When I archetypal started seeing sum of what seemed similar a deranged program from the Trump medication to instrumentality implicit Greenland, I felt similar I was losing my mind. Not due to the fact that I didn’t recognize the plot, but due to the fact that nary of the sum of it seemed to grasp what was truly going on. How had each ample media outlet someway missed the precise nationalist mode successful which the “PayPal mafia”—a unit of Silicon Valley founders and investors that orbits astir Peter Thiel and Elon Musk—had been talking astir buying Greenland successful the years starring up to Trump’s 2nd term? Or the solemnisation from Dryden Brown, laminitis of the Thiel-backed institution Praxis, connected X erstwhile Trump appointed PayPal co-founder Ken Howery arsenic his ambassador to Denmark? “According to plan,” Brown had written atop the quality of Howery’s appointment. Praxis had tried to “buy Greenland” conscionable a twelvemonth oregon truthful anterior and was inactive readying to physique a techno-utopian, deregulated metropolis there.
According to plan. https://t.co/qB8fg5aMiG
— Praxis (@praxisnation) December 22, 2024
Yes, determination are captious minerals successful Greenland, and yes, it is strategically important successful a melting world, but arsenic arsenic important, it has been a touchstone for the “Network State” question for years. And nary 1 was mentioning it! Which is wherefore I was truthful relieved to travel crossed Gil Durán’s “The Nerd Reich” newsletter and corresponding bid successful The New Republic. Durán had been penning for a twelvemonth astir the Network State—the thought that ideology has tally its people and that we’d each beryllium amended disconnected surviving successful “special economical zones,” small fiefdoms ruled by tech CEOs. Disrupt ideology with feudalism! He had besides written astir the relation Silicon Valley had played successful warping the accusation ecosystem, a communicative cardinal to the publication I was moving on. So I reached retired to him to speech astir it and we’ve traded messages ever since. I was thrilled to spot the announcement of his publication by the aforesaid (great) name, The Nerd Reich, announced past twelvemonth and adjacent much thrilled to spot it go a bestseller this year. Suddenly, adjacent mainstream media seems to beryllium waking up to the information that the tech billionaires mightiness not beryllium the bully guys.
While Gil’s publication tells the communicative of the Nerd Reich’s ideology and attack to amassing governmental capital, my book, Brought to You By: How Corporations Warped the Truth, Conned the Public, and Broke Democracy, looks astatine however they’ve warped and weaponized the accusation ecosystem to execute their goals, utilizing galore of the aforesaid tactics different industries person utilized implicit the past century. It felt similar a bully clip to speech astir wherever the 2 intersect.
Here is simply a snapshot of our conversation, lightly edited for magnitude and clarity.
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Amy Westervelt: Let’s speech astir this weird small book, The Sovereign Individual, that shaped truthful overmuch of Peter Thiel’s thinking. I learned from your publication that The Sovereign Individual was truly a dumbed down sound disconnected of erstwhile writings, which is truthful funny. It reminded maine of different guy, Antony Fisher, who had started this planetary web of “free market” deliberation tanks called the Atlas Network and however helium had besides been inspired by a book—Friedrich Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom—but had ne'er work the existent book, conscionable the Reader’s Digest version.
There’s this idea, this apocalyptic thought that alternatively of digging their ain idiosyncratic bunkers, the billionaires person to make caller territories that volition beryllium designed to support them and empower them successful this unspeakable aboriginal they’re creating.
Gil Durán: That’s each it takes is simply a summary of the ideas sometimes, you know?
AW: Too true! Anyway, you and I absorption connected antithetic aspects of The Sovereign Individual and ideas Thiel took from it. What stands retired to you astir it?
GD: In researching the radicalization of Silicon Valley billionaires, it’s hard not to travel crossed The Sovereign Individual. It’s this 1997 concern doom book. I deliberation Quinn Slobodian called it an “apocalypse concern book” that counseled investors however to hole for the coming illness of ideology and the full satellite order. It specifically said that 2 technologies, “cyber currency,” oregon crypto, and “advanced automation,” what we would telephone AI, would pb to the illness of nations similar the United States, but that savvy investors could nett by making the close choices up of time. It truly became a guidepost, a prophetic substance for immoderate influential Silicon Valley billionaires, adjacent though it’s a beauteous schlocky, apocalyptic tome.
AW: The Sovereign Individual includes this “public prime theory” conception successful it arsenic well, the thought that, successful a nutshell, nary 1 really cares astir the communal bully oregon things similar the nationalist interest, and anybody who says different is really conscionable utilizing that thought to effort to merchantability you something. I’ve ever thought of it arsenic thing that helps these guys explicate their sociopathy to themselves.
GD: They hatred the nationalist and the communal good, and truthful they deliberation everyone other shares this idea. But I deliberation astir radical don’t. You tally crossed this a batch with this benignant of ideology, immoderate telephone it libertarian, oregon anarcho-capitalism—it has decidedly morphed into fascism—this thought that nary of this ideology worldly works and cipher wants it, truthful we’re conscionable gonna bash thing different. But it’s simply not true. The ideology we have, arsenic imperfect arsenic it is, comes retired of thousands of years of proceedings and error, each the mode backmost to the Greeks, who were categorizing what works and what doesn’t. And oligarchy and tyranny don’t work! You request a society, you need…You know, our full state and the wealthiness of each these billionaires was built disconnected of a robust backstage assemblage that invested successful technology, that invested successful defense. I mean, that’s wherever Silicon Valley comes from.
AW: Right! They’ve benefited immensely from ideology and subsidies. This reminds maine of Fisher again due to the fact that helium railed against authorities programs successful the agriculture assemblage and past his cattle got sick and helium got a large ol’ authorities cheque for it and that’s what funded his archetypal travel to the U.S. to conscionable with immoderate of the aboriginal deliberation vessel founders, and larn astir mill farming, which helium took backmost to England with him and made a luck disconnected of. He ne'er saw the disconnect.
GD: You don’t get to get affluent disconnected of ideology and nine and past determine you privation to opt out. Now you’re rich, and you don’t wanna wage taxes, and you deliberation you tin past connected your own? As a species, we can’t past connected our own! These guys person a mythology that someway they did it each themselves erstwhile astir of them are authorities payment kings.
AW: I similar to gag that I discovered the set of hating Elon Musk due to the fact that arsenic a cleantech newsman successful San Francisco backmost erstwhile Tesla archetypal got going, everything we’re seeing present was beauteous wide backmost past too. I wrote a communicative successful 2015 astir however Tesla was claiming it could bash “closed loop” artillery recycling and backmost past it was inactive beauteous uncommon to spot a communicative that was captious of Tesla oregon Musk, but I had a truly bully root astatine Panasonic who complained to maine that Musk was overselling what they could bash and it was unhelpful and unnecessary. They tried to get maine fired for that communicative but I had everything connected tape. Back past it was really hard to person anyone that Musk mightiness not beryllium operating successful bully religion and adjacent harder to accidental helium mightiness not beryllium a genius. Even with everything we’ve seen today, I inactive spot a batch of radical clinging connected to the thought that these guys are superb and truly refusing to judge that they’re anti-democracy, adjacent though they accidental it retired large each the time. Do you brushwood that absorption too? What bash you deliberation that’s about? Why is it truthful important to radical that these guys stay unsocial geniuses?
GD: On the past part, there’s an aged Yiddish saying that captures it well: If you’re rich, you’re besides smart, handsome, and tin sing.
AW: That’s a bully one!
GD: I deliberation that, radical deliberation that affluent radical are bully astatine everything and they’re not.
AW: Right, it’s conscionable the full meritocracy happening again. Okay what astir people’s absorption to believing these guys are stone-cold weirdos?
GD: Well, first, I deliberation astir of the wide nationalist really hasn’t heard this worldly due to the fact that the mainstream property refuses to speech astir it for the astir part. Maybe successful small dribs oregon drabs present and there, but arsenic immoderate oddity connected the margins of Silicon Valley society. What’s happened, however, is these ideas person moved into the halfway of our authorities done J.D. Vance. Crypto, which precise fewer Americans use, has go the biggest subordinate successful our governmental system, the biggest donor. Why is that? Why is this weird, scammy merchandise present the biggest monster successful the room? Well there’s this full ideology down it, and the thought of crypto is that it’s gonna destruct the authorities and regenerate the government. So I deliberation the media has tried to disregard that. I deliberation connected 1 level, editors think, “Well, we’re not gonna springiness those anserine ideas immoderate attention. We’re not gonna springiness them immoderate oxygen.” But that’s based connected the presumption that paper editors and TV editors determine reality. Billionaires person the powerfulness present to conscionable enforce these ideas done culture, done societal media, done politics, and truthful connected 1 level, it’s that. I besides deliberation there’s an allergy to analyzable narratives, and an allergy to ideology.
AW: Oof, yea that past part. My publication gets into this parallel media ecosystem that these guys person built that allows them to truly bash an end-run astir accepted media and journalists that mightiness beryllium skeptical of them, but it besides gives them a immense magnitude of power implicit accusation flow, which successful crook gives them tremendous powerfulness to signifier nationalist sentiment oregon similar you enactment it, enforce these ideas. I perceive a batch of radical speech astir however integer and societal media has eroded the concern exemplary for journalism arsenic though it was an accident, oregon an unintended consequence, but I don’t deliberation it was.
GD: It decidedly wasn’t. That’s what they telephone it, too, a parallel system, a parallel media. Parallel acquisition is different large constituent for them. They recognize however power and persuasion enactment successful society. They recognize however opinions and brains are shaped by information, by words, by stories, by narratives, and they privation to power that. They hatred that the media has truthful overmuch power, and they privation to destruct that powerfulness and regenerate the property with propaganda that serves their ain interests. They’re precise explicit astir that, and look, that’s wherefore they’re trying to bargain up each the channels, CBS, CNN, oregon creating their ain media channels.
AW: Okay, let’s speech astir the Network State, due to the fact that I had been pursuing this for a while, and I was successful San Francisco erstwhile each the tech bros were getting into “seasteading,” but I hadn’t connected the 2 until I work your book!
GD: Yeah, truthful the basal thought of seasteading is that you could flight from antiauthoritarian governments, laws, and regulations by establishing your ain territory retired successful the mediate of the ocean. It was an thought funded by Peter Thiel backmost successful the precocious 2000s, aboriginal 2010s, to found the Seasteading Institute, which would commencement creating these projects astir the world. However, the thought didn’t truly cookware retired due to the fact that cipher truly wants to unrecorded retired successful a rusted lipid barge successful the mediate of the ocean. It’s similar being connected the cruise from hell. You know, a batch of the clip these guys don’t truly recognize however radical successful nine work. There’s a crushed we’re successful cities! It’s funny, I was conscionable watching Going Clear, Alex Gibney’s documentary connected scientology, and L. Ron Hubbard’s full happening was to effort to bash worldly connected boats to debar rules and laws. So they didn’t adjacent invent thing caller with seasteading. But past seasteading becomes an thought to make these things connected onshore instead. So evolving from the water to the land, conscionable similar immoderate primordial carnal would.
AW: Let’s speech astir however Greenland features successful this idea. Peter Thiel had funded this institution Praxis that was trying to bargain Greenland a mates years back. What are your thoughts connected wherefore Greenland?
GD: At the bosom of the web authorities ideology, which fundamentally proposes that tech billionaires should prehend powerfulness successful the twenty-first period utilizing technology, is colonialism, the thought of claiming much land, of creating a caller frontier, and hoarding resources for yourself. Greenland has a batch of antithetic resources, uncommon earths, shipping lanes that mightiness melt with clime change…
AW: Right and past Dryden Brown, who runs Praxis, has talked astir “terraforming” it and utilizing it arsenic benignant of a investigating crushed for this full Mars expansion. And he’s besides truly into this full colonialism thing, and this imaginativeness of being “real men,” being pioneers and forging the frontier oregon whatever.
GD: You know, everyplace you look, you spot the aforesaid radical of people, kinda lining up to beryllium a portion of this, and you’re starting to ever spot arsenic good the thought for immoderate benignant of weird caller billionaire-funded city. And that is the web authorities idea. In fact, they’re proposing to physique 1 connected the ruins of Gaza. Jared Kushner, Trump’s ain son-in-law, is pushing that. So there’s this idea, this apocalyptic thought that alternatively of digging their ain idiosyncratic bunkers, the billionaires person to make caller territories that volition beryllium designed to support them and empower them successful this unspeakable aboriginal they’re creating with exertion wherever you won’t beryllium capable to unrecorded successful countries similar the United States oregon regular cities anymore.
AW: Okay, I privation to speech astir J.D. Vance due to the fact that you person rather a spot astir him successful the publication and I deliberation that there’s a batch of radical inactive who are really, truly convinced that if we conscionable get escaped of Trump, past that solves each of the problems, and everything volition spell backmost to “normal” right? They are not seeing this bigger picture, oregon that Vance is truthful overmuch scarier than Trump. And radical volition accidental things like, “Oh yeah, but helium can’t get elected ’cause he’s truthful weird and unlikable.” And I’m like…it’s cute that you deliberation electability is inactive a thing. This feline has the infinite wealth cheat down him and is precise dangerous.
Despite their insistence that they are “disrupting” aged institutions and paving a way to the future, they are conscionable different procreation of elites who hatred ideology due to the fact that it means they can’t beryllium 100 percent self-interested.
GD: We request to aftermath up to wherever we truly are, y’all. Like, we are not successful a spot wherever logic and crushed are the overriding concerns for a ample subset of voters. Vance is precise dangerous. The tech bros, these billionaires volition bash thing to get him elected due to the fact that he’ll bash immoderate they want. He’s a extremist extremist who has said that Donald Trump should purge the authorities and defy the courts if they effort to halt him. This is simply a feline who’s a Yale-trained lawyer saying that the President of the United States should defy the justices of the Supreme Court. If you get this feline successful there, he’ll spell each the way. He’ll spell afloat Nazi. He volition effort his champion to marque definite we person an exigency that means that helium present has afloat power. He’ll decorativeness the occupation wherever Trump didn’t. I don’t discount the harm that Trump has done, but Vance is simply a zealot, is an ideologue, and is not obsessed with money, he’s obsessed with power. And helium is astir wholly a instauration of Peter Thiel. At each measurement of his career, it’s been Peter Thiel. It was Thiel who made him a task capitalist alternatively of a lawyer, who funded his ain task superior firm, adjacent though Vance was not overmuch of a task capitalist. He made Vance a Catholic, adjacent though Peter Thiel is not a Catholic. He made him a legislator by getting Donald Trump to endorse him, and helium poured $15 cardinal into that race, which changed the full dynamic. Vance was losing that Senate contention until Thiel and Trump jumped in.
AW: Alright Gil I’m gonna fto you spell soon, but archetypal we have to speech astir Thiel’s obsession with the antichrist and besides wherefore helium hates the clime movement–or astatine slightest Greta Thunberg–so much.
GD: Peter Thiel’s been obsessed with the Antichrist for a while. It’s present travel to beryllium his defining obsession, I would say. He’s virtually traveling the world giving four-day lectures connected the Antichrist. He’s done this successful Austin, astatine Harvard, astatine Oxford, successful San Francisco, extracurricular the gates of the Vatican, and successful Austria. This is not theology. It’s immoderate benignant of do-it-yourself apocalypse rhapsody he’s saying. Basically, what Thiel’s doing successful his Antichrist speeches is portraying our existent predicament arsenic an existential conflict betwixt bully and evil. The tech bros are connected the broadside of God, and everyone other who’s against them is connected the broadside of the Antichrist. And anybody who tries to halt tech acceleration toward this maximal AI eat-the-world beingness is threatening the continuation of humanity. I deliberation connected the different hand, it’s an effort to marque the unusual ideas coming retired of Silicon Valley astir the instauration of an AI godlike unit that’s gonna springiness america eternal beingness and multi-planetary question and make this ace abundance…It’s trying to enactment a Christian disguise connected those ideas, right?
AW: Right. And the full calling Greta the antichrist thing…I mean that’s thing new. The Atlas Network folks tried each sorts of things to symptom environmentalists arsenic a immense threat. One of their spinoff groups created this full bid called the “Green Dragon” that was targeted to evangelicals and warned astir environmentalism and clime activism being a slippery slope to paganism. They reminded maine of aged anti-drug ads from the 1990s. Very weird!
GD: They hatred each governmental philosophies that telephone for enactment successful the work of the corporate good, right?
AW: Right, thing that’s not ace individualistic is simply a occupation for them.
GD: They should beryllium capable to maximize their self-interest adjacent if it comes the detriment of everyone else. Even if it destroys the Earth, thing should basal betwixt these capitalists and their profits and their ambitions for power. And immoderate of these radical believe, “Well, we gotta go multi-planetary anyway, truthful this is the happening that volition unit america to permission Earth successful bid to survive.” And the occupation with that is that determination are nary different planets wherever we tin live, arsenic acold arsenic we know. Again, this is an apocalyptic phantasy they’re surviving in, and they truly cannot spot past their ain greed and self-interest, and they hatred the thought that the continued endurance connected Earth volition necessitate america to enactment successful the champion interests of the bulk of radical here, to prevention the planet, to halt burning fossil fuels and pursuing destructive economical goals. And truthful they consciousness precise threatened by the clime movement. This is besides wherefore they hatred democracy, by the way, due to the fact that ideology gives everybody a vote, and they don’t privation that. They deliberation that they should beryllium capable to destruct the Earth successful bid to nett from it and execute this AI-fueled transcendence which, by the way, is thing but an apocalyptic spiritual delusion.
AW: Yes, contempt their insistence that they are “disrupting” aged institutions and paving a way to the future, they are conscionable different procreation of elites who hatred ideology due to the fact that it means they can’t beryllium 100 percent self-interested. They’re disrupting colonialism, I guess? Cue confetti!
GD: It’s true, the guys who assertion they’re gonna instrumentality america into the aboriginal look to wanna instrumentality america into the past much than thing else.
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Amy Westervelt is an award-winning investigative clime writer who has been connected the clime bushed for much than 20 years, reporting for a wide scope of outlets implicit the years, including Inside Climate News, The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Nation, The Intercept, NPR, and more. She is besides the laminitis and enforcement exertion of the Critical Frequency network, which includes the award-winning podcasts Unfinished: Short Creek, This Land, and Drilled. Drilled has expanded from a podcast into a climate-focused planetary newsroom, co-publishing with The Guardian, ProPublica, Rolling Stone, and more. In 2023 Amy was named a Covering Climate Now’s Journalist of the Year. She is based successful Spain.
Gil Durán was calved successful Tulare, California, successful 1976. The grandson of Mexican migrant farmworkers, helium got his archetypal sensation of enactment successful the fields, but took an involvement successful journalism aft winning the section newspaper’s “My Mom Is the Best” contention successful the 5th grade. In the tenth grade, his household moved from California to Kentucky, wherever helium dropped retired of precocious schoolhouse for a year, past returned and befriended an English teacher who encouraged him to use to college. He graduated DePauw University successful 1998 and started his journalism vocation astatine the San Jose Mercury News. As the paper manufacture deed turbulence, helium pivoted to authorities and spent 10 years arsenic an advisor to politicians including Jerry Brown, Dianne Feinstein, and Kamala Harris. In 2018, helium returned to journalism arsenic California sentiment exertion of The Sacramento Bee, and past became editorial leafage exertion of the San Francisco Examiner. Now an autarkic journalist, helium publishes 2 newsletters: The Nerd Reich, focused connected extremist tech politics, and FrameLab, focused connected governmental language.
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Brought to You By: How Corporations Warped the Truth, Conned the Public, and Broke Democracy by Amy Westervelt is disposable from Bloomsbury Publishing.
The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War connected Democracy by Gil Durán is disposable from Avid Reader Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.
English (US) ·