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Tech Won't Save Us

The Dirty Alliance Between Tech and the Oil Industry w/ JS Tan

Tech Won't Save Us

Paris Marx

Silicon Valley, Books, Technology, Arts, Future, Tech Criticism, Socialism, Paris Marx, News, Criticism, Tech News, Politics

4.8626 Ratings

🗓️ 3 April 2025

⏱️ 53 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Paris Marx is joined by JS Tan to discuss his experience seeing first hand how Microsoft deployed its cloud and machine learning services to help Chevron extract more oil and gas, and the state of tech worker organizing around climate change. JS Tan is a PhD student at MIT, researching cloud computing in the US and China. He’s a a member of Collective Action in Tech and writes the Value Added newsletter. Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider soc...

Transcript

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0:00.0

Perhaps the thing that I'm sort of most proud of in terms of this article is simply the fact that it became a great way for tech workers, for sort of my co-workers at the company to be able to talk about these issues in a more open way, to be able to share these issues with their co-workers who are maybe an office or Xbox, who have really no insights into the cloud business and be able to agitate these workers with this material.

0:43.8

Hello and welcome to Tech Won't Save Us made in partnership with The Nation magazine. I'm your host,

0:50.1

Paris Marks, and before we get into this week's episode, this month, April of 2025 is an important milestone for Tech Won't Save Us. All the way, back in April of 2020, I decided to start this show.

0:57.2

We were in this new pandemic trying to figure out what it was going to mean for the world.

1:01.7

Many people were still in lockdowns. And finally, I knew I was going to be in one place for

1:07.6

quite a long time. And I said, you know what? I have wanted to start a podcast

1:11.2

for quite a long time. I see all of this boosterism in the tech industry and particularly

1:16.9

in the podcast space, you know, a lot of podcasts that are just giving you positive takes on

1:22.2

tech news or, you know, are even just run by venture capitalists who are getting out their

1:26.8

perspective. And I said,

1:27.9

we need something different to help try to change the conversation on the tech industry, to help

1:33.0

give people a different understanding of what is actually going on here. And I think that the show

1:39.1

has been successful at that. I think it's been successful at changing how a lot of people see the tech

1:44.0

industry. And sadly, the importance successful at changing how a lot of people see the tech industry,

1:45.0

and sadly the importance of that perspective and the importance of not falling for the

1:49.7

bullshit is only becoming more important over time as we see the strengthening alliance

1:55.8

between the far right and the tech industry in the United States, but beyond as well. Over the past five years,

2:03.2

we've dug into so many different topics on the show, many more than I could ever hope to name.

2:09.2

And of course, that continues every single week, like with the show that you are about to listen to.

2:15.4

And every now and then, we do special series to dig into

2:18.7

important issues that you want to know about. Two years ago, I looked into Elon Musk and his

2:24.9

history to help give people a better understanding of who this man really is and how he became

...

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