Seeing a sudden surge in interest in the “Tech Right” as they’re being dubbed. Often the focus is on business motivations like tax breaks but I think there’s more to it. The narrative that silicon Valley is a bunch of tech hippies was well sown early on, particularly by Stewart Brand and his ilk but throughout that period and prior, the intersection between tech and authoritative politics that favours systems over people is well established.
My career curve from naive and vaguely libertarian computer programming intern to radicalized full-stack anarchist has taught me that most people in this industry are just the worst. Deeply insular people with massive chips on their shoulders, genius and martyr complexes, fully bought into this idea that the “nerds” should be in charge.
I can’t stand talking to most people in my field. They are so myopically focused on either whatever computer puzzle is in front of them or whatever overcomplex scheme of cryptocurrency, third-tier stock options, and investment portfolios they fantasize will make them rich too. The outright worship of tech moguls and their money and their “big ideas.”
The dirty secret is that tech people have always sucked. The radical thinkers, the FOSS people who put careers on the line so people could have functioning computers, those saints who believed computers could actually improve the lives of human beings, those true heroes of the field continue unsung, unfunded; they were always the exploited minority in computing.
vaguely libertarian computer programming intern to radicalized full-stack anarchist
I just have to ask, is full-stack here referring to the programmer path, or is it “full-stack anarchist”? If the latter, I need an explainer of which part of anarchism is the back-end and which the front, and also where can I find the job postings.
Haha, sadly just full-stack dev, just wanted it to sound cool!
Now that I’m thinking about it though, is front end vs back end useful specialization or a kind of implied hierarchy? (True anarchist programmers never even use trees because we don’t believe in hierarchy!)
As for the job postings, someone was seeking members for a gamedev co-op on Lemmy the other day! Maybe the anarchist jobs are coming soon!
As for the job postings, someone was seeking members for a gamedev co-op on Lemmy the other day! Maybe the anarchist jobs are coming soon!
Oooh! I’ve contemplated similar myself in the past. Have a link by chance? I want to see what they’re doing and how they plan to organize.
So technically you went from economic liberal to an actual libertarian. Good onya. More tech people should.
Also nothing makes self-identifying libertarian saltier. Then pointing out that they’re just liberals with extra steps. We’re talking drop the mask / non-aggression principle sort of takes.
Hah, yeah I suppose so!
Also, and this is wild I know, I live in New Orleans and somehow did not know about Joseph Déjacque! So thanks for the links, I’ve got some books to add to my reading material it seems.
Not really that wild. The problem with actual Libertarians is that they tend not to push their beliefs on to others. And as such they really don’t make themselves felt or known the way other groups do.
Combined with the way the wealthy control education and access to information. We should all expect to be ignorant, but we shouldn’t accept it. The fact that the man who coined the phrase, defined the ideology, and personally embodied it. Took part in the French Revolution, and fought against the very type that hide behind the moniker these days. Is very telling. And really exposes things like the NAP as a thought terminating cliché. When those who steal from you and oppress you. Make it impossible to find justice. Want more appropriate response is there that well directed aggression?
A bunch of rich people with questionable morals like having easily influenceable people in power. Especially now that it is legal for presidents to take bribes.
Silicon valley isn’t what it used to be
Silicon Valley is fundamentally the same as it’s always been, it’s just a bigger scale
Specifically, the nerdy-hippy-freethinker cohort did not flourish at anywhere close to the same scale as the get-rich-quick segment of the population as this modern gold rush emerged.
Most tech bros would be stock brokers if born a couple decades earlier.
Turns out frat bros are pretty alt right. Shocker.
John Ganz did a good coverage of the ideological side of tech, particularly using Herf’s book Reactionary Modernism that looks at the role of engineers in building Nazi ideology.
You can read Reactionary Modernism for free on the Internet Archive
The “tech right” has always been a thing. It’s why I refuse to work for corporate tech, it’s a boys club full of misogynistic man-children who believe they are deservedly a part of the upper echelon of society, better than everyone else. It’s exhausting.
From my experience, most software corpo employees are just tired parents with mortgages. Like the vast, vast majority. The higher up the pyramid you look the more cultish the vibes, though.
my experience is also primarily with tired parents with mortages… who blame minorities for their unhappiness (so they vote right-wing) and get all of their social and emotional fulfilment from work (so they willingly buy into the C-suite cult).
they are also usually so tech illiterate that they have the vibe of someone who never learned a trade and fell for the ‘learn to code’ advice at some point in their life.
I would love to work in that world. My experience is likely tainted by the jobs I got (past tense as I no longer work in tech; I’m in non-profit work now) having a lot of Junior devs straight out of college (and some interns still in college) so they hadn’t yet experienced enough of life to break out of these childish mentalities.
Their description definitely fits my workplace. We just want to get our 40 hours of work done and sign off and spend time with our families. Stability is really important.
Basically no juniors though, pretty much all seniors that are in their 30s and 40s.
In my experience, the places that are real boys clubs are startups, since they tend to be filled with 20-something tech bros with no families or attachments.
