I’ve finally finished reading Gil Durán’s The Nerd Reich, and I recommend it highly. Not that it’s not a tough read in spots – the extreme agendas and immense power and wealth of some of those he’s writing about are hard to take in.
But it’s worth your while, because in addition to the immediate dangers we face from the right-wing extremists now running our government, the risks posed by the broligarch crowd must be dealt with. And defeating them will not be as simple as Democrats winning the next election (not that that’s all that simple), especially when some of those Democrats are all too willing to play footsie with the broligarchs.
Although the book requires you to spend a lot of time with some very unpleasant people (Curtis Yarvin, Peter Thiel, just to name two), Durán does not mince words about the wrongness of their approaches or actions. Having just finished reading Quinn Slobodian’s Hayek’s Bastards for our Strike Debt book club, I found that necessary and comforting.
(While Slobodian’s book is a very detailed recounting of right-wing extremist economists, it is written on the assumption that readers are aware of how awful these people are, so it just recounts what they have done. I would have preferred it if he had interjected something from time to time to show us the damage the people did, even when I was aware of it, just to relieve the unrelenting pressure of their presence.)
Durán is a reporter by training and the book shows just how much effort he’s put into understanding the broligarch crowd and what they want to do. He documents what he says thoroughly and, likely due to his journalism background, he writes very well and very clearly.
I’ve been following Durán’s reporting on these issues for some time, so much of the book was not new to me. However, one thing struck me: the absolutely insane amount of money being thrown around on stuff that is obviously nonsensical.
I’m not just talking about “AI”, where the numbers are in the realm of the imaginary (and how anybody believes this isn’t a bubble I do not know), but much smaller investments, such as a million dollars thrown here and there to people with vague ideas for “network states” and other libertarian wet dreams.
There’s way too much money floating around for nonsense these days, which – assuming money bears some relationship to the resources of the world – means that there is more than enough money out there to actually address climate change and build systems where every person on the planet has enough for a decent life.
Durán’s last chapter, “The Future,” makes some solid arguments for what we need to do, always a good thing in a world in which so many books are great at pointing out the problems and bad at solutions.
His core point is that we have to get rid of billionaires, though he suggests the French Revolution’s response, while an enjoyable meme, is not the best answer, since it set things up for Napoleon. And he does make it clear that Democrats winning the next election is not going to be enough if those Democrats are too interested in Silicon Valley money to take a stand against “AI”, crypto, and tech fascism.
The danger isn’t tech; it’s the money (and cults) behind the tech. Get the money back and regulate the tech (though we won’t be able to regulate the tech until we get rid of the criminal grifters running the federal government).
And pay attention to what these people are doing. Democracy depends on it.