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The Year I Learned to Pay Attention · Never Post

0:12
Mike Rugnetta: Friends, hello, and welcome to Never Post, a
0:15
podcast for and about the Internet. I'm your host, Mike
0:17
Rugnetta. This intro was written on Tuesday, 11/18/2025 at
0:21
02:16PM eastern, and we have a pugilistic show for you this
0:27
week. Meagle shares her journey trying to rebuild her attention
0:33
span after a stark realization about her phone usage, and then
0:38
she chats with Emily Mazo and Muhammad Ali, organizers of the
0:42
conference, New Luddism, Technology and Resistance in the
0:46
Modern Workplace about regaining control over the technology that
0:50
suffuses our work, our leisure time, our lives, and also
0:56
machines. But right now, we're gonna take a quick break.
1:00
You're gonna listen to some ads unless you're on the member
1:02
feed. And when we return, we're gonna talk about a few of the
1:05
things that have happened since the last time you heard from us.
1:09
These boots were made for walking and that's just what
1:12
they'll do. One of these days, these boots are gonna have five
1:15
stories for you this week. Vine is back ish.
1:21
Jack Dorsey, who you may know from his facial hair and other
1:24
various questionable endeavors, is rebooting the six second
1:28
video app Vine, once purchased and then shuddered by then
1:32
Twitter as d Vine. Thanks to the efforts of the archive team and
1:37
others, Dorsey and co developer Rabble say the network will
1:40
launch with a significant back catalog of Vines which creators
1:45
can issue DMCA takedowns for if they wish to leave them lost to
1:49
the sands of internet time. Rabble and Dorsey say they want
1:52
to recapture a nostalgic version of the Internet and therefore
1:56
will be launching Vine AI generated content free and will
2:01
use external tools to verify that that which is uploaded is
2:05
not generated. This move is at least partially confusing given
2:10
that Dorsey's decentralized social networking protocol,
2:13
Noster, forms the backbone of divine and lists on its website
2:18
AI, making Noster the best for AI development and integration
2:23
as one of its quote unquote pillars. This has led some
2:26
posters to wonder if the site will be AI free in order to
2:30
guarantee a clean dataset for future model training endeavors.
2:35
Clip: Know. Do it.
2:37
Mike Rugnetta: Teen Vogue has been shuttered and will be
2:39
folded into the larger Vogue brand at publisher Conde Nast. A
2:44
surprising move from a publisher well known for wise forward
2:47
thinking decisions concerning the longevity of impactful and
2:50
culturally relevant mastheads. 70% of the teen Vogue staff was
2:55
laid off including its editor in chief, Virsha Sharma. The two
2:58
decade old magazine was launched as a fashion and celebrity
3:01
gossip spin off of Vogue Proper, only to come into its own ten or
3:05
so years ago as a hard hitting feminist leaning and politically
3:09
engaged outlet focused on issues important to young people. The
3:13
Roosevelt Institute called the closure, quote, evidence that
3:15
corporate concentration eliminates innovative ideas and
3:19
silences voices with less power, end quote.
3:22
Mhmm. Kickstarter employees are no longer on strike. After seven
3:28
months of bargaining and forty two days of pickets,
3:31
demonstrations, live streams, the whole nine yards, they have
3:34
won a contract with management which guarantees their four day
3:38
work week and protects against attempts to change that policy
3:41
down the line. They've bargained for an increase in the minimum
3:45
salary floor up an average of 6%, as well as securing a one
3:49
time $6,000 bonus for those at the low end of the pay scale and
3:55
more, including protections against replacing workers with
3:57
AI or full time workers with contractors. To read more, head
4:01
to kickstarterunited.org or check the link in the show
4:04
notes.
4:04
Nice work, friends. Very proud of you all. TikTok is launching
4:14
a podcast network. The social network is partnering with
4:18
iHeartMedia and among their endeavors is a network of quote
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up to 25 new podcasts hosted by TikTok creators as well as a
4:27
national broadcast and digital radio channel, and a series of
4:30
live event integrations according to an iHeart press
4:33
release. IHeart will be building new production facilities in LA,
4:37
New York, and Atlanta to support the project, and we'll partner
4:40
with broadcast radio to feature creators as well as songs made
4:43
popular on the short form video app.
4:46
Sure. Why not? I guess. And finally, sticking with TikTok,
4:56
the shop, the TikTok shop is now the size of eBay. According to
5:01
Wired, quote, analytics from firm Echotick estimates TikTok
5:06
shop sold $19,000,000,000 worth of products globally from July
5:10
through September.
5:12
The United States, its largest market, accounted for
5:14
4,000,000,000 to 4,500,000,000.0 in sales, an increase of about
5:19
125% compared to the 2025. To put those numbers in
5:25
perspective, eBay saw $20,100,000,000 in total sales
5:29
in the last quarter, end quote. In show news this week, catch me
5:43
on this week's episode of Normal Gossip where I share a story
5:46
about a rich guy that eats too much sauce before dishing about
5:50
vampires in the nineties, a thing which I have direct
5:55
personal experience about. If you wanna know more about that,
5:57
listen to Normal Gossip. It's a ride.
5:59
It was really great to hang out with Rachel again after our
6:02
collab about monocultural Internet events back in her
6:06
ICYMI days. So head to wherever you get your podcasts and search
6:09
normal gossip or check the link in the show notes. Next, we got
6:14
T shirts. We got them. They're in our hands, and they are
6:17
beautiful.
6:17
They're so good. They're gonna go out right after Thanksgiving,
6:20
so keep an eye on your mailbox. Go outside, move a chair into
6:24
bed, maybe your refrigerator out there. Do not leave its company.
6:30
The t shirts are coming.
6:31
And finally, the Radiotopia fundraiser continues. Please
6:36
visit radiotopia.fm forward slash donate to give $5.10,
6:40
$15.50 bucks once or however often you would like to support.
6:45
Never post along with every other show on Radiotopia who
6:49
are, in case it was not clear up to this point, all of our pals,
6:53
our buddies, our friends, our comrades. We love them all
6:56
dearly. So please go to radiotopia.fmforward slash
7:00
donate today, tomorrow, any day.
7:02
Any amount helps us, all of our friend to shows, and this
7:06
wonderful network that we are all a part of. Tell them, never
7:10
post censure. Okay. That's all the news I have for you week. In
7:14
this episode, Meagol on attention, and then Meagol again
7:18
along with Emily and Mohammed on new Luddism.
7:22
But first, in our interstitials this week, the sounds of
7:26
progress,
7:28
sort of.
7:32
Drawn from the depths of freesound.org with credit where
7:36
it is due in the show notes, Creative Commons licensed field
7:39
recordings of an auto loom, a dot matrix printer, and a three
7:45
d printer. Please enjoy.
9:09
Meghal Janardan: Travel back with me to a time in the recent
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past. It's the first week of the New Year, and TikTok is about to
9:16
be banned in The US. I'm finding this out as I scroll TikTok.
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Content creator after influencer after small business owner is
9:26
freaking out about lost income.
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Clip: It's over, guys. This is it.
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Are they really banning fucking TikTok in fucking January?
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Alright.
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And to the US government, I'm never forgiving you for
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Meghal Janardan: drastically this ban will affect my life. I
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mean, I like TikTok, but it's not like I spend that much time
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on the app. And at the very least, it will be a negative one
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for big tech. I text my friends asking, how much time do y'all
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spend on your phones and TikTok? My phone buzzes.
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Most of my friends spend four to five hours on their phones a day
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and max one hour on TikTok. Okay. Nice, I think. I probably
10:08
fall in the same bracket. I open up screen time and see ten hours
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and twenty four minutes wait.
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That can't be right. Oh, maybe that is my weekly total. I look
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again. Oh, no. No.
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No. What? That is double what my friends spend on their phones.
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Oh my god. What do you mean I spent nineteen hours on TikTok
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in the past week?
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I see nineteen hours a week for messages too. My face starts to
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feel numb and a sense of dread fills my stomach. Is this okay?
10:43
Am I okay? What is going on between me and my phone?
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Fast forward one week. All I can think about is my screen time.
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Every tap, every scroll, every video, every message adds to
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that pesky number. My phone, it's always there right next to
11:00
me, constantly lighting up and buzzing, and I'm constantly
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picking it up. I wish it would just stop.
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Another week passes. It's Saturday night, and I'm
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scrolling through TikTok. A message pops up. Sorry. TikTok
11:13
isn't available right now.
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Oh, the app has been removed from the Google and Apple
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stores. Has my wish come true? This is at least one less app to
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worry about affecting my screen time. I can go to bed and wake
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up without the to even scroll on TikTok. Wonderful.
11:29
That was easy. Fourteen hours pass. TikTok is back. You have
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got to be kidding me. Not even a full day has passed.
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Okay. My wish has not been granted. I guess it is up to me
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to do something about how much I spend on my phone. Deep breath.
11:53
By now, it has been two weeks since that first conversation
11:55
with my friends.
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Texting and TikTok remain the biggest offenders, clocking in
12:00
in a daily average of two to three hours each. I thought that
12:03
Slack and Gmail would take up a bigger percentage, but those
12:06
apps were at the bottom. If I really think about my habits,
12:09
this outcome makes sense. When I wake up, I check my text and
12:12
scroll on TikTok. When I'm between meetings, I check my
12:15
text and scroll on TikTok.
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When I take my dog out, I check my text and scroll on TikTok.
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When I'm eating lunch, I check my text and scroll on TikTok.
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When I go to bed, I check my texts and scroll on TikTok. Even
12:27
when I'm out with friends, I feel the need to check my phone.
12:29
Unless I'm in a theater, it's hard to even watch movies.
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Even right now, as I examine my screen time, I desperately wanna
12:36
check my text. I can't focus. My eyes hurt. I feel nauseous. I
12:41
can't stop tapping and scrolling.
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Oh my god. Why am I doing this? Am I addicted to the little
12:48
dopamine hits? Do I only feel connected when I'm constantly
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texting? Am I avoiding something not on my phone?
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Maybe I'm avoiding chores or boredom. Is scrolling doing
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something and therefore it's better than doing nothing? If I
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try to focus, it feels like trying to build a sand castle
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with dry sand. I keep trying, but everything keeps falling
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apart. I thought the problem was screen time, but it's deeper.
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It's my attention span. I barely have one. Listeners, now begins
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the arduous journey of trying something that maybe you and
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plenty of others have attempted before. I'm going to try and fix
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my attention span. Is it even possible?
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It is, but it's tough. What follows are seven steps I took
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over the past eleven months in attempt to fix my attention
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span. Step one, observe. I'm going to spend a few days
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observing my relationship with my phone. I quickly realized I
13:52
am not only always on my phone, I am super attached to it as a
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physical object.
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I bring it with me everywhere. If I'm working on my laptop at
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my desk, my phone is right next to my laptop. If I go to the
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bathroom, my phone is on the bathroom counter. If I'm heating
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up my lunch, my phone is on my counter. For context, I live in
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a 600 square foot apartment.
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I can hear my phone just fine if it's in another room. I can't
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remember the last time I was without my phone for more than
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thirty minutes unless I accidentally left it somewhere.
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This supposedly amazing piece of technology is starting to feel
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like an invasive parasite that I allowed into my life. Now I'm
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hyper aware of the physical weight of my phone as I carry it
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from room to room. It is like a lead shadow that I have to drag
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around behind me everywhere I go.
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Step two, offload. Do I have to do everything on my phone? Maybe
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if I offload some phone tasks, I won't need to bring it
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everywhere. I'm going to do something unthinkable. I'm
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adding messaging to my personal laptop.
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I never wanted to do this because I didn't wanna be
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distracted while working. But, well, you know how that went. At
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the very least, responding on my laptop can help with the eye
15:00
strain. It sounds silly to move from one screen to another, but
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it works. Typing with a full keyboard is easier and faster.
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The main problem now is that I'm constantly looking at my phone
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because of the incessant notifications, which brings me
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to the next step. Step three, reconfigure. The biggest trigger
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to picking up my phone is seeing a text notification. I
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desperately need to reconfigure all of my notifications. Let's
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be honest here.
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You probably need to change yours too. If you want to follow
15:26
along with me, please do. I'll wait a second for you to pick up
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your phone. Okay. Ready?
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Open up the settings, go to message notifications, and turn
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them off. That means no vibrate, no sound, no lock screen, no
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notification center, and no banners. My phone, and hopefully
15:45
yours too, is now a plain black box that doesn't constantly
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light up and vibrate. The new silence is off putting. It's a
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massive change to make.
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It's weird not knowing when someone is communicating, but it
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is working. After a few months, I look at my phone less. I am
16:01
less distracted and mostly text on my laptop. But get this, text
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notifications are turned off on my laptop as well. If I want to
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see who's texting me, I don't let my phone tell me when to
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look.
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I decide when to look. I decide when I respond. And most things
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can simply wait. If someone needs to reach me immediately,
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they can call. The hours I used to spend on my phone texting
16:23
have moved to my laptop and reduced.
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Step four, redirect. Let's talk about the elephant in the room
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and what started this journey in the first place. Please, one
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more. One more. TikTok.
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Yes. I can delete the app and go cold turkey or use app blockers,
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but I wanna try a few other things first. When I pick up my
16:44
phone, I still instinctively open TikTok and scroll and
16:47
scroll and scroll. It is muscle memory. I have no impulse
16:51
control.
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Before I know it, my eyes are hurting and thirty minutes have
16:55
passed in a blink. What if I choose to watch something long
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form? Instead of opening TikTok, I can open YouTube. This also
17:03
sounds silly, replacing one form of video content for another,
17:07
but I have to try something. I give it a shot for a few weeks.
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It barely works. Watching a YouTube video feels like too big
17:15
of a commitment. I don't always have twenty minutes. Now when I
17:18
open YouTube, I'm always playing catch up with half done videos.
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I need something to consume for an undecided amount of time that
17:25
I can easily return to later.
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Step four, two point o. How about a book? I don't know if
17:32
you know this, but books are meant to be picked up and put
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down and picked up and put down to the library I go. It's really
17:42
exciting to pick out a book for myself. It feels so personal
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like I'm making my own algorithm.
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I'm also downloading Libby so I can have an ebook and an
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audiobook on deck. If I'm going to replace my impulse to open
17:52
TikTok, I need all bases covered. I have something to
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pick up instead of my phone when I'm at home, something to read
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on my phone when I'm out, something to listen to when I'm
18:00
doing chores. Every time I reach for my phone, a little voice in
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my head says, pick up a book instead. It works.
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It feels like I'm replacing a bad addiction with a good one.
18:14
In just a few weeks, those twelve to fourteen TikTok hours
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are spent reading. In three months, I read 20 books. But
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taking up reading didn't magically solve everything. I
18:27
have this lingering fear that I'll enter a reading law, which
18:31
will trigger a TikTok relapse.
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Every once in a while, I'm reading a boring book and my
18:35
mind wanders. And before I know it, I'm back on TikTok. But it
18:39
doesn't feel the same. It takes minutes before I feel nauseous.
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It used to take an hour.
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So hopefully, by the time I'm in a reading lull, I won't even
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have the stomach for TikTok. Step five, delete. Remember when
18:52
I said I won't delete TikTok in step four? It is time. Okay.
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Do this with me. Is your phone nearby? Good. Hold down on that
19:02
little icon and tap the minus button. Did you do it?
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I did it. It will be okay. It feels a bit weird, like a ghost
19:12
in a nap. No goodbye. No explanation.
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I just left. Like, it was a toxic situationship. TikTok felt
19:19
like everything I used to love about the Internet until it
19:22
didn't. A place where I could exist online without coming
19:25
across people I know, a place where I could explore and learn
19:28
new things. But I haven't had that feeling in a while
19:31
especially with the introduction of AI content.
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I don't wanna spend even more time trying to decipher if
19:36
something is real or not. Plus, in the past eleven months of
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fixing my attention span, most of my friends have deleted
19:42
TikTok too, which means fewer people to share content with. So
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goodbye. I am free. A few weeks have passed and it feels so good
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not to be sucked into the app twenty four seven.
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I don't miss it as much as I thought either. Step six,
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communicate. So far, everything I've tried appears to have been
20:22
between me, myself, and I phone, but it hasn't been. During the
20:29
past eleven months, I've been reaching out to people in my
20:31
life to let them know the changes I'm making. When I reach
20:34
out, it is a simple, hey.
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My notifications are silent. I will be slower to respond, or I
20:40
might not see something you send me on social media because I'm
20:43
using it less. I thought this big personal change would have a
20:46
more drastic impact on my relationships offline. If I'm on
20:50
my phone less, that means I'm less connected to people in my
20:52
life. Right?
20:53
The opposite is happening. After reaching out, I often get
20:57
responses back from friends doing similar things, deleting
21:00
social media, scrolling less, using their phones less. When I
21:03
started, I was worried I would feel disconnected, but I'm not
21:07
alone in this journey. A haze has slowly lifted over the past
21:11
few months. I am more present in my life and more present with
21:14
the people around me.
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I didn't even know I wasn't present before. Step seven, let
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go. I've made a lot of progress, but my journey isn't done. Let's
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go back to something I observed in step one. What am I going to
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do about this black brick that is following me everywhere?
21:33
After months, leaving my phone in another room is my biggest
21:36
struggle. I am making some progress, but I'm still working
21:40
on it. When I take my dog on walks, I leave my phone at home.
21:43
When I'm out with friends, I keep my phone in my bag or
21:46
flipped upside down so I'm not checking it. But I need to make
21:49
some changes in my home.
21:51
I'm working on making a permanent spot for my phone in
21:54
my apartment, essentially turning my phone into a
21:56
landline. I'm wall mounting a box with a charging port that
22:00
lives by my front door. I'm also removing the charging cords from
22:03
other areas in my apartment, so I'm forced to put my phone in
22:06
the box. The hope here is that eventually, can let go of my
22:10
physical attachment and learn that I can leave my phone
22:13
behind. But this change is in the beginning stages, so I'll
22:17
have to report back later.
22:20
So where does this leave me in my attention span? Is it
22:24
possible to fix? Short answer, yes. Long answer, it's
22:28
complicated. After all of these changes, my attention span has
22:32
healed a lot.
22:34
My phone screen time now averages four to six hours a
22:36
day, down from ten to twelve hours a day. I rarely feel
22:41
nauseous when I'm on my phone. I'm less distractible. I have a
22:44
higher tolerance for long form content as well. With all of my
22:48
guardrails in place, I expect my screen time to continue to go
22:51
down and my attention span to continue to improve.
22:55
But it isn't a perfect system. Sometimes, my screen time spikes
23:00
back up to eight hours a day, not including reading. And
23:04
anything can trigger this. Back in February when my grandpa
23:07
passed away, I was doomscrolling on TikTok to distract myself. In
23:11
early November when Zoran won the mayoral election, I spent
23:15
countless hours watching celebration videos so I could
23:18
ride that excitement out.
23:20
Even after all of this work, my consumption habits are still
23:23
sensitive. I can easily be pulled back into my phone. But
23:27
now, I have enough impulse control to pause and think about
23:30
why I'm picking up my phone. I ask myself the same questions I
23:34
had at the beginning of this journey. Am I avoiding
23:36
something?
23:37
Am I chasing excitement? Am I avoiding boredom? Maybe put that
23:42
phone down and sit with those feelings instead. Allow yourself
23:46
to focus. Focus on what is going on in your life.
23:50
I guess that is step eight. Sit with your feelings. Every once
24:29
in a while, I'll have a day where my screen time is under
24:31
one hour, usually when I'm traveling without service. It
24:35
feels so good. I crave these days.
24:38
Instead of craving my phone, I've started to crave my life.
24:42
But here's the thing, I miss being on my phone a lot. Why? In
24:47
a twisted way, even though I'm more present in my life, I have
24:50
massive Internet FOMO. I miss the memes, knowing what sound is
24:53
trending, being clued in on influencer drama.
24:57
I miss the chaos and excitement of knowing I can come across
24:59
anything, a new idea, a recipe, a cute puppy with a simple
25:04
scroll. But ultimately, it's too much information, too much
25:07
distraction, increasingly too much slop. I don't want my phone
25:11
to dictate my life. I want to dictate my life. If I feel this
25:16
way and my friends do too, I know there must be more people
25:19
out there that feel similar.
25:22
We are taking our attention spans back. We have got to spend
25:26
our time on more than just apps. Deep breath. Technology has
27:58
become so interwoven within my life, it often feels impossible
28:01
to untangle. If I meet someone at a party, they ask for my
28:05
Instagram instead of my number.
28:07
On every job application, there's a spot to link my
28:09
LinkedIn. I need a Resy profile to make reservations. I once
28:13
tried taking a Pilates class in my neighborhood and had to
28:16
download a new app to book the class. A former employer even
28:20
asked every employee to use ChatGPT to make content more
28:23
efficiently. Feels like these apps hijack control from me.
28:27
Taking my attention back helped regain some control, but how
28:30
else can I reassert my agency as a technology user? Are there
28:33
people already working towards this? Recently, I learned about
28:37
New New Luddism is based on Luddism, an uprising in England
28:42
in the nineteenth century where factory workers were being
28:44
displaced by automated machines. They resisted by smashing these
28:48
machines to try to keep some amount of control over the means
28:51
of production. Earlier this November, I had the pleasure of
28:54
attending the conference, New Luddism, Technology and
28:57
Resistance in the Modern Workplace, organized by Emily
29:00
Mazo and Muhammad Ali.
29:02
I am so lucky that the organizers of that conference
29:04
made themselves almost immediately available to talk
29:07
with me about it afterwards. I wanted to talk to them about
29:11
what is happening in the new ledism movement and the ways
29:14
people are resisting certain technologies. Emily Maza,
29:22
welcome. Thanks so much for having us. Muhammad Ali,
29:26
welcome.
29:26
Mohamed Ali: Thank you for having us.
29:28
Meghal Janardan: Emily, you are a former software engineer and
29:30
now sociology PhD student at Columbia University, where you
29:34
study work and labor organizing in the tech industry. You are
29:38
also a member of Collective Action Tech, which creates
29:41
resources for tech workers who want to organize their
29:44
workplace. Can you help us understand what is new Luddism
29:49
reacting to?
29:50
Emily Mazo: Yeah. I think that the the main thread through all
29:55
of the different groups of people, researchers, activists,
29:59
all the different maybe movements that are taking up the
30:02
mantle of the Luddites today is the same one of the original
30:05
Luddites, and it's about control. It's not about whether
30:07
or not technology is good or bad. It's not about whether or
30:10
not you understand technology. It's about whether or not you
30:13
have control over the technology that is getting used on you, the
30:18
technology that you're getting asked to use, and the ways in
30:21
which, like, society is changing around you, your working
30:24
conditions are changing, your living conditions are changing
30:26
as a result of other people using that technology on you or
30:31
around you or developing specific technologies and not
30:34
developing other ones.
30:36
And it's about whether or not you have a say.
30:38
Meghal Janardan: Okay. Mohammed, you are a JD candidate at
30:40
Columbia Law School and former Google product manager who
30:43
studies the intersection of antitrust administrative law and
30:46
technology. And you are a member of the law and political economy
30:50
project, which examines how legal rules distribute power
30:53
across markets and institutions and a research associate at the
30:57
AI Now Institute. So for you, what does New Luddism want to
31:02
achieve, specifically when looking at, like, the means of
31:05
production?
31:06
Mohamed Ali: So as Luddites, we wanna have a deep and formidable
31:09
understanding of what the material, political, social
31:13
context of scientific and technological innovation is, and
31:17
how we as the public, and we the society, we the citizenry, we
31:21
the interested human beings, can take a role in guiding the
31:26
vision for technological progress in the future. Because
31:28
if we don't, somebody else will. And that somebody else may not
31:31
necessarily have our best interests in mind. And I think
31:33
we're seeing that now today with a wide variety of technologies
31:37
being deployed in the marketplace that can only be
31:39
called SLOP. And that is not, you know, and that is not
31:43
inevitable.
31:45
We're seizing the mantle of the word light and reclaiming it.
31:48
Meghal Janardan: Yeah. That's really interesting. It's
31:49
something that I was, like, thinking about when I was at the
31:52
conference and, you know, doing a little bit research for this
31:55
interview is the role of consent in the way that technology is in
32:00
our lives. And Buddhism makes you question that, like, did did
32:03
I opt into all of this? Can I opt out?
32:07
How? And what does that mean for, like, say, me as an
32:11
individual? Do you see Luddism as anti technology? And if it is
32:16
anti something, what specifically is it anti?
32:21
Mohamed Ali: Luddism is not anti technology and it is really an
32:24
outrageous claim when people accuse Luddites of being anti
32:27
technology. What Luddites are interested in is like Emily just
32:31
said very well, power. Who has the power to decide what
32:35
technologies are used and how, and how they develop and where,
32:40
and when they're deployed and why. Maybe it'll be useful to
32:43
illustrate a material example. Did you know the camera was
32:46
racist until very recently?
32:48
Meghal Janardan: I guess how it precedes light. Yes.
32:50
Mohamed Ali: Well, yes. Yeah. Since almost since the days of
32:52
like the Lumiere brothers, the colors against which the light
32:55
was calibrated was, you know, the primary colors, and then
32:58
guess what? The tones of white people. And that's why when you
33:02
take a picture next to a white person, you know you know, if I
33:04
were to a picture next to Emily, either I would look really dark
33:07
and then she looked great, or she looked like she's about to
33:09
ascend to heaven and I would look great.
33:11
Yes. And that is not just the inevitable result of technology.
33:16
And when I criticize that, it's not because I'm anti technology.
33:19
It's because certain specific hardware decisions were made
33:22
that led to this failure for us. And, you know, this leads to a a
33:26
social reality.
33:27
Maybe I'm less likely to wanna take a picture with Emily
33:29
because I don't think I'm gonna look good in one of that. And
33:31
imagine that that that little feeling that I have, how it adds
33:34
up when it multiplies across a society. And this shows where
33:37
the power is. That didn't change because some people had a moral
33:39
crusade, actually. It changed because other companies,
33:43
specifically furniture companies and chocolate manufacturers,
33:47
were complaining that they couldn't capture dark furniture
33:49
or dark chocolate well with the cameras.
33:51
And so two, you know, corporate bigwigs are fighting over our
33:56
technological future. What about me wanting to able to take a
33:59
picture with my white friends, you know, or me wanting to take
34:01
a picture with my white neighbors? I mean, that's like
34:03
Yeah. I think a lot more important than, you know, your
34:04
rendering of a dark chocolate, you know, on a a on a on a
34:06
screen. But what we want to do is based on that understanding,
34:11
look at what are the ways in which the worker, the public, or
34:15
anybody, really.
34:16
What are the ways in which power manifests in the way a
34:21
technology develops and the way it proliferates and the way we
34:24
interact with it.
34:25
Meghal Janardan: So what would control look like in this
34:30
situation or I guess a better future?
34:33
Emily Mazo: A lot of the battle for control over what technology
34:37
gets built, who gets to use it, who it gets used on starts in
34:41
the workplace. There's also sort of a lack of a history over the
34:47
last few decades in The United States of organized labor, like
34:50
unions organizing for control over what gets built. And I
34:55
think that that shift back to sort of democratic control over
35:00
what gets designed, what projects get planned, how they
35:03
get implemented, and those decisions being in the hands of
35:07
the people who are actually building things, marketing them,
35:12
figuring out what gets out to consumers, what contracts get
35:17
signed with vendors, other companies, other governments,
35:22
other powerful powerful groups. Having these decisions in the
35:27
hands of the people doing the work is one of the ways that
35:31
that control sort of gets back into the hands of people that
35:34
this technology is going like, all technologies are going to be
35:38
used against. There are a lot of different workplaces where
35:42
technology creation happens.
35:44
There's a whole supply chain of workplaces that goes into the
35:48
building of things like ChatGPT or surveillance cameras or your
35:53
social media feed. And that supply chain starts probably not
35:58
in The United States. That supply chain starts in places
36:01
like Mines for Rare Earth Minerals. It happens in remote
36:06
workplaces of data workers who are labeling data that then
36:09
becomes part of machine learning models. It happens in, like, big
36:13
fancy office buildings of professional tech workers in The
36:16
US as well.
36:17
And the fight for control over what technology gets built, who
36:20
gets to use it, who it gets used on, it's happening in all of
36:24
those workplaces. And all of that organizing, if it comes
36:28
together, it could be really, really powerful.
36:31
Meghal Janardan: Yeah. Definitely. And I think
36:32
something that kind of surprised me when I attended the
36:35
conference, was like, oh, a lot of what's being talked about is
36:39
a lot of stuff that I already want and I'm hoping for
36:42
personally and I'm trying to do. This entire year, I've been
36:46
trying to fix my attention span. What approaches are people doing
36:51
to resist the tech in the workforce?
36:54
Emily Mazo: There are very few wall to wall or, like, majority
36:58
unions in tech workplaces in The United States, but the few that
37:02
do already exist either have or are thinking about bargaining an
37:06
AI clause into their contract. And those are also getting
37:10
written into contracts in the tech industry. Kickstarter
37:12
United just yesterday concluded a six week strike over their
37:18
second contract and incredibly proud of everything that they've
37:21
won. And one of the things that's in their new contract is
37:23
an AI clause saying no workers here can be replaced by LLMs.
37:29
But because there aren't that many, like, NLRB recognized
37:32
unions in the tech industry yet, we're seeing a lot of, like, out
37:35
of contract, out of like technical public union
37:39
organizing around these things.
37:41
And the same way, anybody can do a collective action. You don't
37:43
have to be in a union that your boss calls a union in order to
37:46
do it. Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, AUCJ, made
37:51
public an open letter that they've been organizing of
37:54
office workers at Amazon, just connecting like the
37:57
environmental, the labor, and like surveillance issues of this
38:01
technology with their everyday working conditions, their day to
38:04
day tasks at work, and how their labor process is changing with
38:08
the introduction of LLMs.
38:09
Meghal Janardan: Do you find that, you know, we already have
38:12
labor movements in The US. And like you mentioned, unions
38:15
amongst tech workers are not as as common. Do you think that
38:20
this new Luddism movement has is helping kind of unite maybe kind
38:25
of disparate forces together into one more collective action?
38:31
Emily Mazo: I hope so. And I think that we will. Office based
38:35
sort of professional tech workers, what I have in mind is
38:37
like software engineers, data scientists, designers, product
38:40
managers, and also like content moderators, call center workers,
38:44
data workers, data labelers. These are like professional
38:49
workers amongst whom there isn't that much of a history of union
38:53
organizing and collective action, at least in the last
38:55
couple of decades. But these are, you know, highly skilled
39:00
workers with specialized expertise.
39:02
And they know how to do their jobs and getting sort of
39:05
commands at work to use tools that they don't think are the
39:09
right fit to solve the technical problems that are in front of
39:12
them Mhmm. Is I think a really relatable issue at work for a
39:18
lot of people. And I think we're going to see a lot more sort of
39:22
coming together across job titles, workplaces, different
39:25
parts of the industry around something that is affecting so
39:29
many people. Not necessarily because it will make people more
39:32
productive, but I think historically, what labor
39:36
scholars and labor historians have seen is that automation
39:39
technology is frequently developed and introduced at
39:43
times when the people that run companies want to control their
39:48
workforce more. When they want to discipline labor.
39:51
When they want to make workers easier to control. And they want
39:55
to make production a little bit more predictable, let's say. And
39:59
I think what we've been seeing over the past few years, I mean,
40:02
the big union wave in media, the really militant strike of
40:07
culture workers in WGA and SAG in 2023, the surge of labor
40:12
organizing amongst professional tech workers in The US from like
40:15
2019 to 2022. This is a population of workers that I
40:19
think a lot of bosses wanna discipline. And I do not think
40:23
that it is a coincidence that a lot of these automation
40:26
technologies that are being introduced into the workplace
40:29
and pushed this hard, invested in this much right now.
40:32
Mohammed, to go back to what you were saying about possible
40:35
branching paths and which ones get pruned and which ones get
40:38
watered.
40:39
Meghal Janardan: Do you find that there is also room for new
40:43
to nuletism for people who are not, like, in tech?
40:46
Mohamed Ali: Almost everybody's a tech worker now in one way or
40:49
another. I'll give you an example. We were talking about
40:51
consent earlier. You ever forget your password? I'm sure you've
40:55
done that before.
40:55
Right? And you know those captchas that you have to do and
40:58
they're like, oh, show me what's a traffic's point the traffic
41:00
cone or point at the street crosswalk. Have you ever
41:03
wondered why all the questions they ask you are about road
41:06
stuff? Yes. Okay.
41:09
The reason that that is is because you are training self
41:13
driving cars. Every time you forget your password, you're
41:16
training a self driving car. Did you ever consent to do that work
41:18
for Google for free? Hell no. But at a minimum, at least from
41:23
a social perspective, we didn't agree to be tech workers.
41:26
Everybody is in one way or another a tech worker, whether
41:29
they like it or not. Who has the power? Who has the power to
41:32
control the technologies, their development, their application,
41:36
their proliferation, even just how they look and where they end
41:39
up. And right now, it's not us. Is there a place in Lenisim for
41:44
people who don't work in tech?
41:46
Of course. But more importantly, everybody, especially if you're
41:49
listening to this podcast, works in tech one way or another.
41:52
Meghal Janardan: Yeah. That no. That makes sense. Exactly. It's
41:55
it's very similar to what I was saying earlier about, you know,
41:57
like fixing my attention span.
42:00
By what you're saying, me being on social media, even though I'm
42:03
just watching videos is a way I'm working in tech.
42:07
Mohamed Ali: Oh, yes. All
42:08
Meghal Janardan: the data is going to something and it's
42:10
being trained for something else, whether it's even just to
42:13
see what is gonna be next on my algorithm. You know, even when
42:17
I'm like trying to be off my phone, I'm gonna go to a
42:21
restaurant and suddenly I come home and I'm on their email
42:23
list. I'm like, how how did that happen? It sounds like it's just
42:28
like there are so many ways that, you know, technologies in
42:33
our lives. And if you look, you know, at like in the new lives
42:36
of movement, it really does help one question what exactly is
42:41
going on and how, you know, you as an individual, your data is
42:45
just being used constantly.
42:47
Emily Mazo: Yep. Yep. And it is possible to create prosocial
42:51
technology. Right? It's just that the people that, you know,
42:56
have the resources to do technological development, don't
43:00
have an incentive to do that.
43:01
And Right. There's a a big discussion to be had, all of us
43:06
together about what we want technology to look like in the
43:08
future. What does prosocial technology look like? What does
43:11
technology created by workers for workers look like? By like
43:15
everyday people, how do we want our society to look at what kind
43:20
of technology do we wanna build to help us get there?
43:23
But if we had the power right now to decide what technology
43:27
gets built, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Right?
43:30
So before maybe before we're alongside the conversation about
43:33
what kind of technology we do want, we need to be having the
43:36
conversation that Mohammad's talking about. How do we build
43:39
the power so that we get to the point where we are the people
43:42
who get to make those decisions? That makes sense.
43:44
Mohamed Ali: And I I just wanted to add one thing to that, is
43:47
that it's not like we're just asking for unearned or
43:50
undeserved power. All these tech companies that, you know, make
43:54
trillions of dollars, make trillions of dollars off the
43:57
backs of, obviously, the labor of the tech workers, both the
44:00
employed tech workers, and as we mentioned earlier, the
44:03
unemployed tech workers. But more more importantly, they
44:06
receive billions of dollars of public money, of our tax
44:09
dollars. Look, we are subsidizing these institutions
44:13
all the way back to the roads that they they use to get to the
44:16
office, all the way back to the energy, the electricity that
44:19
they that they that they they use, you know, public works,
44:22
water, electricity, power, the education system that trains
44:26
their workers, that disciplines their workers, that educates
44:28
their management. We, the society and the polity, are the
44:33
reason they exist in the first place, and then we're gonna be
44:35
like, oh, go do whatever you want with it.
44:38
If certain people can succeed, we can't let them pull the
44:40
ladder right up from under them and say, oh, I did this by
44:43
myself. No, you didn't. Okay, we all played a role, and now we'd
44:47
like to enjoy having your success be diffused for the rest
44:53
of us, who played, you know, who continue, you know, to uphold
44:58
all of scientific progress in the planet today.
45:02
Meghal Janardan: Do you see that there is a need like, have
45:06
everyone coming together. Right? Everyone's interested in this
45:08
movement. Looking at historically where elitism
45:11
started, where we have people intentionally smashing
45:15
technology as a form of resistance very for very
45:19
specific reasons, not just because. And looking at where we
45:23
are at now, do you find that there is a need to escalate the
45:27
movement or the actions of people to something that is very
45:31
similar to that or like equivalent to say smashing the
45:34
machines?
45:36
Emily Mazo: I will say large swaths of the conference were
45:39
off of the record so that this conversation can be had in a
45:43
safe and secure way. I think that this is a question on the
45:48
tip of a lot of people's tongue. Right? How do we talk about
45:50
sabotage? What different types of sabotage are there?
45:54
There's property destruction. There's also Mhmm. As Jatin
45:59
Sadowski, who is one of the speakers of the conference
46:01
brought up the history of the idea of sabotage in the American
46:08
labor movement goes back to, you know, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn
46:12
writing about it for a pamphlet for the IWW talking about
46:15
sabotages, the withdrawal of efficiency. There's lots of ways
46:18
to withdraw efficiency. One of those ways is all the tools that
46:21
are already in sort of the labor movement toolbox of strikes and
46:25
slowdowns, walkouts, work to rule.
46:29
There are other ways to withdraw efficiency like, well, I don't
46:33
know if you'd put consumer boycotts or other kinds of
46:36
consumer protest on that list technically, but there are lots
46:40
of ways to protest and put your maybe your hammer where your
46:45
mouth is, that are not property destruction. But I think that
46:48
there is I mean, if you look around online, there are a lot
46:51
of people making jokes about taking hammers to data centers.
46:55
I am not personally an expert on how to break a data center, but
47:00
I think there are a lot of people that are taking up the
47:04
history of the Luddites as inspiration that are having this
47:07
conversation.
47:09
Mohamed Ali: Yeah. Yeah. There are a lot of forms of of
47:11
sabotage which aren't going to fall in under property damage.
47:14
And, you know, there and, you know, just to point out a few,
47:16
you know, there's like sabotage as refusal. So we can refuse to
47:19
use a harmful technology from the consumer side, refuse to use
47:22
biometric surveillance tools, students can refuse to install
47:25
proctoring spyware and get together at the university and
47:29
say we're not going to live in a world where we have to install
47:31
spyware on my computer to take a damn exam.
47:34
There's also sabotage collective action, which is what we talked
47:37
about, you know, of what we talked about at the at the
47:39
conference. Workers demanding limits on algorithmic
47:41
management. Unions may be requiring human oversight over
47:44
AI decision making, or, you know, strikes, collective
47:47
bargaining against unsafe automation or surveillance.
47:51
There's also, from the legal perspective, sabotage as
47:54
regulation. We lawyers can take an active role on banning things
47:57
like predictive policing or facial recognition, or creating
48:01
platform transparency laws or algorithmic accountability
48:04
requirements.
48:05
There's also culture jamming, which can count as a type of
48:07
sabotage, you know, public campaigns, that's what students
48:09
are doing at the university, at Columbia, and all over the
48:11
country, where they're putting out posters and art, satire,
48:15
zines, memes, art, and installations that describe, you
48:18
know, the dangers of exploitative exploitative AI
48:21
practices. There's constructive sabotage. Instead of just
48:24
resisting the harmful technologies, what if we create
48:26
better alternatives? There's a long history of the free
48:29
software movement that builds technologies that are copy left
48:33
instead of copyright. And so by building, you know, constructive
48:38
alternatives, and look at look at the look at Blue Sky and and
48:42
Mastodon, you know, that are alternatives to to Elon Musk
48:46
backed Twitter.
48:48
And finally, they're sabotaged, you know, as transparency and
48:51
whistleblowing. Here's where the journalists come in.
48:53
Investigative journalism unveiling as they did recently,
48:56
how many judges around America were using so called AI
49:00
technology to decide who deserves parole, which attacks
49:03
the very heart of the criminal justice system. Research
49:06
uncovering algorithmic harm, the waymos were found to be more
49:09
likely to run over black people than white people. That's a big
49:11
story.
49:12
Didn't really make as much of a splash as I wished it would, but
49:15
hopefully, you know, more research will come out that'll
49:17
expose the how common algorithms like that can actually create a
49:20
lot of harm, and other sorts of audits and whistleblowing
49:23
activity. So sabotage is not just taking a hammer to a
49:26
machine and doing property damage, but there are so many
49:28
things we can do, whether it's withholding our labor, whether
49:31
it's withholding our our our consumption of goods, whether
49:35
it's using our specific skills as lawyers to regulate, as
49:39
journalists to whistleblow, as engineers to build alternatives,
49:45
and as artists and generally interested people to jam the
49:48
culture against a specific vision for technological
49:51
progress that seeks to exploit people instead of uplift them.
49:54
Meghal Janardan: Oh, yeah. That's amazing. There's like a
49:56
lot of different ways to go about this. I mean, and you
49:59
brought up Blue Sky and Mastodon, like, something that
50:02
I've been thinking about, you know, if I'm gonna really get
50:04
off Instagram and but I still want to be on the Internet,
50:09
Should I start my own blog where I self host it, you know, where
50:12
I own the data? And that can be like an alternative to even
50:15
being on something like Substack and seeing like different ways
50:19
to resist.
50:20
Looking forward, you know, we have the conference that you
50:24
both helped organize, which did which was amazing and we saw a
50:27
lot of people come together and attend it. Is New Leadism a
50:31
movement?
50:32
Mohamed Ali: I would respond that yes.
50:35
Emily Mazo: I agree. I think that it's if not a a movement
50:40
with a membership, it is an analysis in a way of thinking
50:43
about the world, in a way a way of thinking about power that we
50:47
are seeing grow in a lot of different areas right now. And
50:52
there's a, certainly in this country, a resurgence of an
50:55
understanding of what power is and how to wield it and an
50:59
increase in people taking collective action together, both
51:01
in the workplace and in the streets. And sometimes that's
51:04
around technology and sometimes it's around other things that
51:07
help other people exert power and control over us. And this
51:12
analysis is being picked up more and more this way of looking at
51:15
the world and looking at power, I think it is going to bring
51:19
some really great things.
51:36
Meghal Janardan: Thank you so much, Emily Mazo and Muhammad
51:38
Ali for taking the time to talk with me. If you're new to new
51:41
Luddism like I am, Emily and Muhammad gave us a bunch of
51:44
resources for people to follow and things to look at to learn
51:47
more. After speaking with Emilene Mohammed, I'm
51:50
questioning even more how technology has affected my life
51:53
beyond my attention span. It's overwhelming. But I think New
51:56
Luddism has the frameworks and tools to take that overwhelm and
51:59
turn them into collective action.
52:01
I'm excited to keep this journey going.
54:16
Mike Rugnetta: That is the show we have for you this week. We're
54:18
gonna be back here in the main feed on Wednesday, December 3.
54:22
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Neverpo.st, $4 a month, the end. Neverpost's producers are Audrey
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55:04
And the show's host, that's me, is Mike Rignetta. Who flees? The
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bank of society. That French woman, Gauguin. Who chronicles
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the groveling shame and disgrace?
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That French woman, Duras. Who flees the state, the men's club,
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and who stays and goes to bed to service it tomorrow in low wage
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white labor uniform. Excerpt of Dalmatian people by Jessica
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Bett. Neverpost is a production of Charts and Leisure. It is
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distributed by Radiotopia.