The heady, steamy days when the IT geeks in the Bay Area mingled with the remaining hippies, dropped acid, dropped into hot tubs (naked, sometimes) perhaps fooled you into believing then — and believing still — that those rich geeks are somehow ‘progressive’ and perhaps even ‘benevolent’? That their capitalism is a new, softer, and more angelic one? If Elon Mush has not cured you of that view, read this for further inspiration:
Silicon Valley ideology is a master-slave mentality, a hierarchical worldview that we all exist in extractive relation to someone stronger, and exploit and despise anyone weaker. Its only relations to other humans are supplication in one direction and subjugation in the other, hence its poster-boys’ constant yoyoing between grandiosity and victimhood. Tech bros like Thiel, Musk and Andreesen are the fluffers in the global authoritarian circle jerk. Putin is the bro they’d be tickled to receive calls from, making them feel they’re on the geopolitical insider’s inside track. MBS is the bro they envy but tell each other scary stories about. Like most of them, MBS inherited his head start in life. He has all the money, all the power, a nice bit of geo-engineering on the side, and he dismembers uppity journalists without consequence. A mere billionaire like Thiel can only secretively litigate them out of business.
— Silicon Valley’s worldview is not just an ideology; it’s a personality disorder