Perhaps the nuance is in the eye of the beholder? I don't think it's sustainable to go about our lives wearing blinders and averting our gaze from the misuse of technology because one might be afraid of unhappy feelings creeping in.
One must not be so cowardly as to deny that materials and technology can be misused or deny that their purpose is of oppression for fear of being attacked by group-thinkers.
"The unexamined life is not worth living" as Socrates put it. So, I invite you not play the usual game of narrowly looking at a single if statement and conclude "there's nothing political in this"; but rather look at the bigger picture... the asymmetry in access to information, resources, weapons, and how that impacts everyone's lives...
If we don't admit that there's a couple dozen people with immeasurable wealth and resources who have questionable intentions and opinions that affect our day-to-day lives, then we won't be able to prevent worse outcomes in a timely manner.
The uncomfortable reality is that there does exist an 'us vs them' situation in every other aspect of society today, and those who ignore it end up on the losing side.
>I'm not a big sucker for this kind of un-nuanced "us vs them" rhetoric
Everyone usually has this
stance by default until they think some batshit crazy redlines have been crossed regardless of what end of the political spectrum they reside in and decide to adopt an "us vs them, hope for peace, prepare for war" approach.
I'm sure you have some "if they actually do <xyz> then I'll adopt a more alarmed stance" line in the sand, it's just drawn at a different point probably. That's why it's best to talk specifics of the case instead of declaring an abstract high-road stance.
It's cute but are there any actual nerds left in big tech leadership? Of the magnificent seven we basically only have Jensen Huang left as a technical leader and maybe you can count Zuckerberg.
Code absolutely belongs there. Like any technology (be it printing presses, weapons, or algorithms) code is neutral by design, but not by impact.
It can bolster democracies or undermine them. The real agency lies with those who wield it. And it's rarely the coders. It's the leaders, the platforms, the systems that choose how code is deployed.
And why not code? Are facial recognition models, AI LLMs to spew out spam and addictive social media algorithms not backed by code? The kings and dictators of the past had a lot more capital than Silicon Valley, but could only dream of building such surveillance and propaganda capabilities, as is the case even in a number of tinpot dictatorships in the developing world.
It is being dismantled by those who claim that the public can't have a say but that we should go to "official sources" (government appointed) or "trusted sources" (their pals) to avoid misinformation. This isn't capitalist driven (the standard Marxist line) because this system limits profits and maximalises government control.
Most of the real democracy dismantling attempts in the world seem more along the lines of the Russians centuries old effort to have everything loyal to the Tzar, including Trump.
This book appears to be available only for preorder now, not yet published. Nobody here has read it, nobody here can read it, and even if they could, this submission will disappear off the front pages before commenters have a chance to order and read the book. Thus the comments section here is going to be useless (or at least more useless than usual).
I don't know what happened to this website but stuff like this keeps hitting the front page more and more often despite having close to zero value. It feels like SEO spam to me.
Very good question - posted it for awareness / sparking hopefully nuanced “are we the baddies here?” reflection in the community, and curious folks to preorder.
Problem is not with nerds or Silicon Valley, even if Thiel is a lunatic.
Problem are, and always were, obscenely wealthy people destroying the society that created them. In the world where greed is not considered sin anymore, or even a character flaw, they don't even need to pretend anymore.
Crazy to live in a time less moral than the robber baron age. That said, our society made a joke of children making our shoes in miserable conditions, so we have been conditioning ourselves to be ok with this on our own and for a long time.
Unfettered capitalism is great under certain conditions. Amazing things get invented & rolled out to the world.
When conditions change, cracks appear..
For many reasons we appear to be in an era of slower growth, but shareholders used to growth are still demanding it. That’s sticking business leaders in a really tough place.
The incentives need to change - whether through legislation, or market demands. Until then it’ll be less leg room on flights, more “offers” when you just opened your banking app to pay a bill, and more sanctioned spam in your inbox.
I truly believe plenty of folks are fed up and a backlash is coming that’ll be a mix of legislation and companies emerging that cater to informed customers. I’m optimistic!
> Unfettered capitalism is great under certain conditions. Amazing things get invented & rolled out to the world.
That's a really naive take, for you to enjoy this "ideal capitalism" there are hundred thousands of people who've been seeing and feeling these cracks for decades if not centuries, it's just slowly reaching your neck of the woods
What's the actual factual accusation here? That monied interests converge on the ruling power? How is this different when the 'opposition' is in control?
As conditions for the middle class continue to deteriorate, isn't it normal that companies that depend on middle class purchasing power try to adjust government buttons and levers to assure their continuation and position in the market?
The 'holier than thou' is showing.
My cousin suddenly has been very captured and obsessed by an area of opinion I didn’t have a name for, fixed money supply, all inflation inherently bad, Elon Musk is badly treated, longer government terms (which sounds reasonable initially until you actually think about just having LESS democracy), no minimum wage. After some research it’s definitely coming from influencers linked to the SV techno feudalists - it’s just such a strong change. But you realise real power is only useful if people can come along with you - if you can build support with the public…
Sounds loosely libertarian, but the longer terms one is new. Its long appealed to technical folks because of its simplicity and ability to address a wide swath of policy issues.
It took me a long time to break myself out of it. I think key was getting into the deep details of passing actual policies that would have enough popular support to be sustainable, to realize its ultimately just naive/simplistic thinking, thats another impractical ideology under the hood, dressed up as something more meaningful.
I would assume by default that billionaires are politically active and causing a problem. However this link doesn't give a lot of hints about how or wherefore. I assume this is a jab at Thiel; but it is a bit light on in the synopsis department.
There are a huge number of threats to democracy and the biggest one is probably the total lack of principles and common sense possessed by the median voter. It is a real problem and a bigger one than some billionaire or even the consensus of the billionaires. Sometimes voters and capital come into actual conflict and generally the voters tend to win Pyrrhic victories when that happens.
> the biggest one is probably the total lack of principles and common sense possessed by the median voter.
Hard disagree.
The biggest problem is a misinformed electorate.
An accurate, honest and truthful press is vital for democracy; how else do people know whom to vote for! The fact this is being dismantled (often supplying deliberate misinformation) is truly worrying.
After all, the electorate is entitled to have a lack of principles and no common sense; nobody ever said democracy was perfect. However the electorate needs to be provided with an honest set facts on which they can base their decisions without cries of "fake news". Whatever their political leanings.
1. Consider preordering the book if you're already reacting to part of its premise; it should be a juicy read.
2. Regarding the power of billionaires vs the power of the median voter, consider that each lever in a system deserves attention before pulling on it or reconfiguring it. How can one determine "the biggest threat to democracy" without digging into the details?
I would not call these people "nerds", many are entitled bros (gals?) with rather rich parents. If you look at many of their family history, their parents are well into the upper middle class, borderline rich. In most cases, they went to the best schools.
It just so happens, tech is were the real money is now. If this was 40+ years ago, they would have ended up on Wall Street or Madison Avenue.
Now it goes beyond money: they are aiming at shaping societies. From mars colonies (imagine musks tantrums when they vote him out) to project 2025 type of political works.
When you have too much money, it's kinda boring to keep making more of them. You want self-expression to the max extent the society will allow you.
So why would it take off there instead of in a larger city with more resources?
I'm not disagreeing with you completely, but I would like to know more about what other factors you would consider to have been more impactful. I don't know that you really need hippies around to get that kind of 'california capitalist' mentality either tbf.
In less than a page, they call it feudalism, fascism, and capital(ism) / corporate rule. Mussolini in his manifesto explicitly defined the 2nd in opposition to the 3rd among other things, and even Marx considered the 1st and the 3rd to be very distinct. Of course the 1st and the 2nd are also quite different.
So which one is it? Oh wait, it's a modern progressive, "calling everything I don't like every bad name I remember from high school history"! Are they also nativist globalists and authoritarian libertarians? I bet they are!
I know it's fashionable to say that democracy itself leads to these outcomes that destroy democracy. I think Arendt was right about self-colonization and overproduction of elites being the main thing that leads to totalitarianism. There wouldn't even be such a thing as a silicon valley billionaire if the United States wasn't the most wildly successful political entity for the past 2000 years. Power corrupts, but that's distinct from an argument that the systems which created it in this case should be replaced by systems that funnel power in other ways.
> There wouldn't even be such a thing as a silicon valley billionaire if the United States wasn't the most wildly successful political entity for the past 2000 years.
It's less wildly successful as a political entity than Christianity or Islam.
> There wouldn't even be such a thing as a silicon valley billionaire if the United States wasn't the most wildly successful political entity for the past 2000 years.
I don’t know that I would position the USA in this way.
I'm no historian, but has there ever been a society in world history that wasn't dominated by a 'privileged few'?
Weren't the 'rules' of the United States of America written by wealthy white males who excluded women, non-whites, and the non-wealthy (eg non-land owning) from participating in the new nation?
As much as the worldwide turn to fascism worries me, I don't see the lives of most people in the world changing very drastically from any other time in history. Maybe the openness by which the privileged exercise their power is a bit higher on the historical scale, but the lives of the non-privileged, world wide, really don't change much over history. Sure, the invention of fire, electricity, etc benefitted all of mankind, but the distinctions of 'how life is lived' between the privileged and the non-privileged has always been dramatic.
The United States from 1945 to about 1970 made a fair amount of noise about broadening the scope of the franchise. This certainly was not the norm historically, but contemporary ambivalence about that project is what leads us to this article today.
Fascism is a form of ultranationalism based on a myth of national rebirth (“we must purge decadence and be born again”), which seeks to create a new, regimented society through authoritarian power and mass mobilization, often embracing violence.
==
Facism is a very appealing form of organizing society, so no surprise that people would like to have it. The same way many europeans though that facism is an answer to many problems of those times.
But wait, why, beyond shallow demonisation, such seemingly great idea could be considered undesired? Thoughts?
>The word "fascist" now has positive connotations for me
Spoken like somebody who never had to endure real fascism.
>I realise a lot of you will want to call me fascist for this comment, or more likely something a bit snider and less direct. Just know that I genuinely don't care. It's just a word now.
No, you may not be a fascist, but it's opinions like yours that helped make it possible. Mitläufer.
Are you familiar with Curtis Yarvin, and his influence with Thiel, JD Vance etc? He absolutely advocates for monarchy and dismantling democracy. He's also, if we are to judge his extensive writing, very much a racist
Have you read Umberto Eco's essay on Ur-fascism per chance? The dictator bit comes later, if it comes at all. Eco made 14 points that let you detect fascism - the higher the score, the higher the chance of a fascist regime being established.
Thiel is probably the most obvious example, being explicitly anti-democracy and pro-authoritarian. Musk is also known for endorsing fringe far-right views and activists. I wouldn't be surprised if there are many more such attitudes in the SV elite, but the rest of them are better at self-regulating.
I think it's both. For sure Curtis Yarvin, Peter Thiel, Elon Musk and others all have some extremely out there beliefs, lots of power, a desire to wield it, and connections to POTUS and the vice president who both seem to be about gaining and wielding as much power as possible.
I haven't read the book but I've read some stuff on a website of the same name, and the way it ties it all together felt very tinfoil hat to me. I think these guys all mutually tolerate each other's insanity in their common lust for ever more power and insatiable egos.
It's just the classic of people with a whole lot of money getting what they want from the government, only boosted by the fact that for the previous decade and a half the left has legitimized political action from corporations since it benefited them, as platforms were largely left-leaning. Now the boot is finally on the other foot and panic ensues.
Can't say I like it, but it has been my position from the very start that this would happen, and as such I'm fresh out of sympathy.
This is real. Gil Duran is extremely well respected among those of us who are against the fascist takeover of Silicon Valley, which has been well-documented for quite some time.
Anything that is a millimeter to the left in US politics, which happens to still be considered right in the rest of the world, gets immediately coined as left wing activists.
Right wing activists working with and within government (think taxation, immigration, housing, environment, race, gender) have made a mess of government and society, and are calling anyone who criticizes the current mess as far radical left.
This is stupid and dangerous, but an obvious deflection from the root cause, concervatives who have made quality of life worse prompting an angry reaction that threatens their power.
--
The phrases constructed by your pattern don't bring any clarity, ability to distinguish one from another. It's pure flow of emotion and abstraction which would work only among same-way-thinkers. Good for groups bonding, bad for any communication outside of the group.
You use universally true patterns without even realizing that.
This exact thought is the human death drive externalized and is responsible for a lot of human misery in the world. Shame on those who unironically believe it.
The excesses of the Weimar Republic did not justify the subsequent events. Not even close.
This is far more similar to Communism than Fascism. Their mentality is that they are a scientific vanguard (like Marxism) and that the ends justify the means. They also share the binary thinking of Marxists. They part company with Fascism because most of them are internationalist.
skrebbel|3 months ago
rolandog|3 months ago
One must not be so cowardly as to deny that materials and technology can be misused or deny that their purpose is of oppression for fear of being attacked by group-thinkers.
"The unexamined life is not worth living" as Socrates put it. So, I invite you not play the usual game of narrowly looking at a single if statement and conclude "there's nothing political in this"; but rather look at the bigger picture... the asymmetry in access to information, resources, weapons, and how that impacts everyone's lives...
If we don't admit that there's a couple dozen people with immeasurable wealth and resources who have questionable intentions and opinions that affect our day-to-day lives, then we won't be able to prevent worse outcomes in a timely manner.
zrn900|3 months ago
sillyfluke|3 months ago
Everyone usually has this stance by default until they think some batshit crazy redlines have been crossed regardless of what end of the political spectrum they reside in and decide to adopt an "us vs them, hope for peace, prepare for war" approach.
I'm sure you have some "if they actually do <xyz> then I'll adopt a more alarmed stance" line in the sand, it's just drawn at a different point probably. That's why it's best to talk specifics of the case instead of declaring an abstract high-road stance.
nephihaha|3 months ago
unknown|3 months ago
[deleted]
kgwxd|3 months ago
jamil7|3 months ago
scandox|3 months ago
xg15|3 months ago
Lord William Rees-Mogg being the father of Jacob Rees-Mogg, of Brexit fame.
Interesting how often you meet the same people if you just start digging a little.
pjc50|3 months ago
> Interesting how often you meet the same people if you just start digging a little.
Endemic problem in UK politics, and a lot of other countries.
nephihaha|3 months ago
konart|3 months ago
Not sure "code" belongs here. Even less sure about "illusion".
Take those away and what is left is "dismantled... by capital". Nothing new, really.
edu|3 months ago
It can bolster democracies or undermine them. The real agency lies with those who wield it. And it's rarely the coders. It's the leaders, the platforms, the systems that choose how code is deployed.
lm28469|3 months ago
One day you're chasing terrorism, the next you're chasing ecologists, political opponents, unions, minorities, &c.
amiga386|3 months ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_says_no
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computers_Don%27t_Argue
https://simonwillison.net/2025/Feb/3/a-computer-can-never-be...
BirAdam|3 months ago
fakedang|3 months ago
croes|3 months ago
And isn’t social media that prefers rage over information a danger to democracy?
arthurofbabylon|3 months ago
jelder|3 months ago
Of course “code” belongs here.
nephihaha|3 months ago
tim333|3 months ago
lapcat|3 months ago
This book appears to be available only for preorder now, not yet published. Nobody here has read it, nobody here can read it, and even if they could, this submission will disappear off the front pages before commenters have a chance to order and read the book. Thus the comments section here is going to be useless (or at least more useless than usual).
ManlyBread|3 months ago
brunohaid|3 months ago
adamors|3 months ago
pcrh|3 months ago
https://www.thenerdreich.com/
arthurofbabylon|3 months ago
tim333|3 months ago
A lot seems about Curtis Yarvin and fans thereof.
wolvesechoes|3 months ago
_DeadFred_|3 months ago
cadamsdotcom|3 months ago
When conditions change, cracks appear..
For many reasons we appear to be in an era of slower growth, but shareholders used to growth are still demanding it. That’s sticking business leaders in a really tough place.
The incentives need to change - whether through legislation, or market demands. Until then it’ll be less leg room on flights, more “offers” when you just opened your banking app to pay a bill, and more sanctioned spam in your inbox.
I truly believe plenty of folks are fed up and a backlash is coming that’ll be a mix of legislation and companies emerging that cater to informed customers. I’m optimistic!
lm28469|3 months ago
That's a really naive take, for you to enjoy this "ideal capitalism" there are hundred thousands of people who've been seeing and feeling these cracks for decades if not centuries, it's just slowly reaching your neck of the woods
angelfangs|3 months ago
lil-lugger|3 months ago
cloverich|3 months ago
It took me a long time to break myself out of it. I think key was getting into the deep details of passing actual policies that would have enough popular support to be sustainable, to realize its ultimately just naive/simplistic thinking, thats another impractical ideology under the hood, dressed up as something more meaningful.
roenxi|3 months ago
There are a huge number of threats to democracy and the biggest one is probably the total lack of principles and common sense possessed by the median voter. It is a real problem and a bigger one than some billionaire or even the consensus of the billionaires. Sometimes voters and capital come into actual conflict and generally the voters tend to win Pyrrhic victories when that happens.
GJim|3 months ago
Hard disagree.
The biggest problem is a misinformed electorate.
An accurate, honest and truthful press is vital for democracy; how else do people know whom to vote for! The fact this is being dismantled (often supplying deliberate misinformation) is truly worrying.
After all, the electorate is entitled to have a lack of principles and no common sense; nobody ever said democracy was perfect. However the electorate needs to be provided with an honest set facts on which they can base their decisions without cries of "fake news". Whatever their political leanings.
arthurofbabylon|3 months ago
2. Regarding the power of billionaires vs the power of the median voter, consider that each lever in a system deserves attention before pulling on it or reconfiguring it. How can one determine "the biggest threat to democracy" without digging into the details?
jmclnx|3 months ago
It just so happens, tech is were the real money is now. If this was 40+ years ago, they would have ended up on Wall Street or Madison Avenue.
expedition32|3 months ago
seydor|3 months ago
Silicon valley just happened to reside next to the hippies in the first decades
podgorniy|3 months ago
When you have too much money, it's kinda boring to keep making more of them. You want self-expression to the max extent the society will allow you.
sach1|3 months ago
I'm not disagreeing with you completely, but I would like to know more about what other factors you would consider to have been more impactful. I don't know that you really need hippies around to get that kind of 'california capitalist' mentality either tbf.
flag_fagger|3 months ago
sershe|3 months ago
So which one is it? Oh wait, it's a modern progressive, "calling everything I don't like every bad name I remember from high school history"! Are they also nativist globalists and authoritarian libertarians? I bet they are!
fithisux|3 months ago
noduerme|3 months ago
pjc50|3 months ago
wolvesechoes|3 months ago
It doesn't, although they would like you to believe so, so you avoid obtaining it.
But it definitely attracts those corrupted.
delichon|3 months ago
It's less wildly successful as a political entity than Christianity or Islam.
andsoitis|3 months ago
I don’t know that I would position the USA in this way.
Different metrics lead to different “winners”:
Longevity: Imperial China
Institutional legacy: Rome
Global reach: British Empire
Scientific/cultural transmission: Islamic Caliphates
Modern dominance: United States
Another lens:
* Rome & China = stability, governance, internal cohesion.
* Britain & the US = networks, capital markets, technology leverage.
* Caliphates = knowledge platforms, cosmopolitan integration.
keernan|3 months ago
Weren't the 'rules' of the United States of America written by wealthy white males who excluded women, non-whites, and the non-wealthy (eg non-land owning) from participating in the new nation?
As much as the worldwide turn to fascism worries me, I don't see the lives of most people in the world changing very drastically from any other time in history. Maybe the openness by which the privileged exercise their power is a bit higher on the historical scale, but the lives of the non-privileged, world wide, really don't change much over history. Sure, the invention of fire, electricity, etc benefitted all of mankind, but the distinctions of 'how life is lived' between the privileged and the non-privileged has always been dramatic.
lunar-whitey|3 months ago
skeezyjefferson|3 months ago
[deleted]
Am4TIfIsER0ppos|3 months ago
[deleted]
cindyllm|3 months ago
[deleted]
LAC-Tech|3 months ago
[deleted]
podgorniy|3 months ago
==
Facism is a very appealing form of organizing society, so no surprise that people would like to have it. The same way many europeans though that facism is an answer to many problems of those times.
But wait, why, beyond shallow demonisation, such seemingly great idea could be considered undesired? Thoughts?
owisd|3 months ago
chickensong|3 months ago
lpcvoid|3 months ago
Spoken like somebody who never had to endure real fascism.
>I realise a lot of you will want to call me fascist for this comment, or more likely something a bit snider and less direct. Just know that I genuinely don't care. It's just a word now.
No, you may not be a fascist, but it's opinions like yours that helped make it possible. Mitläufer.
misja111|3 months ago
[deleted]
WickyNilliams|3 months ago
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/04/inside-the-new-right...
frm88|3 months ago
It makes for a stunning read https://www.openculture.com/2024/11/umberto-ecos-list-of-the.... Brett Deveraux (historian) once tried to match US society to those 14 points with the expected result: the US matches all 14. He wrote on his blog about it here: https://acoup.blog/2024/10/25/new-acquisitions-1933-and-the-...
pjc50|3 months ago
Everyone who donated to the Trump inauguration knew what they were buying into, and it has definitely delivered troops-on-the-streets fascism.
brabel|3 months ago
[deleted]
n4r9|3 months ago
furyofantares|3 months ago
I haven't read the book but I've read some stuff on a website of the same name, and the way it ties it all together felt very tinfoil hat to me. I think these guys all mutually tolerate each other's insanity in their common lust for ever more power and insatiable egos.
mschuster91|3 months ago
Levitz|3 months ago
Can't say I like it, but it has been my position from the very start that this would happen, and as such I'm fresh out of sympathy.
Don't like it? Build your own Silicon Valley.
polotics|3 months ago
...singling out ennemies of the Reich... https://www.google.com/search?q=thiel+antichrist
...democracy aiming to be a fair competition of ideas... https://www.google.com/search?q=thiel+competition+is+for+los...
chickensong|3 months ago
pbiggar|3 months ago
newsclues|3 months ago
[deleted]
pjmlp|3 months ago
podgorniy|3 months ago
--
The phrases constructed by your pattern don't bring any clarity, ability to distinguish one from another. It's pure flow of emotion and abstraction which would work only among same-way-thinkers. Good for groups bonding, bad for any communication outside of the group.
You use universally true patterns without even realizing that.
rufusdali|3 months ago
[deleted]
grigio|3 months ago
Der_Einzige|3 months ago
The excesses of the Weimar Republic did not justify the subsequent events. Not even close.
Jordan-117|3 months ago
What's the endgame of a movement that seeks to discredit, overturn, and functionally control elections?
tastyface|3 months ago
bigyabai|3 months ago
unknown|3 months ago
[deleted]
nephihaha|3 months ago
wolvesechoes|3 months ago
brettermeier|3 months ago
drcongo|3 months ago