Pick the Worst People to Install Government Efficiency

  

Pick the Worst People to Install Government Efficiency

Could it be Silicon Valley Tech Bros?

PETER ON THE WRITERS’ HANGOUT PODCAST!

There is a certain arrogance to Silicon Tech Bros, a passel of mega-wealthy folks who made billions and are still relatively young (even if they do not live in The Valley). There is a Tech Bros ethos that “we’re on the cutting edge of what’s next, and you’re not! Get out of our way!” Creative destruction is the underlying moto, and much like Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward program of the 1960s and his Cultural Revolution a decade later, remnants of the past must be destroyed or subjugated to evolve into a powerful future. How did that work out? It is an extension of the perpetual Trumpian claim, “Only I can fix it.” These oligarchs place technology first, but there is a Tech Backlash growing, as illustrated by the CEO of the “better, truer and friendlier” new alternative to X: Bluesky.

Writing for the March 11 FastCompany.com, Jessica Bursztynsky, explains: “Bluesky CEO Jay Graber took a clear swipe at Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg when she took the stage at the South by Southwest (SXSW) conference in Austin [mid-March] wearing a shirt that copied an infamous one he’d worn last year at a Meta product reveal event.

“Graber’s shirt read Mundus sine Caesaribus, or ‘A world without Caesars’ in Latin. It was the same design as Zuckerberg’s shirt from last year that read, Aut Zuck aut nihil, which is a play on the phrase, Aut Caesar aut nihil: Either Caesar or nothing… Graber’s not-so-subtle message seemed to be that decentralized platforms, like the one she’s building with Bluesky, prioritize users over the platform’s bottom-line interests.

“‘If a billionaire came in and bought Bluesky or took it over or, if I decided tomorrow to change things in a way that people really didn’t like, then they could fork off and go on to another application,’ Graber said while onstage. ‘There’s already applications in the network that give you another way to view the network or you could build a new one as well. And so that openness guarantees that there’s always the ability to move to a new alternative.’” And the reference to Zuckerberg’s mention of Caesar was not about a salad!

With Elon Musk’s status as the senior (richest and in charge of the federal bureaucracy, so far) Tech Bro, LA Times columnist writes Mark Z. Barabak (March 16th): “The recklessness and destruction of the tech mogul’s fancifully named DOGE is not a bug but a feature... Washington has never seen anything like the rule-breaking, power-taking, government-torching, protocol-scorching force of delighted havoc and gleeful mayhem that is Elon Musk.”

Relying heavily on University of Washington historian Margaret O’Mara’s 2019 book, “The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America,” Barabak continues: “there’s an attitude, a worldview and a fundamental set of principles that guide the tech industry and its progeny, like a secular catechism. O’Mara sees those beliefs very much in evidence at Musk’s fancifully named Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, and his wrecking-ball efforts to raze huge swaths of the federal government in a single, unfettered swoop.

Several elements are present and accounted for. The ‘techno optimism,’ as O’Mara described it, with its unshakable faith that technology is inherently good and will improve things — ‘even if there might be some collateral damage along the way.’ The drive to move quickly and scale rapidly, if recklessly. The importance of personal relationships, such as the transactional bromance between President Trump and Musk, who spent more than a quarter of a billion dollars to put his ally back in the Oval Office.

“The two are masters of ‘the modern attention economy’ — getting people to sit up and take notice — ‘and have a kind of shamelessness,’ O’Mara said, ‘that is to their advantage, business-wise and politically right now.’… O’Mara’s book explains how the federal government built Silicon Valley, a fact many of its entrepreneurs and legends — basking in the reflection of their self-glorification — choose to ignore, or fail to understand. ‘That’s actually part of the secret,’ O’Mara said. ‘The indirect nature of the spending, the fact that it’s flowing through universities and private companies in way that is kind of stealthy and hidden.’” As they fight government research grants and subsidies, they ignore that is precisely how these Tech Bros were able to succeed.

There’s another phrase used to described Tech Bros – who believe that only they have the vision for the nation, and that all the regulations states and the federal government are imposing or trying to impose to “protect the public” – they are only one who should be the deciders: “Techno Fascists.” History repeats itself as this excerpt from Tim Brinkhof, writing for the March 16th The Daily Beast, illustrates:

“In February 1933, the future Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring sent out telegrams to 25 of Weimar Germany’s leading businessmen, inviting them to a secret meeting with Adolf Hitler —to discuss a potential alliance. Despite their growing success in the polls, the Nazi party was as good as broke, and desperately needed investment; Hitler was subsequently able to secure it by convincing his wealthy guests that they shared the same interests—stopping the spread of communism, protecting private enterprise and breaking up trade unions. More alluring still was his oxymoronic belief that “private enterprise cannot be maintained in a democracy.”

“The connection between German industrialists and Nazi leaders—until recently a grossly overlooked aspect in World War II studies—resembles the relationship that’s currently developing in the U.S. between MAGA Republicans and big tech CEOs, Silicon Valley elites and hedge fund moguls like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, the latter of whom not only facilitated Trump’s return to the presidency in part through his donations (and ownership of the social media platform X), but has since obtained a key role in the White House.

“As Musk’s DOGE continues to decimate the federal workforce—gutting anti-Trump opposition under the guise of making the country’s political apparatus more productive and cost-effective—many Americans are wondering what comes next. Historical precedent gives us a possible answer. It isn’t pretty.” Indeed, until their AI enabled robots take over from them, these Techo Fascists will run it all themselves. Enjoy their wonderful creative destruction. If you have Tesla, you can change the label if you want.

I’m Peter Dekom, we’ve shifted from “America First” to “Techno Fascists First”… when we should be guided by the “People First” tenet that declared the “We the people” would be free from a monarchical despot.