#californianideology — Public Fediverse posts

"Nitish Pahwa: What do you think is driving the surge of new interest in Cyberselfish?

Paulina Borsook: I always say, “I don’t know.” These kinds of reputational revivals, you hear them happening with novels or movies, but you don’t often hear it with nonfiction. I wondered if that’s because my book is not written journalistically. The facts are correct, but it was written in a literary and polemical way.

There was this guy, David Golumbia, who’s dead now, but he wrote Cyberlibertarianism a couple years ago. People told me he mentioned That Damned Book [Borsook’s nickname for Cyberselfish] in it, and that sparked some interest in academic circles. Then I found out that TDB was an underground thing people were talking about for years, and prices on used book platforms went way up from what they used to be. And I’d run into people who would tell me, “I read that in 2009.” How do I square that with how little attention was paid the first time?

TDB was well and widely reviewed at the time, but I think it didn’t register because the culture hadn’t caught up to it. It was this goofy, oddball thing. There really wasn’t a technology culture section in the bookstore. I was always going to bookstores and finding the book placed in the business section, next to some sort of Programming for Dummies volume."

https://slate.com/technology/2026/09/cyberselfish-come-back-paulina-borsook-silicon-valley.html

#TechnoLibertarianism #Neoluddites #Neoluddism #SiliconValley #CalifornianIdeology #BigTech

"Muskism can be defined as an orientation promising “sovereignty through technology” in an unstable world. The authors synthesize three currents of thinking that inform his worldview: fortress futurism, cybernetic collectives, and state symbiosis. Fortress futurism is the deployment of technology through entrenchment of societal hierarchy; state symbiosis is the fusion of Musk’s holdings with the state; and cybernetics is the fusion of the human with the digital.

Muskism is not an optimistic ideology, its fruits bestowed exclusively on a chosen few. Musk is aware that his right-wing, white-nationalist politics bring forth only chaos and immiseration for vast swaths of the public. His answer to this is to close ranks. To those he sees as worthy of life, he offers what the authors call “sovereignty as a service”: providing self-sovereignty on the individual level with electric vehicles built to insulate the consumer from geopolitical oil shocks, and on the national level with Starlink’s satellites and SpaceX’s rockets. At his core, Musk is a survivalist. The hierarchies on which our world is built are fixed, and the externalities of such a system are inevitable. The only thing left to do is to protect yourself by entering his walled garden, a paradise insulated from the racialized masses, which, according to Musk’s far-right radicalization, are an existential threat to the West.

Inside this fortress, there is a dialectic at play. Musk’s factories and companies are vertically integrated to create a seemingly flat structure, but the lack of hierarchy on the factory floor is used to entrench power structures outside of it."

https://jacobin.com/2026/04/review-musk-tech-oligarchy-ideology

#BigTech #SiliconValley #CalifornianIdeology #Musk #Muskism

The #CalifornianIdeology:
"This new faith has emerged from a bizarre fusion of the cultural bohemianism of San Francisco with the hi-tech industries of #SiliconValley. Promoted in magazines, books, TV programmes, websites, newsgroups and Net conferences, the Californian Ideology promiscuously combines the free-wheeling spirit of the #hippies and the entrepreneurial zeal of the #yuppies. This amalgamation of opposites has been achieved through a profound faith in the emancipatory potential of the new information technologies. In the #digitalutopia, everybody will be both hip and rich. Not surprisingly, this optimistic vision of the future has been enthusiastically embraced by computer nerds, slacker students, innovative capitalists, social activists, trendy academics, futurist bureaucrats and opportunistic politicians across the USA."

http://www.imaginaryfutures.net/2007/04/17/the-californian-ideology-2/

"More than two-thirds of residents agreed in a 2024 poll that the tech companies have partially or completely misplaced their moral compass. And that was before so many in tech embraced the Trump administration.

Some of those who believe tech lost its way are finding explanations in a book published a quarter century ago.

Paulina Borsook’s “Cyberselfish” saw the seeds of disaster in the late-1990s dot-com boom, which, she argued, transformed a community that was previously sober, civic-minded and egalitarian into something toxic.

Silicon Valley, Ms. Borsook wrote, hated governments, rules and regulations. It believed if you were rich, you were smart. It thought people could be, and indeed should be, programmed just like a computer. “Techno-libertarianism,” as she labeled it, had no time for the messy realities of being human.

At the time, Silicon Valley was just a bunch of young people boasting and hyping. But Ms. Borsook predicted that when the tech world had amassed sufficient money and power, it would start imposing its beliefs on everyone outside the valley.

“If empathy has now become a distasteful personal failing; if surveillance capitalism has become the default shrugged-off business practice; if the environmental impacts of A.I. are waved away: then we are alas living in the tech-driven culture I saw headed our way 30 years ago,” Ms. Borsook said in an interview. “It’s terrible that I was right.”"

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/27/technology/writer-silicon-valley-criticism.html?unlocked_article_code=1.4U8.p4zW.b00QjyhwiQSl&smid=url-share

#SiliconValley #TechnoLibertarianism #CalifornianIdeology #Neoluddism

"This article introduces the concept of sovereignty-as-a-service to describe how Big Tech companies, specifically Microsoft, Amazon, and Google/Alphabet, are strategically redefining digital sovereignty through their programs of cloud infrastructure. Drawing on critical discourse analysis of official materials released between 2022 and 2023, we show how these companies respond to regulatory pressures, particularly in Europe, by offering modular and branded solutions that frame sovereignty as a technical, legal, and infrastructural matter. Rather than sovereignty being exercised over platforms, it is now provisioned by them, on their terms. We argue that sovereignty-as-a-service constitutes a form of discursive capture that empties the concept, aligning it with the ideological legacy of the Californian Ideology. In this reframing, digital sovereignty becomes a service to be purchased, configured, and optimized through proprietary platforms. By conceptualizing sovereignty as a site of contested meanings open to appropriation, this article contributes to critical debates on digital sovereignty and technology governance."

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/01634437251395003

#DigitalSovereignty #BigTech #CalifornianIdeology #Sovereignty #EU

Stepping down as Framework Linux Community Ambassadors

We are Tommi and Fraxinas, Framework Linux Community Ambassadors since September 2024.

We apprehensively followed the developments and the debate concerning Framework’s endorsement and support of Omarchy. We have no direct experience with this Linux distribution, its community, nor with the political environment around it. We did not speak up before now because learning about all of it and keeping up with all the commentary would have been a full-time job. Unfortunately we do not have the time to read every single comment on the dedicated forum thread.

Despite our admittedly limited and superficial understanding of this matter, we believe we have witnessed and read enough to make an informed decision and take a clear position.

The statements from Framework and from Nirav Patel (its CEO) made it very clear for us that Framework is not a company we feel represented by any more, and surely not a company that we want to represent as Ambassadors.

To be frank, it is not even necessary to dive into the petty drama about the recent events in order to provide an explanation of our decision. We are deeply disappointed by a company that is self-proclaimed as the resistance of the tech industry, the good David that intends to stand against the big tech Goliaths that are devouring it. Framework’s behaviour brought to surface an embarrassing and absurd inability to take an explicitly political position, blinded by the Western patriarchal narrative that technology in itself is not political. By trying to keep everyone happy (or at least not to make anyone mad) inside a fictitious “big tent”, the company proved to be no better than any of its Silicon Valley peers, dismissing comments about DHH, and comments about fascism and racism as not strictly related to the main mission.

We were proud to be ambassadors because we believed that Framework not only made products that empowered those who purchase them to fully own and repair their devices, but most importantly because we wrongly expected that this would imply changing the paradigm and the narrative about tech companies altogether.

We were offered the possibility of having a 1:1 conversation with Nirav Patel. We did not take it, because it is self-evident that our opinions are in contrast with the statements that he already made. Too bad, Framework is going to lose much more business than it would have if it simply acknowledged a mistake, took a deep inward look, and questioned its own values and stance.

In a world that is burning, thorn by conflict and greed, it is not enough to be “less evil”, to be radical only in some cases, and be moderate in others. We wanted to be ambassadors of a company that does not see fascism and proprietary software as two distant topics, but that recognised the entanglement of politics and technology, of capitalism and authoritarianism. It seems that this is not the case.

Farewell, Framework. We will miss the shining brave idea we had of you.

— @tommi and @fraxinas

The following statement was cross-posted on Framework’s Community Forum.

#Framework #politicalTechnology #SiliconValley #CalifornianIdeology

"In Tech: When Silicon Valley Remakes the World, sociologist Olivier Alexandre takes us on a revealing tour of Silicon Valley's prominent personalities and vibrant networks to capture the way its denizens live, think, relate, and innovate.

Embedded deep within the community, Alexandre reports back on the motivations, ambitions, and radical vision guiding tech companies. From the conquest of space to quantum computing, engineers have recast the infinitely large and small. Scientists project the end of death and work to surpass human beings with machines. But at what cost? Alexandre sees a shadow hanging over the Valley, jeopardizing its future and the economy made in its image. Critical yet fair, Tech illuminates anew a world of perpetual revolution.

Olivier Alexandre is Research Fellow at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), as well as Deputy Director and founding member of its Center for Internet and Society."

https://www.ucpress.edu/blog-posts/q-a-with-olivier-alexandre-author-of-tech

#SiliconValley #Sociology #CalifornianIdeology #USA #California #BigTech

Elon Musk - ein Autist? Das ich nicht lache!

Er folgt einfach dem Plan seines Vorbilds, der politischen Bestsellerautorin und einflussreichen Psychopathin Ayn Rand, die Gefühlskälte zur Grundlage einer erfolgreichen Gesellschaft erklärte. Und deren Namen ich in den Analysen dessen, was in den USA momentan geschieht, noch viel zu selten lese.

Es gibt aber einen spannenden Dokumentarfilm von Adam Curtis, der die Connection zwischen Ayn Rand, den Techbros und der aktuellen Stärke der Kalifornischen Ideologie auf höchst unterhaltsame Art beleuchtet. Und der heute aktueller ist, denn je.

Auf Youtube ist die Doku selbstverständlich nur noch stückchenweise zu finden, aber archive.org bietet die Möglichkeit, dieses Meisterwerk aus Kunst, Aufklärung und Unterhaltung zu sehen.

archive.org/details/BBC.All.Wa…

#Autismus #AynRand #ElonMusk #USA #californianideology #AdamCurtis

Just published: our article on "Solving the #crisis with ‘do-it-yourself heroes‘?". It's about the #media coverage on the #Maker and #QuantifiedSelf movements, #Covid19, and technological #solutionism. With Jeanette Asmuss, @JulieLuepkes and Anne Schmitz. #pioneercommunities
#californianideology

👇👇👇

https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/commun-2023-0077/html

Just published: My article on the life cycle of #pioneercommunities and the influence they have on our imaginaries of #digital #futures. It's about the #Makers, #QuantifiedSelf, #HacksHackers and more.

#pioneers #startup #innovation #digitalfutures #mediatization #hype #hypecycle #sociotechnicalimaginaries #CalifornianIdeology #openaccess

👇 👇 👇

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/14614448241253766

Worth reading article on #longtermism, #SiliconValley and what it has to do with #urban #planning. For me, it is also another indication that one has to be sceptical about the current hype of a new (?) interest in #future. Perhaps we need less imaginaries of the future and more analysis of problems of the present. #pioneercommunities #CalifornianIdeology #capitalism Via @tazgetroete, in German. https://taz.de/Elon-Musk-und-das-X/!5955322/

#AI #GenerativeAI #SiliconValley #CalifornianIdeology: "Artificial Intelligence is not just chat bots, but a broad field of study. One implementation capturing today’s attention, machine learning, has expanded beyond predicting our behavior to generating content—called Generative AI. The awe of machines wielding the power of language is seductive, but Performative AI might be a more appropriate name, as it leans toward production and mimicry—and sometimes fakery—over deep creativity, accuracy, or empathy.

The very fact that the evolution of technology feels so inevitable is evidence of an act of manipulation, an authoritarian use of narrative brilliantly described by historian Timothy Snyder. He calls out the politics of inevitability “...a sense that the future is just more of the present, ... that there are no alternatives, and therefore nothing really to be done.” There is no discussion of underlying values. Facts that don’t fit the narrative are disregarded.

Here in Silicon Valley, this top-down authoritarian technique is amplified by a bottom-up culture of inevitability. An orchestrated frenzy begins when the next big thing to fuel the Valley’s economic and innovation ecosystem is heralded by companies, investors, media, and influencers.

They surround us with language coopted from common values—democratization, creativity, open, safe. In behavioral psych classes, product designers are taught to eliminate friction—removing any resistance to us to acting on impulse."

https://time.com/6302761/ai-risks-autonomy/

@dausacker Recentemente, na discussão que referenciei agora, uma pessoa compartilhou uma outra publicação que pode servir de contexto histórico: https://indieweb.social/@jdp23/110629552225370551

#Padrões #Padrão #PadrãoDeMercado #Standard #Standards #OpenStandard #OpenStandards #CalifornianIdeology #Meta #Threads #Facebook #Twitter #Instagram #WhatsApp #Google #Alphabet #Project92 #P92 #XMPP #ActivityPub #Mastodon #Federação #Federation #Fediverse #Fediverso

@dausacker Exemplo da estratégia de abraçar, estender e extinguir foi o que #Google / #Alphabet e #Facebook / #Meta / #WhatsApp fizeram contra o #XMPP: https://libreplanet.org/wiki/XMPP.pt

#Padrões #Padrão #PadrãoDeMercado #Standard #Standards #OpenStandard #OpenStandards #CalifornianIdeology #Threads #Twitter #Instagram #Project92 #P92 #ActivityPub #Mastodon #Federação #Federation #Fediverse #Fediverso

@dausacker Há algumas discussões que eu mesmo tenho participado brevemente sobre isso no #ActivityPub, uma delas está em https://atomicpoet.org/objects/ed0a6a5d-f860-4c22-9eda-5f3ed8dfbdf7

#Padrões #Padrão #PadrãoDeMercado #Standard #Standards #OpenStandard #OpenStandards #CalifornianIdeology #Meta #Threads #Facebook #Twitter #Instagram #WhatsApp #Google #Alphabet #Project92 #P92 #XMPP #Mastodon #Federação #Federation #Fediverse #Fediverso

@dausacker O autor da publicação, Rodrigo Ghedin, parece esquecer da estratégia adotada pelos proponentes da #IdeologiaCaliforniana para degradar padrões internacionais que envolve o ato de abraçar, estender e extinguir.

#Padrões #Padrão #PadrãoDeMercado #Standard #Standards #OpenStandard #OpenStandards #CalifornianIdeology #Meta #Threads #Facebook #Twitter #Instagram #WhatsApp #Google #Alphabet #Project92 #P92 #XMPP #ActivityPub #Mastodon #Federação #Federation #Fediverse #Fediverso

Out now at @[email protected]: Our Special Section on „Afterlives of the #CalifornianIdeology: Tech Movements, Pioneer Communities, and Imaginaries of Digital Futures“, with @[email protected] and @ntnsndr: #SiliconValley #pioneercommunities #BigTech #movement #future #maker https://t.co/bSX52WprwO

To which extent this is true? I'd say it is at comes at least second after the illusion that there are no limits

"McKinsey (meaning: technocratic management) Destroyed the Middle Class" https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/02/how-mckinsey-destroyed-middle-class/605878/ #inequality #solutionism #californianIdeology #capitalism #senseMaking #commonGood

Lest you forget how IDIOTIC it is, at certain levels, to trust ANY incomplete #education

Crypto nerd Sam Bankman-Fried, yes, that guy who lost $16 billion, would never read a book https://lithub.com/crypto-nerd-sam-bankman-fried-who-just-lost-16-billion-would-never-read-a-book/ #culture #siliconValley #californianIdeology #solutionism #technocracy #cryptocurrencies

It turns out that conducting erratic mass firings, calling people pedophiles in public, posting QAnon-adjacent conspiracy crap, greenlighting hate speech, and banning people who disagree with you is OK, but banning links to your "competitors" is not. That's the rubicon that Silly Valley lib-cap-erati won't let you cross.

Feels like about the right time to repost this classic https://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/californian-ideology

#spacekaren #muskoff #californianideology

Crypto nerd Sam Bankman-Fried, yes, that guy wholost $16 billion, would never read a book https://lithub.com/crypto-nerd-sam-bankman-fried-who-just-lost-16-billion-would-never-read-a-book/ #idiocy #culture #siliconValley #californianIdeology #solutionism #technocracy #cryptocurrencies

Die Übernahme Twitters durch Musk samt der Folgen – ‚Hardcore‘-Arbeitskultur, Wiederzulassung von wg. Verstößen gesperrten Accounts im großen Stil, etc. – ist ein guter Zeitpunkt, Richard Barbrooks und Andy Camerons „The Californian Ideology“ von 1995 wiederzulesen. In manchen Punkten veraltet oder schlecht gealtert, in anderen nach wie vor on Point. Hier als PDF: http://www.comune.torino.it/gioart/big/bigguest/riflessioni/californian_engl.pdf #californianideology #lektüre

ICYMI re: Networked urbanism

Dan Hill published three essays last summer outlining the implications of 21st Century networked urbanism for architects/architecture.

To wit –

“21st century networked urbanism needs the spatial intelligence that architecture brings, as well as its higher order strategic design skills. But this will also necessitate architecture finally getting its head around contemporary technology, as a primary material.”

He also laid out the case for the Predictive City and the “broader idea of a Responsive City” as contrasted with the older Clockwork City.

• Urban Parasites, Data-Driven Urbanism, and the Case for Architecture, in Architecture + Urbanism (A+U), 2014:11

“Technically, legally and philosophically adept, architecture could usefully inform this play-off between ‘Californian Ideology vs civic space’, presenting a richer understanding of urban processes and politics, of making complex decisions with real trade-offs and long-term consequences, of baking the idea of ‘city as public good’ into the DNA of structures and platforms that affect the city.”

• A Sketchbook for the City to Come: The Pop-Up as R&D in ‘Architectural Design Special Issue: Pavilions, Pop-Ups and Parasols: The Impact of Real and Virtual Meeting on Physical Space’, Guest Editors Leon van Schaik and Fleur Watson, May/June 2015, Volume 85, Issue 3

“If this is where architecture is, or perhaps should be, then can we see pop-ups and pavilions as providing a form of R&D for architecture itself, as well as for the city? To borrow from Hyde, what social effects are being produced during Ravintolapäivä, and how?..Here is a pop-up activity which offers a meaningful role for architecture—in learning from its dynamics and carefully folding them into the city’s ‘dark matter’ in order to enable a more equitable and powerful systemic change.”

• The Commodification of Everything, in ‘SQM: The Quantified Home’, Space Caviar (ed.), Lars Muller Publishers (2014) (More at Space Caviar)

“However, underpinning such approaches, at least in commercial services like Airbnb, is a clear ideology. This could be described as the capitalistic ideal of maximising resource utilisation, a ‘commodification of everything’ applied to domestic space…Almost twenty years ago, these dynamics were foreseen and described by Andy Cameron and Richard Barbrook as the “Californian Ideology.” They arguably represent a form of civic failure rather than market failure. In circumventing taxation and regulation, and operating in the high-value pockets of town where the pickings are easy, Airbnb or Uber give little sense that they might enable more equitable services, or that they see the city as a public good…While strategic urban planning may seem untenably slow and opaque in comparison, there is at least a chance it has public interest at its core. Several strong critiques of the idea of sharing economy are now emerging, suggesting significant issues with stretching such dynamics over the city, particularly over domestic space.”

*almost 10 years later that part about “civic failure“, especially, still rings true…

#Airbnb #CalifornianIdeology #infrastructuralUrbanism #networkedUrbanism #Uber