PODCAST · technology
The Anti-Dystopians
by Alina Utrata
Is social media really destroying democracy? Should Facebook be considered a public utility? How does cryptocurrency affect state sovereignty? And what exactly is surveillance capitalism? For all your political questions about tech, this is The Anti-Dystopians. The Anti-Dystopians is hosted and produced by Alina Utrata. All episodes are freely available, wherever you get your podcasts. Follow the show on Twitter @AntiDystopians. To support the show, visit: bit.ly/3AApPN4 To subscribe to the email newsletter, visit: bit.ly/3kuGM5X Hosted on Acast. See <a style='col
Episodes
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Astronauts on Strike! Spaceports, Colonial Telescopes and Labor Unions in the Stars
In this episode, Alina Utrata talks to Dr Kate Sammler, a geographer who looks at the intersection of science and politics in the oceans, atmospheres, and outer space. They discussed how colonialism and scientific exploration have long been entangled, from building telescopes on sacred indigenous...
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"We Cannot Rely on Five Nerds": AI Urbanism from Amazon Go to Tech Sovereignty
In this episode of the Anti-Dystopians, Alina Utrata talks to Casey Lynch, the Ramon y Cajal researcher in the Department of Geography at the University of Girona. Casey is a human geographer with interests in digital, political, urban, and labour geographies, as well as geographic thought and...
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A World of VCs in Miniature: Silicon Valley's Ideology
On this episode, Alina Utrata talks to Olivier Jutel, a lecturer at the University of Otago and an expert in cyberlibertarianism. They discuss the ideology of many technology industry elites and the strange political ideas permeating through Silicon Valley. What makes these Sand Hill Road venture...
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But Daddy, I Love Him (My ChatGPT Boyfriend): Robots and Loveability
Alina Utrata talks to Dr Jenny Carla Moran, a Postdoctoral Research Fellow based at the Trinity Long Room Hub and a faculty member at TCD-TU Dublin Joint Centre for the Sociology of Humans and Machines. They discuss Jenny's research about robots and loveability. Why are so many people falling in...
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FROM THE ARCHIVE: The eye of the tiger: conservation tech, rural surveillance & the patriarchy in Indian wildlife reserves
FROM THE ARCHIVE: In this episode, Alina Utrata talks to Dr Trishant Simlai, a conservation researcher studying the politics and geographies of wildlife conservation in India, who just received his PhD in the Department of Geography at Cambridge. They discuss wildlife surveillance in the Corbett...
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Why Finance Guys Are Trying to Offshore the Planet
On this episode, Alina Utrata talks to Connor O'Brien, a PhD Candidate at University of Cambridge researching a conceptual history of good governance and sovereign debt. They discussed a little-known tool for climate finance called "debt for nature swaps". While they might sound nice, they're...
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From the Archive: Nationalize Gmail!!!
FROM THE ARCHIVE: Alina Utrata talks with Josh Lappen, a fellow Californian and environmental historian researching at Oxford University, who studies some of the most important technology there is: critical infrastructure. They discuss why hundreds of Elon Musks can’t (and won’t) solve climate...
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On Dystopia, Fearing the Future and Political Imagination
This week, the Anti-Dystopians talks to an expert in dystopia! Matthew Cole is a scholar of political theory and an Assistant Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences Binghamton University. His book “Fear the Future: Dystopia and Political Imagination in the 20th century” explores the history…
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An Intellectual History of LLMs
In this episode, Alina Utrata interviews Amira Moeding, a PhD Candidate in History at the University of Cambridge where they held fellowships with Cambridge Digital Humanities and the Cluster of Excellence “Matters of Activity” at Humboldt Universität zu Berlin. They talked all about Amira’s...
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Abolish AI!!: Decomputing with Dan McQuillan
On this episode of the Anti-Dystopians, Alina Utrata talks to Dan McQuillan, a senior lecturer in Critical AI at Goldsmiths University and the author of "Resisting AI: An Anti-Fascist Approach to Artificial Intelligence.” They talk about the state of AI adoption in the UK since our last...
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Public, Private and DOGE - Hybrid Sovereignty with Swati Srivastava
This week, Alina Utrata talks to Swati Srivastava, an Associate Professor of Political Science at Purdue University and a Faculty Associate at Harvard University's Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. They discussed Swati’s work on hybrid sovereignty, private actors in global governance —...
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From DOGE to Subsea Cables: Global Infrastructures and Corporate Control
In this episode, Alina Utrata talks to Andrew Dougall, a departmental lecturer in international relations at DPIR and associate member at St Antony’s college at Oxford University. They discuss Andrew’s work on global infrastructures and corporate control in the international system, from DOGE to...
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The Final Fun-Tier: WALL-E, Treasure Planet and Disney’s Nazi Rocket Scientist
In this episode, Alina Utrata talks to Rowena Squires, a PhD Candidate in Children’s Literature at Cambridge University. They discuss the strange legacy of the depiction of outer space in children’s animation. From the (not-so-cute-after-all) robot and the consumerist environmental collapse of...
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South Africa and Silicon Valley: From Gold Mines to Elon Musk
In this episode, Alina Utrata talks to Dr. Tim Karayiannides, a junior research fellow at Emmanuel College, about his recent article about the similarities and connections between South Africa and Silicon Valley. While Elon Musk’s childhood in apartheid in South Africa is sometimes cited as an...
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From the Suez Canal Company to SpaceX: Experts, Expertise, Science in the Political
On this week’s podcast, Alina Utrata talks to Jan Eijking, a William Golding Junior Research Fellow and Martin Fellow at Oxford University. Jan’s work is based in international relations, and focuses on expertise, empire, capitalism and the history and theory of international organizations. They...
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Engineering Territory: Silicon Valley in Space
On this episode of the Anti-Dystopians, your usual host is in the hot seat! Guest host Benjamin Tan, PhD Candidate at Cambridge, asks Alina Utrata about her recent publication in the American Political Science Review about Silicon Valley's outer space colonization projects. They discuss what Jeff...
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Digital Misogynoir
In this episode of the Anti-Dystopians, Alina Utrata speaks with Julia Slupska, Olivia Andrews and Hilary Watson about a recent report by Glitch UK entitled "Digital Misogynoir: Ending the dehumanising of Black women on social media." They discuss why Black women are uniquely targeted and harmed...
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Political Economy, AI and the Politics of Knowledge
For this episode of the Anti-Dystopians, Alina Utrata spoke with Catriona Gray, a PhD at the University of Bath working at the intersection of sociology, politics, and law on the adoption of AI technologies. They discussed the political economy of data and whether frameworks like ‘data is the new...
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"Automating Apartheid": Facial Recognition Tech in Palestine
For this episode of the Anti-Dystopians, Alina Utrata talks to Dr Matt Mahmoudi, the lead researcher on the Amnesty International report "Automating Apartheid" examining the deployment of facial recognition technology in Palestine. They discuss the report's findings, including how this facial...
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Data colonialism and its discontents
On this week’s episode of The Anti-Dystopians, Alina Utrata spoke to Paola Ricurate, an associate professor in the Department of Media and Digital Culture at Tecnológico de Monterrey and faculty associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University and the co-founder…
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Feminism, Reproductive Rights and Tech
On this episode of the Anti-Dystopians, Maha Atal is back to discuss feminism, reproductive rights and technology. Host Alina Utrata asks her: how has the legal landscape of abortion and reproductive rights changed since the overturning of Roe v Wade, and what are technology companies doing about...
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Astrotopia: The Dangerous Religion of the Corporate Space Race
In this episode, Alina Utrata talks Mary-Jane Rubenstein, a professor of Religion and Science in Society at Wesleyan University and the author of the new book Astrotopia: The Dangerous Religion of the Corporate Space Race. They discuss whether Elon Musk acts like a religious leader, how imperial...
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A History of Libertarian Exit
In this episode, Alina Utrata talks to Raymond Craib, professor of American History and a Latin Americanist at Cornell University, about his most recent book Adventure Capitalism, A History of Libertarian Exit from the Era of Decolonization to the Digital Age.They discuss the history of…
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Elon Musk’s favorite philosophy: the perils of longtermism
On this episode of the podcast, Alina Utrata speaks with Emile Torres, a PhD candidate at Leibniz University Hannover and the author of the forthcoming book Human Extinction: A history of the Science and Ethics of Annihilation. They discuss their research into Elon Musk’s favorite philosophy,...
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Period-Tracking Post-Roe: Reproductive Justice, Eugenics & Feminist Cybersecurity
In this episode, Alina Utrata talks to Julia Slupska, a DPhil Candidate at the Oxford Internet Institute researching feminist approaches to cybersecurity, and Stefanie Felsberger, a PhD Candidate in Gender Studies at Cambridge University studying surveillance, data capitalism and period tracking...
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The Anti-Fascist Approach to AI
The Anti-Dystopians is back from its summer hiatus! In this episode, Alina Utrata talks to Dan McQuillan, a Lecturer in Creative & Social Computing in the Department of Computing at Goldsmiths University of London, about his new book “Resisting AI: An Anti-Fascist Approach to Artificial...
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Social media and political publics in Kenya
On this episode of the Anti-Dystopians, Alina Utrata talks to Steph Diepeveen, a senior research associate at Cambridge University, research fellow in digitalization at ODI and the author of the book “Searching for a New Kenya: Politics and Social Media on the Streets of Mombasa.” They discuss…
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Platform Socialism
Alina Utrata talks to James Muldoon, a senior lecturer at Exeter University and the author of “Platform Socialism: How to Reclaim Our Digital Future from Big Tech.” They discuss how GDH Cole’s guild socialism can be applied to tech corporations, what platforms mean for the future of capitalism,...
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The Road to Nowhere: Paris Marx on the automobile, Silicon Valley and the future of transportation
On this episode, Alina Utrata talks to Paris Marx, host of the podcast Tech Won’t Save Us, about their upcoming book “Road to Nowhere: What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong about the Future of Transportation.” They discuss the history of the automobile industry, how Tesla is not a “green company,” why...
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Time, Space and Social Media: The Politics of Technology and Temporality
Alina Utrata chats with Nanna Saeten, a PhD candidate in Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge about her research on time, temporality and technology. They discuss how technologies of time have been used as tools of nation-building, why high-frequency trading and...
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How (Not) To Regulate Big Tech (Europe’s version)
On this episode of the Anti-Dystopians, Alina Utrata talks to Jennifer Cobbe, a senior research associate in the computer science department at Cambridge University. They discuss everything that’s wrong with surveillance capitalism, what the Tesco club card has to do with the surveillance state,...
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Elon Musk, Twitter and the ‘Great Men’ of Social Media
Alina Utrata sits down with John Naughton, a technology columnist at the Observer, senior research fellow in CRASSH and co-founder of the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy at Cambridge, and Josh Simmons, a postdoc in technology and democracy at Harvard University. They discuss Elon...
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‘Corporations are Robots’: David Runciman on AI, states and the first singularity
David Runciman is a professor of Politics at Cambridge University and the host of the critically acclaimed podcast Talking Politics. In this episode of the Anti-Dystopians, he speaks to Alina Utrata about why corporations are robots, how singularity might have already come about, why we should...
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The Return of (Amazon) Ring
Alina Utrata speaks with Lauren Bridges, a PhD candidate at the the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania who studies big data infrastructures and surveillance regimes. They talk all about Amazon Ring: Why does Amazon want footage of your front door anyways? How is...
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The Feminine Meme: Geeks, memes, incels and toxic masculinity at tech hackathons
Alina Utrata talks to Dr Siân Brooke, a Leverhulme Fellow in the Department of Methodology at the London School of Economics and an associate at the Oxford Internet Institute and the Alan Turing Institute. They discuss gender, memes and hackathons: What exactly is a meme? Do geeks have toxic...
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The eye of the tiger: conservation technology, rural surveillance and the patriarchy in Indian wildlife reserves
In this episode, Alina Utrata talks to Dr Trishant Simlai, a conservation researcher studying the politics and geographies of wildlife conservation in India, who just received his PhD in the Department of Geography at Cambridge. They discuss wildlife surveillance in the Corbett Tiger Reserve, as...
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Who is Amazon?
In this episode of the Anti-Dystopians, Rowena Squires, an ancient historian, asks Alina Utrata everything you ever wanted to know about Amazon. How did Amazon go from online bookstore to commercial empire? Is Amazon Alexa really recording everything you say? How was AWS cloud computing invented?...
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Grab ‘em by the data: gender, technology and systems of oppression
On this week’s episode, Alina Utrata talks to Stefanie Felsberger, a PhD in Gender Studies at Cambridge University, and Muskan Shafat, an MS in Data and Society at the London School of Economics, about gender and technology. They discuss the myth of neutral tech, how technology is embedded in...
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(Tech) Company Rule
Alina Utrata talks to Dr Maha Atal, a lecturer at the University of Glasgow who studies the political economy of corporate power and was previously an award-winning journalist reporting on the tech industry. They discuss how the history of company-rule and colonization relates to the tech…
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Human rights and internet infrastructure
Alina Utrata talks to Dr Corinne Cath-Speth, a recent graduate from the doctoral program at the Oxford Internet Institute (OII) and a cultural anthropologist whose research focuses on Internet infrastructure politics, engineering cultures, and technology policy and governance. They discuss the...
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Snake oil or substance? Tech companies talk climate at COP26
This week Josh Lappen, an environmental historian studying at Oxford University, returns to discuss the climate crisis and tech companies ahead of COP26. Are tech companies’ promises of technological innovation really going to save Earth? Do we need AI for the environment? What does the German...
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Financial imperialism on the blockchain: Bitcoin in El Salvador
This week, Alina Utrata is joined by Mallika Balakrishnan to talk about the protests over the adoption of bitcoin in El Salvador. What exactly is bitcoin (and what's the difference between Bitcoin and other digital currencies)? Why has President Nayib Bukele implemented it as legal tender in El...
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The Digital Landscape of Southeast Asia: From Fake News to 5G
We’re back from our summer holiday! To kick off season 2 of the Anti-Dystopians, we’re zeroing in on some of the global aspects of technology—this time in Southeast Asia. Alina Utrata talks to Kyra Jasper and Andreyka Natalegawa about the digital landscape of the region, from Facebook’s...
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Lost in Space: Audio Reading
In this special episode, an audio recording of Alina Utrata's recent article in the Boston Review "Lost in Space" about the tech billionaires attempting to colonize space. https://bostonreview.net/science-nature/alina-utrata-lost-space Nowhere Land by Kevin MacLeod Link:...
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Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and the Colonization of Outer Space
To kick off the new season of the podcast, Alina Utrata and Shikha Srinivas discuss space colonization and the tech billionaires in outer space. Why are Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk obsessed with getting to the moon and Mars? How are climate change and the quest to become an interplanetary species...
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Can your computer see you?: A history of the screen, from radar to AR.
This week, the Anti-Dystopians hosts Louisa Shen, a PhD candidate at Cambridge University who has written about the history of the screen. Louisa explains how the screen began as military technology in WWII, how the Cold War overlapped with the mass production of screens (and spying), and how...
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State, corporation, people: the global dimensions of tech regulation
Kyra Jasper, Josh Simons and Alina Utrata discuss the global dimensions of tech regulation. In this episode, they examine three case studies: Google and Facebook’s reaction to Australia’s new media law, and whether these tech corporations really “faced down a nation-state”. Facebook’s role in...
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Nationalize Gmail!: Climate Change, Critical Infrastructure, and the USPS
Alina Utrata talks with Josh Lappen, a fellow Californian and environmental historian researching at Oxford University, who studies some of the most important technology there is: critical infrastructure. They discuss why hundreds of Elon Musks can’t (and won’t) solve climate change, the…
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Is Facebook (and Google) a Public Utility?
For this week’s episode, Alina Utrata talks to Josh Simons, a PhD candidate in Government at Harvard University and a Labour candidate for local office in the UK. They discuss Josh’s research — what is machine learning and why is it (always) political? As critical information infrastructure…
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The Digital Periphery: Technology, Migration and Racial Capitalism
On this week’s episode, Alina Utrata talks to Dr. Matt Mahmoudi, who just completed his PhD in Development Studies at Cambridge University as a Jo Cox scholar of Refugee and Migration Studies. They talked about Matt’s research about how technology is affecting migrant and refugee communities in…
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Is social media really destroying democracy? Should Facebook be considered a public utility? How does cryptocurrency affect state sovereignty? And what exactly is surveillance capitalism? For all your political questions about tech, this is The Anti-Dystopians.
The Anti-Dystopians is hosted and produced by Alina Utrata. All episodes are freely available, wherever you get your podcasts. Follow the show on Twitter @AntiDystopians.
To support the show, visit: bit.ly/3AApPN4
To subscribe to the email newsletter, visit: bit.ly/3kuGM5X
Hosted on Acast. See <a style='col
HOSTED BY
Alina Utrata
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does The Anti-Dystopians have?
The Anti-Dystopians currently has 58 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is The Anti-Dystopians about?
Is social media really destroying democracy? Should Facebook be considered a public utility? How does cryptocurrency affect state sovereignty? And what exactly is surveillance capitalism? For all your political questions about tech, this is The Anti-Dystopians. The Anti-Dystopians is hosted and...
How often does The Anti-Dystopians release new episodes?
The Anti-Dystopians has 58 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
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You can listen to The Anti-Dystopians on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts The Anti-Dystopians?
The Anti-Dystopians is created and hosted by Alina Utrata.
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