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The Nerd Reich – Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy

simonandschuster.com

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Re: The Nerd Reich – Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy

#281

Post by nkmnz »

amiga386 wrote: post #255
nkmnz wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, that 0.7 intergenerational correlation only tracks surnames—i.e., the male line. It completely ignores the fact that ~50% of the population changes status by marriage, which is invisible in surname analysis. Think about it: when a blacksmith’s daughter marries a baron, her social mobility doesn’t show up anywhere in the data. She just becomes part of the baron’s lineage going forward. So Clark has discovere…

I think you're overestimating how far families married outwith their class. Given the scandal of Mrs Simpson or Ms Markle, how often do you think Barons married commoners? It's the stuff of fairy-tales.

You’re looking at the 0.00001% as an argument why the lower 99.99999% cannot marry into that class - when, in fact, it’s just a matter of math that they cannot do. The marriages of Markle and Simpson have always been more accepted than a peasant marriage between a Catholic and a Protestant in 1950s Germany - just to put your claim into perspective.

Edit: or to put it differently, which of the two scenarios has been more likely in the past 500 years: the daughter of a blacksmith marrying a baron, or the son of a blacksmith becoming a baron through merit?

Re: The Nerd Reich – Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy

#282

Post by skrebbel »

sillyfluke wrote: post #252
skrebbel wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 g…

Fair enough, but you have to admit it's virtually impossible to infer your two paragraphs here from that one sentence above. The calling out of "us vs them" rhetoric is what's stated clearly (as well as the fondness for the title).

Fair! I traded clarity for internet points.

Though then again, who could the “them” be if not “nerds” and “Silicon Valley”? That’s who the book calls the enemy.

Re: The Nerd Reich – Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy

#284

Post by hagbard_c »

jmye wrote: post #276
hagbard_c wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This may have been true in the 80's but it is no longer the case. Left wing politics and whatever nutty ideas this faction produces is now more extreme than its counterpart in Europe. It is as if US lefties have taken the 'everything is bigger in the USA' mantra and applied it to their utopian ideologies. State-run grocery stores? The whole 'DEI/DIE' bureaucra[c/z]y? The aggressive way in which gender ideology is bei…

DEI “bureaucracy”? Love when people who don’t know what DEI even is are nevertheless determined to use it as a bludgeon. Almost as hilarious as when angry men whine about whatever the fuck “gender ideology” is.

Instead of throwing epithets you could explain what is wrong about my comments on the DEI bureaucracy and gender ideology. Explain why the DEI offices which have popped up left and right are not a new bureaucracy and why those who study gender ideology [1] have angry men whin[ing] about it.

Thus far all you've achieved is affirm the statement which started this thread.

[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/gender-...

Re: The Nerd Reich – Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy

#285

Post by sach1 »

seydor wrote: post #127
sach1 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It won the transistor lottery, then the money oiled the machine. Recent events prove that there was nothing ideological about it. Once a positive feedback loop is established, it's difficult to break

The money would follow ideology, so it depends on where you think that taxonomical line lies.

Re: The Nerd Reich – Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy

#286

Post by pyuser583 »

tekla wrote: post #205
JuniperMesos wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The nerd/jock dichotomy is at best loosely pointing at some genuine clusters of interests and predilections that exist among people in the world, and is more often taking a set of tropes from 80s Hollywood movies about high school and using them to try to explain how real people in the world are today, which is stupid. (Who wrote all those 80s movies? Bookworms ! Who acted in them? Theater kids !)

The jocks at my school (Championship Winners) were also simultaneously the smartest kids at it. Most went to Ivy Leagues on academic scholarships. I know a few of them were the first engineers on several well known unicorns.

Part of this is the fact American colleges love athletes.

I have a relative who is illiterate despite graduating from HS and attending a reputable college (for 2 years).

Very bright man, and able to use technology to hide his illiteracy. Listens to very dense books on Audible.

Re: The Nerd Reich – Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy

#287

Post by pyuser583 »

amiga386 wrote: post #152
WickyNilliams wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's lost on people outside of the UK - perhaps even to many inside the UK - just how strongly there is a class divide and a ruling elite. The old money is very old indeed

Indeed. You are literally likely to be in a better social class today if your ancestors were Normans conquerors rather than the Anglo-Saxon conquered. https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/60593/1/__lse.ac.uk_storage_LIBRAR...

All ethnically English people descend from Norman conquerors. At least higher than 99% - there might be a few genetic holdouts.

Re: The Nerd Reich – Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy

#288

Post by pyuser583 »

nkmnz wrote: post #236
amiga386 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. You are literally likely to be in a better social class today if your ancestors were Normans conquerors rather than the Anglo-Saxon conquered. https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/60593/1/__lse.ac.uk_storage_LIBRAR...

Actually, that 0.7 intergenerational correlation only tracks surnames—i.e., the male line. It completely ignores the fact that ~50% of the population changes status by marriage, which is invisible in surname analysis. Think about it: when a blacksmith’s daughter marries a baron, her social mobility doesn’t show up anywhere in the data. She just becomes part of the baron’s lineage going forward. So Clark has discovere…

It was just marriages fueled by a pretty daughter. It was actual social advancement.

Sir Thomas More’s grandfather was a butcher - a highly stigmatized occupation. More rose to be Chancellor.

The fact that the British conquered a third of the world created many opportunities for advancement- military, commercial, artistic.

Sir John Major came from a family of musicians. When he ran for PM, his enemies said as a child he “ran away from the circus to become an accountant.”

Part of the issues is that people copy elites. A blacksmith from Birmingham would marry his daughter off to a banker, and the granddaughter off to a Baron. The family would spend money supporting artists, and build cathedrals. And eventually become “posh.”

A good example are the Rothschilds, who are currently at the height or British aristocracy, but were once grubby merchants.

Re: The Nerd Reich – Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy

#289

Post by n4r9 »

major505 wrote: post #256
n4r9 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you talking about this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot It looks like nothing actually happened...

Thats what they want people to believe. In the same time industry titans in the US like Ford where funding the ascencion of the nazi regime because they feared what happeing in Russian, without properly understanding the context that make possible the revolution to occour in there. NOw they pack the "revolution" in a neat way to sell people the impression they are revolting against a system at the same time they sell…

Yeah, some US (and British and other) businesses had dealings with the Nazis as documented on Wikipedia [0], and some industry titans admired Hitler. I agree that there are parallels with today's tech authoritarianism. I'm not convinced that there was a strong case for arresting individuals, that was brushed under the carpet in order to save the economy.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_collaboration_with_Na...

Re: The Nerd Reich – Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy

#290

Post by nephihaha »

wolvesechoes wrote: post #109
nephihaha wrote: post #90

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.

Go read some books first.

I've probably read more books than you have. I used to read twenty a month at one point.
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