TechTakes

1427 readers

105 users here now

Big brain tech dude got yet another clueless take over at HackerNews etc? Here's the place to vent. Orange site, VC foolishness, all welcome.

This is not debate club. Unless it’s amusing debate.

For actually-good tech, you want our NotAwfulTech community

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

dgerard@awful.systems

182

The Nation: Silicon Valley is fully MAGA-Pilled (www.thenation.com)

submitted 4 months ago by UnseriousAcademic@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems

38 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Seeing a sudden surge in interest in the "Tech Right" as they're being dubbed. Often the focus is on business motivations like tax breaks but I think there's more to it. The narrative that silicon Valley is a bunch of tech hippies was well sown early on, particularly by Stewart Brand and his ilk but throughout that period and prior, the intersection between tech and authoritative politics that favours systems over people is well established.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 18 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

There's a thread of Randian ideology that underlies the beginnings of the computer industry. Adam Curtis talks about it in his documentary All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace (very much worth watching).

[–] UnseriousAcademic@awful.systems 16 points 4 months ago

Absolutely. In fact in one major survey of the values of the counterculture conducted back in the 1960s Ayn Rand was listed as one of people's major influences. There were different strands to the counterculture, one communitarian but the other about self actualisation and the individual. Both positioned themselves in opposition to the state, but differed significantly in what kind of future they wanted.