This Machine Kills

It’s a news roundup! First, in a duo of stories designed to make Ed jealous, Australia has seized 20 million illegal vapes at the border since January 2024, while the Australian attorney general has announced a $1.4 billion lawsuit against 3M over the harmful effects of PFAS or “forever chemicals”. Second, Anthropic files a massive IPO, with OpenAI and SpaceX looking to do the same soon. We chat about the implications of $3-4 trillion worth of liquidity events happening in the tech sector at the same time. Third, the pope wrote an encyclical, the butlerian jihad is catholic (always has been), and the christian tech-right is crashing out. Fourth, congrats, dear listener, on being marked as an “anti-tech extremist”!

••• Australian Border Force seize 20 million illegal vapes since January 2024 as crackdown continues https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-05-29/border-force-seize-illegal-vapes-crackdown/106734164
••• Australia Sues 3M for $1.4 Billion Over ‘Forever Chemicals’ https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/28/business/australia-lawsuit-3m-psas.html
••• Anthropic Files to Go Public, Setting Stage for Huge I.P.O. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/01/technology/anthropic-ipo.html
••• Magnifica Humanitas | Pope Leo XIV https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/encyclicals/documents/20260515-magnifica-humanitas.html
••• US Law Enforcement Warns of ‘Anti-Tech Extremism’ as AI Hatred Grows https://www.wired.com/story/us-law-enforcement-warns-of-anti-tech-extremism/
••• Local Police Targeted Data Center Opponent, Law Firm Alleges https://heatmap.news/plus/the-fight/hotspots/alabama-nebius-data-center-police

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 with Gaby Del Valle—policy reporter at the Verge—about her excursion to the Border Security Expo, the new hardware and software being sold to fight the endless battle at the border, and how the border has now expanded to encompass everywhere and everybody. Plus we discuss Gaby’s research into the white supremacist ideologies of eugenicist environmentalism that have motivated immigration politics for a very long time.

••• The Border is Everywhere https://www.theverge.com/report/928726/border-security-expo-cbp-ice-dhs-surveillance
••• Trump is Waging a Silent War on Legal Immigration https://www.theverge.com/policy/932865/trump-legal-immigration-denaturalizations-uscis

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 how so many people keep getting seduced into thinking chatbots are conscious, or just keep hedging their bets in some kind of Cyber-Pascal’s Wage, or just keep lying to prop up an industry and culture they are invested in perpetuating. Then we argue why, rather than just be eroded into acquiescence by an overwhelming tsunami of AI, rather than being bowled over and washed out to sea, you should never give these systems and their booster the benefit of the doubt. Never accept that these forces of production are inevitable, undeniable, and actually already existing. You should first always say, “Prove it.”

•••When Dawkins met Claude Could this AI be conscious? https://unherd.com/2026/05/is-ai-the-next-phase-of-evolution/
••• When Claudia met Claudius https://unherd.com/2026/05/when-claudia-met-claudius/?edition=us
••• Why We Keep Tricking Ourselves Into Thinking A.I. Is Conscious https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/15/opinion/ai-consciousness.html
••• The Atheist and the Machine God https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/09/opinion/artificial-intelligence-consciousness-richard-dawkins.html
••• The Prehistory of A.I. Slop https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/05/25/the-prehistory-of-ai-slop
••• Too Much Is Happening Too Fast https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2026/05/too-much-happening-too-fast/687177/

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’re going in for a threepeat – it’s Data Centers 3, as we continue with our analysis of the data center industry, the opposition to these hyperscale projects, and the real impacts on social communities and natural ecosystems. We get into the industry playbook of using “counterinsurgency tactics” to undermine opposition to these data centers and the ideological playbook of effective altruists treating these projects like they are just 4X strategy games. Plus how Mr. Wonderful is terraforming Utah by building a massive natural gas power plant to fuel a hyperscale data center right on the shores of the Great Salt Lake.

••• ‘So much worse than I even thought’: Utah’s ‘hyperscale’ data center could create massive heat island near Great Salt Lake https://www.sltrib.com/news/environment/2026/05/07/utahs-data-center-could-create/
••• The fight against AI datacenters isn’t just about tech – it’s about democracy https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/may/08/ai-datacenters-democracy
••• Rolling the DICE on Data Center Development https://www.earthcharterindiana.org/climate-chronicles/dice
••• Google developers significantly misstate carbon emissions of proposed UK datacentres https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/may/09/google-developers-significantly-misstate-carbon-emissions-of-proposed-uk-datacentres

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 go in for a second helping on analysing the opposition to data centers. After further deconstructing the arguments against opposition, we do what none of them actually do: pay attention to the actual material conditions on the ground. We discuss reporting on why real communities are opposed to these infrastructure projects and how these projects are being pushed through in black-boxed, stonewalled, fast tracked ways that are designed to ignore, dismiss, and override anybody who isn’t immediately and blindly onboard.

••• ‘The Most Bipartisan Issue Since Beer’: Opposition to Data Centers https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/01/us/politics/liberals-conservatives-data-centers.html
••• In Indiana, an anatomy of data center opposition https://www.latitudemedia.com/news/in-indiana-an-anatomy-of-data-center-opposition/

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)