The Rise of Silicon Valley’s Techno-Religion (Published 2025)

Rationalist Cults of Silicon Valley

Innovators and Cranks

The Techno-Religion at the Center of the A.I. Debate

Are those calling to slow down the development of artificial intelligence in a “doomsday cult,” as some critics say? Our reporter explains.

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.

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

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."

The Anti-Intellectualism of Silicon Valley Elites

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.

‘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

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...

Californian ideology

Californian ideology refers to the dominant ideology of Silicon Valley, as described by the British media theorists Barbrook and Cameron in their 1995 essay "The Californian Ideology". The ideology is very influential because of the ubiquity of Californian technology products, as well as because siliconization has made it prominent in computing industries all around the world.

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...

The Nerd Reich

The Extremist Tech Authoritarian Politics of Silicon Valley

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.

Rewildpunk: The Counterculture AI Actually Needs

Punk took music back from the labels. Here’s how we take intelligence back from Silicon Valley.