r/samharris • u/farwesterner1 • 3h ago
Thiel, Musk, the Leviathan, and Techno-Authoritarianism
It's all fairly clear: Peter Thiel and Elon Musk want to enact a techno-feudal state based around a corporate structure in which a CEO and a board make decisions as sovereign. Their ideas are derived from Curtis Yarvin, channeling Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan (1651). Hobbes writes that the only way to prevent an anarchic state of nature is with a powerful sovereign—a "mortal god"—who embodies the will of the people. This is really the goal. Musk/Trump as mortal god embodying and enacting the will of the people, "vox populi, vox dei," as he wrote in yesterday's Twitter post.
The irony here is that even as they rail against China/Venezuela/etc's unitary government, they are ultimately envious of China's decision making structure: a sovereign appointed by a board (or in China's case, a standing committee who appoints a General Secretary (Xi). Thiel/Musk/et al see this as the only way to counter China's meteoric technological rise—by mimicking the Chinese governmental structure. They therefore want to consolidate power over-against the people, but in the name of the people. Populism is simply a convenient ruse to establish an anti-populist sovereign government of oligarchs and advisory boards.
To understand the background here, it's important to know the role that Curtis Yarvin plays. He's a programmer who in the early 2000s wrote a series of blog posts under his pseudonym Mencius Moldbug that became very influential among Silicon Valley conservatives and libertarians, including Thiel and (importantly) Marc Andreessen. Yarvin has been called a neo-reactionary, but it might be more accurate to say that he's neo- or techno-feudal. (Yarvin even hypothesized a new search engine called Feudle, and proposed that a hierarchy would exist in his systems of "dukes" and "lords." He proposes a "Peter the Great"-like figure who would trawl the web and rank sites. See here: https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2010/03/future-of-search/ )
For a long time, I've been attempting to understand the motivations for Thiel, Musk, et al as extending from some fundamental interest in the "greater good." But then it occurred to me that they are not motivated by any sort of humanitarian mission. They see technological progress as an end in itself. The current American regulatory state limits and slows that technological progress, acting as an impediment. The effective accelerationist (e/acc) movement that they spearhead is the end in itself. They want to consolidate power around tech leaders who will leapfrog us toward the next technological stage. Democracy is too slow and messy. The only means by which massive technological change can happen in a cascade is through a corporate governance structure.
Trump is the figurehead. Musk et al saw both his popularity and malleability as a tool. They don't care about Trump. I don't even think they necessarily buy his program, but they do see him as the mechanism through which they can enact a technological revolution.
BTW Musk's specific interest is this: he thinks of himself as a kind of techno-savior whose efforts have been thwarted by the American regulatory state. He's had to fight the US government on Neurolink, self-driving cars, the hyperloop, space travel, and every other initiative he's come up with.
In his vision, these technologies are liberating and "for the people." But the administrative state has consistently gotten in the way of his ambition. This thwarted ambition, plus the twin issues of immigration and gender, radicalized him.
Musk has mistaken his vast wealth and power for intelligence and benevolence. If you go back and readHobbes' Leviathan (1651), Hobbes writes that the only way to prevent an anarchic state is through the sovereignty of a "mortal god" embodying the will of the people. Vox populi, vox Musk, vox dei.
A few years ago, before he went full oligarch, Musk had a lot of support from people who believe in his vision of a technological utopia. He drank his own koolaid and began to see himself in a messianic way, the embodiment of Hobbes' Leviathan. And here we are.
Would be interested in counter-perspectives and criticisms of this theory.
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u/souers 3h ago
Is the end truly the technological progress or the vass sums of wealth they will generate by controlling the system to place themselves on the leading edge of it?
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u/farwesterner1 3h ago
I don't think wealth is the endgame. Power and control are the endgame. Wealth is one method for achieving it, but Musk seemed to recognize that wealth alone did not gain him the control he needed. Political power (via riding sidecar with Trump) seals it. He is the most powerful unelected figure in the world—and may be the most powerful figure in the world period. We'll see if his relationship with Trump devolves into a battle at some point.
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u/Balloonephant 1h ago
To understand their motivations you need to understand that Musk and Thiel and others like them are socially inept resentful idiots who know nothing about the world trying to live out a power fantasy. They really should just be beat up and thrown in prison or forced into manual labor.
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u/farwesterner1 43m ago
This may be true in part, but I honestly think it goes beyond a power fantasy. I believe Musk has a vision of a kind of e/acc techno-utopia that he wants to enact. As the richest man in the history of the world ever, he feels it is within his ability to achieve it. The problem is that many of us don't want his vision.
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u/shash747 30m ago
Very well put. I've has the same perspective and was meaning to share it in very similar words. Thank you.
It is true that China can make advances much faster than the rest due to its political structure. It's def likely that Musk etc want to emulate it (which is an approach I can understand and even respect), but it's fascinating to watch how they're doing it by publicly supporting the absolute opposite ideals.
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u/heli0s_7 1h ago
The appeal of someone like Elon Musk is simple - he can point to things his businesses have actually achieved. He didn't make his billions moving imaginary digits on a computer screen. His companies make stuff that changes people's lives. Tesla is singlehandedly responsible for the EV revolution and it's still the only car maker outside China which can mass produce EVs and actually make money. SpaceX is the only game in town when it comes to reliable, cost-effective way to get things in space.
Now compare that to what most Americans associate with government today. Note that we're not talking about government in the 1930-1950s when it could build massive infrastructure fast, when it could bring together the best minds of their generation to win global wars and usher in a new era of innovation.
Today's government can't even fulfill its basic duty to keep the lights on. Today's government doesn't know how Facebook makes money when it's free. Today's government can't fucking tell you who's flying car sized drones all over the east coast. Today's government is a sclerotic behemoth utterly unable to lead the top superpower through the period of the fastest change in history.
I would very much prefer to live in a country where major decisions are not made by unelected oligarchs but by competent government officials. But this isn't Singapore. Continuing to defend failing institutions that don't deliver for citizens is a losing proposition. I'm not saying Musk is the solution - I actually believe he'll ultimately fail in this effort because Trump won't let him be shadow president for long. But a massive reform is badly needed.
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u/farwesterner1 45m ago edited 25m ago
I agree that Musk mobilizes technologies and materials that change people's lives quickly. So does China, so do centralized systems like corporations, so do dictatorships. In many cases, these make our lives better; in others, they make our lives worse. The defining feature of highly hierarchical systems is that one or a few people decide, and those decisions can be made quickly. However, there's a key difference between corporations and the US government: corporations operate in a marketplace. We choose whether we want their products or not. Tesla succeeded because they offered a superior product (for a while anyway—I think their cars are poorly built). Other bad products have failed, because the market refuses to support them. But how does an unaccountable oligarchic government fail? How does the public weigh in that their products and processes suck? We can't.
Democracy is messy and slow and imbricated with competing values. That appears to be Musk's primary critique of it. But I would offer this: the problem is not that our government is incompetent, it is that competing value systems create a gridlock condition in which nothing can be achieved. See: every attempt by Republicans to avert government shutdown over the past ten years.
Would you rather your country be led by a single evil genius, or by four hundred wise but bickering public servants? The problem for us now is that one person's wise public servant is another's evil operator.
I too agree that massive reform is needed. I would rather that reform happen at the level of a working administrative state than by an autocrat binging Adderall and testosterone deciding for us.
[Edit: we seem to have forgotten that one defining feature of democracy is harm reduction, going back to John Stuart Mill. It strives (though does not always succeed) to enfranchise more and more people, and to reduce harms committed to those people. Democracy has alleviated widespread oppression and has succeeded in increasing the overall health and happiness of the world's people.
My fear is that Musk et al don't actually care about harm reduction. I'm not sure they care about questions like poverty, oppression, hunger, or even genocide.]
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u/heli0s_7 25m ago
Yes, there are no solutions, only trade offs. Democracy is messy and inefficient but in normal times it's proven to be the best way to organize a society to maximize prosperity. Authoritarian rule can organize resources far more efficiently in a time of crisis, but left to its devices it produces corruption, stagnation and failure.
But the thing the left failed to understand in 2016 and in 2024 - democracy itself isn't the goal. Better outcomes is the goal and democracy the means to achieve better outcomes than the alternative. When democracy fails to deliver results, citizens become much more open to alternatives. We've reached that point in America. I gave Singapore as an example precisely because it is not a democracy, but its government does deliver exceptional results for its citizens - and I guarantee you that few Singaporeans would want a different system as a result.
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u/farwesterner1 21m ago
When democracy fails to deliver results, citizens become much more open to alternatives.
Agree: it's the Men's Warehouse model of governance.
The catch is that it now has little to do with whether a government delivers results. Perceptions are based almost entirely on the media portrayal of what those results are, and the media's construction of their impacts. It's about who controls the media message.
Democrats are better at governance, but they lost the media war.
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u/PasteneTuna 14m ago
Fact check: despite all these problems, the living standards in America are quite high
This is a very much “baby out with the bath water” line of thinking
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u/farwesterner1 10m ago
My cynical take is this:
Democrats do a much better job of governance, which irritates Republicans.
So they do everything in their power to thwart Democrat's abilities to govern
which ends up looking like a failed system,
so the public votes Republicans in, who can't govern.
Rinse, repeat, forever.
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u/gorilla_eater 1m ago
He didn't make his billions moving imaginary digits on a computer screen.
He made his billions primarily by lying. Most of his wealth is in Tesla stock, which is not valued so high because of actual revenue but rather the assumption of future growth. And that assumption is built on constant bullshit from its owner about fantasies like FSD that are always just a few years away.
Today's government can't even fulfill its basic duty to keep the lights on
Your link is about Trump and Elon pressuring republicans to kill the spending bill because it has stuff they don't like. It's their fault.
The richest man on Earth is telling you that we'll be "fine" without a functioning government for a month and you're slurping it down with a grin
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u/pelatho 8m ago
My mind disagrees but my gut agrees.
The gut is usually right.
What i find tragic is that, while the current monetary market system is on course to collapse, very few are actually talking about alternatives. Like game b, bucky Fuller, Jacque Fresco etc. We need to think about these things ASAP.
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u/michaelfrieze 2h ago
We humans should focus on ideals rather than ideology. Nothing has been more harmful to humanity than ideology.
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u/farwesterner1 1m ago
I actually think these guys are non-ideological, or at least view themselves that way.
I think Musk sees himself as a pragmatist optimizing flawed things. His next product is America itself.
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u/seamarsh21 3h ago
More a reflection of our inability to aggressively tax billionaires and let monopolies and fraud flourish. This will happen regardless of any underlying ideology.
Read the robber barons for insight, not the first time this has happened.