Tara McMullin

@taramcmullin

Writer, podcaster, and producer baffled by the absurdity of neoliberal capitalism. Autistic feminist. Aspiring independent scholar. Amateur baker. Host of the What Works podcast and author of a book of the same name.

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Asymmetry (part 1)

Collin Brooke open.substack.com

Media & Culture and Labor Under Capitalism

Collin Brooke

On one level, disengagement can be understood as an effort to slip apparatuses of control wherever we encounter them. Think of this as a strike for worker empowerment. The bigger question, though, is whether we can ever really escape the toil and trouble for good. It often seems as if we are doomed to sustain the systems and structures that suspend... See more

David J Siegel • Modern Life Subjects Us to All-Consuming Demands. That’s Why We Should Reflect on What It Means to Step Away From It All

Labor Under Capitalism

This sort of collapsed, derelict condition can appear around any disintegrating dimension of being.

Venkatesh Rao • Digital Homelessness

Broken Links

What We Get Wrong About Empathic Leadership

Olga Valadon hbr.org

On Empathy

Science Fiction and

I’ve been mainlining Le Guin’s non-fiction writing. It strikes me reading this passage again that she’s bumping up against Harry Frankfurt’s definition of “bullshit.” To paraphrase, that bullshit doesn’t concern itself with the truth—it’s objective is outside the realm of information. I don’t think fiction is bullshit, obviously. But now I’m curious about the qualities of fiction as they relate to the qualities of bullshit.

Not only do today’s platform-based workers exist in a nascent labor category, but their participation is decentralized, making it harder for them to connect with each other. As the industry has matured, and consolidation has led to monopsony power, platform labor has reached a turning point. Platforms are increasingly governing participants’... See more

A Labor Movement for the Platform Economy

The Creator Economy and Labor Under Capitalism

The problem, in other words, isn't intermediation – it's power . The thing that distinguishes a useful intermediary from an enshittified bully is power . Intermediaries gain power when our governments stop enforcing competition law. This lets intermediaries buy each other up and corner markets. Once they've formed cozy cartels, they can capture... See more

Tara McMullin

Asymmetry (part 1)

David J Siegel • Modern Life Subjects Us to All-Consuming Demands. That’s Why We Should Reflect on What It Means to Step Away From It All

Venkatesh Rao • Digital Homelessness

What We Get Wrong About Empathic Leadership

A Labor Movement for the Platform Economy

Cory Doctorow • Pluralistic: Middlemen Without Enshittification; The Bezzle Excerpt

Rogers Brubaker • Hyperconnected Culture and Its Discontents

Nicholas Carr • Out of the Landscape, into the Portrait