#californianideology — Public Fediverse posts

"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/

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/

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/

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/

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

"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

"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

"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

"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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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/

@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