For this week’s vamp valley stream, I’m publishing a talk that Evgenia and I did with Joe Costello about his wonderful new book, The Politics of Ape and Machine.
With AI trying to swallow everything, it’s clearer now more than ever that we are in the middle of another industrial power grab — the attempt to centralize political and economic power in the hands of an even tinier elite. We talked to Joe to make sense of the situation. We talked about AI, the parasitic internet, industrialization’s destruction of democracy, the politics of technology, what it means to be monkeys who think they’re in control of the known universe… Joe thinks there is a tiny glimmer of hope: the AI boom we’re in potentially offers a historic opportunity to transcend our entrenched, stagnant politics: the much-promised automation and the grim reality of a computerized crapification of broad sectors of our society might make the reorganization of politics not just a possibility but a necessity — an opportunity that hasn’t been seen in many generations.
This talk took place on November 23, 2025, in Manhattan at the KGB Bar. This is the first time it is being published on this pacification platform we call the internet.
For those who don’t know, Joe Costello has been on our podcast many times, and I’ve republished his work before. He’s worked in politics all of his life, and he’s one of the most clear thinkers and writers today on politics and on the meaning of democracy in our age of terminal industrialization. Buy his book! And subscribe to his newsletter, Life in the 21st Century. It’s really funny and insightful into the politics of energy — which is really the politics of the modern world, as people are about to discover more than ever with Trump’s attack on Iran.
—Yasha
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