Podcast / Tech Won’t Save Us / Oct 23, 2025

Silicon Valley Doesn’t Know What Makes a Good City

On this episode of Tech Won’t Save Us: Joanne McNeil unpacks Big Tech’s driverless transport fantasy.

The Nation Podcasts
The Nation Podcasts

Here's where to find podcasts from The Nation. Political talk without the boring parts, featuring the writers, activists and artists who shape the news, from a progressive perspective.

Silicon Valley Doesn’t Know What Makes a Good City w/ Joanne McNeil | Tech Won’t Save Us
byThe Nation Magazine

Paris Marx is joined by Joanne McNeil to discuss the proliferation of delivery bots and robotaxis and how they recycle disproven claims about how technology will improve transportation.

Joanne McNeil is a freelance writer and the author of Wrong Way and Lurking: How a Person Became a User.

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An Amazon Zoox driverless robotaxi drives on the Las Vegas Strip on August 7, 2025.

(Justin Sullivan / Getty Images)

Paris Marx is joined by Joanne McNeil to discuss the proliferation of delivery bots and robotaxis and how they recycle disproven claims about how technology will improve transportation.

Joanne McNeil is a freelance writer and the author of Wrong Way and Lurking: How a Person Became a User.

Subscribe to The Nation to support all of our podcasts: thenation.com/podcastsubscribe.

The Nation Podcasts
The Nation Podcasts

Here's where to find podcasts from The Nation. Political talk without the boring parts, featuring the writers, activists and artists who shape the news, from a progressive perspective.

The SpaceX IPO Gives Elon Musk Even More Power w/ Sean O’Kane / Tech Won’t Save Us
byThe Nation Magazine

SpaceX is finally going public, and it’s bad news for anyone who wants to rein in Elon Musk. Sean O’Kane joins Paris Marx to discuss the flimsy sci-fi ideas Elon Musk is using to justify the company’s massive valuation and the way corporate governance rules are shifting to give him even more power.

Sean O’Kane is a senior reporter at TechCrunch.

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With the midterm elections now firmly upon us, the question is whether Democratic candidates will do more than merely occupy ballot lines as mild alternatives to the red-hot crisis that is Donald Trump.

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Paris Marx

Paris Marx is a tech critic and host of the Tech Won’t Save Us podcast. He writes the Disconnect newsletter and is the author of Road to Nowhere: What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong about the Future of Transportation.

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