Toggle Menu

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.

Paris Marx

October 23, 2025

An Amazon Zoox driverless robotaxi drives on the Las Vegas Strip on August 7, 2025. (Justin Sullivan / Getty Images)

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.

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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

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.

Tech Refusal Has a Very Long History w/ Thomas Dekeyser / Tech Won’t Save Us
byThe Nation Magazine

We are often told that resisting technological development is impossible and ‘progress’ is inevitable, but history says otherwise. Thomas Dekeyser joins Paris Marx to discuss how understanding radical resistances of the past can help us rethink our modern relationship with technology and reshape our vision of the future.

Thomas Dekeyser is a lecturer in human geography at the University of Southampton, author of Techno-Negative: A Long History of Refusing the Machine, and co-creator of the documentary Machines in Flames.

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Subscribe to The Nation to Support all of our podcasts

Paris MarxParis Marx is the author of Hyperscale: The Ambition and Excess of Big Tech's Data Empires. He hosts the Tech Won’t Save Us podcast and writes the Disconnect newsletter.


Latest from the nation