1. EachPod
EachPod
Literate Machine - Podcast

Literate Machine

Literate Machine explores media through the lens of culture, history, and politics, examining the ways capitalism, power, and ideology shape and are shaped by the stories we love.

Written and performed by Eric Rosenfield, Literate Machine is available as blog entries, newsletter, podcast, and YouTube channel.

Literate Machine is available on Apple Podcasts and finer podcast apps everywhere.

Fantasy Arts Society & Culture Media
Update frequency
every 90 days
Average duration
35 minutes
Episodes
22
Years Active
2020 - 2025
Share to:
Our Coming Cyberpunk Dictatorship (Snow Crash)

Our Coming Cyberpunk Dictatorship (Snow Crash)

There's a worst case scenario looming here, isn't there?

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, Curtis Yarvin, Freedom Cities, "Anarcho-Capitalism", and the Neofeudal Order Still to Come

Special thanks to my…

00:57:10  |   Sun 13 Apr 2025
Gravity's Rainbow Over Palestine

Gravity's Rainbow Over Palestine

How Jewish Socialists Made an Outhouse for the European Soul

Apologies I had a cold through part of the recording of this and you can hear that my voice is hoarse Extra content, ad-free content, earl…

03:13:02  |   Mon 11 Nov 2024
What Do We Do Now?

What Do We Do Now?

https://literatemachine.com/2024/11/07/what-do-we-do-now/What do we do now that the orange fascist is back?

Support me at: https://literatemachine.com Support me at:   / ericrosenfield  , https://ko-…

00:08:20  |   Thu 07 Nov 2024
10,000 Subscriber Q&A

10,000 Subscriber Q&A

This a Q&A episode in honor of the YouTube channel hitting 10,000 subscribers.

Topics include degrowth and socialism, private cities, anime, Loki Season 2, and my cat 

In this video I say I couldn't …

00:14:13  |   Tue 24 Sep 2024
How Capitalism Becomes Feudalism (Severance and Technofeudalism)

How Capitalism Becomes Feudalism (Severance and Technofeudalism)

As commerce transforms around the new rent-extracting digital fiefdoms, algorithms and AI become a way to transform skilled labor into machine-learning piecework. In Severance, technology is used to …

00:35:57  |   Tue 25 Jun 2024
Elon Musk, Wokeness, and the Myth of Meritocracy

Elon Musk, Wokeness, and the Myth of Meritocracy

How Tony Stark, the myth of meritocracy, and our unspoken beliefs about genius explain Elon Musk and the (re)turn of eugenics to the right wing

Blog version and information about podcast and mailing …

00:37:55  |   Mon 01 Apr 2024
How Will Capitalism End? The Orville, Eduard Bernstein, and What is to Be Done?

How Will Capitalism End? The Orville, Eduard Bernstein, and What is to Be Done?

What does comedic science fiction television show The Orville tell us about how capitalism will end? How did Germany go from having the largest and most powerful socialist movement in the world to fi…

01:16:58  |   Thu 16 Nov 2023
Star Trek into Socialism: or Who Deserves the Future

Star Trek into Socialism: or Who Deserves the Future

Does Star Trek show us what socialism looks like? What would it look like if we organized society democratically instead of allowing a few people to control most of the resources?

 

Bibliography and …

01:16:06  |   Wed 12 Apr 2023
Loki and How Conservatives Become Fascists

Loki and How Conservatives Become Fascists

Marvel's Loki shows us what fascism looks like, and how it comes to take root within innocuous conservatism.

https://literatemachine.com

https://Patreon.com/ericrosenfield 

Corrections:

• Rupert Murd…

00:41:01  |   Sun 21 Aug 2022
The Confused Ideology of Schitt's Creek

The Confused Ideology of Schitt's Creek

How a show about poverty that can't ever bare to really show poverty illustrates everything we've been blind to.

Support the show on Patreon and get early access to episodes and exclusive Authors Not…

00:18:18  |   Wed 23 Feb 2022
Defund the Paw Patrol

Defund the Paw Patrol

Is the Paw Patrol an unintentional conservative utopia? What can the show tell us about how the political spectrum views the police, its purpose, and its funding.

For as little as $1 an episode (goin…

00:24:07  |   Tue 12 Oct 2021
How the Hippies Became Yuppies: The Trial of the Chicago 7

How the Hippies Became Yuppies: The Trial of the Chicago 7

How Aaron Sorkin whitewashes the story of hippy activism, and how the hippy activists whitewashed themselves.

Text and video version of this episode, as well as how to get it in your inbox, can be fo…

00:23:41  |   Sat 03 Jul 2021
Pixar's Soul: Finding Yourself Under Capitalism

Pixar's Soul: Finding Yourself Under Capitalism

Pete Doctor takes us into the meaning of life, but is there something hollow at its center of it?

Bibliography and Further Reading

* Soul using uncomfortable blackface: https://noripatterson.medium.c…

00:11:30  |   Sat 27 Mar 2021
Why Stories? Henry Fool and What the Artist is For

Why Stories? Henry Fool and What the Artist is For

What does it mean to be an artist?

Corrections:

* The high school students put one of Simon's poems into their high school yearbook, they don't post it up everywhere. Henry puts the poem up in the mu…

00:14:27  |   Fri 22 Jan 2021
Doom, Myst, and the War for the Soul of Video Games

Doom, Myst, and the War for the Soul of Video Games

In the 1990s, Myst and Doom fought a war for the soul of video games. Myst sold almost twice as many copies. Within ten years, the entire industry had remodeled itself around Doom. Special call out t…

00:20:02  |   Fri 20 Nov 2020
Cerebus: Misogyny and Madness

Cerebus: Misogyny and Madness

For 30 years, Dave Sim engaged in one of the most remarkable ongoing artistic endeavors ever while he gradually lost his mind.

 

Bibliography and Further Reading

* A collection quotations of Dave Sim…

00:22:05  |   Fri 28 Aug 2020
Pink Floyd's The Wall and the Rise of the Alt-Right

Pink Floyd's The Wall and the Rise of the Alt-Right

How the worms ate into my brain, what I did and did not understand about The Wall, and what it tells us about the rise of the Alt-Right.

Follow me on Twitter at @ericrosenfield

Support this show on P…

00:11:30  |   Sun 12 Jul 2020
Superheroes and the Police

Superheroes and the Police

What do you do when the authorities have been compromised?

If you enjoyed this please tell someone about it, word of mouth is how projects like this grow.

Bibliography and Further Reading

  • More gener…
00:15:57  |   Thu 11 Jun 2020
How Can I Save You?

How Can I Save You?

Let’s go back in time, to before the Pandemic, and see if we can change anything.   You can support my Patreon for as little as $1 an episode: https://patreon.com/ericrosenfield   Follow me on Twitte…
00:25:39  |   Fri 15 May 2020
There is No Alternative: Doctor Who,

There is No Alternative: Doctor Who, "Kerblam!", and the Specter of Technological Unemployment

In the 2018 Doctor Who episode “Kerblam!”, something is killing workers off at a far future Amazon analogue. Is it Capitalism? Or is the system not the problem? In this episode, Doctor Who is used as…

00:11:49  |   Sun 29 Mar 2020
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are the property of Eric Rosenfield. This content is not affiliated with or endorsed by eachpod.com.