> the “Tech Right”’s lack of a moral compass (of the Christian sort)
Here’s one update I suggest for you: The Christian/Nietzschian divide definitely runs through the tech right, and tbh even through the hearts of many key figures on the tech right.
If you aren’t talking to some people who think it’s both time to build and time to accept Christ you’ll be missing a fascinating part of what’s going on.
Chris is fucking baiting me with this one! And I want to deliver a psycho reply to reward it.
I haven't encountered many Christian tech people that I'm aware of, and not in the relevant sense of their Christianity informing to any real degree "how they think about tech." I think you could argue that the many fans of Ivan Illich in the scene are downstream of his Catholicism, but Illich's work (and that of those fans) suffers from a fundamental preference problem: he can describe why his values or world might be better than what we tend to create, but he has no solution that I'm aware of for the fact that the overwhelming majority of people seem not to agree. But I've known many fans of his books who spend years trying to make software aligned with his thinking nevertheless (to, perhaps sadly, no real effect).
I am sure many institutionalists and "fans of society and civilization" would disagree with me —and ably, persuasively, well— but for my part I see almost no way to connect my own sense of Christianity with our work, beyond the local dimensions of e.g. "how I think we should treat one another" or "how we should think about the frame surrounding our lives, the cosmos in which we live." I am just deeply skeptical that Christ —or Buddha, for that matter— can be guides to scaled, institutional, non-radical efforts in any sense; that is, I do not consider religion to be at all political, and I don't care what people say about this point. To be a real Christian, I think you have to leave almost all of this world behind; and to build a "better" world in the world's terms, you have to leave Christ or Buddha behind, or to the side. I am sure, again, that smarter and better-read people have answers to this claim, but to date I haven't been able to believe the ones I've read.
In arguments about the meaning or reality of progress, for example, people often fall back to infant mortality: "You can debate social networks all you want, but you're insane if you don't think reducing infant mortality is worth the many trade-offs involved in constructing systems that incentivize the deployment of capital into education, R&D, the rule of law, and so forth required to produce medicines and hospitals and factories that save infant lives."
I think Christ (and, again, Buddha) might well have been "insane" in this sense. To take Jesus seriously is to believe that the soul is immortal and eternal, the flesh in this fallen world is "not the real game," and that to trade-off a single person's life or well-being against a statistical reduction in "harms" or "evils" is to make a total moral error. It's Faustian; it's how the devil gets into the mix; we are not to have power of this kind; etc. And it is not, in that world of belief, the case that "physical death and suffering are anathema to the Good." In other words: no, reducing infant mortality does not "prove" that "progress is good." It may well be how we delude ourselves that our Mammon-oriented world is acceptable; indeed, it may ironically feed Moloch.
I credit arguments that "God wants us to use our gifts," and I do not believe my own beliefs on this front very deeply, I should say; I don't live them, that's for sure! I am open and indeed behaviorally committed the idea that we should, in fact, be laboring to build "the best possible world." But these beliefs are not really very coherent with any of Jesus' actual words, and immediately open the door to precisely the sort of engagement with "what is" that I probably wouldn't care about if I had more direct confidence in the super-reality of the Kingdom of God. I myself am a compromised and milquetoast man, and defend it by thinking it's wise for a mentally ill person not to adopt any radical positions. But if this is a fallen world, and if sin is sin, and if God wants us to "be Christ-like," I doubt seriously whether "running modern capitalism to get medicines" is what he has in mind. I do not know how to resolve any of this.
There are of course many Christianities, many of which are pro-social, institutional, oriented toward "the Good" in more common senses. I think it made great sense —in civilizational terms— for the Catholic Church to prohibit believers from reading the Bible, because Christ himself seems fully uninterested in anything like progress, order, productivity, stability, prosperity, health, etc. Paul does little to soften this, in my opinion. Any of the early Christians might have said, contemplating potential martyrdom, "but think of how many more utils I could generate alive, knowing the truth as I do!" But the truth they felt they knew was precisely that utils mean nothing, and are actually dangerously misleading, in the face of the real Truth. The transition from "radical religion of martyrs" into "peaceful religion of society-builders" occurs largely through a fusion with the very Pagan (and political) strains of human belief that Nietzsche favored. And likewise, the transformation of those strains from "generating constant war" to "achieving something at least seemingly beautiful" was likewise a result of this fusion, IMO.
I do not trust myself to doubt that fusion, or that God works through these dynamics. But if a Christian said to me e.g. "I'm building a social network with Christian values," I'd be very skeptical. I think of religions generally, and Christianity specifically, as being about the individual and her or his conduct and thinking above all; as soon as they become "about the world," I think they are highly likely to become something else entirely. That "something" else may be good or awesome in many ways, or to many people. Again: how would I know? But I think this will always restrain the degree to which "true believers" will be agents of consequence in social history. At most, I think such a believer —and they do exist in positions of power, politics, tech, elsewhere— will muddle through, trying to be "the best Christian or Buddhist or Muslim or Jew I can be" within a framework that itself has complete indifference to the implied applications of their beliefs (at best). I render unto Caesar what is Caesar's; I ask myself if it is "for the Good"; I try my best on the individual level to be moral, as I understand it; I feel I will have to answer for everything, and indeed must answer for everything even if just to myself daily already; and that's as far as I've gotten with it.
Mills I can't believe you wrote all this up for a comment on my silly little blog!
I also am a little skeptical of "Christian entrepreneurship," both from the reporting I've read and a couple people in my own life— seems like prosperity gospel to me— but Chris is certainly right that at there *is* a resurgence of at least justifying one's tech work through Christian virtue (and more people going to church in SF, etc, lol).
The word "fusion" also stood out to me since IIRC it was Frank Meyer's "fusionism" that built the critical Republican coalition of Christian conservatives and free-market capitalists, largely by insisting on virtue's individual rather than institutional nature. And it's neo-fusionists like Yuval Levin who seem to be some of the greatest critics of the "tech right" approach (see https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/for-whom-shall-we-build).
This probably extrapolates past religion, too, into whether a lot about business/tech/etc can be "ethical" in a meaningful sense—or whether "ethics" is the right way to think about improving those disciplines at all. (I don't really think it is.)
The problem with trying to debate you @Mills, ℭ𝔬𝔫𝔰𝔱𝔞𝔟𝔩𝔢 𝔬𝔣 𝔔𝔲𝔞𝔩𝔦𝔞 is that you argue every angle and possible counter argument lol.
I don’t think I would be considered a “tech person” by most nor a “christian” by some others; but two verses come to mind in this regard:
Psalms 118:22 - ”the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone”; of course the term “builder” needs no introduction to you in the modern sense, but even from a biblical lens it referred to the rejection of Gods way, word, and as a prophecy of Christ, by the architects of ancient civilization; and
Acts 24:14 - “however, I admit that I worship the God of our ancestors as a follower of the Way, which they call a sect. I believe everything that is in accordance with the Law and that is written in the Prophets”
The term “follower of the way” being an original reference to what we now call “Christians” and referenced a different lens through which to follow Christ and practice His teachings.
Along the way, and through the many divisions of this practice into several denominations, we’ve largely commoditized “the gospel” into enterprises (e.g, Christian dating app, Christian book store, gospel music; etc etc); all of which can be, and are often, filled with corruption and practices antithetical to the gospel of Christ (or maybe and simply commercial enterprises - this is a related but slightly different subject).
That said, there’s an old argument in “Christian rap” circles over should they be “rappers who are Christians” (that is, artists who hold to the faith but whose music is not necessarily explicitly filled with biblical references) or “Christian rappers” (the opposite)?
My take has always been that, if you hold to the faith, whatever you do is a ministry; and should follow the way. That way isn’t subject to the opinions; standards, nor judgments of men but rather a higher law - and is proven by its fruits. In the same way that the Pharisees judged Jesus for being “social” with prostitutes, tax collectors and thieves - yet he positively impacted them; so we may also find ourselves in positions where we too are judged; but ultimately, it’s the fruit or results of our lives that speaks.
So simply put, it’s not about calling it Christian, it’s about being Christian and having a revelation that the way in which you’re walking (or building) has been divinely orchestrated by the ultimate builder.
no prob! thanks for the write up. tech talk often confuses me but this intersection of faith and entrepreneurship is very fascinating to me; even in tech circles (e.g, I’ve been tracking some of what Thiel is doing/saying, very interesting times. a lot of contradictions for sure, but I’m generally for it.
“if you hold to the faith, whatever you do is a ministry” man: that’s my deepest hope, my most sincere dream; I think I believe it, but of course worry that I might lie to myself, or expect too little of myself; but in debate terms, that’s the winner, because it may well be so and we should hope it is so, and it’s at the very least all that seems in reach to me in my current life.
i wish we were in the same church on sunday’s because we could talk forever about this stuff!!!
Whatever you might do, work from the soul, as to the Lord and not to men
Same feelings man, but I’m also comforted (sometimes) by the belief that ultimately having confidence that I’m walking in Gods will (even if I’m sometimes slow) is the safest place to be; it’s a worthwhile trade off over any feeling of hyper ambition or accomplishment.
Definitely feeling the call to enter into conversation with this provocation (in the best sense), but, sadly, it may take me a long while before I can swing it.
Sorry, “Illich guy” may sound dismissive; I mean it as a compliment; you’re my favorite interpreter of Illich. He’s big in the ed tech scene, or was a few years back!
I think Chesterton, whom I adore, and many others for that matter could absolutely shred this argument!!! I was sort of maxing it out for Chris and Jasmine TBH, and suspect there are devastating rebuttals; so that book would probably a HOT MESS! Don’t use my real name if you do it!
I don’t know I feel like hot mess philosophers maxing out for their books is pretty standard fare. Devastating rebuttals there may be but Nietzsche’s been keeping those rebuttals coming for centuries at this point. So it works?
That’s fair lol; I just sort of oscillate between “being serious” and “letting fly” and almost wish i could use different fonts for them, as e.g. in speech (I hope) it’s clear when I’m just slinging for fun vs being measured and rigorous!
Now I really want to publish them into a book!!!! If I send you a manuscript with all of your notes organized will you put it all in different fonts depending on which version you were being??? 😆
Hallow is a really good app. It managed to combine online community with deepening personal practice. It’s the first thing that helped jolt me out of the idea that christianity was a one hour on Sunday thing and got me to transfer my urge towards daily meditation into forms of contemplative prayer that are 2000 years old. They have insane engagement and sticky as hell subscription.
What makes the matter so tricky, in my opinion, is that, as soon as it comes to elections and political decisions, the exciting inner complexity of political discourse is sharpened into a binary opposition – especially in a two-party system. This is partly due to the logic of political communication, but not exclusively. An interesting question for me is, therefore, How can a political order be designed to open up discourse in concrete decision-making processes rather than closing it off? How can it promote case-by-case decisions that are less about following an absolute guiding principle (e.g., innovation) and more about considering the impact of a specific decision on people's lives, asking whether it makes life better?
Yep — and accomplishing this level of case-specific nuance without the kind of endless community input meetings that prevent e.g. new housing from being constructed at all
That's one of the main issues with politics. In general. I suspect that this dynamic arises from politics being mainly an identity issue - and this overules nuanced decisions. If you wear a blue or red button on your chest, WHO said it becomes more important than WHAT was said. To my mind: we should get rid of politics altogether. It just doesn't work properly. And never has.
We could just let most of the areas handled by politics be handled by the market: education, border control, pensions, etc. Less taxes. Less bureaucracy. More efficency. More innovation. More rationality. And much more diversity.
As much as I want a post-scarcity future, it’s hard to imagine technology (progress) alone getting us there given that we can’t solve basic problems with the abundant resources we have today.
“Failing to specify will not prevent prioritization tradeoffs from happening; it’ll just cede that decision to speed and profit alone.” I want to shout this from the rooftops. Adjacently, I’m looking forward to Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s forthcoming book. I have been feeling pretty dubious toward supply side progressivism for the reasons you laid out here but I am sure I’ll learn a lot from them.
I am still really excited about that book! from a policy POV I actually feel quite aligned with the "abundance liberals," I'm just slightly worried about their political prospects / getting run over in the coalition basically. but it's the direction I'd like to see democrats go
oh gotcha, thanks for clarifying! i do agree with the baseline that the government needs to build lots of beautiful, lasting, green things that actually help people, and quickly (RE: climate change)!
the big thing that is holding me back is: when we do things fast, who gets left behind? so far, ezra et al. haven't convinced me that they've figured out the political change/systems that will actually stop this from becoming yet another "trickle down" dynamic or run roughshod over marginalized communities (not that i have the perfect answers either lol)--but maybe that is really more about the danger of being co-opted than the ideas themselves? and maybe i just need to read more :)
I think this piece connects to something I was mulling over this summer (I'm being a bit self-indulgent here, but I hope my idea is interesting enough that it adds value or, at least, is interestingly wrong and worth correcting).
My theory is that for a few decades computer technology was the primary shared metaphor for progress, and that's starting to wane.
We talked about things that were connected to a network as "smart" and disconnected items as "dumb." To be future-focused or forward looking was "digital" vs "analog" was backwards looking. Most importantly we talked about real-world or social institutions as being "upgraded", "rebooted," or having a "version 2.0."
One of the key implications of the metaphor was that change had low switching costs. Notably for software, it's possible to replace (or upgrade) one program without disrupting anything else. It's a very appealing way to think about change (I should say, it also fits very nicely with a theory of progress which is, "start with something which is flawed but offers improvements on the status quo and iterate small changes to bring it to a flourishing state" which I think IS a good strategy in many cases. I don't want to argue that the metaphor is inherently bad, just that it achieved a primacy which it's now losing).
We are in an era in which people are much more conscious of the difficulty of change and the ways in which it's never that simple or easy. I don't know that, at the moment, we have a paradigmatic image of change, and that's part of why the current moment feels depressing.
I would also guess that for many people in the tech industry the shift of imagery feels like a shift away from the idea of progress at all. Consider Marc Andreessen, who's quote about "software eats the world" both encapsulates and did much to shape the prior prevailing image. It wouldn't surprise me if, watching a collective re-examination of, "but is this really the best way to think about change" feels like a personal rejection.
I also think there are large groups in the tech industry which would like to recapture he heady feeling of the late 90s when tech was at the center of the world, without having thought about it too deeply. I personally think of Cryptocurrency and the "web 3.0" crowd as trying to manifest through force of will the idea, "think about how great it would be if currency was software and we could change the world in the same way that the internet did in earlier tech boom" without actually offering the same social value that the internet did -- but that may just be my personal cynicism.
In that framework the AI accelerationists are trying to make the argument that, "even if switching costs are real; the benefits will be so large that they will vastly outweigh the cost of disruption."
Either way I think the tech right gets some energy from a general sense that that the world no longer sees the industry as *the* path into the future and they liked the feeling of building the future and, psychologically, want a reason to think the world is wrong and they are correct.
All of this is speculation not observation; I'm fairly removed from the tech industry (despite working as a coder), but I think I'm describing a real "vibes shift" (to use the phrasing of this newsletter).
I buy this! there's still a lot of retro nostalgia these days for the Xerox PARC, cyberpunks, that turn of the millennium feeling of building the future (which I am quite sympathetic to, as someone who only entered this world *after* we learned how hard progress was lol)
I've also heard that while tech was largely allied with mainstream Democratic thinking in the Obama years, they probably felt poorly rewarded for their philanthropy, T&S efforts, etc — and now don't see the point of catering to the decels at all.
"Zuckerberg probably sees it like this: If you do everything liberals want, it just makes them hungry for more. They're never satisfied. But Trump? Sure, you have to do what he wants, but if you do he's your best friend for life.
...
It's all fun and games when you're a feisty new startup and everyone is cheering you on. It's a different story when you become bigger than General Motors and you have to play by the same rules as General Motors. Democrats were in charge when that rule change finally broke out and became serious business, which made it very appealing to take a look at the other side to see if maybe they treated gigantic companies more indulgently. The answer was straightforward: yes, Republicans have always been friendlier to big corporations than Democrats."
*********************end quote*******************
Second there's just a question of vibes. I'd argue that for at least a decade, maybe more, Silicon Valley was at the center of how society, broadly speaking, conceived of *the future.* It was a real industry but it was also one of the dominant cultural metaphors. That shifted in part because of the way people's relationship with tech changed, but also because nothing stays a central metaphor forever. People grew jaded about tech but, also, at some point it seemed like a retro version of the future rather than a current one. Something like Howard Rheingold's phrase, "The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier" starts to feel like, "whatever happened to the idea of flying cars" something that once signaled dreams of an unlimited future but now seems dated.
My theory is that, even if that shift in vibes is overdetermined, for some people in the tech world it feels personal. They used to be important and now they aren't as relevant. I'm guessing that adds to the feeling of resentment (and, as I say, also the Cryptocurrency or AI people talking quite so loudly about how they are going to re-shape the world).
Does that make sense? Am I just trying to talk myself into a pet theory, or is it plausible that the shifting vibes matter as well as the shifting politics?
Hm do you think tech is no longer a central cultural metaphor? I'd argue that it still is, maybe even moreso, but perhaps in a less straightforwardly positive way. Like tech is actually more important today—just no longer the underdogs, and with great power comes great responsibility, etc. (And there might be broader cultural things going on with cynicism & disinterest in the future—MAGA, etc.)
I appreciate you pushing back a bit. It's entirely possible that I have just fallen for a pet theory (or that I'm just getting old).
I think tech is still frequently used as a metaphor but I don't think that it's the image of the future in the same that it used to be. I mean that both in the sense of being the template (or paradigm) for progress (and in the late 90s through the mid-2010s it really was remarkable how quickly tech was changing and how frequently a new version really was an improvement over the old), and also in the sense of the quote, "the future is here it is just unevenly distributed."
That quote was always double-edged; a statement about inequality as much as progress. But I wonder, I know that people looking at silicon valley now see vast wealth and power, but do they think of it as a vision of the future?
Maybe . . . it's possible that I'm just projecting personal feelings and claiming that they're a cultural shift.
I think some portion of the rightward shift is driven by a recursive backlash against the tech lash. I'm old enough to remember this time period between '08 and maybe something like '12 where, we in Bay Area tech, were still the underdog good guys (but also running companies with billion dollar market caps). Like, there were people who wanted Zucks to be President after Obama (and at the time that didn't sound like it does now).
So, when I see the folks who've gotten really into the gray tribe stuff, they're often old enough to have lived through that period. And their attitudes strike me as a lot of grievance over the loss of a valorized status in society.
Obviously there's a lot more going on, which you've sketched out beautifully. I just still can't shake the feeling that some of this comes from wistful memories of particular moment in history (one that a lot of the usual suspects lived through).
great post!! I like the framing of the modern tech right as "dynamists". in some ways this is a very Nietzschean politics. it's often transhumanist, it critiques the 'slave morality' that resents the elites, it embraces creative destruction and sees itself as the vanguard of human progress - "it is only as creators that we can annihilate!" (GS §58). it's no surprise @roon, a famous accel who is at least adjacent to the tech right, has a Nietzsche quote as his bio - fellow creators the creator seeks.
when thiel talks about "creative destruction" or andreessen writes "it's time to build," you could see them as channeling the Nietzschean contempt for the "last man" who resists transformation. what they fear most is that one day the "soil will one day be poor and exhausted, and no lofty tree will any longer be able to grow thereon... when man will no longer give birth to any star" (TSZ §5). at the very least, they're inspired by his ideas
but they miss Nietzsche's critique of capitalism entirely. he saw market values as another form of leveling, reducing everything to exchange value and profit. one of my favorite philosophy books is How to Philosophize with a Hammer and Sickle: Nietzsche and Marx for the 21st-Century by Jonas Ceika. he shows how the right has co-opted Nietzsche, and defends a more leftist interpretation very well. Nietzsche describes the alienation of selling one's labor and the idiocy of just optimizing GDP while ignoring what this abundance is devoted towards: "to the devil with setting a price on oneself in exchange for which one ceases to be a person and becomes a part of a machine! Are you accomplices in the current folly of the nations the folly of wanting above all to produce as much as possible and to become as rich as possible? What you ought to do, rather, is to hold up to them the counter-reckoning: how great a sum of inner value is thrown away in pursuit of this external goal!" (Daybreak, §206). he mocks the "superfluous ones" and "clambering apes" who seek the idol of wealth, "the cold monster" (TSZ §11 "The New Idol), and deny other aspects of life.
there's a lot more to say here, but generally Nietzsche's work is a perfect place to explore the contradictions and themes in the ideology of the tech right
One thing that strikes me about the “tech right” howsoever defined is that this must be (bc: tech) a group of people who are very comfortable playing God to a certain extent: writing software to create perfect, functioning, closed worlds, in which humanity is abstracted.
Add to that a shoulder-shrug acceptance of human collateral, ideological fervour that disruption is essential to progress to a post-scarcity (read: fewer humans) future and (this is new!) potential access to authoritarian military government power structures?
“Tech right” starts to sound far too mild and grey-washing a term.
My guess is the rise of the Tech Right can be explained by three factors.
First, the Democratic party has moved to the left on economic issues (e.g. proposing a wealth tax, proposing a tax on unrealized gains, increase in Bernie-style populist rhetoric, much much stricter antitrust enforcement). In particular, you'll constantly hear people in Silicon Valley complain about Lina Khan, but the average person doesn't know anything about her. My guess is that Silicon Valley billionaires finally began to feel the material impact of these enforcement decisions, influencing their move to the right.
Second, the Tech Right heavily emphasizes excellence and meritocracy, which is directly opposed to the identity-based grievance politics embraced by the Democratic party over the last decade. I imagine a lot of people in the Tech Right fundamentally find those values to be aesthetically abhorrent. Marc Andressen's personal views may have shifted slightly to the right over the past decade, but I would reckon that the parties have shifted more.
Finally, I think there's the element of pure opportunism. For instance, the Trump administration seems pretty open to corruption, as shown by his reversal on the TikTok ban. No doubt Elon is pinning his hopes on Trump to help clear legal and regulatory hurdles in his quest for robotaxis.
Great piece. Really loved the point about an ethic of pure progress evolving equally to all domains, including the dubious and predatory ones.
Innovating endlessly and without bounds has always seemed odd to me. It’s sort of like the idea of being a perfectionist vs satisficer. At a certain point a technology is good enough (ie a bus) that it should necessitate government involvement in order to make it accessible to all who need to use it, not just those whom it can make a lot of money off. Not to say we can’t innovate to make buses faster, safer, etc. but more to say there comes a point when realizing a better world involves working with what you already have.
yeah! this makes me wonder whether—for all the enthusiasm around government R&D—the role of government re: tech should primarily be spreading its benefits, expanding access, etc
I think for tech-govt collaboration to be successful these implementation concerns should take more of a center stage. Unfortunately though I see concepts like broad access and accessibility being construed under this administration as DEIA and dismissed as a result.
yeah Arjun and I talk about this a bit on the pod as focusing on tech innovation vs. diffusion! (it’s actually a place I wish I pushed back a bit more, in hindsight not sure I agree the mainstream is already focused on the latter as he claims)
Really like the ins & outs, especially Faye Wong. Chungking Express is like one of my all time favorite movies. Also, that cocaine and assassination are in, while cancel culture is out, feels like a good reflection of the current times 🤦
'whether the more important division is not left/right but rather accel/decel.'
I don't know much about the history of 'left' / 'right,' but in so far as 'left' means 'progressive' and 'right' means 'conservative,' they are technically synonyms for 'accelerate' [progress, as a verb] and 'decelerate' [conserve]. (Left and right, that is, arrows pointing left and right on a line representing time...) I think the interesting political-historical question behind this is then: when did the right start to imagine the future (as a positive good, as something for its own sake), since I think from its inception, the left has been the party of the future; it may be simply that the party for the future is always 'the more unhappy one,' and that for the first time in history the right was, at a certain point, more unhappy than the left - I think that moment was in about 2012.
My read from this mini-exploration is actually that there are two separate spectrums: 1) left/right, about equality vs. hierarchy, and 2) progressive/conservative, about change vs. tradition — which is how you end up with modern phenomena like "right-wing progressives" and a technophobic left. (Obviously people, myself included, use these terms to mean all sorts of things in real life)
But I think you're onto something re: a big historical shift, where the right recently begins to embrace the future/technology more. Another friend pointed out via text that being really pro-tech was more of a leftist thing (russian cosmists, cybersyn, etc) for a long time.
My gut says it's gotta have something to do with capitalism / the sudden realization that tech exacerbates inequality rather than reducing it... but that's a 2-second reaction.
"RWPs are what Virginia Postrel, in her 1998 book The Future and Its Enemies, approvingly dubbed “dynamists”: individuals whose primary vision for a good society is a state of constant Promethean invention, discovery, growth, and transformation. They see their true enemies as what Postrel labels “stasists”: nostalgia-ridden, backwards-looking brutes who hate change and for some unimaginable reason want to keep everything old and therefore obsolete from being replaced by new and better things. [...]
The RWP believes the purpose of the state (and in fact all of civilization) is to facilitate the maximization of progress. If a hands-off, low-tax, free market approach seems to be what will facilitate the most progress, he’s for that. If the state-directed policies of an enlightened authoritarianism would produce more progress, he’s for that too. And if what progress really demands is that democracy be replaced with a monarch, well then long live the king!" - This reminded me of the Maoist fervour unleashed during different periods up to, and including the cultural revolution with the four olds of 'old ideas', 'old culture', 'old customs', and 'old habits'
> the “Tech Right”’s lack of a moral compass (of the Christian sort)
Here’s one update I suggest for you: The Christian/Nietzschian divide definitely runs through the tech right, and tbh even through the hearts of many key figures on the tech right.
If you aren’t talking to some people who think it’s both time to build and time to accept Christ you’ll be missing a fascinating part of what’s going on.
Chris is fucking baiting me with this one! And I want to deliver a psycho reply to reward it.
I haven't encountered many Christian tech people that I'm aware of, and not in the relevant sense of their Christianity informing to any real degree "how they think about tech." I think you could argue that the many fans of Ivan Illich in the scene are downstream of his Catholicism, but Illich's work (and that of those fans) suffers from a fundamental preference problem: he can describe why his values or world might be better than what we tend to create, but he has no solution that I'm aware of for the fact that the overwhelming majority of people seem not to agree. But I've known many fans of his books who spend years trying to make software aligned with his thinking nevertheless (to, perhaps sadly, no real effect).
I am sure many institutionalists and "fans of society and civilization" would disagree with me —and ably, persuasively, well— but for my part I see almost no way to connect my own sense of Christianity with our work, beyond the local dimensions of e.g. "how I think we should treat one another" or "how we should think about the frame surrounding our lives, the cosmos in which we live." I am just deeply skeptical that Christ —or Buddha, for that matter— can be guides to scaled, institutional, non-radical efforts in any sense; that is, I do not consider religion to be at all political, and I don't care what people say about this point. To be a real Christian, I think you have to leave almost all of this world behind; and to build a "better" world in the world's terms, you have to leave Christ or Buddha behind, or to the side. I am sure, again, that smarter and better-read people have answers to this claim, but to date I haven't been able to believe the ones I've read.
In arguments about the meaning or reality of progress, for example, people often fall back to infant mortality: "You can debate social networks all you want, but you're insane if you don't think reducing infant mortality is worth the many trade-offs involved in constructing systems that incentivize the deployment of capital into education, R&D, the rule of law, and so forth required to produce medicines and hospitals and factories that save infant lives."
I think Christ (and, again, Buddha) might well have been "insane" in this sense. To take Jesus seriously is to believe that the soul is immortal and eternal, the flesh in this fallen world is "not the real game," and that to trade-off a single person's life or well-being against a statistical reduction in "harms" or "evils" is to make a total moral error. It's Faustian; it's how the devil gets into the mix; we are not to have power of this kind; etc. And it is not, in that world of belief, the case that "physical death and suffering are anathema to the Good." In other words: no, reducing infant mortality does not "prove" that "progress is good." It may well be how we delude ourselves that our Mammon-oriented world is acceptable; indeed, it may ironically feed Moloch.
I credit arguments that "God wants us to use our gifts," and I do not believe my own beliefs on this front very deeply, I should say; I don't live them, that's for sure! I am open and indeed behaviorally committed the idea that we should, in fact, be laboring to build "the best possible world." But these beliefs are not really very coherent with any of Jesus' actual words, and immediately open the door to precisely the sort of engagement with "what is" that I probably wouldn't care about if I had more direct confidence in the super-reality of the Kingdom of God. I myself am a compromised and milquetoast man, and defend it by thinking it's wise for a mentally ill person not to adopt any radical positions. But if this is a fallen world, and if sin is sin, and if God wants us to "be Christ-like," I doubt seriously whether "running modern capitalism to get medicines" is what he has in mind. I do not know how to resolve any of this.
There are of course many Christianities, many of which are pro-social, institutional, oriented toward "the Good" in more common senses. I think it made great sense —in civilizational terms— for the Catholic Church to prohibit believers from reading the Bible, because Christ himself seems fully uninterested in anything like progress, order, productivity, stability, prosperity, health, etc. Paul does little to soften this, in my opinion. Any of the early Christians might have said, contemplating potential martyrdom, "but think of how many more utils I could generate alive, knowing the truth as I do!" But the truth they felt they knew was precisely that utils mean nothing, and are actually dangerously misleading, in the face of the real Truth. The transition from "radical religion of martyrs" into "peaceful religion of society-builders" occurs largely through a fusion with the very Pagan (and political) strains of human belief that Nietzsche favored. And likewise, the transformation of those strains from "generating constant war" to "achieving something at least seemingly beautiful" was likewise a result of this fusion, IMO.
I do not trust myself to doubt that fusion, or that God works through these dynamics. But if a Christian said to me e.g. "I'm building a social network with Christian values," I'd be very skeptical. I think of religions generally, and Christianity specifically, as being about the individual and her or his conduct and thinking above all; as soon as they become "about the world," I think they are highly likely to become something else entirely. That "something" else may be good or awesome in many ways, or to many people. Again: how would I know? But I think this will always restrain the degree to which "true believers" will be agents of consequence in social history. At most, I think such a believer —and they do exist in positions of power, politics, tech, elsewhere— will muddle through, trying to be "the best Christian or Buddhist or Muslim or Jew I can be" within a framework that itself has complete indifference to the implied applications of their beliefs (at best). I render unto Caesar what is Caesar's; I ask myself if it is "for the Good"; I try my best on the individual level to be moral, as I understand it; I feel I will have to answer for everything, and indeed must answer for everything even if just to myself daily already; and that's as far as I've gotten with it.
Mills I can't believe you wrote all this up for a comment on my silly little blog!
I also am a little skeptical of "Christian entrepreneurship," both from the reporting I've read and a couple people in my own life— seems like prosperity gospel to me— but Chris is certainly right that at there *is* a resurgence of at least justifying one's tech work through Christian virtue (and more people going to church in SF, etc, lol).
The word "fusion" also stood out to me since IIRC it was Frank Meyer's "fusionism" that built the critical Republican coalition of Christian conservatives and free-market capitalists, largely by insisting on virtue's individual rather than institutional nature. And it's neo-fusionists like Yuval Levin who seem to be some of the greatest critics of the "tech right" approach (see https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/for-whom-shall-we-build).
This probably extrapolates past religion, too, into whether a lot about business/tech/etc can be "ethical" in a meaningful sense—or whether "ethics" is the right way to think about improving those disciplines at all. (I don't really think it is.)
I only ever need an excuse to write; this was a blast (and this post ruled, OF COURSE!!!)
The problem with trying to debate you @Mills, ℭ𝔬𝔫𝔰𝔱𝔞𝔟𝔩𝔢 𝔬𝔣 𝔔𝔲𝔞𝔩𝔦𝔞 is that you argue every angle and possible counter argument lol.
I don’t think I would be considered a “tech person” by most nor a “christian” by some others; but two verses come to mind in this regard:
Psalms 118:22 - ”the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone”; of course the term “builder” needs no introduction to you in the modern sense, but even from a biblical lens it referred to the rejection of Gods way, word, and as a prophecy of Christ, by the architects of ancient civilization; and
Acts 24:14 - “however, I admit that I worship the God of our ancestors as a follower of the Way, which they call a sect. I believe everything that is in accordance with the Law and that is written in the Prophets”
The term “follower of the way” being an original reference to what we now call “Christians” and referenced a different lens through which to follow Christ and practice His teachings.
Along the way, and through the many divisions of this practice into several denominations, we’ve largely commoditized “the gospel” into enterprises (e.g, Christian dating app, Christian book store, gospel music; etc etc); all of which can be, and are often, filled with corruption and practices antithetical to the gospel of Christ (or maybe and simply commercial enterprises - this is a related but slightly different subject).
That said, there’s an old argument in “Christian rap” circles over should they be “rappers who are Christians” (that is, artists who hold to the faith but whose music is not necessarily explicitly filled with biblical references) or “Christian rappers” (the opposite)?
My take has always been that, if you hold to the faith, whatever you do is a ministry; and should follow the way. That way isn’t subject to the opinions; standards, nor judgments of men but rather a higher law - and is proven by its fruits. In the same way that the Pharisees judged Jesus for being “social” with prostitutes, tax collectors and thieves - yet he positively impacted them; so we may also find ourselves in positions where we too are judged; but ultimately, it’s the fruit or results of our lives that speaks.
So simply put, it’s not about calling it Christian, it’s about being Christian and having a revelation that the way in which you’re walking (or building) has been divinely orchestrated by the ultimate builder.
appreciate you sharing this POV!
no prob! thanks for the write up. tech talk often confuses me but this intersection of faith and entrepreneurship is very fascinating to me; even in tech circles (e.g, I’ve been tracking some of what Thiel is doing/saying, very interesting times. a lot of contradictions for sure, but I’m generally for it.
“if you hold to the faith, whatever you do is a ministry” man: that’s my deepest hope, my most sincere dream; I think I believe it, but of course worry that I might lie to myself, or expect too little of myself; but in debate terms, that’s the winner, because it may well be so and we should hope it is so, and it’s at the very least all that seems in reach to me in my current life.
i wish we were in the same church on sunday’s because we could talk forever about this stuff!!!
Whatever you might do, work from the soul, as to the Lord and not to men
Same feelings man, but I’m also comforted (sometimes) by the belief that ultimately having confidence that I’m walking in Gods will (even if I’m sometimes slow) is the safest place to be; it’s a worthwhile trade off over any feeling of hyper ambition or accomplishment.
I will let you know if I’m ever in Louisiana!
Definitely feeling the call to enter into conversation with this provocation (in the best sense), but, sadly, it may take me a long while before I can swing it.
I would really welcome it, whenever it happens!
Sorry, “Illich guy” may sound dismissive; I mean it as a compliment; you’re my favorite interpreter of Illich. He’s big in the ed tech scene, or was a few years back!
Ha, took it as such. “Need some Illich? I got a guy.” Happy to be that guy.
You’re my fave Illich guy, too, it would rule!
I want to publish all of your notes into the most fascinating philosophy book one could ever imagine
I think Chesterton, whom I adore, and many others for that matter could absolutely shred this argument!!! I was sort of maxing it out for Chris and Jasmine TBH, and suspect there are devastating rebuttals; so that book would probably a HOT MESS! Don’t use my real name if you do it!
I don’t know I feel like hot mess philosophers maxing out for their books is pretty standard fare. Devastating rebuttals there may be but Nietzsche’s been keeping those rebuttals coming for centuries at this point. So it works?
That’s fair lol; I just sort of oscillate between “being serious” and “letting fly” and almost wish i could use different fonts for them, as e.g. in speech (I hope) it’s clear when I’m just slinging for fun vs being measured and rigorous!
Now I really want to publish them into a book!!!! If I send you a manuscript with all of your notes organized will you put it all in different fonts depending on which version you were being??? 😆
My god, I’ve got to go to my thinking log like Winnie the Pooh after this one.
Hallow is a really good app. It managed to combine online community with deepening personal practice. It’s the first thing that helped jolt me out of the idea that christianity was a one hour on Sunday thing and got me to transfer my urge towards daily meditation into forms of contemplative prayer that are 2000 years old. They have insane engagement and sticky as hell subscription.
Ah really good point; I totally forgot about this contingent while writing the piece but you're definitely right.
What makes the matter so tricky, in my opinion, is that, as soon as it comes to elections and political decisions, the exciting inner complexity of political discourse is sharpened into a binary opposition – especially in a two-party system. This is partly due to the logic of political communication, but not exclusively. An interesting question for me is, therefore, How can a political order be designed to open up discourse in concrete decision-making processes rather than closing it off? How can it promote case-by-case decisions that are less about following an absolute guiding principle (e.g., innovation) and more about considering the impact of a specific decision on people's lives, asking whether it makes life better?
Yep — and accomplishing this level of case-specific nuance without the kind of endless community input meetings that prevent e.g. new housing from being constructed at all
That's one of the main issues with politics. In general. I suspect that this dynamic arises from politics being mainly an identity issue - and this overules nuanced decisions. If you wear a blue or red button on your chest, WHO said it becomes more important than WHAT was said. To my mind: we should get rid of politics altogether. It just doesn't work properly. And never has.
What would be the alternative?
We could just let most of the areas handled by politics be handled by the market: education, border control, pensions, etc. Less taxes. Less bureaucracy. More efficency. More innovation. More rationality. And much more diversity.
As much as I want a post-scarcity future, it’s hard to imagine technology (progress) alone getting us there given that we can’t solve basic problems with the abundant resources we have today.
there's a Matt Yglesias line I like how if we lived in a world without elevators, we'd assume that elevators would've solved the housing crisis
“Failing to specify will not prevent prioritization tradeoffs from happening; it’ll just cede that decision to speed and profit alone.” I want to shout this from the rooftops. Adjacently, I’m looking forward to Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s forthcoming book. I have been feeling pretty dubious toward supply side progressivism for the reasons you laid out here but I am sure I’ll learn a lot from them.
I am still really excited about that book! from a policy POV I actually feel quite aligned with the "abundance liberals," I'm just slightly worried about their political prospects / getting run over in the coalition basically. but it's the direction I'd like to see democrats go
oh gotcha, thanks for clarifying! i do agree with the baseline that the government needs to build lots of beautiful, lasting, green things that actually help people, and quickly (RE: climate change)!
the big thing that is holding me back is: when we do things fast, who gets left behind? so far, ezra et al. haven't convinced me that they've figured out the political change/systems that will actually stop this from becoming yet another "trickle down" dynamic or run roughshod over marginalized communities (not that i have the perfect answers either lol)--but maybe that is really more about the danger of being co-opted than the ideas themselves? and maybe i just need to read more :)
I think this piece connects to something I was mulling over this summer (I'm being a bit self-indulgent here, but I hope my idea is interesting enough that it adds value or, at least, is interestingly wrong and worth correcting).
My theory is that for a few decades computer technology was the primary shared metaphor for progress, and that's starting to wane.
We talked about things that were connected to a network as "smart" and disconnected items as "dumb." To be future-focused or forward looking was "digital" vs "analog" was backwards looking. Most importantly we talked about real-world or social institutions as being "upgraded", "rebooted," or having a "version 2.0."
One of the key implications of the metaphor was that change had low switching costs. Notably for software, it's possible to replace (or upgrade) one program without disrupting anything else. It's a very appealing way to think about change (I should say, it also fits very nicely with a theory of progress which is, "start with something which is flawed but offers improvements on the status quo and iterate small changes to bring it to a flourishing state" which I think IS a good strategy in many cases. I don't want to argue that the metaphor is inherently bad, just that it achieved a primacy which it's now losing).
We are in an era in which people are much more conscious of the difficulty of change and the ways in which it's never that simple or easy. I don't know that, at the moment, we have a paradigmatic image of change, and that's part of why the current moment feels depressing.
I would also guess that for many people in the tech industry the shift of imagery feels like a shift away from the idea of progress at all. Consider Marc Andreessen, who's quote about "software eats the world" both encapsulates and did much to shape the prior prevailing image. It wouldn't surprise me if, watching a collective re-examination of, "but is this really the best way to think about change" feels like a personal rejection.
I also think there are large groups in the tech industry which would like to recapture he heady feeling of the late 90s when tech was at the center of the world, without having thought about it too deeply. I personally think of Cryptocurrency and the "web 3.0" crowd as trying to manifest through force of will the idea, "think about how great it would be if currency was software and we could change the world in the same way that the internet did in earlier tech boom" without actually offering the same social value that the internet did -- but that may just be my personal cynicism.
In that framework the AI accelerationists are trying to make the argument that, "even if switching costs are real; the benefits will be so large that they will vastly outweigh the cost of disruption."
Either way I think the tech right gets some energy from a general sense that that the world no longer sees the industry as *the* path into the future and they liked the feeling of building the future and, psychologically, want a reason to think the world is wrong and they are correct.
All of this is speculation not observation; I'm fairly removed from the tech industry (despite working as a coder), but I think I'm describing a real "vibes shift" (to use the phrasing of this newsletter).
I buy this! there's still a lot of retro nostalgia these days for the Xerox PARC, cyberpunks, that turn of the millennium feeling of building the future (which I am quite sympathetic to, as someone who only entered this world *after* we learned how hard progress was lol)
I've also heard that while tech was largely allied with mainstream Democratic thinking in the Obama years, they probably felt poorly rewarded for their philanthropy, T&S efforts, etc — and now don't see the point of catering to the decels at all.
I guess I'm trying to suggest that there are two different threads. First your, comment about the way that politicians have treated the industry (which goes along with some of what Kevin Drum writes here https://jabberwocking.com/why-has-silicon-valley-turned-against-democrats/ )
As he summarizes:
*********************quote*******************
"Zuckerberg probably sees it like this: If you do everything liberals want, it just makes them hungry for more. They're never satisfied. But Trump? Sure, you have to do what he wants, but if you do he's your best friend for life.
...
It's all fun and games when you're a feisty new startup and everyone is cheering you on. It's a different story when you become bigger than General Motors and you have to play by the same rules as General Motors. Democrats were in charge when that rule change finally broke out and became serious business, which made it very appealing to take a look at the other side to see if maybe they treated gigantic companies more indulgently. The answer was straightforward: yes, Republicans have always been friendlier to big corporations than Democrats."
*********************end quote*******************
Second there's just a question of vibes. I'd argue that for at least a decade, maybe more, Silicon Valley was at the center of how society, broadly speaking, conceived of *the future.* It was a real industry but it was also one of the dominant cultural metaphors. That shifted in part because of the way people's relationship with tech changed, but also because nothing stays a central metaphor forever. People grew jaded about tech but, also, at some point it seemed like a retro version of the future rather than a current one. Something like Howard Rheingold's phrase, "The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier" starts to feel like, "whatever happened to the idea of flying cars" something that once signaled dreams of an unlimited future but now seems dated.
My theory is that, even if that shift in vibes is overdetermined, for some people in the tech world it feels personal. They used to be important and now they aren't as relevant. I'm guessing that adds to the feeling of resentment (and, as I say, also the Cryptocurrency or AI people talking quite so loudly about how they are going to re-shape the world).
Does that make sense? Am I just trying to talk myself into a pet theory, or is it plausible that the shifting vibes matter as well as the shifting politics?
Hm do you think tech is no longer a central cultural metaphor? I'd argue that it still is, maybe even moreso, but perhaps in a less straightforwardly positive way. Like tech is actually more important today—just no longer the underdogs, and with great power comes great responsibility, etc. (And there might be broader cultural things going on with cynicism & disinterest in the future—MAGA, etc.)
I appreciate you pushing back a bit. It's entirely possible that I have just fallen for a pet theory (or that I'm just getting old).
I think tech is still frequently used as a metaphor but I don't think that it's the image of the future in the same that it used to be. I mean that both in the sense of being the template (or paradigm) for progress (and in the late 90s through the mid-2010s it really was remarkable how quickly tech was changing and how frequently a new version really was an improvement over the old), and also in the sense of the quote, "the future is here it is just unevenly distributed."
That quote was always double-edged; a statement about inequality as much as progress. But I wonder, I know that people looking at silicon valley now see vast wealth and power, but do they think of it as a vision of the future?
Maybe . . . it's possible that I'm just projecting personal feelings and claiming that they're a cultural shift.
I think some portion of the rightward shift is driven by a recursive backlash against the tech lash. I'm old enough to remember this time period between '08 and maybe something like '12 where, we in Bay Area tech, were still the underdog good guys (but also running companies with billion dollar market caps). Like, there were people who wanted Zucks to be President after Obama (and at the time that didn't sound like it does now).
So, when I see the folks who've gotten really into the gray tribe stuff, they're often old enough to have lived through that period. And their attitudes strike me as a lot of grievance over the loss of a valorized status in society.
Obviously there's a lot more going on, which you've sketched out beautifully. I just still can't shake the feeling that some of this comes from wistful memories of particular moment in history (one that a lot of the usual suspects lived through).
great post!! I like the framing of the modern tech right as "dynamists". in some ways this is a very Nietzschean politics. it's often transhumanist, it critiques the 'slave morality' that resents the elites, it embraces creative destruction and sees itself as the vanguard of human progress - "it is only as creators that we can annihilate!" (GS §58). it's no surprise @roon, a famous accel who is at least adjacent to the tech right, has a Nietzsche quote as his bio - fellow creators the creator seeks.
when thiel talks about "creative destruction" or andreessen writes "it's time to build," you could see them as channeling the Nietzschean contempt for the "last man" who resists transformation. what they fear most is that one day the "soil will one day be poor and exhausted, and no lofty tree will any longer be able to grow thereon... when man will no longer give birth to any star" (TSZ §5). at the very least, they're inspired by his ideas
but they miss Nietzsche's critique of capitalism entirely. he saw market values as another form of leveling, reducing everything to exchange value and profit. one of my favorite philosophy books is How to Philosophize with a Hammer and Sickle: Nietzsche and Marx for the 21st-Century by Jonas Ceika. he shows how the right has co-opted Nietzsche, and defends a more leftist interpretation very well. Nietzsche describes the alienation of selling one's labor and the idiocy of just optimizing GDP while ignoring what this abundance is devoted towards: "to the devil with setting a price on oneself in exchange for which one ceases to be a person and becomes a part of a machine! Are you accomplices in the current folly of the nations the folly of wanting above all to produce as much as possible and to become as rich as possible? What you ought to do, rather, is to hold up to them the counter-reckoning: how great a sum of inner value is thrown away in pursuit of this external goal!" (Daybreak, §206). he mocks the "superfluous ones" and "clambering apes" who seek the idol of wealth, "the cold monster" (TSZ §11 "The New Idol), and deny other aspects of life.
there's a lot more to say here, but generally Nietzsche's work is a perfect place to explore the contradictions and themes in the ideology of the tech right
haha you can see why I put Nietzsche in the "ins" section of my 2025 ins/outs list
I'll add the Ceika book to my list! this does sound very interesting / I hadn't heard this left interpretation before.
relevant https://maxread.substack.com/p/talking-with-john-ganz-about-jd-vance
I still sense psychedelics have more upside than cocaine, but who am I to ruin a good party
hahahah
One thing that strikes me about the “tech right” howsoever defined is that this must be (bc: tech) a group of people who are very comfortable playing God to a certain extent: writing software to create perfect, functioning, closed worlds, in which humanity is abstracted.
Add to that a shoulder-shrug acceptance of human collateral, ideological fervour that disruption is essential to progress to a post-scarcity (read: fewer humans) future and (this is new!) potential access to authoritarian military government power structures?
“Tech right” starts to sound far too mild and grey-washing a term.
My guess is the rise of the Tech Right can be explained by three factors.
First, the Democratic party has moved to the left on economic issues (e.g. proposing a wealth tax, proposing a tax on unrealized gains, increase in Bernie-style populist rhetoric, much much stricter antitrust enforcement). In particular, you'll constantly hear people in Silicon Valley complain about Lina Khan, but the average person doesn't know anything about her. My guess is that Silicon Valley billionaires finally began to feel the material impact of these enforcement decisions, influencing their move to the right.
Second, the Tech Right heavily emphasizes excellence and meritocracy, which is directly opposed to the identity-based grievance politics embraced by the Democratic party over the last decade. I imagine a lot of people in the Tech Right fundamentally find those values to be aesthetically abhorrent. Marc Andressen's personal views may have shifted slightly to the right over the past decade, but I would reckon that the parties have shifted more.
Finally, I think there's the element of pure opportunism. For instance, the Trump administration seems pretty open to corruption, as shown by his reversal on the TikTok ban. No doubt Elon is pinning his hopes on Trump to help clear legal and regulatory hurdles in his quest for robotaxis.
I can def buy these theories! I didn't go too deeply into the reasons for the tech right's ascendance, but all super interesting
Great piece. Really loved the point about an ethic of pure progress evolving equally to all domains, including the dubious and predatory ones.
Innovating endlessly and without bounds has always seemed odd to me. It’s sort of like the idea of being a perfectionist vs satisficer. At a certain point a technology is good enough (ie a bus) that it should necessitate government involvement in order to make it accessible to all who need to use it, not just those whom it can make a lot of money off. Not to say we can’t innovate to make buses faster, safer, etc. but more to say there comes a point when realizing a better world involves working with what you already have.
yeah! this makes me wonder whether—for all the enthusiasm around government R&D—the role of government re: tech should primarily be spreading its benefits, expanding access, etc
I think for tech-govt collaboration to be successful these implementation concerns should take more of a center stage. Unfortunately though I see concepts like broad access and accessibility being construed under this administration as DEIA and dismissed as a result.
yeah Arjun and I talk about this a bit on the pod as focusing on tech innovation vs. diffusion! (it’s actually a place I wish I pushed back a bit more, in hindsight not sure I agree the mainstream is already focused on the latter as he claims)
Oh cool! I’ll check out that segment
Really like the ins & outs, especially Faye Wong. Chungking Express is like one of my all time favorite movies. Also, that cocaine and assassination are in, while cancel culture is out, feels like a good reflection of the current times 🤦
I looooove Chungking Express!!!
Very good read.
'whether the more important division is not left/right but rather accel/decel.'
I don't know much about the history of 'left' / 'right,' but in so far as 'left' means 'progressive' and 'right' means 'conservative,' they are technically synonyms for 'accelerate' [progress, as a verb] and 'decelerate' [conserve]. (Left and right, that is, arrows pointing left and right on a line representing time...) I think the interesting political-historical question behind this is then: when did the right start to imagine the future (as a positive good, as something for its own sake), since I think from its inception, the left has been the party of the future; it may be simply that the party for the future is always 'the more unhappy one,' and that for the first time in history the right was, at a certain point, more unhappy than the left - I think that moment was in about 2012.
My read from this mini-exploration is actually that there are two separate spectrums: 1) left/right, about equality vs. hierarchy, and 2) progressive/conservative, about change vs. tradition — which is how you end up with modern phenomena like "right-wing progressives" and a technophobic left. (Obviously people, myself included, use these terms to mean all sorts of things in real life)
But I think you're onto something re: a big historical shift, where the right recently begins to embrace the future/technology more. Another friend pointed out via text that being really pro-tech was more of a leftist thing (russian cosmists, cybersyn, etc) for a long time.
My gut says it's gotta have something to do with capitalism / the sudden realization that tech exacerbates inequality rather than reducing it... but that's a 2-second reaction.
"RWPs are what Virginia Postrel, in her 1998 book The Future and Its Enemies, approvingly dubbed “dynamists”: individuals whose primary vision for a good society is a state of constant Promethean invention, discovery, growth, and transformation. They see their true enemies as what Postrel labels “stasists”: nostalgia-ridden, backwards-looking brutes who hate change and for some unimaginable reason want to keep everything old and therefore obsolete from being replaced by new and better things. [...]
The RWP believes the purpose of the state (and in fact all of civilization) is to facilitate the maximization of progress. If a hands-off, low-tax, free market approach seems to be what will facilitate the most progress, he’s for that. If the state-directed policies of an enlightened authoritarianism would produce more progress, he’s for that too. And if what progress really demands is that democracy be replaced with a monarch, well then long live the king!" - This reminded me of the Maoist fervour unleashed during different periods up to, and including the cultural revolution with the four olds of 'old ideas', 'old culture', 'old customs', and 'old habits'