Mute

It’s a good read. Here is the primary source: https://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/californian-ideology

> In their mythology, the insitutions of social control (eg. the mainstream media, Silicon Valley, banks) are all left-wing This is a classic, authoritarian tactic of misdirection. Here's a report on some of the forces at play: 1. https://datasociety.net/output/media-manipulation-and-disinfo-online/ By the way, they're wrong—although not alone—in thinking that Silicon Valley is "left-wing". This is a convenient smoke-screen, as illuminated here: 1. http://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/californian-ideology I am not sure why we should put much stock in the explicit mythology of a troll army.

It's a good piece Michael, you put time into a structure and great supporting quotes. I hear what you say from others about that feeling from inside tech, "Fear and Loathing" of having been to immersed in the Hotel California too long - the brilliant Wilfred Owen line that I can't help but hear; "Like a devil sick of sin". One of the best essays that specifically addresses your thoughts on the Bay Area was passed on to me here by another HN reader, it's on the "Californian Ideology", and traces the line from counter-culture to tech-bros [1]. Another interesting video series you might like is Adam Curtis "All watched over..." and "Hypernormalisation". [2]. FWIW I wrote a book [3] vaguely apropos (ping me if you want a free copy). With regard to "getting it off you chest" - no worries with public writing as private therapy, I think it's half of what all writers do these days. I am finding it helps formulate ideas and aids my more serious projects (even while being a distraction). [1] https://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/californian-ideology [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Curtis [3] https://digitalvegan.net

yes and this: https://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/californian-ideology "There is an emerging global orthodoxy concerning the relation between society, technology and politics. We have called this orthodoxy `the Californian Ideology' in honour of the state where it originated. By naturalising and giving a technological proof to a libertarian political philosophy, and therefore foreclosing on alternative futures, the Californian Ideologues are able to assert that social and political debates about the future have now become meaningless. The California Ideology is a mix of cybernetics, free market economics, and counter-culture libertarianism and is promulgated by magazines such as WIRED and MONDO 2000 and preached in the books of Stewart Brand, Kevin Kelly and others. The new faith has been embraced by computer nerds, slacker students, 30-something capitalists, hip academics, futurist bureaucrats and even the President of the USA himself. As usual, Europeans have not been slow to copy the latest fashion from America. While a recent EU report recommended adopting the Californian free enterprise model to build the 'infobahn', cutting-edge artists and academics have been championing the 'post-human' philosophy developed by the West Coast's Extropian cult. With no obvious opponents, the global dominance of the Californian ideology appears to be complete."

I think it's maybe a bit more subtle. In our industry there's what I call the "California Ideology" (after the classic essay: https://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/californian-ideology which is a bit dated but still stands the test of time) At one point this perspective was fairly counter cultural -- computing technology fused with Alvin Toffleresque third wavism, a tinge of libertarianism but without a suit and tie, some LSD, some cyberpunk, wear jeans to work, "change the world", etc. But that sheen is increasingly wearing off. The reality under the surface dressing is we are part of an industry with deep military ties, and it doesn't matter if you wear jeans to work and get vegan treats in the cafe, there's nothing particularly radical about computing technology and while we're "changing the world" it's really not in any egalitarian or progressive way. We're part of a semi-managerial class that is doing on the whole pretty damn well financially, but there's no reason to expect that to last forever. A lot of us ran around saying "information wants to be free" in the 90s and so on, it looked a bit naive to me then, but now it just looks comical and sad.

AKA The Californian Ideology or Techno Utopianism. https://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/californian-ideology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_utopianism

Here's a link to "The Californian Ideology" if you haven't read it: http://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/californian-ideology

Boyd's stuff is really interesting but yeah, he doesn't provide quite as much of a unified theory of everything as a lot of the Pentagon people seem to think. imo one result of the over-bureaucratized nature of the US military is that ideas that would be considered fairly basic in other contexts are treated as incomparable advances there [edit] which reminds me of the IDF/Deleuze thing - the grand insight they got from reading Difference & Repetition was that... they could blow holes in walls instead of going around them https://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/art-war-deleuze-guattari-d…

This seems related to the copyfarleft concept proposed by Dmytri Kleiner [1] and his Peer Production License as a first-draft implementation of the concept. That's spawned a few license variants and been debated a bit [2]. Would be interesting to know whether the authors of this license are aware of those licenses and debate, and how they see their goals as relating. [1] http://telekommunisten.net/the-telekommunist-manifesto/ [2] E.g., https://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/copyfarleft-critique, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2468731,

The P2P Foundation has some writings on licenses they label as "copyfair", "copyfarleft", and "copyjustright" https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/CopyFair_License https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Copyfarleft https://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/copyfarleft-and-copyjustri…

Franco "Bifo" Beradi published a crushing critique of this, also in Mute. http://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/proliferating-futures-re-ca…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Californian_Ideology http://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/californian-ideology

This isn't a new phenomenon http://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/once-lifetime