[HN Gopher] Technocracy 2.0
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Technocracy 2.0
Author : antonomon
Score : 49 points
Date : 2026-02-04 20:06 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (brooklynrail.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (brooklynrail.org)
| nahuel0x wrote:
| 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.
| DiscourseFan wrote:
| War is violent and mucky and you never know if you're going to
| make it out on the other side. I think a great value of Marx's
| later work is the reminder of its inevitability. All we can do
| is prepare and hope it works out better this time.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| > I think this new version is the latter case, a bad rehearsal
| used as a veil of the ascent of fascism in the States.
|
| I've found over time that one man's utopia is another's hellish
| nightmare. This is true of every utopia and should be a pretty
| strong argument against implementing them at all.
| cadamsdotcom wrote:
| 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.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| > 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.
|
| What do you mean, "make a stand?"
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| Adding a rainbow flag to their product for June 1 2029 until
| June 30 2029
| MisterTea wrote:
| > The time will come when it's rational for powerful people to
| make a stand -
|
| Stand for what? They all seem to gain from this so I am not
| sure where your logic is coming from.
|
| > According to the pattern, society has to go through a dark
| time first.
|
| This sounds like a stereotypical hollywood story and not an
| actual thoughtful response to what is actually going on.
| cadamsdotcom wrote:
| It's a stereotype for a reason..
|
| People need to see how bad it can get before they'll care.
| seydor wrote:
| 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
| leggerss wrote:
| 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
| pixelready wrote:
| There's really two types of people that tend to be drawn to
| libertarianism at some point: humanists and narcissists.
|
| Those who are fundamentally humanist want to tear down systems
| of oppression because it pains them to see their fellow humans
| abused and brought low by corrupt laws and regulations. They
| (perhaps naively) imagine that if the system was dismantled or
| at least shrunk to minimum size, basic human decency will step
| in to fill the vacuum and people will thrive. Folks like Penn
| Gillette are the face of this group.
|
| The narcissists are drawn to the movement because they feel
| like "if only everyone would get out of my way, I can do GREAT
| THINGS(tm) ". They like ideas like social Darwinism because
| they are already privileged enough to not be worried about
| losing in a survival of the fittest contest, and don't tend to
| concern themselves with the second order effects of dismantling
| the system because it is simply an immoral impediment to their
| greatness. Peter Thiel and folks like him are the face of this
| group. This is largely the strain that has taken root in SV.
| servo_sausage wrote:
| I see a whole lot more that end up at libertarianism as
| almost the default answer to "what philosophy most emphasis
| less government".
|
| It's a generational thing I think, you see public money being
| spent on junk, and laws used to entrench and make competition
| hard; and you think "why do we want the government to do
| these things at all?". And if you look at common ideas around
| 20 years ago, the default answer was libertarianism.
| HappySweeney wrote:
| fwiw Penn Gillette no longer calls himself a libertarian.
| servo_sausage wrote:
| Libertarianism doesn't mesh well with reality; the government
| doing less is part of it, but it also requires a way for people
| to efficiently protect their property.
|
| So you get to a point where mass surveillance is justified by
| the anti-crime angle; there is no contradiction, libertarianism
| logic where you can live and let live requires no crime...
| like_any_other wrote:
| > 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?
|
| Surveillance does not directly violate the non-aggression
| principle, and a myopic adherence to minimal principles without
| any consideration to where they lead is the central feature of
| libertarianism.
| lbrito wrote:
| >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
| mhog_hn wrote:
| Asimov's Foundation series
| swagman8 wrote:
| This is some Fallout material right here !
| jongjong wrote:
| 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.
| direwolf20 wrote:
| "Every accusation is a confession" they say
| keybored wrote:
| 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.
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(page generated 2026-02-04 23:00 UTC)