The Rise of the Tech Industry

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I think you can always see the tech industry as shaping aspects of society in many ways, right? But it does feel like, especially recently, there's this kind of renewed interest in shaping a lot of how we live. It really doesn't seem like designing apps is enough for them anymore. I mean, I think that something that frightens me sometimes is to feel like their ambitions are growing. These people want to now colonize more and more of our minds,. Even get involved in politics in unprecedented ways.

Paris Marx is joined by Julia Black to discuss tech billionaires’ embrace of pronatalism and how it’s part of a broader rationalist project to remake society and protect their privileged positions.

Julia Black is a senior correspondent at Insider and previously worked at Esquire and Vox. Follow Julia on Twitter at @mjnblack.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.

The podcast is produced by Eric Wickham and part of the Harbinger Media Network.

Also mentioned in this episode:

Julia wrote about pronatalism, Lex Fridman, and Sam Altman.
Paris wrote about eugenics in Silicon Valley.
Marc Andreessen wrote “It’s Time to Build” in April 2020.
Timnit Gebru gave a presentation on the TESCREAL bundle of ideologies. Émile Torres made a thread on Twitter about it.

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