This Machine Kills

We chat with Tim Sahay and Kate Mackenzie — authors of the indispensable newsletter The Polycrisis and hosts of the new podcast Electric World Order — to get into the energy transition, financial markets, fossil fuel disruptions, and the war in Iran. Much of the coverage about the current oil crisis and chokepoint in the Strait of Hormuz is focused on the impacts of supply shocks, but equally important are the long-term effects of demand destruction. We lay out what an energy transition under conditions of polycrisis actually entails: things don’t just smoothly change while staying the same, instead it’s more like a material shift in the centre of political, economic, energetic power: from the petrostate (e.g. USA) to the electrostate (e.g. China).

••• The Polycrisis | Phenomenal World https://www.phenomenalworld.org/series/the-polycrisis/
••• Trailer for Electric World Order | | The Polycrisis Podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/introducing-electric-world-order-the-geopolitics/id1884213852?i=1000754959853

Standing Plugs:
••• Order Jathan’s book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite
••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble
••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills

Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)

We chat about new strides in Australian innovation. What if you had a computer quiz that decided if your grandma deserved the care needed to have a good life? What if you had a computer quiz designed to eliminate empathy in the name of streamlining budgets? What if you had an unbending, unchallengeable, system of rules that turned human experts into vestigial organs? And what if that system cost more than a $1 billion in privatisation contracts?

••• New aged care algorithm under fire as 800 apply for review https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-24/aged-care-algorithm-for-home-care-under-fire/106475138

Standing Plugs:
••• Order Jathan’s book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite
••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble
••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills

Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)

TMK thought validated yet again! We talk about two big studies into the effects of AI on workloads, which show with in-depth empirical detail how AI intensifies and expands labor, rather than lightens and shrinks workloads. Weird! Did anybody know this would happen???

••• TMK live show in San Francisco, 7pm on Thursday, March 19th, with our friends at Bay Area Current and DSA SF. Join us! https://www.eventbrite.com/e/decoding-the-tech-vibe-shift-a-night-of-left-wing-tech-criticism-tickets-1984745130112

••• AI Isn’t Lightening Workloads. It’s Making Them More Intense. https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/ai-isnt-lightening-workloads-its-making-them-more-intense-e417dd2c
••• AI Doesn’t Reduce Work—It Intensifies It https://hbr.org/2026/02/ai-doesnt-reduce-work-it-intensifies-it

Standing Plugs:
••• Order Jathan’s book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite
••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble
••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills

Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)

We discuss the breathless article in Jeff Bezo’s Washington Post about how Claude’s integration into the Palantir Maven Smart System has been used for rapid target generation and prioritization for missile strikes in Iran. Then we go deeper into the fraying relationship between the Gulf states and the tech industry and the highly concentrated forms of financial investment and physical infrastructure in the UAE and Saudi Arabia that are load-bearing pillars of the global economy. Pillars that are now, very surprisingly for folks living in the Dubai Geopolitics Slow Zone, suddenly at risk from the consequences of geopolitics.

••• TMK live show in San Francisco, 7pm on Thursday, March 19th, with our friends at Bay Area Current and DSA SF. Join us! https://www.eventbrite.com/e/decoding-the-tech-vibe-shift-a-night-of-left-wing-tech-criticism-tickets-1984745130112

••• Anthropic’s AI tool Claude central to U.S. campaign in Iran, amid a bitter feud https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2026/03/04/anthropic-ai-iran-campaign/
••• The Trillions of Dollars of U.S. Investment at Stake in the Gulf https://www.wsj.com/business/the-trillions-of-dollars-of-u-s-investment-at-stake-in-the-gulf-f66f7883
••• The Iran war is a jolt to Dubai’s business model https://www.economist.com/business/2026/03/03/the-iran-war-is-a-jolt-to-dubais-business-model
••• Big Tech’s Uncertain Future in the Persian Gulf https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/07/business/dealbook/iran-gulf-tech-investments.html

Standing Plugs:
••• Order Jathan’s book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite
••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble
••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills

Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)

Folks, we are doing a TMK live show in San Francisco! Come join Jathan and Ed, along with our friends, Wendy Liu and Jimmy Wu, for a fun night of left-wing tech criticism as we decode the tech vibe shift. Thanks to Bay Area Current and DSA SF for sponsoring the event.

Entry is free, and they'll be drinks available with suggested cash donation.

••• Thursday, March 19th at 7:00pm
••• First Unitarian Universalist, Starr King Room
••• 1187 Franklin St, San Francisco

Registration is recommended but not required: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/decoding-the-tech-vibe-shift-a-night-of-left-wing-tech-criticism-tickets-1984745130112