#56 The nightmare of social media w/ Richard Seymour

Politics Theory Other

News

4.8 • 552 Ratings

🗓️ 21 August 2019

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Richard Seymour joins me to discuss his new book, The Twittering Machine. The title is taken from Paul Klee's 1922 painting in which the the bird-song of a diabolical machine acts as bait to lure humankind into a pit of damnation. Richard argues in the book that this is a chilling metaphor for our relationship with so-called social media. We spoke about the nature of social media addiction, the way in which the platforms incite users into performing unpaid labour, and how we might conceive of repurposing the architecture of the internet to more useful and humane ends.

Transcript

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0:00.0	The first cut on this record has been cross-format focused for Airplay success.
0:05.0	The men beat on their drums. I'm going to be. I'm going to I'm going to
0:21.6	I'm going to
0:23.6	the Hello and welcome to another episode of Politics Theory Other, a podcast from Tribune magazine.
0:52.0	My name is Alex Doherty and my guest today is Richard Seymour.
0:55.8	We spoke about Richard's new book, The Twittering Machine.
0:59.1	The title is taken from Paul Clee's 1922 painting,
1:02.5	in which the birdsong of a diabolical machine acts as bait to lure humankind into a pit of damnation.
1:09.2	Richard argues in the book that this is a chilling metaphor for our
1:12.1	relationship with so-called social media. We spoke about the nature of social media addiction,
1:17.9	the way in which the platforms incite users into performing unpaid labour, and how we might
1:22.5	conceive of repurposing or replacing the architecture of the internet to more useful and humane ends.
1:29.0	Today's show is brought to you by PTO's supporters on Patreon and also by Haymarket Books,
1:34.4	which has a great many left-wing titles that might be of interest to listeners.
1:38.1	One that you might like to check out is Revolution Today by Susan Bookmores.
1:43.4	In the book, Susan Bookmores highlights new forms of international solidarity and revolutionary
1:48.4	subjectivity that can break the impasse of neoliberal capitalism and reactionary nationalism.
1:54.2	In a moving account that includes over 100 photos and images, Revolution Today celebrates the new
1:59.5	political subjects that are organising
2:01.2	thousands of grassroots movements to fight racial and gender violence, state-led terrorism,
2:06.5	and capitalist exploitation of people and planet worldwide.
2:10.1	The 21st century has already witnessed unprecedented popular mobilizations, unencumbered by
	...

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