you please tell folks what you study and what you teach?

JATHAN: Yeah, absolutely. So I'm a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Information Technology at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. So I'm American, as you can maybe tell by my accent, but I've been in Australia for a very long time now. But my work focuses on the political economy of technology, so really trying to understand technology as the product of social relationships of power and value, and decide whose power and whose value gets to decide what technologies we all have to live with.

AMANDA: I can tell that you've done this more than once, because that was such a great way to explain something that I don't think I learned the definition of until fairly recently, and in part through your other work as the co-host of This Machine Kills, an excellent podcast people should listen to and subscribe to the Patreon, about, like, what political economy actually is. So the reason why we've asked you here today that you are very gamely excited to talk about is all of the ways in which mythology, folklore, mythologizing as a verb, narrative, and the project of capitalism overlap. So when we first reached out to you about this sort of collab, what came to mind?

JATHAN: Well, for me, it's the— I mean, underlying all systems of speculation, really, which is what a lot of technology is. It's a lot of speculation. It's a lot of kind of putting visions and ideas out here in the present, about the future, and hoping that at some point you get from that point A to point B. That's the real basis of a lot of technological development, doing that within an idea of, you know, capitalism, right? Where there's a lot of kind of financial speculation and financial engineering. I mean, this is what hype is, right? When you reached out to me, and you're like, "How can we think about technology and capitalism in terms of the mythology, the mythos, all of that?" There's the story narrative building around it. I mean, it's not a hard leap to make because that is exactly what hype is. That is what we are living in all the time, is people telling you stories about what technologies can do, or how capitalism is going to improve your life, or how this company or that person is going to bring us into a new age, right? All of this is narrative building. It's about creating a mythology of the, you know, the singular genius inventor or entrepreneur. And it's about creating that mythology so that you can buy into something today before it actually ever exists.

AMANDA: Lest you be left behind, right? Like, we all want to be the person to outsmart the fairy or, you know, guess the riddle ahead of time. I'm just— my brain is firing on so many levels to make these connections, but I would love to start at the beginning. So when capitalism was birthed into the world, what relationship or what tools from history, mythology, folklore, religion were used as capitalism became like a thing that we all now think of, at least for me and my background growing up in the US, in the '90s and 2000s, as inevitable?

JATHAN: The way you get people to buy into something as inevitable is that it's inescapable and irresistible, right? That you can't get out of it. You have to just kind of accept it. You know, it's the train, right? Either get on board or get run over. And so, you know, these kind of myths that we know, that we, I think, really associate with capitalism, I think especially the tech sector. It's what I call in the book technological capitalism, this kind of integration between a kind of— a culture of technology that we see in like Silicon Valley, with these imperatives of capitalism around profit maximization or capital accumulation. You know, these kind of myths that we see now, where you know you're told that like, you know, progress, as defined by somebody else who's not you, is inevitable, that, you know, that progress looks like the latest, you know, iPhone, or the latest thing that some company, like OpenAI is selling, right? That it just— progress just kind of comes from nowhere as well. These technological innovations, you know—

AMANDA: Uh-hmm.

JATHAN: —are almost as if they're bestowed by a god, right? That they just kind of— you don't even know about them until one day, a company releases ChatGPT, and now it's like free and available on the open web and you're like, "Oh, my God. Like, we've been gifted something by, you know, some force out there." And these are the kinds of stories of technological progress. And what, in my book, I call innovation realism. This— I— you know, riffing on concept by Mark Fisher called Capitalist Realism, which is this idea that, like, there's no way of creating technology of doing innovation outside of the capitalist system, right? And that is, itself, is a kind of myth. And like any myth, it becomes this thing that feels true because people repeat it again and again and again, and they tell other people and they start believing in it. You know, these things seem really hyper contemporary, right? Like Silicon Valley, the myth of the inventor, you know, AI, stuff like that. But if we go back, you know, 300 years ago, the beginnings of capitalism, especially if we're thinking the beginnings of industrial capitalism in England. There's a lot of stories, if you look at the histories of capitalism, the histories of technology, that sound extremely contemporary, because it was really built on creating these same kind of myths, of this is inevitable, that it's being given to you—

AMANDA: Uh-hmm.

JATHAN: —gifted to you by forces of nature, that, you know, that these entrepreneurs are channeling, that you can't resist it, right? You have to just get on board. And so, like, those kinds of— the myths of inevitability, I think, have been baked into and are really crucial to the perpetuation of capitalism as an ongoing system, as you get people to either buy into it or feel like they have no ability to get outside of it.

JULIA: One of my favorite things when we have a great guest like you on is I love to quote you, and there is an amazing quote, which is, "Innovation is worshiped in our culture. We can only hope to create the right conditions, make the right offerings, and perform the right rituals, such that innovations bless us with sacred revelations and actionable insights." So my question kind of going off that, incredible quote, by the way, is I can see the comparisons to religion and ritual in regards to how it functions in innovation and capitalism. But who is the one that decides what the ritual of capitalism and technology is? Like, who's the priest of, you know, capitalism? Who is the people in the modern day— Amanda, I think, referred to them as god kings in some of the notes that we were exchanging.

AMANDA: Uh-hmm.

JULIA: Who are these people who get to decide, "Ah, this is the ritual that you have to do in order to succeed in technology right now"?

JATHAN: Relating it to that— like, who is that priesthood of capitalism or priesthood of technology, is exactly right, because it is very much this priesthood. And there's a strain of really interesting work and cultural studies that analyzes these kind of tech companies, that analyzes Silicon Valley, the cultures around this as a quasi-religious priesthood.

JULIA: Uh-hmm.

JATHAN: That there's— you know, especially when we start thinking about these concepts of, like, post-humanism, right? So real— like, quite literally, like, people transcending the limitations of human, thanks to, you know, the sacred technologies that then can allow you to become post-human. Who is that priesthood? I mean, it's—

AMANDA: Uh-hmm.

JATHAN: You know, it's ultimately— and, you know, just by sheer coincidence, also the people that hold the reins of all of the wealth and power in Silicon Valley, right? The very small number of extremely powerful, extremely wealthy, technological oligarchy, people who I think we are now becoming more familiar with as this technological priesthood starts to integrate more explicitly with a political class. You know, we think about the relationship between Elon Musk and Donald Trump, for example, right? Like, I was actually just talking to my wife about this as well, where it's— sometimes it feels like Musk is like the Wormtongue.

JULIA: Uh-hmm.

JATHAN: Right? The kind of, like, the religious leader—

AMANDA: Yes.

JATHAN: —behind Trump who— you know, he's not in power. He's not elected. He doesn't have any, like, formal democratic power in any ways, but he feels like the person who is in actual power, right? And so it's that kind of like—

AMANDA: Uh-hmm.

JATHAN: —that religious leader behind the king or behind the president, kind of whispering in their ear, right? Saying, "Oh, don't do that. You know, the gods won't like it. We have to do these right rituals and bring these right people in." And so, there very much is that kind of aspect of the power of Silicon Valley that has, for a very long time, had this kind of priesthood-ness, right? That, like, you know, there are these rituals that you have to do. You have to vest in the right ways, or you have to read the, you know, read the tea leaves to see what's coming in the future, so that you can prepare yourself for it. And, like, any priesthood as well, it's very exclusionary and very secretive about who can actually have access to those rituals or to the power who can be at the top of these institutions, these kind of technological churches. So there are— you know, there's, there's a whole strain of really interesting kind of cultural studies work that draws direct comparisons between these two, because it's not a— it's not an accident that they are organized in this way.

JULIA: As you continue talking, all I can hear are different things that I recognize so much in not only folklore, but also, like ancient religion. So, obviously, the trope in folklore of the king's assistant who is secretly controlling everything behind the scenes. I think of Aladdin when I think of that, for some reason, in Jafar.

AMANDA: Uh-hmm.

JULIA: But then also talking about these, like, behind the scenes, this priest cast in a way, where it reminds me very much of the Eleusinian Mysteries in ancient Greece, where you had to be indoctrinated into the cult in order to be able to understand the different religious rites that happened there. The more you talk about this, the more I'm like, "Oh my God, there's so many connections that I would not have made initially in trying to think about this."

JATHAN: Because it's all these ways that we try to understand how power operates in society as well. I mean, that— I say pretty early in the book that I'm not actually really interested in technology as such, right? As, like, this kind of fetish object, that I'm— you know, technology for its own sake. The reason why I spend so much time reading, and writing, and teaching, and thinking about technology is because what I'm really interested in is how power operates in society in these really material ways. And for me, technology is one of the most important vectors of social power and how it moves through society and how it actually has effects on our lives. But at the same time, like, I think a lot of folklore, a lot of mythology, you know, the things that we're talking about, and the things that you both talk about a lot on Spirits. Those are also about ways of trying to understand how power operates in society, who has it?

JULIA: Uh-hmm.

JATHAN: Who gets to kind of, you know, weave power and wield power in certain ways? And, you know, whether that's through kind of creating these mythologies that you— so you can kind of weasel your way into the common sense of everybody's mind, or tell stories to politicians or kings or lords or who— people who have formal power and influence them in this way, right? So I think mythologies are— and folklore is a way of, you know, weaving power, wielding power in society. It's about how you translate that then into a material form, because I think the thing here with mythology is that it's very immaterial. It's very—

JULIA: Hmm.

JATHAN: You know, within the book, I call philosophically idealist, not in the sense of, like, optimistic or anything, but idealist in the sense of it's in the realm of ideas.

AMANDA: Uh-hmm.

JATHAN: And it kind of exists as these, like, desires, wishes, wants, you know, these conceptions of how the world works, right? In  order, I think, for that to translate into real power, it needs to go from being in the realm of ideas to the realm of the material, physical world. To me, technology is one way that that bridging happens, how you create lots of ideas—

AMANDA: Yeah.

JATHAN: —about how the world works and what the world should look like. And you need to, then, figure out some way to make that into material, social power and technolo— you know, embedding those ideas into a physical form, a technology of some kind, is, to me, a way of taking that kind of the ideal power of mythology and turning it into material power in society.

AMANDA: I mean, just a couple months ago, we talked about all the ways that we frame folk tales and story tales, the Once Upon a Time of it all, across many different cultures. We also touched on where those stories end. And often, it's talking about having the audience reflect on their responsibility of carrying the story forward or not. And often, a material ask for money or food, because this is a— you know, these were often people going from, you know, town to town, making a living as storytellers. Very infrequently did the myth end in— and buy the iPhone so you two can be an early adopter of the future and not get left behind on, you know, this moral coil which really is the explicit, the often, but certainly implicit desire for all of these myths of technological progress. And it's way more material. Like that is— again, I think, for anyone who joins me and listening to TMK, that is a word that will become more and more a part of your everyday vocabulary. It makes all of the sense in the world that when we talk about things like, you know, what capitalism wants or capitals of being a villain, what we mean is capitalists want this, right? Like, there are individuals who are setting agendas, shaping our consumer desires, which is another kind of just, like, influencing the populace and telling us explicitly to do things, or making it such that we can't do other things in our daily lives. Like access benefits or retirement or paid family leave, or any of the things that the gig economy, for example, just to, like, zoom in on one, you know, very isolated portion of all of this, is actually influencing us. It makes me want to fight back and to put counter narratives out there, which I think you touch on in your chapter, All About Futurism.

JATHAN: Yeah. No, and that's exactly right. And it's— you know, it is about like following the money, who's actually making these decisions? Because that's right. Like, there are specific people, a small group of people, who get to make decisions about things that feel like they're decisions made by no one, right? That, like, capitalism just kind of happens, technologies just kind of happen.

AMANDA: Uh-hmm.

JATHAN: And it's funny when you talk to people at the top of these companies, like the chief technology officers that— at large companies, which I have, and I have friends who work in, you know, data science and software engineering consultancies who are regularly interacting with these CTOs and stuff. And they tell me that, you know, that they feel like they have no control over these— over this decision-making, that there is some force sitting above them. And so you get, like—

AMANDA: Hmm.

JATHAN: —chief technology officers at large, major companies saying things like, "We need to get AI in our company." And you say, "Okay. Why do you need AI? What do you need it for?" "I don't know. I just feel like we just need to get AI into the company." Right? And they feel like it's out of their control, right? And this is the— Marx talks about this as the laws of capital, right, where, like lots of independent actors, right? You know, executive officers, CEOs, and companies, venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, a bunch of independent actors working—

AMANDA: Uh-hmm.

JATHAN: —independently of each other, but working along the same kind of imperatives. "I need to maximize my profits. I need to expand my power or my market share in society. I need to not be left behind. I need to be future-focused." Everybody acting independently on the same imperatives of a capitalist system, makes it feel like you're making decisions that are not your own. Even if you are at the top of the pyramid, there is still something above you that's orchestrating you.

AMANDA: Uh-hmm.

JATHAN: And that is that mythos of capital, right? That it is this kind of, like, quasi-spiritual force of nature that sits above even the most wealthy and powerful CEO. They feel like they don't have total control over their decisions. They're just, "You know, if I don't make these decisions, then I'm going to get left behind or eaten by the market, right?" And so, it's this really effective way of offloading any kind of agency or accountability onto something that doesn't exist, right? This kind of, like, force of capital or this, like, you know, this quasi-spiritual law of capitalism, something like that, right? And I think that is a role that a lot of— you know, this is the divine right of kings, right? This is—

AMANDA: Uh-hmm.

JATHAN: You know, there's something above me that both ordains me with great power, but also takes away my own agency. I'm not actually making decisions. I'm just a conduit for the will of the gods. And so, it's actually not my fault when bad things happen that seem like they're the direct cause of my decisions. Because if it wasn't me, it would be someone else in my place, you know?

JULIA: They're all oracles of Delphi.

JATHAN: Exactly.

JULIA: Every single one of them.

AMANDA: Yeah. As we were sitting here, I was trying to come up with a list in reading the book of, like, all the mythology words that jumped off the page to me. There are unicorns that I want to touch on. There's, you know, Elysium and Paradise and Eden and, like all of these, you know, like references to, like, a perfect afterlife, utopias, of course. I just sat here and I was like, "Oracle, Amanda. They literally named their company Oracle." Like, they're— they take it, boink right from the books, and put it right on the logo of their chips.

JATHAN: You know, the great thing about Silicon Valley is there's no subtext. It's all just texture, it's all right there. And so, yes, Oracle, Larry Ellison's company, one of the largest companies. Larry Ellison, one of the richest men in the world, sitting next to Trump, announcing project Stargate, right? This supposed half trillion dollar investment into data center infrastructure, so it's him—

AMANDA: Sorry. I just gave myself a little headache rolling my eyes too hard. That wasn't about you, Jathan. That was just—

JULIA: Yeah.

AMANDA: That was just what it was, yeah.

JULIA: Jathan, this is a separate question for later, but why do they have no creativity, whatsoever?

AMANDA: And miss the point of stories, we'll get there.

JATHAN: It's something that my co-host on TMK, Ed Ongweso regularly is, like, berating people in the tech industry, being like, "Read another book. Quit reading Neuromancer for the 680th time." Right? Like, read another book. But there's a lot of group thing. They all read the same— like Isaac Asimov's Foundation, and they're all like—

AMANDA: Uh-hmm.

JATHAN: —"Oh, I need to be a psycho historian, or they'll all read Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson." And they're like, "I need to create the metaverse, because I'm a, you know, I'm an edge runner or what—" it's all the same boring, trite thing, and it means they have no creativity. But bringing up Oracle— the other thing there, Oracle of Delphi, and this links up to the last chapter of my book, which is on futures, and is really—

JULIA: Uh-hmm.

JATHAN: —about this whole industry of futurism, and the power of— kind of trying to lay claim on the future, and the ability to tell the future, or create narratives about the future. The primary method of futurology, right? So, kind of trying to predict futures, create scenarios about the futures, was created—

AMANDA: All right, let me guess. Is it? Is it Bones? Is it dowsing rods? Is it chicken feed? Is it tea leaves?

JULIA: Hmm. Uh-hmm.

JATHAN: It might as well be all of those things, and those things might actually be more effective.

AMANDA: Yeah.

JATHAN: Like, one of the main methodologies of futurology is called the Delphi method.

JULIA: Oh, my God.

JATHAN: And it was created by Shell, the oil and gas company in the '70s to create scenarios about a peak oil future. How do we, as one of the largest oil and gas companies, ensure that we exist in the future of a peak oil, or renewable energies, or whatever it might be. And so it's called the Delphi method. And so, again, it's like that direct linking to being like, "Yeah, no, we are the oracles of Delphi. We are, you know, getting high on our own supply of cave gas, you know?"

JULIA: In a cave somewhere, yeah.

AMANDA: Uh-hmm.

JATHAN: And they were telling you the future.

AMANDA: And also they're in the business of selling very, very small amounts of cave gas so that you, too, can feel like you're a part of the future. Like, it just—

JULIA: There you go.

AMANDA: It is so direct. Like, it is not guessing, just to, like, look at the lines. I feel— this is the closest I feel to doing psychoactive drugs, which I personally don't do, but, like, you know, rock on. It's just, like, looking at the Wikipedia article for Shell oil and being like, "They just did it. They just said it. Like, it's just— it's right there."

JULIA: They just named the thing.

JATHAN: That's right. And they— but they've rebranded cave gas as hype.

AMANDA: Yes.

JATHAN: And all of us can get high on it as much as we want, you know? And believe— but only believe the futures that they've implanted into our mind.

JULIA: Right. Hype is a renewable resource, unlike gasoline.

AMANDA: On that note, I think I'm going to pop into the kitchen, definitely not to huff any cave gas, but I will be— I'll be right back after grabbing a quick refill.

JULIA: Let's go.

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JULIA: Hey, it's Julia, and welcome to the refill. Let's start, as we always do, by thanking our newest patron, Christine. Christine, thank you so much for going to patreon.com/spiritspodcast and signing up to support the show. You join supporting producer-level patrons Uhleeseeuh, Anne, Hannah, Jane, Lily, Matthew, Rikoelike, Scott, Wil and AE (Ah). And, of course, our legend-level patrons, Audra, Bex, Chibi Yokai, Michael, Morgan H., Captain Jonathan MAL-uh-kye Cosmos, Sarah, and Bea Me Up Scotty. And hey, if you want cool rewards, like ad-free episodes, recipe cards for every single gosh darn episode and so much more, go as well to patreon.com/spiritspodcast. And also, hey, have you considered leaving us a voicemail for our urban legends episodes? You can call 617-420-2344, or if you're outside of the US, you can email us a voice memo at spiritspodcast@gmail.com. We're looking for stuff that's anywhere from 30 seconds to three to four minutes, but basically, we want to hear your urban legends but in voicemail form. And hey, wouldn't it be cool if you could hear your own voice on Spirits Podcast? I'm just saying, pretty freaking cool. Also, have you ordered your Old Wives' Tale Teller corduroy hat yet? I just got mine in the mail, and let me tell you, I'm going to be wearing it all summer long. It is so freaking cool and cute. It's creepy and cool, I'll even dare to say. And you can get your own by going to spiritspodcast.com/merch. Just as a reminder, we have very limited stock on this hat, so the sooner you order it, the more likely you are to actually get it. So spiritspodcast.com/merch for the Old Wives' Tale Teller corduroy hat and so much other merch. Have you checked out our merch store lately? spiritspodcast.com/merch. Another thing I want to tell you about is another show here at Multitude, and this one is Wow If True. Wow If True is your one-stop internet culture shop, explaining how, what's happening online shapes the real world. And they are the internet experts and real life besties to unravel it. Tech Culture journalist Amanda Silberling and science fiction author/attorney, Isabel J. Kim, Esq. More importantly, they're the only podcast that will mention Neopets and horizontal mergers in the same episode, which honestly, kind of impressive. They're asking and answering your burning questions about the internet, like, who is Bigolas Dickolas? And why are Silicon Valley bros biohacking their mouths? Very relevant to this week's episode. Or why are YouTubers locking people in grocery stores? And just how many secret babies does Elon Musk have? I will say, it's more secret babies since they wrote this copy, and that's saying something. So check out Wow If True wherever on the internet you find your podcasts. With new episodes every other Wednesday. This week, we are sponsored by one of our OGs Shaker & Spoon. Shaker & Spoon is a subscription cocktail service that helps you learn how to make handcrafted cocktails right in your home. Every box comes with enough ingredients to make three different cocktail recipes developed by world-class mixologists. All you need to do is buy one bottle of that month's spirit, whether that is gin, or vodka, or whiskey, or bourbon, who can say? And then you have all you need to make 12 drinks at home. And at just $40 to $50 per month, plus the cost of the bottle, this is a super cost-effective way to enjoy craft cocktails. And you can skip or cancel boxes at any time. So invite over some friends, class up your night caps, or be the best house guest of all-time with your Shaker & Spoon box. Get $20 off your first box at shakerandspoon.com/cool. That is shakerandspoon.com/cool. And now, let's get back to the show.

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AMANDA: All right, folks, we are back. And just totally locked in on, coincidentally, a future that will make the people who sold me this thing that I'm really enjoying even richer.

Jathan, when you are not thinking about society and the world, maybe especially when you're thinking about society and our future and our past, our present, what do you enjoy relaxing with? Be it a cup of tea, a cup of coffee, an alcoholic beverage, a seltzer here in the final days of summer for you in the southern hemisphere. What is your go-to?

JATHAN: Well, I make my own cold-drip at home. I'm like high-octane, caffeine addict.

JULIA: Oh, yeah.

JATHAN: And so, I make very strong cold-drip and drink entirely too much of it. And grind my own beans. I've got my whole, like Japanese, you know, setup. It looks like I'm doing chemistry experiments. So that— that's something I not only enjoy but need because of addiction, every day.

JULIA: I've been looking to get one of those, like, very Instagram-able drip carafes, and my husband was like, "But we have the mocha pot. You don't need it." I said, "No, no, it's for clarifying cocktails. It's fine. Don't worry about it." I was like, "I'm never going to use this for coffee. It's only going to be for milk punch." So what can you do? Capitalism, baby. And there's more items that I need.

JATHAN: I keep mine pretty simple when it comes to— with my downers, with my uppers, you know? And it's just—

JULIA: Of course.

JATHAN: —bourbon on the rocks. That's about all I need.

AMANDA: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.

JULIA: Oh, hell yeah.

AMANDA: What's the bourbon scene like in Australia?

JATHAN: I mean, it's mostly a lot of American imported bourbon, of course.

JULIA: Fair.

JATHAN: So I'm just drinking all the same bourbon you get in the US just for, like, much more expensive, because it has to come all the way to Australia.

JULIA: Yeah. I gotta look and see if there's any good Australian bourbon makers, because I feel like that's a untapped market, perhaps. See, I know capitalism words, guys.

AMANDA: You’re doing great.

JATHAN: What Australia does do really well is— I mean,  we take our coffee extremely seriously.

JULIA: Uh-hmm.

JATHAN: So, like, Australian coffee culture is the best in the world.

AMANDA: Uh-hmm.

JATHAN: Australian coffee, the deba— the floor for Australian coffee is really high, but that also translates into doing really excellent coffee liqueurs.

AMANDA: Oh.

JULIA: I was gonna ask if you— if Australia, as a whole, has done the Espresso Martini trend.

JATHAN: Oh, the Espresso Martini is like the national cocktail of Australia.

AMANDA: Incredible.

JULIA: I love that.

JATHAN: You can get it anywhere. But yeah—

JULIA: Incredible.

JATHAN: —especially, I really enjoy Mr. Black is the name of it, but it's like the best coffee liqueur—

AMANDA: We just got that recently in Brooklyn.

JULIA: Yeah.

AMANDA: Well, thank you for your export.

JATHAN: Perfect.

JULIA: It's great. It's— I only make my espresso martinis with Mr. Black now.

JATHAN: Absolutely.

AMANDA: Returning to things that I could talk about all day long. Something else that has been on my mind is how often we talk about the hero's journey in mythology and folklore. This, I feel, is a playbook that's being followed really effectively by these tech CEOs, the people whose faces that maybe we are starting to learn when we just heard their names before, as they have a more visible role in US public policy. There's the call to adventure. There are setbacks. You, like, go out to sort of discover something, and then come back to your same life changed, in this case, being much richer. One thing that your book helped me notice, Jathan, is that the— like, using this model of, like, being a hero who goes out to discover something, makes it feel like that success is inevitable, and that the technology that they, quote-unquote, "discover" of, like, Steve Jobs sitting in the garage and, like, an iMac gets, like, popped onto his lap, or, you know, Elon Musk, like, toiling in unethical emerald mines in South Africa, under apartheid, and then, like, coming up with, you know, things that actually don't work very well. That it makes it feel like it's just a naturally occurring thing. And we're like, "Oh, well, like, we discovered it, like, from, you know, the apple, you know, falling on Sir Isaac Newton's head to Edison just, like, happening to capture electricity in the light bulb for the first time. That it's just like something that exists that— like you were saying earlier, if it's not me sitting in the Pharaoh's seat, it would be somebody else, because it is, you know, the divine right being channeled through a person. I'm just the person who's here right now. That's all to say, what can we do to better, like, notice and disrupt these kinds of, like, inevitabilities? So you say really beautifully at the end of the book that the, quote, "collective nature of human life is far more fluid, weird, exciting, and filled with potential than can possibly be contained by any single narrative imposed on it." And I'm tired of this one.

JATHAN: It is a really common and just, like— has stuck around for a long time. This great man conception of history. And, you know, a big problem with this is that this was the preferred way for a very long time that historians would tell history, is through kind of, like, biographical histories, right? You choose a person, and then you tell the story of an age through this person's life. And on one hand, that makes it very narrative, right? Like, we all love stories about people, not, you know, abstract forces or abstract social relations or whatever. It's like— it's a person, so it makes it feel more grounded, more concrete, more relatable. It's also— it helps kind of draw a boundary around the analysis and the story. You're just— you're telling a story through this person's eyes or through this person's life. And so for a very long time, like this is— this was a common way that you would learn about histories, through the eyes of—

AMANDA: Uh-hmm.

JATHAN: —Napoleon Bonaparte, right? History on horseback, right? It's— history is this one man, and what he did. What he did is history, so it's kind of this circular, tautological logic here.

AMANDA: Hmm.

JATHAN: There's so many of these contradictions. I mean, capitalism loves a contradiction, where on one hand, it is that like, "I am the genius inventor. You know, I am Edison. I am Newton. I am Henry Ford. I am, you know, whoever it is, right?" And it's only through me that you get these age-defining innovations and technological revolutions and social progress and things like that. But also, if it wasn't me, I'm just a conduit for natural forces, it would be someone else. And so you've got a contradiction there of, like, if it wasn't me, it would be someone else, but it was me, and thus it could have only had been me, you know? And so you end up with this kind of myopic view of history and also a view of history as something that, like, white men in a certain time or in place do, right?

JULIA: Uh-hmm.

JATHAN: History is only made by— there's a reason why it's called the Great Man Theory of history, because it's always— it should be the Great White Man Theory of history, right?

AMANDA: Uh-hmm.

JATHAN: And it creates, then, with that, this real scent— it reinforces what Marx calls in his work, a fetishism, right? That like— and by fetishism, what he means is— you know, he's talking about, like, commodity fetishism and what that means is you pick up a— you know, any commodity, you know? Maybe it's your iPhone, because I'm looking at mine on my desk right now, so let's say that, right? You pick this up and you really only see it as and as the object in front of you, right? You're just like, "I don't know where this thing came from, or how it came to me, or maybe the only thing that I know is that, like, you know, thank God for Steve Jobs, right? He gave us the iPhone." So then the great man came down from the mount with the iPhone and said, "Here you go." And so that's all we know about it, right? Is that it's just an object that exists on its own. And, you know, that means that we have no real conception of great, vast many links and networks and so— and relationships that came together to create this iPhone. All of the natural resources from every corner of the world. Human labor from every corner of the world. Logistics that brought these things from every corner of the world to my desk, to your desk, right? And then all of the things that make this work, the, you know, the network infrastructure, the data, right? The digital connectivity. There's nothing about the object that ever wants to reveal all of these things that actually sit behind it, because instead, we just need commodities that move in markets that you buy, sell, use. We don't need to know where they came from, because that's not useful for any capitalist to tell you, "Oh, this came from slave labor here, and it came from, you know, conflict minerals there." And— you know?

AMANDA: Uh-hmm.

JATHAN: All of these kinds of things, right? Like, you're not supposed to know that. You're just supposed to look at the object, maybe associate it with a person or a company, Steve Jobs, Apple, and build a relationship with it, right?

AMANDA: Yeah.

JATHAN: You treat it as a thing, as a— as another— as the most important object in your life. Literally, build relationships with this fetishized object. Repeat that millions of times with all of the objects around us, all of these— all of the ideas of how these things come into our lives through great companies or great men who singlehandedly, seemingly went out and, you know, forged an iPhone somewhere and brought it to us.

AMANDA: They cracked open a geode. It was right there.

JULIA: Uh-hmm.

JATHAN: Yeah, exactly. And, you know, if we have no conception of the social relations embedded in any specific thing, any technology device, the iPhone, whatever it might be, if you have no conception of the kind of choices, or values, or interest that became embedded and materialized in this thing, right? The iPhone doesn't exist because that's the only way it could possibly exist. It exists because some people made explicit decisions and trade-offs that, "We're going to build it this way and not this way, because maybe it increases our profit margins by 0.3%, right?" Or maybe it means that we get to maintain more control over the data created by the thing, which is just, you know, making our profits even— have a longer duration, not just— you just— it's not just that you buy the thing, but now we get profit from you using the thing, right? All of these things are choices that are made, and they're trade— and they all have trade-offs. It could go other ways. There's contingencies involved, but we don't— if we don't see, or aren't even allowed to understand all of these different choices, human values, social relationships, you know, physical networks, and so on, that go into the thing, then it's impossible to really question the thing to— you know, the word— the best you can do is refuse the thing. You know, that gets into the whole idea of luddism and the misunderstandings of what luddism means, which is a kind of a techno— a primitive techno phobia, right?

JULIA: Uh-hmm.

JATHAN: A reject— a fear and rejection of technology, which is not what the original Luddites were about at all. But if we exist in a society filled with these fetish objects, if we exist in a way where we are completely alienated from all of these other people, and decisions, and choices, and networks that end up producing these things, then the best you can do is either accept it, you know, joyfully or just through acquiescence or reject it, right? And if you're given that binary option, it's really difficult to reject things that an entire society has been built on, that we have these dependencies built on, right? Because at that point, a rejection of it means a rejection of society, which is where you end up with, like, the Unabomber living in a cabin, right? Kind of following that logic to its most extreme.

AMANDA: Yeah.

JULIA: Hmm.

JATHAN: And which is also why you get this kind of derision of anybody who doesn't joyfully accept whatever technology— whatever latest technology Silicon Valley creates. You know, you get this derision as— well, by rejecting this technology, you are rejecting society, because there is now such a deep link between the individual device is society, right? It's— and that is all part of creating these objects, as these, like, powerful fetish objects created by singular men, is to now equivocate the product of a— you know, one of the wealthiest corporations to ever exist in the world. Their product is equivocated with society.

JULIA: And that's how you get witch hunts in the, like, 1400 to 1700s.

AMANDA: But is it bad, Julia, that I'm sitting here being like, "I kind of miss when, like, the monster— you know, that we're being trained to not fall into its clutches, was like the devil, or, you know, like pissing off the king, or like pissing off a god, or it— I don't know, it felt to me like the point of all these narratives, the point of all the myths and the stories was either, you know, something teaching kids about what is and isn't safe, right? Like the don't go into the woods, don't stray from the path, all those kinds of things.

JULIA: The boogeyman, the bug bears, et cetera, yes.

AMANDA: Exactly. Or it's something that is teaching us— yeah, like teaching us the values that we need in order to be, you know, safe members of society. And I feel like it is, you know, base level Tumblr, you know, discovery of academics in the early 2010s to realize that like, "Oh, man, like school train— trains us to be workers, man." You know? But then, I think there's one other level there, which is I see lots of, like, urban legends and horror starting to kind of claw against, or at least reckon with, the, like, interconnectedness of the world. Like, we— Julia, correct me, if I'm wrong, The Ring is the sort of, like, STI of TVs, right?

JULIA: The Ring is a great example. It follows— is a literal, great example of that, but go on.

AMANDA: Right. But, like, trying to start to reckon with, what does it mean that I could, like, see an image, someone across the world could see the image, and then, like, suddenly, we're sharing a connection that we didn't share before. And so I'm kind of wondering and, like, gesturing at, is, you know, is horror, is myth, is like— are these tools that will help us as narrative creatures, who are— you know, who have evolved to, like, identify pattern and find safety and comfort in society and just live longer to be with others? Is that one of the ways that we are starting to kind of percolate a resistance to this, like, object fetishized, you know, very networked and very siloed world?

JATHAN: Yeah. No, I think that's exactly right, yeah, because, like, so much of the power of technological capitalism is built on and relies upon myth, speculation, narrative. You know, I call it also a form of, like, check kiting, right? You're writing a check today and cashing it, hoping that the money is in the account at a later period. This is what we see around a lot of technologies that don't actually work, that, you know, a lot of promises that have not yet been fulfilled, is that— you know, it's check kiting, right? But you just need to stay on board. You just need to have faith. That's a lot of it, right? Is have that faith in us, you know, just— and just stick— you know, just believe in me. And in the book, I talk about this in terms of the Tinkerbell effect.

JULIA: Uh-hmm.

JATHAN: Aptly, I wrote an essay about this, expanding on it for a website called futurism.com which, despite the name, has a lot of really great critical writing about the tech sector. But around this Tinkerbell effect and, you know, in the original Peter Pan story, you know, a fairy tale, right? That Tinkerbell only exists, you know, the fairy only exists if you believe in her, right? And at some point during the story, you know, Peter Pan stops believing in the magic of Tinkerbell, and she starts fading away. You know, she— and then she implores, not just Peter Pan, but at this point the audience, right? So it's a way to get audience participation into the story is, "Clap, clap for me. Clap for me."

JULIA: She needs applause to live.

JATHAN: And it's a—

JULIA: Yeah.

JATHAN: I need your psychic energy, right? I need your belief and I need your attention in order to live. I need you to clap loudly and believe hard in me. And this is what the tech sector says. You know, I relate that this is how we should understand AI right now, is in terms of a Tinkerbell effect. The whole tech sector right now is organized around spending ungodly amounts of money, weaving these stories, capturing our attention, doing all of these things, largely for the goal of getting us to believe hard and clap loud for the sector, right? In other words, give me your psychic energy so I can sustain myself on that until we get to the point where I'm actually able to do something like what I've said, I've been doing the whole time, right? So it's this way of trying to buy time through belief. I, then, talk about in the book, that's like, if you've got a tech sector, if you've got this political economic system, if you've got all these things that are really sustained on the power of belief. When people stop believing for whatever reason, it's really amazing how quickly they start fading away, right? We have a lot of examples of this, you know? I mean, just think most recently, like Web3 or the metaverse, right? Like—

JULIA: Google Glass, you know?

JATHAN: And— exactly. Google Glass, right? Like, there are so many examples of this, where really, really powerful companies and investors and entrepreneurs, and, you know, put billions and billions of dollars in some cases, you know? If we think about, like, Web3 and the promise of, you know, NFTs and blockchain and the metaverse and stuff like that, right? Like, ungodly amounts of power, you know? You've got Paris Hilton and Snoop Dogg on Jimmy Kimmel talking about they're bored, they [47:02] stuff. And it's like, at some point people stopped believing in it, right? They were like, "This is a joke. There's nothing here." And you just stop giving it your psychic energy, you stop believing in it.

AMANDA: Uh-hmm.

JATHAN: At some point, the people in the tech sector themselves kind of stopped believing in it, and it just disappeared, despite billions of dollars of investment, right? I talk about this as, like, there is a lot to be done just simply by refuting and refusing the narratives, the singular narratives that are being sold to us, right? That unilateral mythologies, right? That, like everyone believes in this one myth, and there's no other myths that can be alternatives or that can supersede it, and you have to believe in it, right? There's a lot of power to come from just refusing those narratives, from refuting them. You know, I don't think that it's— I don't think that's the end point. That, to me, is the starting point, but it shows how, you know this— the starting point can be just as easy or just as simple as what you believe in.

JULIA: The— as you're, like, talking about this, my brain just kept saying like, "Yeah, if you sacrifice enough bulls, eventually Zeus will answer your prayer." And then I was thinking about how, in mythology, the stories that are featured in mythology are always the stories in which the gods answer the prayer. But if you're an ancient Greek person making your sacrifice to Zeus, and you don't get an answer to your prayer, no one is writing the story about that. So it is always this idea of, like, the agenda is always going to push, "Yes, if you do this, you will get this." Rather than, "Well, we hope so," which is exactly what it seems like futurism in tech is.

JATHAN: Yeah. That— that's exactly right. And I think that's a really important point here, too, is that, like, for most of us, our prayers are not answered, right? Like, you don't actually get any—

JULIA: Yeah.

JATHAN: —say in what technologies are created, or how they're created, or for why, for what reason. Like, you don't actually get any say in any of that. What you have to do is you have to learn to navigate the world built by someone else for their own interests, right?

JULIA: Hmm.

JATHAN: And maybe you benefit from it. Maybe you get some benefits. Maybe you're harmed by it. But those things are actually kind of beside the fact, because at the end of the day, the point is, is it's not for you. Your prayers are not answered here, right? And so we are in this system of technological capitalism, like we all— the vast, vast, vast majority of us exist as the people whose prayers are not answered, but we still have to live in a world of these mythologies and these heroes. I'm sure it's been written. This is your area of expertise, not mine. But it feels like there's a whole— you know, a whole library worth a story. Is to write about all of the people, all the collateral damage of the age of gods and heroes, right? Who, like, "I'm not actually part of, like, Odysseus' journey, but like, he whizzed through my town and absolutely, like, ruined our community." And it's all that kind of, like, the people that have to live as collateral damage in the wake of someone else's her— hero's journey, of someone else's prayers getting answered.

JULIA: Uh-hmm.

JATHAN: And that's all of us, right? It's like we're living in a world where, like, we see these heroes, we see these modern day gods, right?

AMANDA: Uh-hmm.

JATHAN: Like, the cultural studies scholar Joel Dinerstein has written that technology is the American theology, right?

JULIA: Hmm.

JATHAN: Like that— and so we live in a world where that's happening, and we have to live to navigate— where we have to learn to navigate that world, but our prayers are not answered. And that's not because, like, we have bad prayers, or we're not doing the right rituals or whatever. It's because there's, like, systematic way— the ways that are designed to exclude anybody else's prayer from ever even being considered in this process.

JULIA: Damn.

AMANDA: And the Tinkerbell metaphor of withholding my hype and maybe even saying like, "Hey, do any of you see this ever working?" You know? And kind of starting to point that out feels like, as you say, a beginning for more, you know, hopefully, like, organized and people powered, and specific material ways to push back against the future being kind of, like, co-opted and forced onto a track that ultimately, I don't think any of us would sign up for if they showed us the end vision. Jathan, for anyone who is listening to all of this and their mind is being a little bit blown for every moment that they're hearing. Can you recommend some more places for folks to start reading, thinking, listening? I think your own work is a wonderful place to start. But even just being able to Google things, I think, is a wonderful beginning for folks to whom these, you know, vocabulary words start to feel like a lifeline. So can I just ask for your, you know, 62nd recommendation on, hey, further reading about technological capitalism and its many discontents?

JATHAN: Yeah, absolutely. So, of course, I have two books and a new one on this. You've got those plugs. I have a podcast, This Machine Kills. All these things are really easy to find just by searching. I have a very SEO-friendly name.

AMANDA: Uh-hmm.

JATHAN: You'll only find pages of results about me if you search my name, so find it there. But as for something else that I think would actually really connect with listeners of Spirits is I always also recommend as a perfect companion piece to my book, a recent book by Brian Merchant called Blood in the Machine. And it is—

JULIA: Hmm.

JATHAN: —a really in depth narrative history of the original Luddite rebellion. Brian is a fantastic tech journalist who's been doing this for a very long time. Used to be the tech columnist at the LA Times, and has been writing very critical about technology and labor for a very long time. And he tells the story of the original Luddite rebellion in this way that is so narrative and so captivating, and really shows how the Luddites even that they're— at this time period, you know, 200 years ago, when they were, you know, going around organizing, under the cover of night and smashing the machines of capital. They were seen, even at that time period, as folk heroes. They were modern day folk heroes.

AMANDA: Uh-hmm.

JATHAN: People wrote story— or wrote songs about them. You know, Lord Byron famously wrote an "Ode to Ned blood."

JULIA: He would.

JATHAN: And he— you know, Brian's book, I just— I always have nothing— I have nothing but good things to say about because it is written in this captivating way. It is written as a historical narrative. It does shy away from this Great Man Theory as well. It does not engage in that. It shows how this was a real community movement. There were a lot of people and moving parts of all kinds who are involved in this. And he also then links it up in kind of interstitial chapters to modern day to contemporary things, especially around like the gig economy and labor there. And so I highly recommend that as a great companion piece for understanding these alternative folk heroes that I think should really be at the basis of how we understand this relationship between technology and capitalism, not as, you know, Luddism as this derogatory term—

AMANDA: Uh-hmm.

JATHAN: —that, you know, but luddism as a reference to the original labor movement and folk heroes who were fighting against the capital and its machinery.

AMANDA: More Luddite fan art.

JATHAN: Yes.

AMANDA: More fan art of Luddites. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us very early in the morning, powered by your cold-drip. Jathan, much appreciated.

JATHAN: Oh, what a joy to come on and talk with y'all. This is a lot of fun.

JULIA: This is incredible. Thank you so, so much. And remember the next time that you're rethinking your relationships with the Luddites, stay creepy.

AMANDA: Stay cool.

JULIA: Later, satyrs.

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