I recently re-read Richard Hofstadter's Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, and now every time a reactionary Silicon Valley billionaire opens his mouth, I think about it. So I wrote about it for The Nation. Here's the column: On Instagram, there’s an activist named Brian Patrick (@pano.
More Everything Forever
This "smart and wonderfully readable" (New York Times) exposé shows why Silicon Valley’s heartless, baseless, and foolish obsessions—with escaping death...
When Silicon Valley’s AI warriors came to Washington
Effective altruism is increasingly described as a cult. But as the movement’s billionaire adherents pour money into D.C., its obsession with the AI apocalypse is remaking the capital’s tech policy landscape.
Take it from the insiders: Silicon Valley is eating your soul | John Harris
Former Google and Facebook executives are sounding the alarm about the pervasive power of tech, writes Guardian columnist John Harris
‘Headed for technofascism’: the rightwing roots of Silicon Valley
The industry’s liberal reputation is misleading. Its reactionary tendencies – celebrating wealth, power and traditional masculinity – have been clear since the dotcom mania of the 1990s
The scent of Musk: Power, charisma and paranoia in Silicon Valley
The Rise of Silicon Valley’s Techno-Religion (Published 2025)
The Rationalists, a community focused on the risks of artificial intelligence, regularly gather with tech figures and other like-minded people in a complex that covers much of a city block.
Silicon Valley Is Turning Into Its Own Worst Fear
We asked a group of writers to consider the forces that have shaped our lives in 2017. Here, science fiction writer Ted Chiang looks at capitalism, Silicon Valley, and its fear of superintelligent AI.
‘Founder as Victim, Founder as God’: Peter Thiel, Elon Musk and the two bodies of the entrepreneur
Silicon Valley’s tech moguls have increasing political ambitions, as spectacularly illustrated by Peter Thiel’s and Elon Musk’s involvements in the US 2022 midterm elections and 2024 presidential e...
The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story
In the weird glow of the dying millennium, Michael Lewi…
‘If we don’t fight back, we don’t have a future’: the journalist taking on the ‘tech fascists’ of Silicon Valley
As Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and their peers have grown richer and more influential, Gil Durán argues they have all but abandoned democracy – and found the perfect government to enable them
A Thesis on the History of the 21st Century: Technocracy, AI, and the End of the World
Reviewing a trio of books by a sextet of ruling-class ideologues, Mathias Fuelling finds an ambient anxiety hanging over a perceived crisis in American capitalism, with visions of bolstering a Silicon Valley-led technocracy fueled by AI investment reflecting American fears over the dawn of a "Chinese Century."
Silicon Valley has a science fiction problem | Aeon Essays
Tech titans claim the genre inspired them. But all they’ve done is graft their politics onto stories of a better future
'The Nerd Reich' tracks the 'unmasking of Silicon Valley's true politics'
Journalist Gil Durán argues that a small circle of Silicon Valley billionaires and venture capitalists have concluded that democracy is in their way — and that they should be governing in its place.
During the 1980s and 1990s, networks of evangelists and venture capitalists fused technological boosterism with reactionary social ideals. Our video of the week examines the deep roots of Silicon Valley's shift toward the right. Featuring @beccalew.bsky.social at @westernu.ca buff.ly/ydgntnc
