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Notes -
The new book The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism And The War On Democracy has been making the rounds. In lieu of reading it, here's an NPR interview.
At the core of this is a middle-school-cafeteria psychodrama that remains unresolved. The lived-experience of "computer nerds" is that of being instrumentally valuable to many, terminally valuable to none. As a result, anti-capitalist rhetoric that disparages money as a source of moral value is received by them as a personal attack. The computer nerd feels deep down that his earning-potential is the only thing he brings to the table in the status game; as far as he's concerned, his value on all other axes might as well be rounded off to zero.
Therefore, the computer nerds wants nothing more than to get away from all those teeming masses with their grabby hands who want to take all his stuff and leave him with nothing. If it takes moving to one of Balaji Srinivasan's seasteads, or to Elon Musk's space colony, then so be it.
Huh? Is it a zone, or the whole world? There's a big difference - but hold on. That comic is the story of nerds simpliciter, not just computer nerds. And the people most outspoken against "The Nerd Reich" are also nerds - "theater nerds" to be precise. To continue the cafeteria picture, the theater nerds are (if anything) even more autistic, more put-upon, and more bullyable than the computer nerds, while the bullies themselves (the "jocks" and "popular kids") don't even figure in to the dialectic at all. So what's going on?
I guess it comes down to the different coping mechanisms each group employs. The theater nerds find solidarity with each other at least, whereas the computer nerds have no need for each other because they have their toys to play with, which can incidentally eke them out a living independent of anyone else. But the theater nerds have no such refuge, and so, being poor in both financial and social capital, have been forced over generations to build up an elaborate alternative system of social capital which is a lot more off-putting to outsiders but seems to form much deeper personal relationships within itself than any within the computer club. This, at least, levels the playing field between the two nerd factions somewhat.
But then, if some computer nerds start getting uppity and decide to form alternative solidarity groups of their own, now this upsets the balance. I suppose the theater nerds believe there's only so much space for nerds in this world, and so any ascendancy of computer nerds will leave less for them.
Honestly, I'm really just spinning a yarn at this point. There are a lot of holes in this story that I don't know how to patch up. In particular:
But I can't shake the feeling that all of this debate about "techno-fascism" (or whatever) is operating at a high simulacrum level, concealing the true reasons why people get so animated about this and why they choose the sides that they do. But what are those true reasons?
The contemporary Left believes that wealth is valid, but only as long as you're a movie star, heir, or divorcee. Most tech billionaires are from comparatively humble beginnings, so they're declasse.
That's probably a bit stronger than I actually believe, but I think there's something to it. If you receive wealth from fitting into existing social relations, it's not something you should really criticize: status quo institutions have already discovered ways to channel and use you. If you create wealth by changing the material basis of society, you're a threat to the existing structures, and thus not just an adversary but evil. Note that even figures in traditional industries like oil barons and the Walton family receive only a small fraction of criticism as do tech billionaires, even though the tech billionaires are generally more left wing in their attitudes.
Aren't most of them leftist? Hollywood is pretty left wing. Divorcees are known for splashing cash indiscriminately through the NGO sphere. It's like in China - the Party is fine with wealth so long as you uphold the predominance of the Party and obey the Party line.
Tech billionaires are thought to insufficiently uphold the predominance of the Party, they didn't ban all the right, didn't stop them radicalizing people via the algorithms. Something dodgy was happening with Russia and Cambridge Analytica and they weren't doing enough. Musk is even against the Party and so draws a lot of flak.
Tech is more valuable than oil. Tech is where minds are moulded, not just little polyethylene disposables. Oil is on the way out anyway, that was the plan, the oil companies were supposed to pivot to clean energy projects or 'green hydrogen' or something. There's no replacing the technology sector!
They did, though. Or are our memories that short?
Tech billionaires like money/power/impact first and foremost, but their natural inclinations are toward Democrats. The party strategy should have been to continue and strengthen the alliance of the early and mid Obama era. Information would be controlled, every one of the various progressive causes could have gotten their handouts and more, Pax America would rule the world undisputed, and everyone would be much, much richer.
I meant 'that's what they think' in that paragraph.
Donald Trump was still on twitter until 2021! T_D was a thing. In the back of my head there's also this Arctotherium essay where he talks about the closure of the internet and, surprisingly, gives Zuckerberg a little credit for pushing back a little bit: https://substack.com/home/post/p-209852382
But there was a lot of banning going on, for sure. We're all the way out here after all, not banned per se but suppressed on reddit.
Is "we didn't ban the sitting / former President of the United States yet" really an appropriate example of how lax the censorship was?
Not lax in an absolute or reasonable sense but lax in proportion to what some people thought.
Kamala Harris wanted Trump banned from twitter back in 2019 and wrote a letter to twitter about it. There were earlier demands too back when he was tweeting about the size of his nuclear button with regard to Kim Jong Un. Or for inciting harassment or other such things.
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