Hello all. As many of you know, I've been writing BLOOD IN THE MACHINE: The Newsletter for months, but I've been on the fence about going all-in. Recent events have made the call easier.
Elon Musk, the Silicon Valley oligarchs and their AI are taking over. I want to do all I can to push back. I hope you'll join me, and I'm asking for your support.
https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/the-tech-oligarchs-and-their-ai-are
In my previous life, I was the tech columnist at the LA Times, where I wrote critical pieces about the AI industry, the gig economy and tech billionaires. Last year, I was laid off by—imagine this—a tech billionaire.
The newsletter was a way to continue that work.
I have a pretty deep well of historical knowledge about technology, automation, and labor from which to draw, and my background as a tech journalist, I hope, leaves me uniquely poised to meet this moment. I intend to do all I can to do exactly that.
My mission is to center the countless among us getting squeezed by big tech—and those pushing back. Artists and writers facing down AI in their workplaces. Federal tech workers taking on Musk and DOGE. Gig workers organizing against Uber. And so on.
But enough rambling. You can find more of my recent work at the homepage, and my older legacy clips at brianmerchant.org.
I do believe that there is much at stake if we do not build a loud and informed opposition to the tech oligarchs—I look forward to doing it together.
Hammers up.
www.bloodinthemachine.com
@nacly I know lots of people love Ghost but I had a terrible experience there alas! I started on Ghost, but didn't use it for a couple months and they killed my whole account due to idleness! Talked to support, said there was nothing they could do, couldn't get my domain back.
Anyway, if you want to support my work without paying Substack, consider supporting System Crash on Patreon!
@nacly @brianmerchant hey I think I was on the other side of that email. We don’t close sites for being inactive. Ghost(Pro) is managed hosting for Ghost, and it needs an ongoing subscription (which includes active free trials). We have a generous data retention period for sites that no longer have either of those.
We are non profit. We don’t offer a free ongoing hosting service but Ghost itself is open source and freely available for anyone who wants to manage their own hosting
@jonhickman @nacly perhaps this is my bad for not understanding the difference at the time then, but I got locked out of my domain after having it idle (and not understanding I couldn't idle without paying for hosting fees, which is reasonable) but was told I couldn't get it back
to be clear, I still admire Ghost and it was my first choice
@brianmerchant @nacly wow that sucks and honestly is self-defeating for Ghost. I’m still navigating Ghost myself, but because it’s open source I ended up moving to Magic Pages which is even cheaper than Ghost.org and afaik doesn’t have rules like that.
One day when I have time and more technical skills I’d love to help creators manage their own Ghost instances. Open source tools definitely cut into the power tech companies have over us. The double-edge sword is they can be unwieldy/offputting.
Brian Merchant
Pen
David Culley
jonhickman
MidniteMikeWrites
Keen Grasp
Jeri Dansky
brunoc
Michelle Barker
axel.
tante
Philipp
AGF : poemproducer