A dispatch from Mexico City's legendary barrio reveals how true innovation—from sound-system message networks to black-market tech adaptation—happens far beyond Silicon Valley. Filmmaker and technologist Violeta Ayala explores how self-governance, resistance, and raw intensity shape the future of technology and human connection.
The Wide Angle: Understanding TESCREAL — Silicon Valley’s Rightward Turn | Washington Spectator
For decades, the conventional wisdom about Silicon Valley was that it leaned progressive. And by many measures (like donations by Big Tech employees to…
A forty-year career.
The Silicon Valley narrative centers on entrepreneurial protagonists who are poised one predestined step away from changing the world. A decade ago they were heroes, and more recently they’ve become villains, but either way they are absolutely the protagonists. Working within the industry, I’ve worked with quite a few non-protagonists who experience their time in technology differently: a period of obligatory toil required to pry open the gate to the American Dream.
Qué puede hacer la izquierda ante el capitalismo tecnológico
Los oligarcas de Silicon Valley están manipulando nuestra atención y abriendo paso en sus redes al autoritarismo populista de Trump y de la ultraderecha europea. ¿Qué se puede hacer desde el progresismo para frenar esta dictadura tecnológica y superar la dependencia de Estados Unidos?
How Seoul is Reinventing Itself as a Techno-Utopia | Backchannel
In a moment of crisis, South Korea's capital is becoming a leader in big data.
'We all suffer': why San Francisco techies hate the city they transformed
Amid a homelessness crisis, sky-high rent and a surplus of rich people, insiders bemoan the effects of their own industry
Inside Shenzhen’s race to outdo Silicon Valley
Shenzhen flooded the world with cheap gadgets. Can it now become what Silicon Valley never did—a global hub of innovation, entrepreneurship, and manufacturing?
‘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
Tech's right turn : the rise of reactionary politics in Silicon Valley and online
This dissertation shows how a group of conservative activists helped shape Silicon Valley and its digital technologies in the 1980s and 1990s. Operating primarily within a loose network of think ta...
Silicon Valley, disruption, and the end of uncertainty
This paper reflects on the relationship between high-tech disruption narratives and uncertainty. My main argument is that an economic sociology of the future is incomplete without addressing the ‘d...
Rethinking the Smart City: Democratizing Urban Technology - RLS-NYC
Following the celebration of the “creative city” (as described by Richard Florida), the “smart city” has become the new flavor of the month—and a brand. It makes clever use of resources, and it attracts money, corporate power, and private industries. Offering us cheap, effective solutions to social and political problems, the smart city is functional, […]
Beyond Digital Exhaust: Reclaiming Agency in the Context Economy - A MozFest Discussion on Personal Context Infrastructure and the Future of AI
At this year's MozFest in Barcelona, we convened an urgent conversation about what may be the defining struggle of our digital future: who will control the vast
An Alternative History of Silicon Valley Disruption
Three recent books challenge the tech industry's myths of self-reliance and prescience.
Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology
A witty, often terrifying that chronicles our transform…
‘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
‘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
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
