> On Aug 31, 2024, at 12:00 PM, Michael Meeropol via groups.io
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> I have a feeling that the "issue" with these hi-tech billionaires is that
> they haven't been rich long enough to develop class consciousness --- so they
> are highly individualistic and very easily slighted (as when the Democrats
> don't "listen to them" enough ---
>
> https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2024/09/19/venture-backed-trumpism-ben-tarnoff/
I really enjoyed Malcolm Harris' book, Palo Alto, a book about those people and
other topics. There has been a change in Silicon Valley over the decades to a
new type of entrepreneur who comes from finance and not engineering. Harris
used the metaphors of "carcinisation" where critters who are not crabs
naturally evolve to look like them owing to conditions on the ocean floor.
People like Cuban, Theil, Musk, the "crypto barons" and others pretend to be
technical visionaries but rely on staff technologist for their talking points.
I think the split in Silicon Valley finance capital probably mirrors the split
on wall street. But there are definitely features that make Silicon Valley
leaders uniquely reactionary, deeply anti-union and traditionally US
Republican. One of the key features being an entrenched elitism historically
rooted in eugenics but wrapped in the language of meritocracy. It is also an
industry that has always sucked on the public teat going back before WW II to
the early telegraph industry. The US government could not give these
entrepreneurial scientists and engineers enough public money, and they respond
with libertarian condescension. But Silicon Valley has always been an
ungrateful creature of US imperialism, and government politics remains crucial
to the investment bankers. I expect that antitrust is a flashpoint between
different sectors of the technology industry. I also suspect that that many are
behind the 21st century arms race in space.
Mark
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