DNA's real value: advertising, authoritarianism, apartheid

Hey everyone, this week’s roundup got a little long so I’m breaking it up. Today’s essay is partly a primer on 23andMe and partly an argument the real value of popularizing the idea that “genetic data is valuable” traces back to advancing reactionary projects eager for apartheid and desperate to purge capitalism of recent civilizing reforms stretching back to the New Deal.

At the end of the week, the roundup will drop and focus on some of our favorite subjects: abundance & degrowth & techno-optimism & Luddism, the ongoing AI bubble, Trump’s Butlerian Jihad on the global economy, and China’s technological ascendance. I'll also be throwing in some book recommendations, a playlist, and some movie recommendations from my Diplomacy movie club. Look for that in your inbox at the end of the week.

Some housekeeping

Some lovely folks at NPR/KCRW brought me on to Question Everything and got me drunk while we talked about billionaires in February (listen here). I met Douglas Rushkoff there and went on his Team Human show to talk more about Silicon Valley, episode forthcoming. I also went on Trashfuture (listen here) and System Crash (listen here) to talk about my Silicon Valley Consensus essay. I will also be going on Ed Zitron’s Better Offline this week to talk about the ongoing AI bubble (and hawk the Silicon Valley Consensus a bit more). The second half of my SVC essay will be coming out this week too and then I’ll push out the unified beast at Security in Context sometime later—stay tuned!

Over at This Machine Kills (the podcast I co-host with Jathan Sadowski), we just released our 400th episode: we had an amazing conversation with author Malcolm Harris about his upcoming book WHAT’S LEFT, the three strategies it offers to save the world from ecological catastrophe, and how those pathways fit together into a larger vision.

On April 16, The Drift is convening a panel where I’ll talk alongside alongside Willy Staley, Sam Adler-Bell, and Delia Cai about Twitter—moderated by Elena Saavedra Buckley and hosted by NYU's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. Registration is closed, but stay tuned for livestream options—tune in if you’re around! I’ll also be on a panel at NYU on May 2nd to talk with Quinn Slobodian about his upcoming book HAYEK’S BASTARDS. Our TMK episode on his book will be coming out in two weeks. ...