Tech bro fascism looks like a lot like old-fashioned fascism

Have you seen Kyle?

Old tech bros were attracted somewhat by regular original Italian fascism.

Even they build factories in England and Wales.

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Yeah, they played, but only for the gore and guns and powers…

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He would not learn if his own hands would burn to a crisp, unlike Peregrin Took

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My retirement plan is to live in the bush and be left alone. Ain’t wearing no shirt.

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Grays:

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This guy is basically advocating for the society described in the book “Jennifer Government” by Max Barry. A corporate dystopia where people take on the name of the company they work for as their last name, effectively supplanting their own identity and giving the corporation total control over their lives. The villains are two marketing executives named John Nike and John Nike who try to increase cachet & demand for their new line of shoes by paying hit men to shoot people standing in line to buy them. These actions are investigated by an FBI agent, the titular Jennifer Government.

If you like dystopian fiction that satirizes corporatism and consumerism, Max Barry’s books are for you.

PS: no spoilers, but the book ends with one of the John Nikes falling out of a building and getting impaled on a Nike swoosh. It’s glorious.

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The book also posits the following (terrifyingly plausible) legal scenario:

Person A quits their job at Company for whatever reason. Company hires Person B as their replacement. If Person B isn’t as good at the job as Person A, or screws up and costs Company money, Company can sue Person A to recoup their losses from being forced to hire the incompetent Person B.

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I mean… yeah. I read that book way later than everyone else – in the early 2010s and outside of the dated Reagan-Bush era references, the rest of it… was concerningly poignant and scared the excrement out of me specifically because of people who missed the point.

The villains in the story are both the people who made the setting what it is AND the people who also starred as the villains in The Handmaid’s Tale – but on boats!

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A lot of these techbros are libertarians. Libertarianism basically valorizes selfishness, to the point of denying that there even is such as thing as the “common good,” or as the Founders put it, the “general welfare.” This is combined with the Protestant Ethic idea that the wealthy deserve their wealth and it is a sign of merit. It’s a toxic ideology, and it goes along with nutso economic policies. They have daydreams and fantasies about no taxes and no regulations. But they’ve never run anything bigger than a small town, and that didn’t work out well (I’m referring to the Vermont town overrun by bears).

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But they are also fascists. We know that, because they’ve told us as much. The embrace of “techno-feudalism” is evidence of that. It’s the logical end-point of libertarianism, I’d argue, though most would not agree with that accessment, since most see libertarianism as advocating for “liberty” for the individual. But these past few years, far too many of these so-called “libertarians” have taken the mask off and shown us exactly who they are and what they want (this guy, Musk, Thiel, etc). :woman_shrugging:

And I think that the Vermont story is a different thing than these incredibly wealthy people who already wield REAL power in the world. Yes, it’s a funny story that puts the lie to the libertarian ideology, but it glosses over this particular story of elite men seeking to subject the rest of us to their wills.

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Yes, freedom for libertarians always means freedom for themselves, not for other people. Certainly not for everyone.

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No, Charlie did one as well, but I can’t remember what it’s called and mine’s in a storage box somewhere.

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Understand Captain America GIF

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What I understand is that the difference is that Fascists know that “individual” means straight, white, men and that all others are not possessors of the right and natural bodies to handle “freedom.” Libertarians are either knowingly denying this aspect of their ideology or purposefully concealing their knowledge of it imo.

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Yeah, I think it depends on the libertarian of course. For sure the techdudebros in question here most certainly know what they mean when they say “individual”… People like Thiel and Musk are taking the mask off and showing us exactly where their loyalties lie.

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Boring to 7th graders, perhaps, but a group of nine-year-old’s would find his proposal quite intriguing as it justifies their takeover of a public space, “Whose park? Our park! The park is ours!”

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So they’re a bunch of Noddys?

Noddy_300

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I’d would prefer it if they were more like this Noddy

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I guess to me I’d go so far as to say Libertarianism looks just kind of like unrealized Fascism on a gradient of how willing to compromise and how tolerant of the existence of others outside themselves the individual is. Like either Libertarians have an epiphany, realize the value of compromise, and stop… or they continue on to become full fascists unless they’re run out of town by bears.

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