"Who has done the best work on the tech bro to defense contractor pipeline?" — Chris Gilliard (@hypervisible.bsky.social)
Jacob Harris (@harrisj.bsky.social) responds:
I feel like a lot of it would center on Palmer Luckey and the whole Anduril thing. I think there is probably something to be written about how tech world engagement has gone from DARPA and supercomputers to drones and other decentralized militarization?I also am curious about the pivot from 1990s techno-libertarianism (utopian) which rallied against things like the Clipper Chip to the post 9/11 cynical techno-libertarianism that endorses technology as a means of control and surveillance. Probably a lot of roads lead through Palantir and ad-tech
We probably shouldn’t diminish the influence of the Iron Man Marvel movies in establishing the idea that it’s okay to be an asshole techie who makes better weapons than anybody else as long as you’re smart
The long slide from Real Genius and Sneakers to Homeland and Iron Man
Aram Zucker-Scharff (@chronotope.aramzs.xyz) responds:
It's a distinct intentional movement that has been pushed, starting with misogyny, leading to technofeudal thinking, excused by longtermism and effective altruism. I have a collection of articles tracking through it here: Technofeudalism, Effective Altruism, Longtermism, and the Post-Left
For me, it became clear that this strain of right wing thought in tech was trying to take over in 2015 Come With Us If You Want to Live: Among the apocalyptic libertarians of Silicon Valley (Sam Frank, Harper's, January 2015)
But I think the earliest article I remember that, in retrospect, draws a direct line to current day DOGE bs is 2014 Mouthbreathing Machiavellis Dream of a Silicon Reich (Corey Pein, The Baffler, May 19, 2014)