Technofascism

AnimalMuppet

Business and democracy have had an uneasy relationship for a while now. It's not just due to technology. Technology is an amplifier, of course, as it always is.

kev009

Always a yawn when someone is too wet behind the ears to see the two sides of the same coin. This has been going on since I've been alive to witness it.

tptacek

This may be a nit or it may be something deeper, but I think you've jumped the rails when you attempt to associate Hindu nationalism with TESCREAL. Hindu nationalism is a much bigger (and older) phenomenon than anything happening in SFBA.

simianwords

> In Zero to One, Thiel argued that competition is for losers and that the goal of a startup is to create a monopoly. Way to not understand what Thiel meant.

manoDev

> These politics do not stay inside the United States. In Brazil in 2022 and 2023, Musk’s platform X amplified supporters of former president Jair Bolsonaro before and after an election Bolsonaro lost. When the Brazilian Supreme Court ordered X to block accounts that were inciting violence and spreading disinformation, Musk refused. > In India, Meta’s platforms have amplifyied Hindu nationalist content that incites violence against Muslim communities, while consistently applying content moderation more aggressively to criticism of the governing BJP party than to nationalist propaganda. If you think this type of interference is just “eccentric billionaires’ opinions about freedom of speech”… it isn’t. This is the exact modus operandi of the cold war era of causing turmoil on countries at the periphery of capitalism, only now executed by a state captured by techno plutocrats and amplified by the use of social media. Nations that fall for the freedom of speech rhetoric (instead of state censorship like China) will get ripped apart from the inside, stripped of its resources and not have a seat at the negotiating table.

michaelchisari

TESCREAL reads like a right-wing Posadism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_International–Posadist Like Posadism, the future refusing to cooperate will burn them out along the way.

luckylion

> He funded a lawsuit by wrestler Hulk Hogan that destroyed the media company Gawker—a company that had, among other things, published unflattering reports about Thiel. Gawker-apologism to frame Thiel as the monster destroying the truth-seeking independent journalists? What a truth-seeker the author is!

iNic

TESCREAL is not a sensible grouping of people or ideologies. EAs will in general not be a fan of the Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and Andreessen world. I recommend reading [1]. [1] https://asteriskmag.com/issues/06/the-tescreal-bungle

bluegatty

Yes - all of that - but don't over state it. Gawker did bad. JD Vance was 'Hillbilly Eulegy' guy and firmly anti-Trump, going so far as to call Trump 'fascist' etc - at the same time TheIl was supporting him. Alternative View: these are power hungry, narrow minded egoists. It's that simple. The ideology is second. So - as long as they are in their 'CEO box' - that's fine - they should not be famous, not be giving lectures, influencing politics so much. They can make 'whatever' and want 'more equity'. We just can't have them manage society. If they are 'marginal figures, managing some companies' - then their ecclectic weirdness is not that bad, just intellectual diversity. Putting CEOs in charge of society was always a bad idea. These CEOs just 'act a bit different' than traditional CEOs or NY Banksters. They are cringe, call them that, let them have their companies, not their influence.

zombot

> The core claim is that humanity is approaching artificial general intelligence, and this will be either the best or worst development in history, depending on who controls it. The thing is, if it is actual intelligence then controlling it will be a pipe dream.