A new form of capital is ascending: cloud capital—networked algorithmic machines that grant their owners remarkable powers to modify our behaviour. And just as financiers needed neoliberalism, today’s tech lords need a new ideology to legitimise their rule. I call it techlordism.
The problem is wider than the tech companies, so personally I’d prefer a wider definition that includes the non tech bad actors. Something like “Return of the Robber Barons”.
Robber Barons = By the late 19th century, the term was typically applied to businessmen who used exploitative practices to amass their wealth. Those practices included unfettered consumption and destruction of natural resources, influencing high levels of government, wage slavery, squashing competition by acquiring their competitors, and to create monopolies and/or trusts that control the market. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robber_baron_(industrialist)
That description seems like a perfect match for the present day USA economy.
The goal of neoliberalism was always neofeudalism. It was the means to this ends.
this is simply neoliberalism without a mask
It’s called Oligarchy and it predates Tech “Overlords” in America.
A potentially odd thought, but the power and reach of US tech oligarchs is based on US softpower – the same stuff this guy is basically saying is useless. One reason US stocks/companies get lots of investment/support is the belief that US companies have more default in-roads to all western nations – invest in a US tech co, you get access to all western markets. It’s one reason they have the market power they flex. Even Iran had reports of their cisco devices failing during recent US aggression – so even the USA’s enemies had figured US tech was ‘country neutral’, stupidly, and their obvious mistake cost them dearly. Other nation’s will see that as a learning moment.
Western nations have started pulling away from US tech / hegemony. Places like France are eye’ing Linux, the Netherlands central bank declared it reasonable to expect US tech excised from their banking ecosystem in 4 years or so, Canada’s openly declaring US ties a weakness. So investing in a company like Microsoft, may no longer translate into investing in a company with a global reach within the western world – their stock ‘should’ eventually price this in. It’s one reason the tech overlords have directed the US government to challenge any/all pushes for data sovereignty.
And as for the end of nuke dominance and rise of AI drone warfare and all that… he’s an AI hammer salesman, declaring all problems are AI nails… hes clearly biased. We’re seeing drones as a viable option currently, because people are so scared shitless of nuclear conflicts. Just because people are too scared to use the massively destructive weapons, doesn’t mean that the deterrent factor of those weapons is meaningless. It’s why few countries have directly helped ukraine in their conflict with Russia. Hell, the states and Israel are busy justifying a war to try and prevent a country from getting nukes – and they’re beating up a country that only had drone power. While their campaign isn’t going as well as they may claim publicly, I know Iranians who’ve confirmed things like “All the airports are destroyed, and most of our projects/work is closed, so we’re just sitting at home kind of waiting at this point”. Those drones didn’t really help deter anything / protect the people all that much – having nukes likely would’ve, as we see in cases like North Korea and Russia. Even in cases like the USA, where their veering into a fascist dictatorship garnered little comment from western nations, who were afraid of upsetting their nuclear-umbrella.
It’s the age of “Mega Tech Corporations”
If corporations become immune to oversight by state legislative bodies, they exert pressure on governments and transform into feudal structures.At this point, countries that host technology companies have a major role to play.Today, if a technology company has billions of dollars, it can certainly pressure the government to act in its own interests.At this point, the government needs to create legal regulations for these types of companies.
Sure, but let’s call it what it is: fascism. We need to stop inventing fancy names for things that have existed for a century.
There is a difference, but largely in the industry whose capital backs this new fascism. In the 1920s and ‘30s, the dominant / ascendant form of capital was manufacturing capital, so those were the biggest backers of German fascism (both in Germany and the US). In our time in the US, the ascendant capital is big tech, but most of their assets are in cloud computing. This will inform the face it puts forward, so it does change the modes and styles of its propaganda, but you best believe the same fascist goals are at the heart of it all. So I say: call it fascism.
I guess technofeudalism didn’t catch on, so he’s attempting a rebrand.
A stupid one. Lordism was never a thing.
their kingdom can be unplugged
Not once they have private armies of killer robots.
“We don’t know who struck first, us or them. But we do know it was us that scorched the sky. At the time, they were dependent on solar power. It was believed they would be unable to survive without an energy source as abundant as the sun.”
If they have marching armies of weaponized death machines they will also definitely have unlicensed nuclear reactors.
And their workers outfitted with kill switches. Probably their stupid phones first, later collars that can deliver paid or death remotely. Dark shit.
We can already see how this will work out. They get you trapped in their walled garden kingdom.
If you get banned from their services and you can’t access your files, make payments, login to your phone or computer, start your car, etcetcetc.
Remember when we denounced China for setting that up 15 years ago?
Butlerian jihad when?
Destroying just one satellite will cause the debris to take all of them out. Someone will do this eventually :(
We aren’t at kessler cascade levels of orbital clutter yet.
“Hold my ketamine”
While true now, with the introduction of micro reactors, we might truely be fucked
These clowns can’t operate this shit safely. They will mini melt down and scapegoat others then do it again.
The regulators have been relegated to bootlicking. There is no one making them do it safely, only their own judgement (shudders.)
We are truly fucked though, and this nuclear bs is part of it.
this nuclear bs is part of it.
I’m out of the loop, what’s this nuclear bs about?
Data centers have paid off the government to do a bunch of nuclear mini reactors, the administration naturally cannibalized the Nuclear regulatory commission already, Some are opening old ones, like the infamamous three mile island that melted down, but others are doing the mini thing.
I was looking for the guardian article I just read like a week ago and the enshitified search engines aren’t producing it, they aren’t even trying to find what we ask. These guys are trustworthy though, and will explain the process at least.
https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/2506_FSW_GoingNuclear.pdf
We are either headed to Cyberpunk or Fallout, but without the cool shit!
Dark Enlightenment.
There is nothing enlightened about this descent into the abyss.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Enlightenment
This what Thiel believes in.
Jfc, it’s like the megacorp-run city states in Shadowrun. How the fuck does anyone think this is a good idea?
We live in a cyberpunk dystopia without the good bits
Simple: they can’t imagine not being at the top, and they’re so empty inside they don’t see why it sucks to be at the top too. All they see is their own ambition and their belief in the inferiority of others. They don’t understand that megacorp leaders or kings both are stuck forced to rule as long as possible while under constant threat by those who wish to take their place or upend their structures of power.
They can only think as far as the next quarter’s profits
Nah Thiel is deeply ideological and playing long games in pursuit of it
Megacorps: “I don’t get it, why aren’t you all on board?”
They have a lot more power than we do, and most of the peasantry support them. This is our future. We’d best learn to live with it in public, and gum up the works in private.
This article implicitly references but does not specifically mention, the essay The Network State, which spiritually feels like a predecessor to what Palantir decided to unleash on the world the other day.
Neo Liberals are still in control of the, controlled opposition, the Democratic Party.
Time to tax the rich. This has gone on long enough.
*(tech)warlordism
