2428 - AI’s Economy of Alienation; Trump’s Ethnic Cleansing Plan w/ Allison Pugh, Zachary Foster

It's an EmMajority Report Thursday! She speaks with Allison J. Pugh, professor of sociology at Johns Hopkins University, to discuss her recent book The Last Human Job: The Work of Connecting in a Disconnected World. Then, she's joined by Zachary Foster, author of the Palestine Nexus newsletter, to discuss Trump's recent announcements and intentions to "take over" the Gaza Strip. First, Emma runs through updates on the DOJ’s restriction on Elon & Cronies’ access to Treasury data, skyrocketing union membership among federal employers, Musk’s access to Health Payment Systems, cuts to the FAA and the destruction of USAID, the trickle of opposition from Democrats, Trump’s intent to ethnically cleanse Gaza, Trump’s ban of trans girls and women from athletic competition, US birthright citizenship, global warming, and brutal jail riots out of Congo, before diving a little deeper into the absurdly creepy stunt Trump attempted to pull with signing his most recent anti-trans legislation, and the violently inhumane response from the likes of Jesse Watters. Professor Allison Pugh then joins, diving right into the recent mass proliferation of Artificial Intelligence across industries, and the dangerous encroachment it has initiated on what Pugh has dubbed “Connective Labor” – occupations where the literal act of a human seeing another human for who they are is the underlying engine for the valued outcome for the consumer, be it education, healthcare, hairdressers, sales, securities, and on – pushing society, with help from growing feelings of alienation, into a depersonalization crisis. After briefly expanding on the extension of this intrusion of AI into necessarily interpersonal roles, Professor Pugh looks at how the AI takeover over this work has been driven by this “Moneyball”-esque, Venture Capitalist, industrial-model of efficiency stripping back entire professions to emphasize data collection and output over the actual labor (and human connection) at hand, often resulting in the full-scale degradation of these jobs. Allison and Emma also touch on the AI industry’s insistence on selling you their product as a replacement for either a more practical social alternative, human labor, or human connection, before wrapping up the interview with the overwhelming issue of Big Tech’s complete capture of our information networks, be they communications platforms, databases, or (now) academia, and what it will take to push humanity back to doing their own critical thinking. Zachary Foster and Emma then jump right into Trump’s recent declaration of intent to ethnically cleanse Gaza under U.S. control while sitting beside Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, touching on the stunning revelation of the White House’s seeming internal numbers on the total Gazan death count (around 500k) as well as the ongoing struggle to survive outside of conflict in Gaza. Next, Foster dives into the extensive role Saudi Arabia plays in pushing back against the US-Israeli imperial advancements, with their outward insistence on Palestinian statehood somewhat conflicted by Crown Prince MBS’ extensive efforts to normalize relations with Israel as well as to launch Saudi Arabia into an era of “techno-utopianism,” two agendas perfectly-aligned with the Trump Administration, before touching on the stunning international solidarity being shown on behalf of Palestine in the wake of Trump breaking from Biden’s tact of *silently* supporting the ethnic cleansing. Wrapping up, Zachary looks to Israel’s ongoing military pivot to escalating violence in the West Bank, and why U.S. and international pressure has been the only thing that ever restrained the Zionist state’s repeated attempts to ethnically cleanse Palestine.

And in the Fun Half: Emma is joined by Brandon Sutton and Matt Binder as they highlight a killer dissection of the Big Tech Oligarchy’s dream for “Network State” by Joanna of Blonde Politics and dive deep into Big Tech’s aggrievement- and power-driven evolution in the public eye. They also watch the NYT help Steve Bannon grapple with Trump allowing a foreign billionaire to take over the US, and Trump and Netanyahu gleefully announce the “official” plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza, plus, your calls and IMs!

Follow Allison on Twitter here: https://x.com/allison_pugh

Check out Allison's book here: https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691240817/the-last-human-job

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