Vicky Osterweil over at anarchist writing group CAW wrote one of the best overviews of fascism in tech. Entitled The Silicon Reich (Part One) she dives into all the ways that tech hasn’t just switched to align with fascism out of profit or self preservation, but in fact has been one of the largest driving forces for humanity’s drive towards fascism.
One thing that makes it so powerful is that there’s nothing new or surprising, it’s just all laid out together, across different technology companies. It’s well sourced and linked, and I highly recommend giving it a read.
It’s easy to think of computing technology as politically neutral or benign, but it’s not. It’s really hard to see it as it is, a more destructive force of humanity. The pain and violence from technology is so abstracted we are barely able to acknowledge it, much less do take clear and present action.
Take “AI” for example.
If you say the phrase “I created this image by using AI” and then share some neat or funny picture, it feels like saying “Look what I created.” But if you break it down into pieces, it becomes much darker.
“I propped up a silicon valley ponzi scheme by burning down a cedar tree and stealing hundreds of gallons of water from a community so I could conveniently plagiarize and steal the creative work of others, passing it off as something I did, versus something I stole.”
That’s right out of the fascist playbook. Join team fascism and your life will become more convenient and better, all you have to do is join in the oppression of others while ignoring your own, ever increasing, cognitive dissonance.
Think about that next time you create an image using gen AI.
All this is partly why I believe must start recognizing the moral, societal, and environmental cost of our technology choices, and have to urgently move to community based social media solutions and open source tools that are created in community to help people, not just grow shareholder profit.
