#43: The AI Bubble and Technological Revolutions

#49: Data Centers and Fossil Fuels with Candice Bernd & John Kendall

For this week's episode Candice Bernd and John Kendall join Matt and Sam to talk about their reporting and research into the nexus of the fossil fuel industry and the build-out boom of data centers across Texas and Pennsylvania. We discuss the repurposing and co-location of coal and fracked natural gas plants with the data centers, along with the lobbying efforts being done to situate the apparently futuristic AI technology as a lifeline to the historic fossil fuel industry. We hear about the populist localism inspiring some of the movements emerging to protest the data centers, but also how those same coalitions might be mobilized to protest green energy transition. READINGS: --"AI Data Center Development in Frackland" - Phases, 2025: https://phases.substack.com/p/ai-data-center-development-in-frackland [https://phases.substack.com/p/ai-data-center-development-in-frackland] --"Crypto’s Cryptic Texas Takeover" - Candice Bernd, 2025: https://www.texasobserver.org/crypto-energy-grid-texas-bitcoin-water/ [https://www.texasobserver.org/crypto-energy-grid-texas-bitcoin-water/] --"The Fossil-AI Nexus: Petrostate Capitalism, Computing Power, and the Production of Powered Land" - Justin Kollar, 2026: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/400945937_The_Fossil-AI_Nexus_Petrostate_Capitalism_Computing_Power_and_the_Production_of_Powered_Land [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/400945937_The_Fossil-AI_Nexus_Petrostate_Capitalism_Computing_Power_and_the_Production_of_Powered_Land] Candice Bernd is a special investigative correspondent for the Observer covering climate justice and grassroots movements. She is an award-winning freelance journalist based in Austin whose work has also appeared in The Nation, The American Prospect, In These Times, Salon, Truthout, and Earth Island Journal. She is the author of Blood, Soil, and Oil: Far-Right Acceleration in the Age of Climate Crisis. John Kendall is a postdoctoral researcher in energy geographies at Penn State. Currently, his research is primarily focused on the political and industrial ecologies of natural gas and petrochemical development in northern Appalachia. His most recent publication, written for the think tank Common Wealth, analyzes how the fracking boom continues to thwart decarbonization initiatives in the US. Sam Law is an Austin-based researcher and organizer focused on the data center buildout across Texas — the water, energy, and permitting fights behind the AI boom — and, more broadly, on how AI is reshaping surveillance, policing, and war. He’s also a cultural anthropologist, writing a book on an autonomous social movement in Mexico.

#48: Revolutions of Our Times with The Peoples Want

For this week's episode Benj and israa' from The Peoples Want join Malek and Matt to discuss the network's new book Revolutions of Our Times: An Internationalist Manifesto. We discuss the global uprisings since the Arab Spring leading to new understanding of revolution and internationalism. We talk about the figure of the exile, migrant, refugee, and diaspora translating new conceptions of the local and neighboring - values and ideology - and whether a shared orientation towards revolt can produce new subjective categories of solidarity. We end by hearing a history of The Peoples Want network, its emergence in the Syrian Canteen outside Paris, and the series of international gatherings they've organized since 2019. READINGS: --Mujawara: Weaving a Revolutionary Neighbouring Beyond Borders (published May 2026): https://thepeopleswant.org/en/mujawara/mujawara-weaving-a-revolutionary-neighbouring-beyond-borders [https://thepeopleswant.org/en/mujawara/mujawara-weaving-a-revolutionary-neighbouring-beyond-borders] --Revolutions of Our Times: An Internationalist Manifesto: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/2732-revolutions-of-our-times [https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/2732-revolutions-of-our-times] Benjamin is a member of the Limousine Mountain Syndicate in Tarnac, France, which is part of The Peoples Want network. israa' is a Queer Egyptian Muslim anarchist, co-founder of From the Periphery Media Collective, and an activist scholar working to build a world where many words fit. They are a member of The Peoples Want network. The Peoples Want is a network comprised of collectives, organisations, places and individuals from across the world working together to build an internationalist practice suited to our times. We share a committment to internationalism from below, focusing on people and movements rather than states. An internationalism that promotes solidarity and mutual aid between those in struggle, at times of crisis or uprising.

#47: Jeremy Gilbert on the Deleuzo-Gramscian Synthesis (Part 2)

For Part Two of our conversation with Jeremy Gilbert, we discuss his research on hegemony and the evolution of acid communism. We talk about the turn towards consciousness raising and the need for a Deleuzo-Gramscian synthesis. READINGS: --"Why is Keir Starmer so unpopular?" - Jeremy Gilbert, 2025: https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-politics/2025/12/why-is-keir-starmer-so-unpopular [https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-politics/2025/12/why-is-keir-starmer-so-unpopular] --"Techno-feudalism or Platform Capitalism? Conceptualising the Digital Society" - Jeremy Gilbert, 2024: https://uel-repository.worktribe.com/OutputFile/450392 [https://uel-repository.worktribe.com/OutputFile/450392] --"My Friend Mark" - Jeremy Gilbert, 2017: https://jeremygilbertwriting.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/my-friend-mark40.pdf [https://jeremygilbertwriting.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/my-friend-mark40.pdf] Jeremy Gilbert is an academic, writer, podcaster, activist and DJ based in London, and the current editor of the journal New Formations. His books include Common Ground: Democracy and Collectivity in an Age of Individualism (Pluto, 2014), Twenty-First Century Socialism (Polity, 2020) and (with Alex Williams) Hegemony Now: How Big Tech and Wall Street Won the World (Verso, 2022).

#46: Jeremy Gilbert on the Age of Individualism (Part 1)

For our latest episode Jeremy Gilbert joins Amogh and Matt to discuss his research on individualism and neoliberalism. We talk about both Left pessimism and Left pluralism, as well as how to evaluate the victories and defeats from the Occupy movement to the Labor Party. We end Part One of this two-part conversation revisiting Stuart Hall's call for a "Marxism without guarantees". READINGS: --"Thinking of Democratic Goals: In Conversation with Jeremy Gilbert" - Aleksander Kopka, 2025: https://olrsupplement.com/2026/01/06/thinking-of-democratic-goals-in-conversation-with-jeremy-gilbert/ [https://olrsupplement.com/2026/01/06/thinking-of-democratic-goals-in-conversation-with-jeremy-gilbert/] --"Acid Corbynism: an experimental politics for testing times" - Jeremy Gilbert, 2017: https://theconversation.com/acid-corbynism-an-experimental-politics-for-testing-times-85505 [https://theconversation.com/acid-corbynism-an-experimental-politics-for-testing-times-85505] Jeremy Gilbert is an academic, writer, podcaster, activist and DJ based in London, and the current editor of the journal New Formations. His books include Common Ground: Democracy and Collectivity in an Age of Individualism (Pluto, 2014), Twenty-First Century Socialism (Polity, 2020) and (with Alex Williams) Hegemony Now: How Big Tech and Wall Street Won the World (Verso, 2022).

#45: Ziad Majed on the Aftermath of October 7th

For this week's episode Ziad Majed joins Malek and Matt to discuss the aftermath of October 7th in the Middle East. Ziad offers an analysis of the current ceasefires between Israel, Lebanon, Iran, and Gaza, and provides a long historical overview on the regional dynamics and ruptures that got us to this point. We end with a discussion about the gap between grassroots popular mobilization and geopolitical statecraft. READINGS: --"When war in the Middle East is told in the language of those who wage it" - Ziad Majed, 2026: https://vendredis-arabes.blogspot.com/2026/04/when-war-in-middle-east-is-told-in.html [https://vendredis-arabes.blogspot.com/2026/04/when-war-in-middle-east-is-told-in.html] --"Since the Second World War, there has never been such a concentration of ruins in one region of the world" - Ziad Majed, 2026: https://vendredis-arabes.blogspot.com/2026/04/ziad-majed-since-second-world-war-there.html [https://vendredis-arabes.blogspot.com/2026/04/ziad-majed-since-second-world-war-there.html] Dr. Ziad Majed is a university professor and researcher. After working with the Lebanese Red Cross, the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies in Beirut, and the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance in Stockholm, he joined the American University of Paris in 2010, where he has since taught Middle Eastern Studies and International Relations. Over the past three decades, Dr. Majed has published extensively on democratic transitions, political systems, elections, civil society, reform, and citizenship in Lebanon, Syria, and the wider Arab region, as well as on the Palestinian question. His recent books include Syrie, la révolution orpheline (Actes Sud, Paris, 2014); Iran and its Four Arab Fronts (International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam, 2017); Dans la tête de Bachar Al-Assad (with Subhi Hadidi and Farouk Mardam-Bey, Actes Sud, Paris, 2018; 2nd ed., 2025); and Le Proche-Orient, miroir du monde (La Découverte, Paris, 2025).