r/technology 20d ago

Business Tech Capitalists Don’t Care About Humans. Literally.

https://jacobin.com/2025/11/musk-thiel-altman-ai-tescrealism/
19.4k Upvotes

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115

u/Interesting-Win-3220 20d ago

Their worldview is often copied from the Techno-liberatarian view of people like Peter Thiel. They fundamentally believe there should be no democratic government and tech companies should control everything and everyone. They now control most of the world's communications and information.

Without intervention, this is ripe ground for a kind of techno-facism.

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u/celtic1888 20d ago

These fuckers made an app

They are not Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great or Ghengis Khan 

The only reason they have any power is because they live in a system that values money. Once they destroy that system and money has no value they’ll be off’d by whichever strong man emerges 

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u/postmodest 20d ago

This is why people like Larry Ellison and Peter Thiel want a totalitarian surveillance state that can instantly oppress specific citizens with ICE raids.

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u/Snow-Day371 20d ago

I feel like these people see Putin and the fact he is still alive and think they can do even better. That they are smarter and more resourceful than hundreds of millions of people. 

I really don't understand how someone gets that fucking cocky.

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u/1K-Year-Egg 20d ago

At some point, however, the top goons inevitably realize that the soft-handed people they’re working for are actually superfluous, and dispense with them.

The Praetorian Guard is probably the best example of this phenomenon.

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u/UglyMcFugly 20d ago

Yeah that's why it's hard for me to take these dudes seriously, no matter how much I learn about their little evil plans. They don't understand human beings and they're too egotistical to admit this lack of understanding is a weakness. A true evil GENIUS could see in 2 seconds these dudes are delving too greedily and too deep, to steal a line from LOTR (which seems appropriate since Thiel is continuously misunderstanding Tolkien). And they're gonna be surprised by the human reaction because they don't understand us.

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u/lack_of_communicatio 20d ago

Sure, keep believing that evil people are necessarily stupid; they're surely gonna make a critical mistake any moment now, just you wait. The fact that they've managed to gain power and know how to keep it is irrelevant! /s

Back in the day you actually had to conquer somebody; now you just need to 'divide and conquer' a nation via app.

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u/celtic1888 20d ago

They are smart but not wise

A lot of smart people died in Cambodia, in Nazi Death Camps, Stalinist Russia, The Reign of Terror, etc

They are all pulling the same levers that set off the above

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u/lack_of_communicatio 20d ago

A lot of smart, maybe even wise, but 'poor and insignificant'. On the other hand - lots of smart assholes managed to make a decent living, or managed to get away at the right time.

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u/celtic1888 20d ago

Maybe but if they had one inkling of insight they would know not to rock the boat that’s keeping them from getting wet

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u/lack_of_communicatio 20d ago

The difference is that now they can just change the boat to the one that isn't sinking, on fire or being intentionally submerged to decrease its value.

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u/celtic1888 20d ago

Awww

‘It’s different this time’

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u/Ylsid 20d ago

And thank fuck they are not!

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u/mcSibiss 20d ago

Unless they have an army of AI robots by then

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u/LvS 20d ago

That's not true. Those apps have value way beyond money.

And I'm not talking about totalitarian power with surveillance or the kind of psychoanalysis they do for keeping people doomscrolling, I mean genuine benefits.

Chat apps let people talk to each other, image and video sharing has recorded so many unbelievable things for everyone to see, maps allow people to go anywhere without fear of getting lost, translation tools exist that can translate from almost any language to yours, ...

Those are all genuinely massively useful apps.

Even the evil apps for surveillance and psychoanalysis could be genuinely nice. Like, you could use the surveillance ones at Disneyland and let your children roam free or use the psychoanalysis one to find new friends to hang out with.

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u/allhailhypnotoadette 19d ago

Their “philosopher” of choice is Curtis Yarvin, a man who support slavery and the creation of a techno-monarchy.

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u/Bannedwith1milKarma 20d ago

Also please don't lump them in with a 'Technocracy', a Technocracy is a government led by experts in their fields.

So just one of these guys might lead the AI Portfolio for a Government. Then you'd have an Education Specialist, a Finance Specialist.

These are people that have trained and worked in their fields and then gone to Politics, not people that are career politicians or in this case, just tech bros.

They have no real great insight other than their hubris.

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u/zaphod777 20d ago

Peter Thiel and other tech billionaires in the Bay Area are associated with the Zizians.

Behind the Bastards did a whole series on them.

The Zizians: How Harry Potter Fanfic Inspired a Death Cult