{"id":4837,"date":"2026-09-18T02:00:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T10:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/?p=4837"},"modified":"2026-09-14T20:42:29","modified_gmt":"2026-09-15T04:42:29","slug":"reading-the-nerd-reich","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/2026\/09\/18\/reading-the-nerd-reich\/","title":{"rendered":"Reading The Nerd Reich<\/i>"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"CoverI\u2019ve finally finished reading Gil Dur\u00e1n\u2019s The Nerd Reich<\/em><\/a>, and I recommend it highly. Not that it\u2019s not a tough read in spots \u2013 the extreme agendas and immense power and wealth of some of those he\u2019s writing about are hard to take in.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s 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\u2019s all that simple), especially when some of those Democrats are all too willing to play footsie with the broligarchs.<\/p>\n

Although the book requires you to spend a lot of time with some very unpleasant people (Curtis Yarvin, Peter Thiel, just to name two), Dur\u00e1n does not mince words about the wrongness of their approaches or actions. Having just finished reading Quinn Slobodian\u2019s Hayek\u2019s Bastards<\/em> for our Strike Debt book club, I found that necessary and comforting.<\/p>\n

(While Slobodian\u2019s 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.)<\/p>\n

Dur\u00e1n is a reporter by training and the book shows just how much effort he\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been following Dur\u00e1n\u2019s reporting<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not just talking about \u201cAI\u201d, where the numbers are in the realm of the imaginary (and how anybody believes this isn\u2019t 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 \u201cnetwork states\u201d and other libertarian wet dreams.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s way too much money floating around for nonsense these days, which \u2013 assuming money bears some relationship to the resources of the world \u2013 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.<\/p>\n

Dur\u00e1n\u2019s last chapter, \u201cThe Future,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

His core point is that we have to get rid of billionaires, though he suggests the French Revolution\u2019s 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 \u201cAI\u201d, crypto, and tech fascism.<\/p>\n

The danger isn\u2019t tech; it\u2019s the money (and cults) behind the tech. Get the money back and regulate the tech (though we won\u2019t be able to regulate the tech until we get rid of the criminal grifters running the federal government).<\/p>\n

And pay attention to what these people are doing. Democracy depends on it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve finally finished reading Gil Dur\u00e1n\u2019s The Nerd Reich, and I recommend it highly. Not that it\u2019s not a tough read in spots \u2013 the extreme agendas and immense power and wealth of some of those he\u2019s writing about are hard to take in. But it\u2019s worth your while, because in addition to the immediate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[335,363],"tags":[1241,1247],"class_list":["post-4837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books-2","category-technology","tag-gil-duran","tag-the-nerd-reich"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4837"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4837\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4838,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4837\/revisions\/4838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}