A common belief among the new breed of tech-bro oligarchs is that more innovation will save humanity and therefore nothing should stand in the way, not even governments or elections. It was laid out in the Techno-Optimist Manifesto, a 5,000 word post written by Marc Andreessen. He’s the venture capitalist who co-founded Netscape, once known as a Silicon Valley kingmaker.
A key goal of these would-be” masters of the universe” is unfettered free speech, at least for themselves. Other priorities include the success of Artificial Intelligence, their underlying contempt for old media, and skepticism about diversity quotas, political correctness, and the “elite consensus.” You know, all that DEI stuff. It turns out their concerns mesh well with Trump’s transgressive agenda.
In the end, techno-optimism is about growth — at almost any cost. Move fast and break things, as they used to say. Regulations, safety, popular opinion, even logic, can just get in the way of innovation.
If we don’t watch out, this kind of thinking could replace liberal humanism, which prioritizes self-determination, reason, and human rights.
It started about twenty years ago with the co-founders, executives and engineers of PayPal. Elon Musk was there, and David Sachs, who became the White House crypto cazar. And Peter Thiel, not one of the richest in the gang, but a key player. Thiel co-founded PayPal, and later Palantir, a data analysis behemoth that has been infiltrating and replacing government-run systems. He was the first outside investor in Facebook, jump started J.D. Vances’s political career, and secretly funded the Hulk Hogan lawsuit that took down the Gawker website.
After PayPal made them rich, they launched other companies, invested in each other's projects, and sat on each other's boards. If you wanted to make it in Silicon Valley, you sought approval from that Mafia.
By the way, several of them were from South Africa, born during apartheid. So they started out with some privilege — in an authoritarian regime.
So far I’ve mentioned Musk, Sachs, Andreessen, and Thiel. Add Mark Zuckerberg, the second richest person in the world. And Jeff Bezos, Oracle’s Larry Ellison, Alphabet’s Larry Page, and Microsoft’s Ex-CEO Steve Ballmer. These guys are usually numbers 3 through 6 in global wealth. Bill Gates was once part of the gang, but has broken away, somewhat. Put them together and, brand-wise, you have Tesla, Space X, Facebook, Amazon, Google, Alphabet, Oracle, and Microsoft. The new techno-industrial complex.
The broligarchs meet regularly at conferences and “summits.” Take the annual Sun Valley Conference, a modern Bohemian Grove, known as Summer Camp for Billionaires. They’re usually all there. They also attend private dinners and smaller gatherings, networking and building relationships. Plus one-on-one meetings and invitation-only sessions, ‘pods’ for peer-to-peer exchanges that are rarely announced.
The conferences and summits include CES — which calls itself the world’s most powerful tech event, MWC Barcelona — which bills itself the most influential connectivity event, the Web Summit, SXSW, Silicon Valley Leadership Group, and others on AI. These are chances for them to network, discuss trends and reach consensus.
Five of the world’s ten wealthiest people were at Trump’s inauguration. Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Page, Thiel, Andreessen, all of them and more were there — France’s Bernard Arnault of LVMH, India’s richest man Mukesh Ambani of Reliance Group, Apple’s Tim Cook, Google’s Sundar Pichai, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, TikTok’s Shou Zi Chew and Uber’s Dara Khosrowshahi.
Where is all this actually going? Some call it techno-fascism, techno-feudalism, cyber populism, or authoritarian technocracy. They claim that the internet, social media and the technological innovations ahead can be tools of liberation. But it’s ultimately about seizing the power to decide how the future looks. It’s the merging of big tech with authoritarian politics, a system where power is centralized through digital governance, algorithmic control, and elite corporate influence rather than democratic processes.
After World War II, techno-optimism fueled the government’s investment in technologies that a number of broligarchs now control. Since then the dynamic and focus have changed. The emphasis now is on their profitable contractual ties with military systems, border security, and mass surveillance. New forms of communication are putting capitalism on cyber-steroids, high tech forms of knowledge extraction and manipulation.
Most broligarchs have resisted attempts to restrain their vision of progress with religious zeal. Even the restrictions of nationalism, which their agenda could make obsolete. It’s an emerging global religion, a new type of social darwinism, combined with a blind faith that absolves them of moral or civic duty, or serious consideration of the actual social costs.
But it’s not the only option. Evolutionary humanism agrees with the techno-optimists that humanity possesses the unique ability to shape the future of life on Earth. But being an agent of evolution also means we are responsible for our biological, cultural, and intellectual progress. Having choices means that conflict is inevitable and essential to the process.
Techno-optimists believe that when forces collide, the smartest and fittest must press forward, sometimes regardless of popular resistance. It’s essentially positive that shrewd, brilliant innovators push aside restrictions, they claim. In the end, despite missteps, it makes us stronger and more prosperous.
If we hold back extraordinary people, the argument continues, the result could be degeneration, even extinction. This is alarmist and untrue. Unfortunately, it is the kind of thinking that led to the rise of the Nazis. They co-opted concepts from evolutionary theory and eugenics to justify a racist ideology. Adopting a twisted social Darwinism, they argued that the "Aryan" race was evolutionarily superior and destined to dominate, attempting to justify forced sterilization and the Holocaust.
Championed by thinkers like Julian Huxley after World War II, evolutionary humanism was a reaction against Nazi atrocities. Huxley, who coined the term, sought to separate the progressive study of human evolution from the racist and eugenic horrors of the Third Reich, aligning evolutionary biology with universal human rights.
In other words, techno-fascism need not be the next step. Evolution isn’t over. Instead, with expanded consciousness, positive values and peaceful means, an evolutionary humanism that embraces both technology and limits can emerge, flourish, and help to meet the challenges we face.
