Must-Reads and the Moment Fascist Tech Bros Have Been Waiting For

If you want to read my rant about the role of fascist tech billionaires in the current electoral moment, you can scroll down to the final thoughts section of this newsletter. If you're here for my weekly, curated must-reads list, read on.

Must-Reads

From debtors’ unions to Gaza, Sudan, and tech bro fascism, here are some important stories you may have missed this week.

Netanyahu’s Theater of the Grotesque by Ahmed Moor. “What I thought about most during Netanyahu’s harangue was the 2 million Palestinians trapped in the latest Israeli horrorshow.” 

Discovery of poliovirus in Gaza ‘incredibly alarming’, Unicef executive director says by Daniel Hurst. “The ‘incredibly alarming’ discovery of the poliovirus in Gaza only adds to the besieged territory’s status as one of ‘the most dangerous places to be a child right now’, the head of the UN children’s agency has warned.”

Where J.D. Vance Gets His Weird, Terrifying Techno-Authoritarian Ideas by Gil Duran. “Vance is a Thiel creation. And like his billionaire benefactor—who once wrote, ‘I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible’—Vance embraces a radical ideology hell-bent on destroying government as we know it. And they got these ideas, at least in part, from [Curtis] Yarvin.”

J.D. Vance Is Using Lies About the Overdose Crisis to Justify State Violence by Maya Schenwar. “Drug users, their loved ones, and the loved ones of overdose victims deserve political action that actually supports survival. Our stories and our pain should not be exploited to push policies that drive more deadly violence.”

In Sudan, The People’s Revolution Versus the Elite’s Counterrevolution by Rabab Elnaiem, Nisrin Elamin, Sara Abbas and Abdelraouf Omer. “The suffering is epic because the world’s ethical and material failure to provide relief for those inside Sudan and fleeing across its borders has also been epic.”

Nearly 200 Former Juvenile Detainees Allege Sexual Abuse Inside Cook County Detention Center by Matt Masterson. “‘It’s still going on. It has to stop, and this is the way it’s going to stop,’ says attorney Todd Matthews.”

How to Survive Jail by Priscilla Grim. “While jails exist, our responsibility is to spotlight how they fail everyone on every level while demanding their dismantling and decarceration for all. When you find yourself inside, remember your responsibility is to stay sane and alive until you are free and can join the struggle to bring everyone outside.”

We Volunteered at a Gaza Hospital. What We Saw Was Unspeakable. By Mark Perlmutter and Feroze Sidhwa. “We started seeing a series of children, preteens mostly, who’d been shot in the head. They’d go on to slowly die, only to be replaced by new victims who’d also been shot in the head, and who would also go on to slowly die. Their families told us one of two stories: the children were playing inside when they were shot by Israeli forces, or they were playing in the street when they were shot by Israeli forces.”

"You Are Not A Loan!" Introducing the Nation's First Debtors' Union by Astra Taylor and Hannah Appel. “Debt bridges the individual and the structural, the personal and political, binding each of us to a broader set of financial and social systems — systems that have emerged over centuries of racist, capitalist and colonialist exploitation and wealth accumulation.”

Mask Bans Insult Disabled People, Endanger Our Health, and Threaten Our Ability to Protest by Alice Wong. “These ugly laws disproportionately impacted people by race, gender, immigration status, and sexuality, Dr. Schweik explained, and influenced and were influenced by policies related to segregation, eugenics, and institutionalization. I offer that proposed mask bans are the new ugly laws.”

Some Liberatory Tech Reading

In my final thoughts section, I am about to go off about fascist tech billionaires and the threat they pose in the current election cycle. But, before I do that, I want to recommend an article called “Up Against the Firewall” by Alejandro Ruizesparza and Freddy Martinez. Tech is full of terrible people with regressive, destructive ideas, but there are also people like Alejandro and Freddy out there, who are pushing back against techno-optimism and thinking critically about how technology can be used in the service of liberation. In addition to talking about how tech can be used in the service of movements, as the authors have done through their work with the Lucy Parsons Lab, the authors also discuss the need for some creative destruction. 

Final Thoughts: The Moment Techno-Fascists Have Been Waiting For

There has been a lot of talk about Elon Musk this week. In a conversation with Jordan Peterson (who, like Musk, is worshiped by hordes of lonely losers), the fascist billionaire contradicted reports that he pledged to donate $45 million per month to the pro-Trump America PAC. Now, whether reports of the pledge were incorrect, as Musk claims or Musk simply backed out of a promise (which would be very on-brand), we don’t know. We do know that Musk lobbied hard for J.D. Vance to become Trump’s running mate and that he has been recruiting other billionaires to throw their money behind the Trump ticket. Musk publicly endorsed Trump after the former president’s ear was clipped (possibly by shrapnel) when a Republican would-be assassin opened fire at a Trump rally. 

Musk was also in the news this week for describing his trans daughter Vivian as “dead” due to her transition. He claimed that Vivian’s transition motivated his decision to destroy “the woke mind virus.” Vivian responded in an interview with NBC and in a series of posts on the social media app Threads. In her interview and posts, Vivian described Musk as a mercurial liar who is “uncaring and narcissistic.” Vivian also contradicted various elements of Musk’s depiction of her early childhood, noting that Musk was in no position to describe her behavior as a young child because he was not present. 

Why am I talking about Elon Musk? Well, if you follow my work, you know that I have been concerned about the political power of the tech industry for some time. Tech is an opportunistic industry that seeks to devour every other industry, and it has served as an incubator for cultish ideas and fascist ideologies. Elon Musk, for example, subscribes to longtermism, a highly disturbing belief system that justifies mass suffering and destruction in our time in the service of bizarre fantasies about eventually populating the galaxy with trillions of digitized people. The logic of longtermism dictates that the good of the many outweighs the good of the few, and that includes the good of untold numbers of digital people who could theoretically exist in the future. In the service of their existence, any amount of destruction, suffering, and inequality that must be perpetrated now is deemed necessary. While this ideology may strike you as conceptually absurd (because you are, presumably, a reasonable person who understands the difference between fantasy and reality, as well as the difference between right and wrong), adherents to longtermism have amassed significant amounts of financial, social and political influence, thanks to the vast sums of money coursing through Silicon Valley and the cult-ish nature of the tech industry. (I highly recommend checking out my conversation with Émile P. Torres about longtermism, which serves as an excellent explainer. My conversation with Mary-Jane Rubenstein may also be useful in terms of understanding the religiosity of the cult around Musk and his supposedly interplanetary political vision.)

Musk’s purchase of Twitter is one example of how the outsized wealth of tech billionaires can shift the political terrain beneath our feet. While the platform was never “the digital commons” that some purported it to be, it was a major force in US politics that afforded marginalized people the ability to raise awareness, rouse dissent, and build political momentum on a massive scale. Now, the site is a right-wing shit show. If Musk were capable of writing compelling posts, or understood what made Twitter a culture-shaping force in the first place, the site’s takeover would have proven even more disastrous.

Another tech billionaire with fascist aspirations is Peter Thiel, an all-around monster who is a major player in Big Tech, mass surveillance, venture capitalism, and right-wing politics. J.D. Vance was once Thiel’s protege. Thiel has famously stated, “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible,” and also argued that “the extension of the franchise to women…render[s]  the notion of ‘capitalist democracy’ into an oxymoron.” Both Vance and Thiel are big fans of software developer and “Dark Enlightenment” reactionary Curtis Yarvin, who has stated that the problem of “the underclass” necessitates “a humane alternative to genocide.” (For more on the Thiel/Vance/Yarvin connection, check out this piece from the must-read list. The piece is so important that I am mentioning it there and here.) Yarvin also supports the breakup of existing modes of government in favor of a system of “patchworks,” where various fiefdoms are ruled by tech corporations. This may sound as fanciful as colonizing space until one considers that the wealthy are already creating privatized cities. (The desire for corporate rule, beyond the reach of any established law, also figures into Musk’s space fetish.) The right-wing thinkers of the tech industry believe that democracy has outlived its usefulness and that they should rule the world. In J.D. Vance, their fascist vision would be one 78-year-old heartbeat away from the presidency. 

Vance’s regressive ideas about women, families, and reproductive health have gotten a lot of attention this week, as have rumors that he once fucked a couch. (The couch part has been hilarious, by the way, but the fact that a lot of people believe that story is true says something unsettling about the moment we’re in, misinformation-wise, but nevertheless…) While I think it’s important to understand Vance’s regressive ideas about women, trans people, porn, gay marriage, and more, I think the tech-driven momentum toward corporate fascism that propelled his candidacy deserves more attention.

While I have no interest in preserving the U.S. empire, I think it matters how a system breaks. In the Trump ticket, we see a convergence of blatantly fascistic ideologies. While I firmly believe we will be fighting fascism regardless of who wins in November, as Democrats will continue to enact fascistic policies (such as the further criminalization of homelessness and protest) in order to keep late capitalism afloat, I think it’s important to understand the rightwing forces that would dominate us under Trump. 

In the wake of Trump’s shooting, I believe Musk saw the opportunity for a major power grab. He expressed his support for Trump, promised loads of campaign cash, and pushed for the ascension of Vance, all in the service of a broader vision. While transphobia may have launched Musk’s rightward journey, longtermism and visions of corporate fascism are now his roadmap for the future. We must understand these threats.

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