NETWORKED REALISM: Whoever Controls the Infrastructure, Controls Reality

Aug 28, 2025

In this insightful discussion, Nick Houde and Severin Matusek of co-matter explore how tech giants have reshaped liberal values in a world increasingly dominated by hard power. They delve into the influence of digital infrastructure on cultural narratives and the precarious balance between individual freedom and state authority. Highlighting the motivations of tech workers shifting to roles in defense, they reveal a quest for purpose. The duo also critiques media polarization and the challenges of navigating a fragmented public discourse in our digitally saturated age.

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INSIGHT

Feed Refreshes, Packages Don't Arrive

There is a growing gap between the online fiction of our lives and the material world's friction.
The memo frames this as a shift where digital architectures reprogram how our brains perceive reality.

ANECDOTE

Berlin Policing Broke The Illusion

Severin describes Berlin's policing at demonstrations as a wake-up about hard power intruding on everyday life.
He uses this personal experience to illustrate how state force shattered prior fantasies about the city.

INSIGHT

Tech Embraces Geopolitics

Tech industry leaders now publicly embrace geopolitical and nationalist positioning as a market strategy.
This reveals a shift from commerce-first liberalism toward hard-power-aligned industrial policy.

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It's feeling like we're living in a very strange moment in time where liberal norms of openness have been shattered by the same class of tech industry titans who expressed these values just a decade ago. In this episode I spoke to Nick Houde and Severin Matusek from co-matter, a research and strategy studio based in Berlin, who recently published an incredible memo that is chock full of incredible analysis and insight into our current moment.

"New World Order: The Return of Hard Power and Soft Beliefs is a 35-page research memo about what happens when power, infrastructure and ideology collide.

A manual for anyone trying to make sense of the present, New World Order contains ideas, context and language to participate in shaping the world that emerges in front of our eyes."

The memo is chock full of useful and powerful concepts that help explain this moment. You can order a copy of the memo on Metalabel here. (I've already got my copy!) Lots of great quotes like "Yesterday's moral stance is tomorrow's liability" and "Whoever controls the infrastructure controls reality itself."

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ICYMI I've written a book about, no surprise, blockchains through a left political framework! The title is Blockchain Radicals: How Capitalism Ruined Crypto and How to Fix It and is being published through Repeater Books, the publishing house started by Mark Fisher who’s work influenced me a lot in my thinking.

The book is officially published and you use this linktree to find where you can purchase the book based on your region / country.