Technocracy 2.0

Something that strikes me every time I encounter SV Rationalism presented this way is the self-annihilation of it: tastes and preferences are to be optimized out as cognitive biases, grey uniforms mandated in lieu of individual expression (fashion). The god they're sacrificed to? “Technological progress"

I lived in SF for a few years and found the tech community's disinterest in art to border on allergy. It was as if expressing an aesthetic preference weren't an optimal way to spend one's time or money. Better to spend those things "optimizing efficiency” or optimizing oneself/one’s own life

It seems like Thiel and co _don't actually care about other people_ or human welfare writ large. This isn't a novel observation, but it bears repeating

It's mirrored in something I ask myself every time I hear that Thiel is a "libertarian" _while also_ being the founder of the biggest surveillance dragnet ever created: what about surveillance is libertarian? I thought libertarians were all about "live and let live" and "stay out of my business". It's the opposite. But I guess what he really wants is "freedom for me, surveillance for thee". Again, not a novel observation, but it finally clicked into place for me reading this piece

The state integration and the separatist fantasy aren't competing visions, though; you build the surveillance infrastructure inside the state, then exit into your own enclave that benefits from it. It all feels like a way to create the world depicted in Margaret Atwood's Maddaddam trilogy (fantastic if you haven't read it): corporate enclaves with private security built for employees and their families with lawless "pleeblands" outside the walls

>More recently, Srinivasan has been proselytizing a new belief that he likens to “tech Zionism.”38 Tech elites had to exit democracy and settle sovereign territories of their own. These peripheral islands of tech utopianism would in time unite, eventually accruing enough capital and power to challenge the nation-state. They would oversee a new tribe of loyal citizens dressed in matching gray. “If you see another gray on the street… you do a nod. You’re a fellow gray.”39

This makes the Roko's Basilisk post seem sane and reasonable

Technocracy is fascinating because the ideology is either an intentional obfuscation about what politics is at its core, or an ideology for well-educated and absolutely politically illiterate people.

“Don’t make this political.” See, right there? That’s the entire shtick. The negation of the political. Repeat that very political mantra until it takes hold. Until the political philosophy of not-politics has won.

Politics is conflicts of interests between persons and groups. A political problem is a people problem. A technical problem has a technical and objective solution. Fifty different interests does not have a technical solution.

Or does it? Everything is dynamic, and one person’s supposed technical problem is a political problem for another one. But mix the two together? Then it becomes a political problem unless the first one manages to dominate the other.

The rich men of SV belong to a narrow generation cohort, genX and early millenials. They were overgrown kids in 2006 and had no political ambitions. In 2016 they still didn't so they voted against the grain. in 2026 they are over 40 and willing to bend to whatever makes the rest of their life easier.

In reality it's a bunch of children that were "socialists in their teens , conservatives as adults" (but because socialism was bad taste their only choice was libertarianism). They are still not very old, not very evil. They have some way to go. Musk is 52, Thiel is 58, Zuck is 41. Wait to see what happens after 65... the culture of technologists will take a very dark turn

This is some Fallout material right here !

Technocracy had both socialist proponents like Charles Steinmetz and also anti-communists racists/fascists like Joshua Haldeman (Elon Musk grandfather). In some ways technocracy is the acknowledging of the necessity of economy planning to transcend capitalism but without taking into account class struggle. That way, it can be seen like a good-willed engineer dream that doesn't wants to face social reality or thinks socialist like planning can be implemented just by convincing capitalists it's advantages for the entire society (somewhat like the old utopian socialism / fabianism)... or, it can be used as an ideological cover-up to sell the dream of a brighter future but without questioning the billonarie class, the concentration of capital or the property of the means of production, while avoiding taking explicit positions in every class struggle instance.

I think this new version is the latter case, a bad rehearsal used as a veil of the ascent of fascism in the States.

This is like communism in the sense that it's sold as one thing, but serves another purpose for a different set of people than those it was marketed to.

Having worked as a software engineer in the industry for almost 15 years, my experience is that the leading (elite) proponents of this philosophy don't really care about tech or innovation; they only care to the extent that they control the innovation.

Any innovation created outside of their sphere of control will be ignored and suppressed (as best as possible). It's ironic because this is how they view China's tech sector. I remember reading an article about DeepSeek and the author made a comment about how it was developed independently of government by a relatively small company and how unusual this is for China; surprised that they were able to build without the blessing of the CCP... But the US works the same way! Except instead of the CCP, the power is called Big VC.

Anyway this is the past 20 years or so. I'm skeptical of this model. I'm quite sure, as a tech guy, I would do better in a strict hard-money capitalist system, even if I just did software as a side project. Right now it's just too centralized and monopolized and there are perverse incentives keeping everything locked in. It used to be that a 10x solution could get you noticed, now nothing will get you noticed besides the right technocratic pedigree.

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It could also be simple. This looks like a bunch of very high profile people in a fast changing environment, just doing their best not to become targets, and helping consolidate power is a side effect.

The time will come when it’s rational for powerful people to make a stand - but that time has not yet arrived. According to the pattern, society has to go through a dark time first. Probably so there’s something to contrast against.

The most tragic thing is how many museums we already have - all over the world! - that tell this story.