Paris Marx

Canadian technology journalist

Paris Marx

Education| MA in Urban Geography from McGill University
Occupation(s)| Journalist, Author
Notable work| Road to Nowhere: What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong about the Future of Transportation
Website| Parismarx.com

Paris Marx is a Canadian technology journalist, author, podcaster, and critic. Marx is the author of Road to Nowhere: What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong about the Future of Transportation (Verso Books) and hosts the tech industry–critical podcast Tech Won't Save Us.[1]

## Career

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Marx earned a master's degree in urban geography from McGill University, researching Silicon Valley and its influence on transportation.[2] He also studied as a PhD candidate at the University of Auckland.[3][4]

Marx began writing about the tech sector in 2015, producing the blog Radical Urbanist.[5][6] As of October 2023[update], Marx's commentary and interviews have appeared in Time Magazine, Wired, NBC News, the MIT Tech Review, Jacobin, and CBC News.[7][8] Much of the focus of Marx's work explores the "Silicon Valley hype machine" and its greater effects on American culture, while advocating for a greater emphasis on collective methods to tackle issues the Tech Industry attempts to address through privatization.[9][10] Marx's podcast Tech Won't Save Us, started in 2020, provides a leftist perspective on "the underbelly of both the [tech] industry and digital culture"[11] without being "doom-laden or scaremongering."[12]

In 2022, Verso published Marx's Road to Nowhere, a critical study expanding on his Master's work.[13] The book explores Silicon Valley's proposed visions of the transportation sector and how its products often exploit the material conditions of economic structures.[14] Marx ultimately argues that viewing technology as the sole solution for inner-city traffic and climate change in turn does little to help society as a whole.[6]

### Coverage of Elon Musk

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Marx has been playfully described as a "Muskologist" given his consistent critical coverage of Elon Musk.[15][16] His Time article "Elon Musk Is Convinced He's the Future. We Need to Look Beyond Him" argues that Musk's "vision doesn’t align with what’s best for humanity."[17] Much of Marx's most recent work fits into a "spate of negative press about Musk" that the SFist linked to a "collective rethinking" of how to report on the billionaire.[18] The Washington Examiner suggested that Marx holds a "special disdain for Musk’s dreams of a Mars colony."[19]

## Selected articles

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Marx, Paris (August 8, 2022) "Elon Musk Is Convinced He's the Future. We Need to Look Beyond Him". Time Magazine.

## References

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1. ^ Wilt, James. "Paris Marx: Improving the world is a political project, not a technological one". canadiandimension.com. Retrieved 2023-11-17.
2. ^ "Road to Nowhere: What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong about the Future of Transportation with Paris Marx | Center for Urban and Regional Analysis". cura.osu.edu. Retrieved 2023-05-28.
3. ^ "Marx, Paris". Verso. Retrieved 2023-05-28.
4. ^ "Paris Marx". Literary Hub. Retrieved 2023-10-13.
5. ^ "Paris Marx". Ricochet. Retrieved 2023-05-28.
6. ^ a b Jones, Stephen. "Don't trust 'narcissistic, self-interested' billionaires like Elon Musk to improve transport, author says". Business Insider. Retrieved 2023-05-28.
7. ^ "Paris Marx | Muck Rack". muckrack.com. Retrieved 2023-10-13.
8. ^ "Paris Marx | Bookshop". Bookshop.
9. ^ Hayes, Kelly (2023-08-03). "AI Won't Overthrow Us, But It Will Optimize the Capitalist Death Machine". Truthout. Retrieved 2023-10-13.
10. ^ Jones, Stephen. "Don't trust 'narcissistic, self-interested' billionaires like Elon Musk to improve transport, author says". Business Insider. Retrieved 2023-10-13.
11. ^ "The 22 best tech podcasts (that aren't 'Reply All')". Mashable. 2022-05-28. Retrieved 2023-05-28.
12. ^ Dibdin, Emma (2023-06-03). "6 Podcasts to Make Sense of A.I." The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-10-13.
13. ^ "The future of transportation beyond Silicon Valley: interview with Paris Marx". 2022-08-18. Retrieved 2023-05-28.
14. ^ "Marx Paris, Podcast Host, "Tech Won't Save Us"". McMaster Faculty of Social Sciences. Retrieved 2023-05-28.
15. ^ Bleyer-Simon, Konrad. "Why the Transport Visions of Tech Billionaires are a Dead End".
16. ^ "Road to Nowhere: a Letter from the Editor". Verso. Retrieved 2023-10-23.
17. ^ "Beyond Elon Musk: Why humanity should think twice before buying into his vision of the future". Texas Standard. 2022-08-19. Retrieved 2023-10-23.
18. ^ "Musk Backlash Continues With Time Magazine Calling Out Hyperloop Idea as Spoiler For High-Speed Rail". SFist - San Francisco News, Restaurants, Events, & Sports. 2022-08-11. Archived from the original on 2023-10-31. Retrieved 2023-10-23.
19. ^ "Elon Musk's vision for the future is a positive one". Washington Examiner. 2022-08-30. Retrieved 2023-10-23.

## External links

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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Paris Marx.

* Tech Won't Save Us website