According to interviews and presentations viewed by WIRED, the goal of these cities would be to have places where anti-aging clinical trials, nuclear reactor startups, and building construction can proceed without having to get prior approval from agencies like the Food and Drug Administration, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the Environmental Protection Agency.
Yes because the first thing I think needs regulations is fucking nuclear power!
The “move fast and break things” mantra of silicon valley is bad enough when you aren’t talking about breaking a goddamn nuclear reactor.
Why stop there? Can we get a nuclear and biological weapons startup in there too?!
If anyone reads that and goes “hell yea”…
Also what the fuck is a “nuclear reactor startup”?!? God, tech bros really take a whole bunch of privilege and advantage and just throw it all away to be dumber than anyone could have thought possible.
It’s like a regular nuclear reactor, except it’s run by people who don’t know anything about nuclear reactors, the waste is dumped wherever without consequence, and the power output is only used to run an AI and mine cryptos.
There we go. Now we’re looking at the Star Trek dystopia that we expected last year.
Just a bit delayed
This “plan” is literally the setting of Snow Crash
Did these guys play cyberpunk? Like that game pretty much embodies what these guys are asking for.
In September of last year, the podcast Behind the Bastards did a two part series on right wing blogger Curtis Yarvin, his connections to Peter Theil, and his influence on JD Vance. I highly recommend these episodes for anyone who wants to know where this is all headed.
Yarvin has, for years, pushed the notion of RAGE (retire all government employees), and his dark enlightenment movement centers on dismantling democracy and installing a neo-feudalistic system of government in which oligarchs rule as kings.
This is not some crazy new proposal that will be ignored by the people in power. This is the endgame. The oligarchs and right wing fascists Trump has surrounded himself with have been pushing this for years, just waiting for their moment.
If you don’t think this is a big deal, then you probably won’t realize until it’s too late.
If you don’t think this is a big deal, then you probably won’t realize until it’s too late.
American history in one sentence.
Thank goodness we had a corporate media that not also did nothing to instruct on this, but played lots of stupid bothsiderist games for the horse race.
Not to mention lots of so-called leftists telling Americans to either sit out or do a protest vote because something something Gaza, BidenSoOld and KamalaSameAsBiden.
It’s chilling that this article is from October and basically lays out how the overthrow of democracy would take place - exactly what’s been happening since then.
The speed at which we’re descending into the dark enlightenment period is beyond alarming.
Well yeah. They’ve clearly wanted to bring company towns back for a while. Everyone from Disney to Amazon does their best to recreate them already and there’s been no change in the profit incentive since the last time they were fully legal.
I do feel like the tech guys have forgotten why we agreed to give workers rights though…
Oh well.
That won’t fly because tech’s innovativeness is already declining.
And it’ll get worse as the skilled workers flee the US.
I actually like this idea. So long as the CEOs are required to live in the town as well a minimum of 300 days out of the year.
Because working in an office is worth the collaboration.
And I like knowing where the CEOs are so that checks instance name I can play Minecraft with them in person. I get so much more enjoyment playing Minecraft in person and would like to make sure the latency is really low.
Do you want Night City? Because this is quite literally how you get Night City.
And isn’t Night City one of the better places to live there?
Or Rapture
I’m starting to think that’s what they want.
Always has been. Cyberpunk (the genre) was a warning. We didn’t listen.
Time to become Johnny Silverhand then.
It’s weird how the hardcore wingnuts were constantly jabbering about “Big Tech” and making noises about “Hunter’s
hard-drivelaptop” just a few short years ago. They could never define this “Big Tech” other than to make hooting noises about how they were “censoring” the crazy right wing. They didn’t really know what they were going on about, but boy, they were mad about it. Because laptop.Now they seem to be all-in with whatever the fuck “Big Tech” wants for them, because, what? They think it will own the libs? Just what the fuck do they think billionaires are going to do for the average redcap but put them out of work and yank any and all government services that will help them or their families?
Those already have a name - company town.
They failed the last time they were tried and will fail again.
They didn’t just fail on their own. They were very successful until the labor movement decided to meet violence with violence.
But before they failed, they stole a ton of labor/profit from the residents.
Right. They worked very well for the companies!
I mean, they can only steal so much / so quickly WITHOUT building them…
And what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt…
I’m always torn between this version and the Johnny Cash one.
A city run by a corporation is the opposite of a “freedom city”
If it’s in the name you know it’s the opposite like “Democratic People’s republic of Korea”
It’s not the people living in the city that are the free ones. It’s the owners
It makes much more sense when you understand the differences between the Northern version of freedom vs. the Southern version of freedom. These asshats think of freedom as the freedom to rule over others.
Yes, but it does follow republican naming convention. Right to work states are anything but, for example.
It’s freedom from government regulations, many of which stem from the last time we let companies set up their own towns. What could possibly go wrong?
Last time we got full scale shooting wars between workers and companies. If I’m putting on my optimist hat then I’d say at least we’ll get to shoot some rich folk.
I doubt they’ll be on the front lines. It’ll just be the poor shooting at each other. The only real solution is Luigi, until they’re scared enough to negotiate in good faith.
Oh for sure, but if it gets to the point where I need to fire my gun at somebody it’s definitely not going to be aimed at some low level corporate thug. That is, unless they’re standing between me and their boss.
Cyberpunk IRL
Honestly, the beauty of the game is the sheer irony of it all.
And I kinda wish those neo-kitsch high fashion Kevlar-lined clothing was real, because some of the Corpo drip in Cyberpunk looks cool as fuck.
Just look at SpaceX‘s town. Pure dystopia.
The one where they stole the land from cards against humanity?
“ You load 16 tons, what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt St. Peter, don’t you call me 'cause I can’t go I owe my soul to the company store “
Don’t forget “A mind that’s a-weak and a back that’s strong”
Damn. Beat me to it!
This is exactly what Elon Musk and Peter Thiel want, to own city states as kings using neo-feudalism.
See:
SpaceX is trying to buy a town as we speak. Maybe not “buy” in the traditional sense but I’m sure money, or promises of money, will tilt this in their favor.
https://www.fox7austin.com/news/starbase-texas-election-spacex
Tech bros love to rename terrible shit from the past and call it an invention.
That’s all fElon has ever done.
This is the dumbest branding exercise ever. There are no additional “freedoms” that you can get in a corporate-run city versus a regular city; except that perhaps the corporation has more freedom to trounce upon the rights of the citizenry.
If the future that Curtis Yarvin and his type envision starts to shape up, we’re gonna need to go full, 100% anti-corporation to push back.
We should really be doing that regardless, the corporation has outlived its utility and has become a chain on the collective neck of humanity
except that perhaps the corporation has more freedom to trounce upon the rights of the citizenry.
That is exactly the kind of freedom they are looking for, and don’t underestimate the psychology there - it feels like freedom to them, the kind of freedom that allows for injustices to prevail. I’m reminded of an anecdote of Ẑiẑek, talking to a bunch of fascists in former Yugoslavia, where they in no uncertain terms revealed, that it had been tyranny to them to not be able to be violent, rape, plunder, etc. and that the chaos of the breakup had been a liberatory event for them, psychologically.
Never assume “freedom” is something, that opposing classes and groups in general agree upon when it comes to its definition.
