Manifestos are the best kind of Festos, just as Tabernacles are the best kind of Nacles.
Everyone has a manifesto these days - so that when they die in a hail of gunfire, we can all read them on Twitter and shake our heads at the craziness. Peter Thiel is a formerly closeted homosexual and German-American. I've always said that Gay men make the best Nazis - what with the snappy uniforms and leather and whatnot, and closeted Gay men are as dangerous as cornered animals. Throw in German heritage and what's not to like?
Thiel, or more precisely, his co-founder Alex Karp, recently published on Twitter a 22-point Manifesto which appears to argue that the United States should be turned into a Technocratic Fascist State, with Silicon Valley Tech Bros put in charge. Many are finding this ironic, as the whole Personal Computer revolution was thought, at first, to liberate us plebes from the tyranny of "Big Blue" IBM and mainframe computers (yes, I go that far back).
Once the PC took off, Google was going to save us from big, bad old Microsoft, by pledging "Don't Be Evil!" and allowing us to search the Internet as a database of facts. In this brave new world of free data flow, it was thought that truth would reign supreme and that conspiracy theories and urban legends would slowly fade away - washed away by a fire hose of facts and truths.
But as we saw, the opposite was the case. More people believe in "flat earth" theories and other conspiracies than any time in the past. Superstition is more popular than ever and even a brief search online shows this to be true. Did you know you can get rich gambling online? Everyone else is doing it - why not you?
Some people see this trend as a betrayal of the founding principles of Silicon Valley. Instead of making us free, technology has enslaved us, at first to the PC, then the smart phone, the latter of which we all stare at for hours every day, hoping to find something of interest. Meanwhile, books sit dusty on the shelves and no one can sit through an entire movie any longer, even as they routinely go over two hours in length. But I digress.
I see a pattern, though, not a betrayal. Every entrepreneur and inventor espouses noble ideas when they pitch their new device, program, app, or business model. Advertisements on your gas pump display will help consumers make better purchasing choices! Yea, right. What I think happens is that people make obscene amounts of money when they get lucky in tech, and once they have a big enough pile, they can't fail, even if they throw half of it at money-losing propositions.
And once you have that kind of money, well, you get tired of paying taxes. You also realize you don't have to, as it is cheaper to buy off politicians than to pay taxes. So the rich man thinks he "earned" his wealth - I have even heard heirs claim this! - and scolds the poor for being parasites of society, even as the tech bros lobby for yet another tax break, subsidy, or even government bailout.
It is a predictable as Hurricanes in Florida.
But another aspect is at work here. I noted before that migration is not merely an issue in the US, but worldwide. Migrants are fleeing war-torn countries and ravaged economies for a better life elsewhere. It is how my ancestors migrated here from Ireland, Scotland, England, France, and Switzerland. But that's different because, reasons. Well, actually not. The anti-Irish sentiment in the 1800s was as strong in America as the anti-Somalian sentiment espoused by the GOP today. Every minority gets their turn in the hot seat, it seems - the Jews, Italians, Chinese, and yes, even Germans, particularly during World War I, when Pennsylvanian Germans re-imagined themselves as "Pennsylvania Dutch."
The corollary to this situation is the perception that Democratic institutions are weak or vacillating and can't accomplish anything. We need a strong man to "get things done!" and make the trains run on time. And that is the problem with Democracy - when you give everyone a say in how things are done, nothing gets done.
Mark has been working like a dog for a few years now, as part of a committee to relocate our pottery guild (and classroom space for the Arts Association) to part of the old firehouse here on the island. The guild was in the basement of historic Goodyear Cottage. Only Yankees are dumb enough to dig eight-foot deep basements on a property barely 10 feet above the high tide mark. Whenever it rains, it floods, and when it storms, well, thousands of dollars of expensive kilns and pottery wheels are ruined. Water + Electricity = Bad.
So after years of debate, searching, finding, and negotiating, the transition is finally happening. A quarter-million dollars has been raised, and the build-out of the space has begun. Despite years of committee meetings, as well as general meetings and publication of plans and requests for feedback, it seems that only now, once construction has begun, that some folks (who were against the whole project from the get-go) voice their opinions on trivial matters.
Can't we move that window over six inches? Why not move that load-bearing wall? No one ever asked for my input! (they did, again and again) so I will throw a wrench in the works at the very last minute!
Democracy sucks, it seems.
Of course, sometimes this is by design. During the Wiemar Republic, the Democratic government was seen as weak and vacillating. The economy was in the toilet and Communists and Fascists were rioting in the street. Yet the government seemed incapable of maintaining control. Since there was no clear majority in the government, any solutions could be readily derailed, often by the very same people causing the problems. The Communists and Nazis didn't want street-brawling stopped - they saw a value in it, as each hoped that disorder would bring down the government and usher their side into power.
And we know how that worked out.
I noted before how some radicals want to see society destroyed, on the premise that when everything goes to hell, people will demand a fascist dictator or a Communist revolution to fix things. Sadly, this sort of thinking is flawed, in that, when things do go to hell, there is no guarantee that "your side" will be the new power. Granted, in the USA, when conditions become dire, people vote to change parties. But such is not always the case, worldwide, and often people vote for yet more misery, convinced that the party in power hasn't gone far enough or hasn't been given enough time to make its wacky theories work.
It is not that Democracy doesn't work, only that bad faith actors intentionally stymie it. Recall that George Bush tried to push through Immigration Reform legislation, only to have it nixed by his own party. They don't want to solve festering issues, they want to keep them simmering on the back burner so they can run, again and again, on those issues. When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Republicans were stuck, like the dog who actually catches the car they were chasing. Now what? Can't run on outlawing Abortion when you've already won on that issue.
The problem doesn't lie with governments, but with the people. People who keep voting for easy answers to complex problems - which are always the wrong answers. Sometimes, people eventually wise up - often after decades of abuse - and overthrow fascists. We saw this in Hungary recently, where state-run propaganda kept Viktor Orban in power far longer than one would have thought, given how he ruined that nation's economy.
Today, we see the same thing happening in the US. Major news organizations are being bought up by right-wing Oligarchs. The Washington, Post, CNN, even the New York Times, have all moved or lurched to the far-right. One can no longer trust the media to be impartial, and the cry of the "liberal media" by the far-right seems almost farcical these days.
Maybe people will figure this out in time, or perhaps it will all fall apart as some extremists hope. Sadly, if the latter occurs, I don't think it will user in an paradise era of Democratic Socialism, but instead, something far worse.
The 22-Point Palintir Manifesto. It reads more like a personal grievance list, particularly item #18.
1. Silicon Valley owes a moral debt to the country that made its rise possible. The engineering elite of Silicon Valley has an affirmative obligation to participate in the defense of the nation.2. We must rebel against the tyranny of the apps. Is the iPhone our greatest creative if not crowning achievement as a civilization? The object has changed our lives, but it may also now be limiting and constraining our sense of the possible.3. Free email is not enough. The decadence of a culture or civilization, and indeed its ruling class, will be forgiven only if that culture is capable of delivering economic growth and security for the public.4. The limits of soft power, of soaring rhetoric alone, have been exposed. The ability of free and democratic societies to prevail requires something more than moral appeal. It requires hard power, and hard power in this century will be built on software.5. The question is not whether A.I. weapons will be built; it is who will build them and for what purpose. Our adversaries will not pause to indulge in theatrical debates about the merits of developing technologies with critical military and national security applications. They will proceed.6. National service should be a universal duty. We should, as a society, seriously consider moving away from an all-volunteer force and only fight the next war if everyone shares in the risk and the cost.7. If a U.S. Marine asks for a better rifle, we should build it; and the same goes for software. We should as a country be capable of continuing a debate about the appropriateness of military action abroad while remaining unflinching in our commitment to those we have asked to step into harm’s way.8. Public servants need not be our priests. Any business that compensated its employees in the way that the federal government compensates public servants would struggle to survive.9. We should show far more grace towards those who have subjected themselves to public life. The eradication of any space for forgiveness—a jettisoning of any tolerance for the complexities and contradictions of the human psyche—may leave us with a cast of characters at the helm we will grow to regret.10. The psychologization of modern politics is leading us astray. Those who look to the political arena to nourish their soul and sense of self, who rely too heavily on their internal life finding expression in people they may never meet, will be left disappointed.11. Our society has grown too eager to hasten, and is often gleeful at, the demise of its enemies. The vanquishing of an opponent is a moment to pause, not rejoice.12. The atomic age is ending. One age of deterrence, the atomic age, is ending, and a new era of deterrence built on A.I. is set to begin.13. No other country in the history of the world has advanced progressive values more than this one. The United States is far from perfect. But it is easy to forget how much more opportunity exists in this country for those who are not hereditary elites than in any other nation on the planet.14. American power has made possible an extraordinarily long peace. Too many have forgotten or perhaps take for granted that nearly a century of some version of peace has prevailed in the world without a great power military conflict. At least three generations — billions of people and their children and now grandchildren — have never known a world war.15. The postwar neutering of Germany and Japan must be undone. The defanging of Germany was an overcorrection for which Europe is now paying a heavy price. A similar and highly theatrical commitment to Japanese pacifism will, if maintained, also threaten to shift the balance of power in Asia.16. We should applaud those who attempt to build where the market has failed to act. The culture almost snickers at Musk’s interest in grand narrative, as if billionaires ought to simply stay in their lane of enriching themselves . . . . Any curiosity or genuine interest in the value of what he has created is essentially dismissed, or perhaps lurks from beneath a thinly veiled scorn.17. Silicon Valley must play a role in addressing violent crime. Many politicians across the United States have essentially shrugged when it comes to violent crime, abandoning any serious efforts to address the problem or take on any risk with their constituencies or donors in coming up with solutions and experiments in what should be a desperate bid to save lives.18. The ruthless exposure of the private lives of public figures drives far too much talent away from government service. The public arena—and the shallow and petty assaults against those who dare to do something other than enrich themselves—has become so unforgiving that the republic is left with a significant roster of ineffectual, empty vessels whose ambition one would forgive if there were any genuine belief structure lurking within.19. The caution in public life that we unwittingly encourage is corrosive. Those who say nothing wrong often say nothing much at all.20. The pervasive intolerance of religious belief in certain circles must be resisted. The elite’s intolerance of religious belief is perhaps one of the most telling signs that its political project constitutes a less open intellectual movement than many within it would claim.21. Some cultures have produced vital advances; others remain dysfunctional and regressive. All cultures are now equal. Criticism and value judgments are forbidden. Yet this new dogma glosses over the fact that certain cultures and indeed subcultures . . . have produced wonders. Others have proven middling, and worse, regressive and harmful.22. We must resist the shallow temptation of a vacant and hollow pluralism. We, in America and more broadly the West, have for the past half century resisted defining national cultures in the name of inclusivity. But inclusion into what?
