Episode now remastered so it sounds 1000x better!
Cold open: Agent Zuboff receives her mission.
Main show: We politically cancel Shoshana Zuboff, author of The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, for advancing / mainstreaming a reactionary critique. Surveillance capitalism is not a “rogue mutation” of a normal capitalism. Surveillance is not the scapegoat that needs to be sacrificed so we can maintain a good version of consumption and commodification. We let you in on a little secret—one that Zuboff’s work is designed to obscure—the real horrors have been coming from inside capitalism all along.
Morozov’s article on Zuboff’s bad analysis of surveillance capitalism: https://thebaffler.com/latest/capitalisms-new-clothes-morozov
Monthly Review article with good analysis of surveillance capitalism: https://monthlyreview.org/2014/07/01/surveillance-capitalism/
Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl). Thanks to Laura for voice work on the cold open.
Muslim-majority countries do not have a great reputation when it comes to human freedom. So how are they doing? Mustafa Akyol is author of "Freedom in the Muslim World."
We are halfway through our guest hosting week. Today, Kate Klonick takes the mic. She is an assistant professor at St. John’s Law School, a fellow at the Information Society Project at Yale Law School, and researcher of the intersection between law and tech. She’s also co-host of a daily YouTube series called In Lieu of Fun.
On the Gist, how Kate found herself on a daily live show during quarantine.
In the interview, Kate talks to Ben Wittes, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, co-founder and editor-in-chief of Lawfare, and Kate’s co-host on In Lieu of Fun. They discuss how the global pandemic spurred a need for intelligent discussion in a less than lateral way. Guests on their show have ranged from apiarists to the former president of Estonia. Wittes wanted to build something that welcomed a community, allowing for audience input around guest selection and conversation topics. Along the way, he found an avenue that continues to forge new friendships without the stale in-person meet and greets we so often find at happy hours.
In the spiel, what it’s like to build an online community during this crisis.
The final topic today looks at news that some large money market funds are shifting fees from users and taking the financial hit themselves. This creates a dynamic where only the largest companies can survive long term, and reflects a key unintended consequence of low interest rates.
The Memory Palace is a proud member of Radiotopia, a collective of independent podcasts from PRX.
A note on notes: We’d much rather you just went into each episode of The Memory Palace cold. And just let the story take you where it well. So, we don’t suggest looking into the show notes first.
Music
Ruby by Ali Farka Toure
Party’s End, from Bernard Herrmann’s score to The Egyptian
Future Green by Masuhiro Sugaya
The Boy and the Snake Dance by Charles Cohen
Vier Stucke for Xylophone as performed by Guniid Keetman
Opening from Marcelo Zarvos’ score to Please Give
Herbert’s Story from Mark Orton’s score to Nebraska
Solitary Living by The Flashbulb
Notes
You should read Dan De Quille. He’s a good writer! I like his book on the Comstock Load, Big Bonanza.
On May 31, 2020, Irene Triplett passed away at the age of 90. Her life was rather unremarkable save for one important fact: she was the last person who received a pension from the United States government from the US Civil War.
Find out how a woman who died two decades into the 21st Century was still receiving a pension from a war which ended 155 years ago on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
There was unrest on the streets of Kenosha last night after a policeman shot an unarmed black man 7 times in the back. The Wisconsin governor has called in the national guard to keep the peace, but if Portland is a test case, it shows that militarization can actually escalate the situation.
Aminé’s 2nd album Limbo released this month and is already being heralded as his best work to date. The invigorating rising star takes a moment from his wild videos and hectic schedule to reflect with Brittany and Eric on The Nod Show.
As summer winds down and election season begins to heat up, we reflect on the political prospects of Asian America and the mess that is the Democratic Party. We discuss AOC’s speech at the DNC last week as evidence that the party has lost the thread. We then examine Trump’s WeChat ban and the many uses of this Chinese super app. This leads to a concluding conversation about whether first- and second- (and third-...) generation Asian Americans could trend rightward as part of a racial realignment in both parties.
0:00 – An update on the start of school, the wildfires in northern California, and failed Covid policies.
10:40 – Who said it best? We debate the messaging of the Democrats during last week’s convention and whether the speech by the party’s rising star (and TTSG favorite), AOC, captured the urgency of the moment. Are accusations of elitism fair? Or just bad faith? Also, debater Jay makes his return and recites his own version of a convention speech in an effort to get AOC’s attention.
26:05 – Why WeChat? The Trump administration’s ban on TikTok may claim, as a collateral casualty, the messaging-payment-social-media super app WeChat. The administration doesn’t seem to understand what the app is used for, but it’s clear that a WeChat ban would hurt hundreds of millions of Chinese in China and abroad—and tank iPhone sales in China.
While free-speech concerns are well founded, we consider how WeChat and other Asian apps have been used to organize right-wing diasporic activism, including anti-affirmative-action drives. We revisit Jay’s interview with Viet Thanh Nguyen about first-generation immigrant conservatism—and “Four Prisons,” an essay by Glenn Omatsu, on the rightward turn of earlier Asian activists. (Thanks to listener Naomi Hirahara.)
43:20 – Are we gonna go neocon? Jay worries that, on account of the weird politics around standardized testing and affirmative action, Asian Americans will become more conservative and eventually vote Republican. Is the conservative critique of the Democrats correct: that identity politics have superseded a universal economic focus? Have both parties engaged in a Black/white culture war that leaves many Asians and Latinos bereft? (Caveat: not the Bernie-crats!) Tammy argues that the debate over immigration policy will give the Democrats an edge in the foreseeable future.
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Fellow Republicans rally support for President Trump. Another night of protests after Wisconsin police shooting. Marco fizzles as Laura heads for the Gulf. CBS News Correspondent Steve Kathan has today's World News Roundup.
