It seems nicer than the Woke Reich
It's been 10 years, and I have still yet to hear any two people define "woke" the same.
The Nerd Reich – Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy
181–190 of 298 posts
Re: The Nerd Reich – Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
He definitely has talked about a lot of nerdy books. Don't know about his attention span and not sure how to square what he likes with his values. He brings up the Culture all the time but I have my doubts that he's actually read them
I don't know either, I haven't read the Culture books (yet) either so I can't really evaluate that. I do believe he read a lot of sci-fi in his youth, if only because that would fit the pattern of a young boy who doesn't get along well with their peers and turns towards solitary pursuits like computer programming. He seems exactly the sort to have read lots of Heinlein.
Almost everything about The Culture will be immediately apparent from stuff Musk talks about, but only about half of it would look like he's understood it.
The only real crimes are reading/writing someone's brain without permission (at which point others may call you names and stop inviting you to social events) or destroying a consciousness without backups (where you'll get permanent supervision to make sure you don't do it again). Most biological citizens have a full-brain computer interface for backups and general fun, called a "neural lace".
The AI Minds in charge of everything give themselves fanciful names, which Musk has used for his SpaceX drone ships.
For the reverse:
Almost every biological citizen is gender-fluid, can change physical gender by willing it, and there's a certain expectation that you try things both ways around so you know how to be a good lover. They dislike explosive population growth regardless of if it's organic or machine reproduction, and as everyone can get pregnant if they want to (because everyone can be a woman if they want to and it all works), it's considered quite scandalous to have more than one child.
It's sufficiently post-scarcity that money is considered a sign of poverty. They mostly avoid colonising planets, instead living on ships, or on habitats so large that if one was located at any Earth-Sun Lagrange point (including the one on the far side of the sun), we could see it.
Re: The Nerd Reich – Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy
#183I'm not a big sucker for this kind of un-nuanced "us vs them" rhetoric, but I gotta admit, the title is a stroke of genius.
>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 then I'll adopt a more alarmed stance" line in the san…
You misunderstand my point. I made no remark about whether big tech bosses behave harmfully or not (and in fact I believe that many do). My point is about blaming “nerds” or “Silicon Valley” for power grabs by a few asshole billionaires.
As a nerd running a startup, I dislike the tendency of many journalists to blanket blame “nerds” for the behavior of nutjobs like Musk. It’s pure “us vs them” thinking, blaming the group for the behavior of a few.
Re: The Nerd Reich – Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy
#184It seems nicer than the Woke Reich
Say what you want about "woke" (assuming you can define it), but its worst excesses were curbed by democratic elections.
What's the endgame of a movement that seeks to discredit, overturn, and functionally control elections?
Re: The Nerd Reich – Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/04/inside-the-new-right...
I'm not saying that none of the Silicon Valley oligarchs have some fascist sympathies. But this book is generalizing over all of Silicon Valley.
Fair. Though Thiel has outsized influence in that sphere, so it is significant even if not universal
Re: The Nerd Reich – Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy
#186I'm not a big sucker for this kind of un-nuanced "us vs them" rhetoric, but I gotta admit, the title is a stroke of genius.
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 unexamin…
>deny that their purpose is of oppression...
A lot of the uber-nerds are just regular nerds who got lucky, not part of some evil genius cabal. By all means keep an eye on them but I think for the most part they are regular people.
Re: The Nerd Reich – Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy
#187It seems nicer than the Woke Reich
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Re: The Nerd Reich – Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy
#188It seems nicer than the Woke Reich
Enjoy your subjugation!
Re: The Nerd Reich – Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
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. 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 t…
Well this is exactly what I mean with inflation of the term fascism. Surely there are lots of things wrong in US society, and surely some of them can be seen as part of a fascist society. But really this is nothing compared to self declared fascist regimes such as Franco, Mussolini or Hitler. Yes the current Trump regime is trying to suppress other opinions, sometimes quite openly. But luckily there is still plenty o…
"What do you think would have happened to someone like Seth Meyer under Franco or Hitler?"
In what year? 1933? 1937? 1945?
People conflate Nazi Germany with murderous, full-borne authoritarianism, but it took a decade to actually get there. They were just as much fascists at the start as at the end -- it's just that their ideology had room to fully metastasize.
Re: The Nerd Reich – Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Google has some tendencies - Sundar Pichai was a materials engineer, Brin is back working there who considers himself a computer scientist. Maybe Hassabis - depends how you define it I guess.
I thought it was super cool when a few years ago I found out that Eric Schmidt was the author of Lex! I struggled mightily with lex and yacc in college, but that was a me thing, I think.