With J.D. Vance on Trump ticket, the Nerd Reich goes national
The Nerd Reich has their man in Washington
The following is adapted from a viral Twitter thread I wrote last night. It provides a Nerd Reich 101 primer to readers who have not been following my work (and hello to the hundreds of new subscribers who joined overnight!). Please forward this email to every voter you know!
I've spent this year writing for the The New Republic about how a group of Silicon Valley billionaires has gone super WEIRD. Now their weirdness is mating up with Trump's MAGA weirdness in the 2024 election. Here's a few things to understand about these guys:
#1: They despise democracy. These Trump-loving tech zillionaires believe democracy is bad. They want to create their own corporate dictatorships called Network States. They are actively trying to build these weird little dictator cities all over the world, including in California.
Gil Duran
#2. They want control over existing governments. In addition to building weirdo colonies, they're also trying to capture existing governments. In San Francisco, a group of these tech zillionaires is trying to win control of City Hall ...(and now, with Peter Thiel creation J.D. Vance as Trump's running mate, the USA!)
Gil Duran
3. They want to punish Democrats in weird ways. One of their main influencers has suggested that tech bros should form a "gray tribe," purge Democrats from San Francisco and build statues to remind people of how bad Democrats supposedly are:
Gil Duran
4. JD Vance is ONE OF THEM. Vance was literally put on Trump's ticket by the same group of people – Peter Thiel, David Sacks, Elon Musk, Marc Andreessen – who are behind all of the weirdness I've been writing about: Here's my newest piece in the New Republic:
Gil Duran
The tech authoritarian/MAGA alliance
Most newspaper analyses suggest that these tech authoritarians guys just want lower taxes and friendly regulations, but that's only part of the story. They have developed their own weird sci-fi influenced tech authoritarian IDEOLOGY.
It overlaps with MAGA in multiple ways.
MAGA/Tech overlaps:
Collapse. They believe in an impending societal collapse.
Messiah complex. They believe they alone can save humanity. They "alone can fix it."
Supremacy. They largely share a believe in a social hierarchy centered on the supremacy of rich males (mostly straight and/or white) over everyone else. Anti-Empathy. They abhor empathy/care.
Anti-Public. They detest the idea of the public and seek to privatize most functions of government.
- Anti-Worker. They believe employers are superior to employees.
This is not an exhaustive list. But you can see here how many of the tech authoritarian goals align with MAGA. Antipathy toward taxes and regulations may be the root of their alliance, but there are many branches. But there are key ways in which tech diverges from MAGA.
For example, tech authoritarians see technology as being above God (if they even believe that God exists). As tech founders and investors, they see themselves as the top of the hierarchy – the masters of the universe. These beliefs have resulted in some strange sub-cults.
Tech Cults Rising
The Network State is one sub-cult – the idea of replacing existing countries with tech-run countries. Transhumanism is another – a belief in merging with machines to obtain eternal life. That's gonna sound pretty weird to fundamentalist Christians. . . Lots of tech cults springing up!
Here's a key thing to understand:
The tech billionaires behind Trump already have money. Now they want power – to create their own countries, to change what it means to be human, to control the fate of the world. Their interest is mainly ideological, not economic. Anyone saying otherwise has not done the reading.
This story by Dave Troy of the Washington Spectator goes deep into the weird collection of ideas called TESCREAL. Many of these tech guys backing Trump have been working on this project for a long, long time.
Final Thoughts: Crypto and AI
Not all tech is bad! But a lot of people in Silicon Valley have been aware of this weirdness for a long time and have stayed quiet ... or agree with parts of it. With Thiel/Musk/Vance putting it on the Trump ticket, it's time to tune in. Because folks – it's gonna get weirder.
This week, Elon Musk posted a fake AI-generated disinformation video about Kamala Harris. In the video, which cloned Harris' voice, she appeared to say things she has actually never said. This was a just a taste of what's going to happen on social media platforms – especially the one Musk owns – in 2024.
Crypto also plays a HUGE role in this weirdness. Just as they created new currencies to challenge existing currencies, they want to create new countries to challenge existing countries. It's all about power and control. (I'm working on a piece that will explain this in more detail.)
Also: I am in the process of workshopping a longer piece on tech authoritarian ideology. Open to suggestions and improvements!
My writing has been a little slow over the past few weeks because I'm recovering from two sprained fingers. But I'll be back soon with updates on California Forever's great fail.
If you prefer to listen rather than read, this interview with Paris Marx on Tech Won't Save Us covers many of the basics of The Nerd Reich:
