History Shows Radical Futures Are Possible w/ Lizzie O'Shea

Episode Summary

Executive Summary: Paris Marks speaks with Lizzie O'Shea about how dominant histories shape what futures seem possible, especially in technology. They critique Silicon Valley’s self-mythology, argue that tech is deeply political and built on public investment, and explore how crises like COVID-19 can justify surveillance and authoritarianism. O'Shea urges a care-centered economy that values essential labor, public services, and collective action over profit.

Main Topics: History as a tool for imagining alternative futures (Priority: 5/5): O'Shea argues that history should not just explain the present but help people break out of capitalist inevitability. By studying past struggles and transformative movements, the left can identify inspiration, avoid old mistakes, and expand what seems politically possible. Silicon Valley mythology and the Californian ideology (Priority: 5/5): The discussion critiques the tech industry’s preferred narrative: innovation as the product of lone entrepreneurs and free markets. O'Shea notes that Silicon Valley combines countercultural aesthetics with capitalism, while obscuring public investment, labor, and state support. Technology as a political and class issue (Priority: 4/5): O'Shea emphasizes that technology is not neutral or apolitical. She argues that platforms and companies are shaped by power, profit, and class interests, and that the left should claim technology as a legitimate progressive concern. Crisis, surveillance, and the long shadow of emergency powers (Priority: 5/5): The conversation compares COVID-19 responses to post-9/11 security laws, warning that emergency measures often outlast the crisis. O'Shea is skeptical of app-based contact tracing as a fix-all and stresses the need for limits on state power. Platform capitalism, exploitation, and online identity (Priority: 4/5): They discuss how social media platforms package users for advertisers and shape self-understanding through consumerism. O'Shea links this to the rise of predatory industries that exploit vulnerable people, including gambling, payday lending, and for-profit education. The value of essential work and a care-based economy (Priority: 5/5): O'Shea argues that the pandemic reveals which jobs are truly life-sustaining—grocery workers, delivery workers, childcare, and care labor—versus financialized or speculative work. She calls for organizing the economy around survival, not profit. Hopeful lessons from the Paris Commune and social movements (Priority: 4/5): The Paris Commune is used as an example of radical democratic experimentation that transformed social relations before being violently crushed. O'Shea says its legacy should inspire solidarity, democratic power, and skepticism toward both market and state authoritarianism.

Key Arguments: Historical narratives are political: they can naturalize capitalism or open space for different futures. Silicon Valley’s origin story erases the public sector, universities, research infrastructure, and state funding that made the industry possible. Tech elites borrow revolutionary language and symbols to legitimize capitalist power, even when those symbols come from anti-capitalist or anti-colonial struggles. Technology should be treated as a left-wing issue because it shapes labor, rights, power, and everyday life. Platforms like Facebook and Twitter are private, ad-driven businesses that shape users as marketable consumer identities rather than fostering genuine public life. Pandemic-era digital tools like contact tracing apps can be used to expand surveillance and distract from broader public health and social-support needs. Emergency powers introduced during crises often persist long after the crisis ends, so skepticism and oversight are essential. The pandemic exposes the social value of low-paid, stigmatized work and the relative unimportance of some high-paid financial or legal roles. A just economy should be organized around housing, feeding, caring for, and protecting people, not around activities that primarily generate profit. The Paris Commune shows that radical democratic experimentation can reshape society and should be remembered as a source of political imagination rather than only as a tragic defeat.

Data Points: Podcast episode number: 8th episode - Marks notes this is the eighth episode of Tech Won't Save Us. Podcast run time at the time: 4 weeks - Marks says the podcast has been running for four weeks. Countries with five-star reviews: 7 countries listed - Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. National security laws in Australia since 9/11: Over 80 pieces of legislation - Used to illustrate how crisis-era powers persist long after the original emergency. Death toll after the Paris Commune crackdown: Over 10,000 people killed - Reference to the Bloody Week following the Commune's defeat. Australia gambling revenue from Victoria: More than a billion dollars - Victoria reportedly takes in over a billion dollars in tax revenue from gambling, especially pokies. Australian population of Victoria: Around 7 million - Used to contextualize the scale of gambling revenue in the state.

Pivotal Quotes: "That's how we should be arranging the economy, not around things that make money, but around things that are essential to our survival." — Lizzie O'Shea: Closing argument about reorienting society and the economy around care and necessity rather than profit. "It's easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of capitalism." — Paris Marks referencing Mark Fisher: Used to frame how capitalism absorbs dissent and narrows political imagination. "The people who help you get your groceries from the supermarket... are actually doing life-affirming work in the sense that without them, our society would come to a halt." — Lizzie O'Shea: Discussion of essential labor and the pandemic's revelation of social priorities.

Implications: Listeners are urged to question tech industry myths, resist crisis-driven surveillance, and support labor and public services that sustain life. The episode frames the pandemic as a chance to rebuild toward solidarity, democratic control, and a care-centered economy.