PodcastEpisode 1
The Devil's Trick: The Invisible Ideology Behind Techno-Oligarchy
How fifty years of invisible ideology convinced us politics and collective action can't work, and why the pendulum is about to swing back.
“The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was persuading you he didn’t exist.” In this conversation, we discuss how the greatest trick of the last 50 years was persuading us that the state doesn’t work, that government is dysfunctional, and that only individuals and markets can solve our problems — all while concealing that this narrative was systematically pushed forward. From the post-war era when government was trusted and tax rates on top earners reached 80-90%, to today’s world where young minds go into startups rather than public service, we’ve lived through a reactionary upswing driven by evangelical organizing and big business lobbying. But as the concentration of power in figures like Musk reveals the cracks in this dream, we stand at a moment when the pendulum is ready to swing — not back to the past, but toward something new that acknowledges our collective power.
Chapters
- 00:00The Problem: Despair and Technology as Savior
- 00:03The Greatest Trick: Fish Don’t See Water
- 00:14When Government Worked: The Other Water
- 00:26The Shift: How We Changed Waters
- 00:38The Campaign: Evangelicals, Business, and Persistence
- 00:48The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
- 00:51Living the Dystopia
- 00:54The Pendulum Swings Back
Speakers
Sylvie Shiwei Barbier is a co-founder of Life Itself, and a French-Taiwanese performance artist, entrepreneur and educator.
Rufus Pollock is a co-founder of Life Itself, and an entrepreneur, activist and author as well as a long-term zen practitioner.
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