Almost nobody can see it. That’s not because it’s hidden. It’s because it’s scattered across thousands of filings, press releases and paywalled archives, and nobody has time to trace Leonard Leo to the Federalist Society, then to a 6–3 Supreme Court, then to the rulings that changed your rights. The information is free. Connecting it costs time, and time is what oligarchy counts on you not having.
The money. Dark money networks, donor-advised funds, the Koch Network, Citizens United, and a running tracker of what officials say about federal spending compared with what the contracts and filings show.
The Tech Right. How Silicon Valley money and ideas moved to the center of right-wing power. It runs from Peter Thiel and Palantir to Curtis Yarvin and the defense-tech pipeline. Start at The Tech Right Hub.
The 2026 midterms. With less than three weeks until November 3, the 2026 Midterms Hub covers every Senate and governor’s race, the most competitive House seats, ballot measures, and how the election is actually run and counted.
If you have fifteen minutes, go to Start Here. Five pages tell the whole story in order: the plan, who pays for it, the new money, the story that mobilizes the base, and what’s at stake in November. If you have an hour, pick one of six reading tracks.
If you’re coming back, What’s New is refreshed daily. In the past week alone the wiki added 172 new pages and made 121 major updates.
How it’s built
I came up in the Friendster era, back when we really believed the open web would put information in everyone’s hands. Silicon Valley lost that plot. I didn’t.
I built this with heavy AI assistance for research, drafting and cross-linking, plus a separate fact-checking pass. The rules are simple. Claims carry sources. Where sources conflict or a number can’t be confirmed yet, the page says so in a warning box instead of quietly picking a side. Fast-moving pages say when their figures were last checked. Short pages are placeholders, there so a name can be linked, and they fill in over time.
It’s free and has no sponsors. It grows every day.
Its older sibling, Foundations, is still home to the dictionaries and timelines. The two sites are meant to be read together.
None of this was ever secret. Keeping it scattered was the trick.
When Elon Musk assumed his role as head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in the second Trump administration, he claimed his goal was to slash wasteful spending and eliminate government fraud. Yet a damning new report from Senator Elizabeth Warren reveals a starkly different reality: Musk’s 130 days in the White House appear to have been very little about serving the public interest and more about engineering one of the most audacious wealth transfers from taxpayers to a single individual in modern American history. Why are people protesting Elon Musk? In short: everybody hates corruption. And during his time with DOGE, Musk’s net worth soared by over $100 billion and his companies secured billions in new federal contracts, regulatory approvals, and policy changes that directly benefited his sprawling business empire.
The Warren report exposes how Musk’s anti-fraud rhetoric served as convenient cover for systematically dismantling the very agencies responsible for investigating his companies’ workplace safety violations, environmental damage, and discriminatory practices. Under the guise of “efficiency,” DOGE targeted the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) that would regulate his planned X Money venture, gutted OSHA while it investigated Tesla’s worker safety record, and fired inspectors general who had been scrutinizing his companies. Meanwhile, agencies that provide essential services to working families—from the Department of Labor to social safety net programs—faced devastating cuts that threaten to leave the most vulnerable Americans without crucial protections. What emerges is a troubling pattern: Musk’s government role functioned less as public service and more as a strategic position to eliminate oversight of his businesses while redirecting taxpayer resources into his own coffers.
The Massachusetts Senator and champion of the CFPB kept an eagle eye on Musk as he burrowed his way through the federal government with his 20-somethings alt-right goon squad. She compiled this exhaustive report on Elon Musk’s corrupt dealings during his time in the White House — and these are just the ones we know about thanks to intrepid investigative journalists, whistleblowers, and other patriotic informants. A full accounting of the heist will likely not be known for some time, if at all — given the Trump administration’s power (and proclivity) to memory hole theoretically anything they wish.
Maybe not the best rendering… blame Musk’s Grok!
The report, “Special Interests Over the Public Interest: Elon Musk’s 130 Days in the Trump Administration (PDF),” details numerous instances where the tech megabillionaire and richest man on earth, serving as a “Special Government Employee” while leading DOGE, engaged in actions that allegedly benefited his private financial interests. On top of a net worth increase of $100 billion+ since Election Day, his companies (Tesla, SpaceX, X and xAI, the Boring Company, and Neuralink) had extensive financial conflicts of interest that were completely disregarded.
Here are the highlights from the report, followed by a timeline and cast of characters.
List of Elon Musk’s corrupt activities inside the White House
This is a comprehensive list of examples from the report illustrating how Musk allegedly used his power to further his personal interests, as of June 2025:
1. Government Resources to Promote Musk’s Businesses
Trump and Musk turned the White House lawn into a Tesla showroom.
Commerce Secretary Lutnick, reportedly “close to Elon Musk,” appeared on Fox News telling viewers to “buy Tesla”.
The Commerce Department changed terms of the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program to allow Starlink to apply, despite warnings of inferior service and higher costs.
The White House called for 13% more spending for the Department of Defense (DoD), and SpaceX is considered likely to be the top recipient of new Pentagon funding.
Twitter Timeline (aka ‘X’): From Founding to Present
Few platforms have so profoundly shaped the 21st-century media and political landscape as Twitter. Launched in 2006 as a quirky microblogging experiment in Silicon Valley, Twitter rapidly evolved into a global public square — a real-time newswire, activism megaphone, cultural barometer, and political battleground all in one. From the Arab Spring to #BlackLivesMatter, celebrity feuds to presidential declarations, Twitter didn’t just reflect the world — it influenced it.
But in 2022, everything changed.
The takeover by Elon Musk, the billionaire tech entrepreneur and self-styled “free speech absolutist,” marked a sharp and chaotic break from Twitter’s legacy. In short order, Musk dismantled key moderation teams, reinstated accounts once banned for extremism or disinformation, and transformed the platform into a private entity under his X Corp umbrella. The iconic blue bird gave way to a stark new identity: X — signaling not just a rebrand, but a fundamental shift in mission, culture, and political alignment.
This timeline chronicles Twitter’s full arc from inception to its present incarnation as X: a detailed account of its business milestones, technological evolution, political influence, and growing alignment with right-wing ideology under Musk’s ownership. Drawing on a wide range of journalistic and academic sources, this narrative highlights how a once-fractious but largely liberal-leaning tech company became a controversial hub for “anti-woke” politics, misinformation, and culture war skirmishes — with global implications.
2006 – Birth of a New Platform
March 2006: In a brainstorming at Odeo (a San Francisco podcast startup founded by Noah Glass, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams — the latter of whom would go on to later found the longform writing platform Medium), Jack Dorsey and colleagues conceive a text-message status sharing service. By March 21, Dorsey sends the first-ever tweet – “just setting up my twttr”, marking Twitter’s official creation.
July 2006: Twitter (then styled “twttr” as was the vowel-less fashion at the time) launches to the public as a microblogging platform allowing 140-character posts. It initially operates under Odeo, but in October the founders form the Obvious Corporation and buy out Odeo’s investors, acquiring Twitter’s intellectual property.
August – September 2006: Early users begin to see Twitter’s potential. In August, tweets about a California earthquake demonstrate Twitter’s value for real-time news by eyewitnesses. In September, twttr is rebranded as Twitter after acquiring the domain, finally graduating into the land of vowels.
2007 – Rapid Growth and Social Buzz
March 2007: Twitter gains international buzz at the SXSW conference Interactive track. Usage explodes when attendees use it for real-time updates, a tipping point that greatly expands Twitter’s userbase.
April 2007: Spun off as its own company, Twitter, Inc. begins to operate independently from Obvious Corp, the parent company of Odeo. Twitter also closes its first venture funding round in April, raising $5 million led by Union Square Ventures and venture capitalist Fred Wilson, who would become one of Twitter’s most influential backers, at a ~$20 million valuation. Other early investors included Ron Conway, Marc Andreessen, Chris Sacca, Joi Ito, and Dick Costolo (who would later become its CEO).
August 2007: User-driven innovation gives rise to the hashtag. Invented by user Chris Messina to group topics, the “#” hashtag debuts and later becomes an official Twitter feature for trend tracking. This year, Twitter’s growth is so rapid that frequent server crashes occur, introducing the world to the iconic “Fail Whale” error image created by artist Yiying Lu (a symbol of its early growing pains).
The Thiel Connection: Mentorship and Collaboration
Lonsdale’s career has been deeply intertwined with that of Peter Thiel, the billionaire entrepreneur and right-wing political donor. Their relationship began during Lonsdale’s college years at Stanford University, where he was editor-in-chief of The Stanford Review, a publication Thiel had co-founded years earlier. This shared intellectual foundation would prove formative for their future collaborations.
After graduating from Stanford with a computer science degree in 2004, Lonsdale joined Thiel at Clarium Capital, a global macro hedge fund. As an early executive there, Lonsdale helped grow the fund to $8 billion in assets under management, working closely with Thiel and absorbing his contrarian investment philosophy and political worldview.
The most significant product of their partnership came in 2004, when they co-founded Palantir Technologies along with Alex Karp, Stephen Cohen, and Nathan Gettings. Named after the all-seeing stones from “The Lord of the Rings,” Palantir focused on data analytics with applications in defense, intelligence, and corporate settings. The company received early investment from the CIA‘s venture fund, In-Q-Tel, setting it on a path to become deeply embedded in government and defense work—a connection that would later align with Lonsdale’s political activities.
Building an Empire: From Palantir to 8VC
While Lonsdale left his operational role at Palantir in 2009, he continued as an advisor while launching a series of new ventures. He founded Addepar, a wealth management platform now managing over $4 trillion in assets, and co-founded OpenGov, which provides cloud-based software for government budgeting.
In 2015, Lonsdale founded 8VC, a venture capital firm that now manages over $6 billion in capital. Through 8VC, he has invested in companies like Oculus, Guardant Health, Oscar, Wish, and Flexport, expanding his influence throughout the tech industry. The firm’s name itself reflects Lonsdale’s philosophy—the number 8 representing infinity when turned sideways, suggesting limitless potential.
Political Activities and Right-Wing Advocacy
Unlike many Silicon Valley elites, Lonsdale has been unabashedly outspoken about his right-wing political views. Following in the footsteps of his mentor Thiel, he has emerged as an active Republican donor and fundraiser, using his considerable wealth and influence to support right-wing candidates and causes.
In 2020, Lonsdale made headlines when he joined the exodus of tech leaders leaving San Francisco for more conservative locales, relocating his family and business to Austin, Texas. He publicly criticized California’s “disrepair,” citing high taxes, regulations, and progressive policies as his reasons for leaving—a move that solidified his status as a vocal critic of liberal governance.
Lonsdale’s political advocacy extends beyond campaign contributions. He co-founded the Cicero Institute, a policy think tank focused on market-oriented solutions to healthcare, housing, and criminal justice reform. The institute promotes conservative approaches to these issues, advocating for reduced regulation and private-sector solutions.
Perhaps his most ambitious political-adjacent project is the University of Austin (UATX), which he co-founded as an alternative to what he sees as the liberal orthodoxy dominating higher education. The university aims to promote so-called “intellectual diversity” and “free speech“, reflecting Lonsdale’s belief that traditional universities have become too politically homogeneous.
The New Right of Silicon Valley
Together with Thiel, Lonsdale represents a new brand of tech-enabled Republicanism. This movement combines traditional Republican values of (in this case extremely) limited government and free markets with a Silicon Valley ethos of disruption and technological optimism. It stands apart from both establishment Republicanism and populist right-wing movements, offering a vision of conservative politics infused with the language and tools of technology.
Lonsdale has used his platform to advocate for American innovation and entrepreneurship, arguing that technological advancement, not government intervention, is the solution to society’s problems. His American Optimist initiative promotes this vision through podcasts and other media, featuring conversations with entrepreneurs, scientists, and policy experts who share his techno-optimistic worldview.
Joe Lonsdale and Elon Musk
Joe Lonsdale and Elon Musk know each other, and have collaborated on various ventures. Lonsdale has been a supporter of Musk’s initiatives both politically and in business. His firm 8VC invested in Musk’s Boring Company during its Series C funding round. He also contributed $1 million to America PAC, a super PAC backing Donald Trump‘s 2024 presidential campaign run by Musk. Their relationship extends to political endeavors, with Lonsdale described as a friend and “political confidant” of Musk.
On a personal level, Lonsdale married Tayler Cox in 2016, and they have five children together. Their family life, now based in Austin, reflects the traditional values that inform his political perspective.
With an estimated net worth of $425 million, Lonsdale uses his wealth not just for political activities but also for philanthropy, often directed toward causes aligned with his conservative values. He and his wife are active donors in various philanthropic pursuits, though these typically reflect his market-oriented approach to solving social problems.
The Future of Right-Wing Tech
At just 42 years old, Lonsdale’s influence in both technology and politics continues to grow. As one of the youngest members ever to appear on Forbes’ Midas List, his investment decisions shape the future of technology, while his political advocacy helps define a new strain of tech right-wing forces.
Following Thiel’s playbook but developing his own distinctive voice, Lonsdale represents a generation of tech leaders who are attacking Silicon Valley’s liberal consensus. And with fellow tech titan buddy Elon Musk now Chief Buddy, these energetically right-wing tech oligarchs with enormous power over our daily lives already are unsettlingly close to the White House.
Joe Gebbia: A Silicon Valley Success Story’s Troubling Turn
Joe Gebbia’s journey from innovative designer to billionaire entrepreneur, and his subsequent embrace of authoritarian politics, illustrates how wealth and power can fundamentally reshape values and allegiances.
Origins in Innovation
Born in 1981, Gebbia’s early career showed genuine promise in merging design thinking with social good. His education at the Rhode Island School of Design, combined with business studies at Brown University and MIT, suggested someone who might bridge the gap between creativity and commerce for positive change.
The origin story of Airbnb – born from Gebbia and Brian Chesky’s inability to afford rising rent – once seemed to exemplify Silicon Valley‘s democratic potential. Their solution of renting air mattresses to conference attendees appeared to embody the sharing economy’s promise of democratizing access to travel and income. With technical co-founder Nathan Blecharczyk, they built Airbnb into a platform that transformed travel — though critics would later note its role in driving up housing costs in many cities, and the many regulatory battles that have ensued.
The Price of Success
Their bootstrapping story of selling custom cereal boxes during the 2008 election to raise funds became startup lore. Yet ironically, the economic desperation that inspired Airbnb’s creation stands in stark contrast to Gebbia’s current alignment with policies that often exacerbate income inequality and wealth inequality.
While Gebbia’s commitment to philanthropy through the Giving Pledge appeared commendable, his recent political evolution raises questions about the coherence between his charitable giving and his support for policies that often undermine social safety nets.
A Troubling Political Transformation
Gebbia’s political journey from Democratic donor to Trump supporter represents more than just a change in voting patterns – it reflects a broader pattern of tech billionaires embracing authoritarian politics. After contributing over $200,000 to Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden’s campaigns, Gebbia’s sudden shift rightward in the 2024 election coincided with his increasing proximity to power in the form of Elon Musk and the Trump administration.
His public support for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and defense of various right-wing positions on social media marked a dramatic departure from his previous support for progressive causes. This transformation mirrors a troubling trend among tech elites who, after accumulating vast wealth, appear to abandon democratic principles in favor of authoritarian solutions.
Dave Karpf absolutely shreds Balaji Srinivasan’s book “The Network State” as the ravings of a rich delusional megalomaniac preening to his Silicon Valley peers who fancy themselves in Galt’s Gulch. These guys appear almost completely ignorant about the actual functions of a nation-state. If they want to declare themselves sovereign and secede from the United States, we ought to cut their sewage, water, and electric supply to give them a dose of the factual reality they so disdain.
What happens to these guys’ nerdy little crypto-enclaves when a much larger power (say, Russia…) decides to invade them and take their enormous stores of value they’ve bragged about removing from state protection? Especially after they’ve just ushered in the destruction of the post-WWII global order in which it was generally frowned upon for giant nations to gobble up their neighbors just because they could? 🤔
Moreover, what if that invader nation is simply the United States itself, once an administration comes to power that decides it is tired of dealing with its collection of ornery Confederate enclaves? Some might knuckle under peacefully, but there might also be some Waco events — except this time, with a lethal military strike justified by a president completely immune from prosecution and beyond the power of legislative or judicial oversight.
Please go away
What is stopping these guys from starting their start-up utopias right now? They are squintillionaires and could certainly buy land and start a community organized around whatever value system they want to run up the flagpole (arguably that seems to be the idea behind California Forever). Why isn’t Peter Thiel seasteading already and leaving us the fuck alone? Why does California Forever take Forever to operationalize when the entire premise of these techbro elites for decades has been that government (and specifically democracy) is too slow and they could totally build everything much faster and better if only given the chance?
The situation is, as they say in the military, FUBAR’d. We are under a full-on authoritarian attack to democracy in progress in broad daylight, being carried out by the (unfortunately) legitimate president and his illegitimate best buddy Elon Musk. What can we do — the situation seems so bleak, you say. I hear you and I feel you. But AOC and HCR (two of my favorite acronyms) are here to break it down about how we should not go quietly — and how to do it.
First up: what are we facing? Among other things, what is most probably the biggest data breach of all time — perpetrated by Elon’s Musk’s fake department DOGE. Former Republican strategist Stuart Stevens called Musk’s land grab of the federal till and all its payment information about citizens “the most significant data leak in cyber history.” On top of that, the conflicts of interest inherent in this unlawful caper are so staggering they’re well out of scope of this single blog post.
Beyond that, Trump waited for Congress to go out of session before beginning the blitzkrieg of illegal Executive Orders and maneuvers designed to attack America and throw its citizens off balance. Here’s a list of the main actions we need to be pressing our Congresspeople to get answers for:
Events of the authoritarian push
Impoundment Attempt and Judicial Reversal:
Early in the Trump administration, an Office of Management and Budget memo attempted to freeze federal spending pending a review for alleged “DEI contamination”. A federal judge quickly ruled this action “blatantly unconstitutional,” forcing the administration to backtrack. However, related Executive Orders freezing some payments are said to “still be in order” which is (intentionally) causing confusion around the status of almost everything.
Elon Musk’s Intervention in the Treasury Payment System:
Musk’s people, reportedly a group of young men between 19 and 24 according to Wired, attempted to access a “secret area” within USAID (the agency responsible for U.S. foreign aid). In the process, two top officials were sidelined (put on administrative leave), and Musk’s team gained access, potentially compromising sensitive U.S. intelligence data.
Announced Cuts to Federal Programs:
Following these breaches, Musk (acting as a Trump ally) has claimed on social media that he is “cutting” certain federally funded programs, including a human services organization linked to the Lutheran Church. This move threatens funding for critical services such as migrant support, nursing homes, and possibly even affects Social Security and Medicare (though Trump has stated these will not be touched).
Tariffs and International Implications:
Additionally, Trump’s administration is imposing tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and China, which could inflict economic pain, especially in regions that predominantly support the Republican agenda.
These recent events (the inimitable Heather Cox Richardson covers them in-depth in her Letters from an American column) highlight an aggressive attack on constitutional governance marked by executive overreach and the manipulation of public funds. Actions such as unilateral spending freezes—disguised (thinly) as efforts to address DEI concerns—and the controversial transfer of control over federal financial systems to private interests like world’s richest man Elon Musk (who apparently still doesn’t have enough money) reveal a dangerous shift in power.
This reckless endangerment jeopardizes not only the integrity of critical public services and security measures but also the core democratic principle of accountability, underscoring an urgent need for citizens to remain vigilant and demand that elected officials uphold the constitutional order. We The People still wield the ultimate power — as AOC is about to so eloquently tell you more about.
Effective Altruism and Longtermism are relatively recent (since the late 2000s) twin philosophical movements making the claim that, as a human species, we ought to prioritize impacting the long-term future of humanity — hundreds, thousands, or millions of years from now — over and above any concerns for actual humans alive today. Largely inspired by utilitarianism, it favors questionable metrics like “lives saved per dollar” in its quest to not just do good, but “do the most good.”
Longtermism is an outgrowth of Effective Altruism (EA), a social movement developed by philosophers Peter Singer and William MacAskill. It emphasizes the moral importance of trying to shape the far future, and adherents argue that the long-term consequences of our actions far outweigh their short-term effects because of the potential of vast numbers of future lives. In other words, future people will outnumber us at such a scale that, by comparison to this imaginary future universe, our current-day lives are not very important at all.
It has numerous and powerful adherents among the Silicon Valley elite including Trump bromance Elon Musk, tech billionaire Peter Thiel (who spoke at the RNC in 2016), indicted and disgraced crypto trader Sam Bankman-Fried, Twitter and Square founder Jack Dorsey (who is good friends with Elon), OpenAI‘s CEO Sam Altman, Ethereum founder (and Thiel fellow) Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Asana Dustin Moskovitz, and others.
Why longtermism resonates with tech oligarchs
The tech-industrial complex is steeped in the idea of longtermism in part because it aligns so well with so many of their values:
technological optimism / techno-utopianism — the belief that technology is the solution to all of humanity’s greatest challenges
risk-taking mindset — venture capital is famous for its high-risk, high-reward mentality
Greatness Thinking — unwavering devotion to an Ayn Randian worldview in which only two groups exist: a small group of otherworldly titans, and everyone else
atomized world — social groups and historical context don’t matter much, because one’s personal individualized contributions are what make real impact on the world
The dubious ethics of effective altruism
Although it positions itself high, high above the heady clouds of moral superiority, EA is yet another in a long line of elaborate excuses for ignoring urgent problems we actually face, in favor of “reallocating resources” towards some long-distant predictively “better” class of people that do not currently exist and will not exist for thousands, millions, or even billions of years. It’s an elaborate excuse framework for “billionaires behaving badly” — who claim to be akin to saints or even gods who are doing the difficult work of “saving humanity,” but in reality are navel-gazing into their vanity projects and stroking each others’ raging narcissism while completely ignoring large, looming actual dangers in the here and now like climate change, systemic inequality, and geopolitical instabillity to name a few.
The social network formerly known as Twitter, now known as X, has been through some things — including a rocky change of ownership 2 years ago. At the time, the person who owns Twitter on paper was known to be tech billionaire and then-world’s richest man Elon Musk — but it was not fully known who was included in the full shadowy list of Twitter investors.
Thanks apparently to some terrible lawyering, the full list of Twitter investors via parent company X Corp has been unsealed during discovery for a legal case against Musk relating to non-payment of severance for employees he laid off after buying the company. In addition to the known in 2022 list below, we can now augment the Twitter investors list with more detail:
Joe Lonsdale — cofounder of Palantir with shadowy tech billionaire Peter Thiel, the primary financial backer of Trump’s VP pick JD Vance. Lonsdale has a right-wing streak of his own, backing Trump in 2024 via Elon Musk’s Super PAC.
Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal
Jack Dorsey — one of the original founders of Twitter
Larry Ellison — Oracle founder and right-wing political donor
Ross Gerber
Doug Leone
Michael Moritz
Changpeng Zhao
Security analyst and intelligence professional Eric Garland notes that beyond the notable billionaires on the list, the investor sheet can be largely read as “fronts for the dictatorships of Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, and others.” Tech pioneer turned investigative journalist Dave Troy’s take on the Twitter investor list reveal is that it shows “this platform is an instrument of information warfare.”
Faced with these realities and the census projection of a majority minority population in the United States by the year 2045, the Republican right-wing is struggling to keep piecing together a voting base that can achieve victories in electoral politics. The GOP is now 3 cults in a trenchcoat, having been hollowed out and twisted to the point of trying desperately to hold increasingly extreme factions together for another election cycle in which they can try to capture power forever through gerrymandering and other anti-democratic election engineering — or at least long enough to erase the evidence of their criminal behavior during the Trump years culminating in a coup attempt on January 6, 2021.
Led by Charles Koch et al, the mostly aging, Boomer crowd who controls much of the US government either directly or indirectly as a donor or operative is starting to panic for one reason or another: the fear of death looming, existential worries about thwarted or unmet ambition, economic turn of the wheel starting to leave their fortunes in decline (with inflation as a common boogie man since the Wall Street Putsch of the 1930s). Much of this crowd inherited the free market ideological zeal of the Austrian School of economics (later, trickle down economics) from their fathers along with their trust fund fortunes that some have squandered (Trump), tread water with (Coors, Scaife), or grown (Koch, DeVos).
It’s also no accident this whole Twitter takeover drama is happening just before the mid-terms. The right-wing needs to inject some juice into the splintering base, some of whom are wavering as the actual (intentionally) obscured vision of the GOP leaks out (i.e. destroy government altogether).
Longtermism is an extreme ideology that has gained traction in Silicon Valley and the technosphere: both Elon Musk and Peter Thiel are acolytes. In this worldview, the far future of humanity will have colonized the stars and number in the trillions — therefore making all the puny little humans alive today essentially worthless and expendable in their eyes (except themselves, of course). As long as climate change doesn’t kill *absolutely all* 7 billion of us, we’ll manage to soldier on — therefore we should focus on AI instead, they say.
Their breezy tossing aside of morality on anything with effects less than 100 years is also chilling. By use of the frame-shifting device of the far far future, longtermism is able to render basically anything a rounding error of no importance, from the Holocaust to the dropping of atomic bombs to the famines of Stalin and Mao. That is just not going to sit well with most people who have empathy — which is most people.
The Lone Wolf myth is pervasive in Western culture — the idea that what really moves the needle and has the power to make change is a single solitary force: an exceptional, rugged individual who can brute force his (and it’s usually a he) way through all opposition and Get Things Done.
It’s the seductive idea of the Hero who will swoop in to save the day (The Lone Ranger, Superman); the genius whose innovations disrupt and revolutionize industries (Steve Jobs, Elon Musk); or the strongman who will overpower an entire nation into submission (Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, etc etc). It is akin to and synonymous with the Great Man Theory of history.
It’s intertwingled with other strongly held cultural ideologies:
Superior physical strength is the best leadership trait; violence is the most expedient way of solving problems
Relatedly: Strict Father Morality — the Judeo-Christian worldview that the father is the “mini-God” of every family and must be obeyed absolutely
Patriarchy: men are leaders, and women exist to support men in their leadership duties; masculine qualities (or perceived masculine qualities) like physical strength, superior rationality, immediate action, and bulldozing the opposition are better than feminine qualities (or perceived feminine qualities) like coordination, consensus, listening, empathy, patience, inspiration, respect, negotiation, storytelling
Relatedly: great man theory of history
Human supremacy in general: “some are more equal than others” and those people deserve all the cultural (and literal) capital
Efficiency is the highest value — because one person making a decision is faster than having to come to consensus
Entitlement: the expectation that our lives will be pleasant and any challenges will be minor, of limited duration, and solved somehow without much effort
Arrogance, egotism, and narcissism: “I alone can do it”
Magical Thinking and control: believing either that we are the Hero or that the Hero will swoop in to save us is a way of relieving the psychological discomfort of unpredictability and uncertainty in the world. We harbor a secret belief of being superior to any crisis as a way of convincing ourselves that nothing bad will happen to us
Being fooled by appearances: our tendency towards gullibility, especially towards people in positions of authority — who are often enacting a self-serving agenda underneath the public-facing PR version of the story
References:
Rebecca Solnit — “A Hero is a Disaster” (Whose Story is This?)
