Paris Marx

Silicon Valley’s elite made their billions through luck, not genius. But as the public turns on them, they want to protect their privilege, so they’re trying to convince us they’re inherently superior.

For Disconnect, I explain how billionaires like Elon Musk are bringing eugenics back by promoting effective altruism, longtermism, and pronatalism. The goal is to cement their position at the top, and we need to stop them.

https://www.disconnect.blog/p/why-silicon-valley-is-bringing-eugenics

#tech #elonmusk #inequality

Why Silicon Valley is bringing eugenics back

Elon Musk is the most prominent face of the effort to protect tech's privilege

Disconnect
Apr 21, 2023 at 8:26pmWeb
Show threadDave SpectorApr 21, 2023
@parismarx my only regret is I can only boost this post once.
Show threadGrumbleApr 21, 2023

@parismarx These rich fuckers could "protect their privilege" by simply retiring and spending the rest of their lives living like the perfumed princes that they are.

But no. They won't stop. They want more money, more power, more of an ego trip.

#EatTheRich Trickle down economics via the estate tax.

Show threadÇ'thûłhů👾Rants! 🇺🇦 🇵🇸 🇨🇦Apr 21, 2023
@grumble209 @parismarx
Their unnatural desires are insatiable. They are empty men eager to consume human lives to extend their pointless existence. Vampires, all of them!
Show threadKris SamselApr 21, 2023
@parismarx Wealth gap can’t save them. They gotta go. They’ve damaged the hell out of our country.
Show threadNina KalininaApr 21, 2023
@parismarx It really pains me to see how EA and transhumanist areas, dominated by white cis het, reinforce oppression and inequality. How, just how, they got from "let's make sure that our limited resources are well used, so the future generations won't be having a wasteland instead of a planet" to "let's actually commit crimes against humanity and excuse that with well-being of _our_ children"
Show threadSam MinnéeApr 21, 2023
@parismarx @jackyan as countries birth rates increasingly drop below replacement rate, pronatalism seems like… a reasonable position? Certainly recognising that while we don’t all have to raise kids, *some* of us do if we want to have a functioning society when we’re old. Combined with the fact that raising a child is a massively difficult undertaking, framing child-rearing as a social services and having society support it more seems like good policy in countries with declining birth rates.
Show threadJoe DowlandApr 22, 2023
@sminnee @parismarx @jackyan but, since the population of earth is overall increasing, perhaps encouraging immigration would be better
Show threadSam MinnéeApr 22, 2023
@Aradiel @parismarx @jackyan that too.
Show threadParis MarxApr 22, 2023
@sminnee @Aradiel @jackyan Agreed on the immigration point, but also wanted to say the pronatalist movement I’m talking about is not advocating for social policies like public healthcare, free childcare, longer parental leave, or anything like that because they’re all rich and only really concered about rich (white) people having more kids. That’s why they talk more about picking the right embryos and stuff like that.
Show threadJoe DowlandApr 22, 2023
@parismarx @sminnee @jackyan don't get me wrong, it's obviously racist eugenics, and they definitely wouldn't encourage immigration because that would mean more of the people with the "wrong" attributes (eg skin tone)
Show threadSam MinnéeApr 23, 2023
@parismarx @Aradiel @jackyan yeah I guess one word can cover a lot of philosophies.
Show threadnikolar 🏕Apr 21, 2023
@parismarx Luck as in good lobbyism? We have seen their work in plain sight. At least from my eurocentric leftist side :) .
Show threadBaron VonskinnbackApr 21, 2023
@parismarx I have worked in tech for over 20 years, I had so much hope & expectation for where we were all heading (or so I thought) but toxic capitalism found it & poisoned the well & I find myself fighting against it, so much promise & so little delivered, truly an opportunity wasted, the status quo has been well & truly protected, disruptors my arse...
Show threadLord Caramac the Clueless, KSCApr 23, 2023
@Vonskinnback @parismarx Capitalism is always toxic. Capitalism is always crony. There is not, never has been, and never will be, any kind of "good" capitalism.
Show threadProtectiveHenApr 21, 2023
@parismarx Great stuff - @davetroy has also written stark stuff about Elmo's longtermism. We must organize an effort to counter the power of these creeps & ensure US passes policies to limit the power of tech monopolies, to ensure social media & media are not totally owned by private equity & eugenicist narcissists with Caesar Augustus haircuts & a penchant for world domination.
Show threadElon Musk stickApr 21, 2023
@parismarx there is only one solution. Eat them
Show threadScott D. Strader 😐Apr 22, 2023
@parismarx I lived (and believed) in the tech utopianism of the early internet. I'm so sad about the dominant, destructive powers that were born of it. sigh
Show threadbenklaasenApr 22, 2023

@parismarx
Thank you for this. SV and computing historians have done a pretty good job of portraying William Shockley's eugenicist politics as beyond the pale, and I swallowed that for years. It makes so much more sense to understand that he was mirroring the milieu in which he was marinading.

Very much looking forward to receiving my copy of Malcolm Harris' "Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World".

Show threadJoe StickerApr 22, 2023
@parismarx As the late Hans Rosling stated, earth population will decrease when people’s standard improves.
Show threadAnthonyJK-AdminApr 23, 2023

@parismarx

More like exploitation of people and resources and gaming the system through insider trades and payoffs, rather than raw luck.

Show threadTobias MerkendorfApr 23, 2023
@parismarx I am getting the impression that Elon Musk is one of these people Alex Jones was trying to warn us about...
Show threadDroid Boy Apr 24, 2023
Harter Tobak @gavinkarlmeier
Show threadmsgbiApr 24, 2023
@parismarx @charles_ex
Show threadlord pthenq1Apr 24, 2023

@parismarx
Well. Silicon valley is not only the billionaires, but we the people of silicon valley.

Take any metric related to innovation and we innovate and create more new things than any other region. We represent the California dream.

I would not say we are superior. But we create and improve technologies. You consume them.

And that accounts for something.

Show threadPsittacus cafeinaApr 25, 2023

@pthenq1 @parismarx
lmao you consume per capita so much more than you give, and your 'innovations' are usually just moneymaking schemes of at-best-dubious ethics.

You don't actually know what role you play in society or the economy. Step out of your bubble and find out.

Show threadlord pthenq1Apr 25, 2023

@caffetiel @parismarx

Well. The Android OS was created in Silicon Valley, and the IOS, the smartphones, the bots on Mars, the Visa credit card, the Teslas, and a huge list of things.

Show threadPsittacus cafeinaApr 26, 2023

@pthenq1 @parismarx

It doesn't even enter your empty, echoing skull to consider the harm caused. Amazing.

Show threadzeruchApr 27, 2023

@parismarx i had actually in the early days liked the *idea* of effective altruism, inasmuch as I liked the idea of effective use of funds (read: pick things you can get clear progress on, and use that to build momentum rather than spread oneself thin and accomplish little every where), but then I realized it was actually a cargo cult for rich morons disconnected from humanity writ large.

That was saddening

Show threadBetayouthNov 17, 2023
@parismarx During the tech boom, the nerds became really cool and were really admired. Elon somehow destroyed that image.