Tech-Trad Synergy
CrowdSource 11.18.2024
Welcome to CrowdSource, your weekly guided tour of the latest intellectual disputes, ideological disagreements, and national debates that piqued our interest (or inflamed our passions). This week: the ideas driving the Trump coalition, a continuing series.
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Against the Cosmic Shrug
Let’s start with a Russian nesting doll of cultural commentary that encapsulates an emerging source of ideas for the Trump coalition: the burgeoning alliance between Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and traditional religious believers.
A Common Starting Point. Comedian Louie CK is describing fellow comedian Adrienne Iapalucci. Commenting on Louie’s description is venture capitalist and Trump donor Marc Andreesen. Interpreting Andreesen’s comment is Catholic columnist
:
Wonder > Indifference. Another way to put Douthat’s point: the essence of the tech-trad alliance lies in rejecting indifference about the meaning of the universe and humanity’s role within it.
Worldview Overlap. Last July, Douthat singled out four points of agreement between Silicon Valley tech leaders and social conservatives:
“shared faith in cosmic order, a belief that the world is still a puzzle waiting for solutions, not just a random jumble or a permanent mystery”;
“human beings have some important cosmic destiny, that we aren’t just doomed to blink out in some entirely meaningless apocalypse”;
“Western civilization has fallen into a slough of despond and that to escape”;
and “reversing the collapse of birthrates is one of the great tasks of the 21st century.”
“Why not?” In 2022, Trump appointee and tech entrepreneur Elon Musk appeared on the Christian evangelical Babylon Bee podcast: “There’s some great wisdom in the teachings of Jesus, and I agree with those teachings. … But hey, if Jesus is saving people … I won’t stand in His way.”
A New Synthesis?
Outside the realm of partisan politics, fruitful debate about tech and traditionalism has picked up in recent years.
A Quintessential Anti-Tech Statement. In a 2009 essay, conservative thinker Patrick Deneen criticized the Apollo missions and other “Great Projects,” all of which are “a masterful, and enormously profligate, distraction from the difficult fact that we have too often failed at making a good home on the earth.”
Shots Fired. In 2020, Deneen criticized the pro-tech conservatives: they should be “more invested in cultivating and sustaining virtue than pinning our hopes on the invention of a flying car.”
Conservative Techno-Futurism. In 2021, Douthat argued against Deneen that “anyone who seeks its renewal along traditionalist lines must be a dynamist of some sort … if only because the basic arithmetic of population growth requires it.”
The Three-City Problem. Writer and entrepreneur
has coined “the three-city problem” to explain what he takes to be the central challenge of our time: how to synthesize the wisdom of philosophy (Athens), the great world religions (Jerusalem), and science and technology (Silicon Valley).New Forum. Recently, Burgis teamed up with novelist (and friend of the pod) Jordan Castro to launch Cluny Journal, which (among other things) hosts “trialogues” between representatives of the “three cities.” The first issue features a trialogue between a rabbi, a venture capitalist, and a libertarian economist.
From the Crowd
RC responds to
’s post, “The Peasants, the People and God”:
In a system that was devised to make it difficult if not impossible for a leader with autocratic tendencies to accumulate power, Trump has managed to do so through sheer force of personality and will. I was wondering if that is what you meant by the role of force; it is force that people listen to to subconsciously, and the masses have to be led and not listened to. And that is what Trump did, and Harris did not. Harris was too focussed on appealing to various factions of the Democratic coalition, and feeling empowered, many of these voters may not have voted against their interest (or maybe not).
Since Obama, Democrats have ceded power to activist group within their coalition, and the candidates lobby these groups to win nomination. A good example is Harris in 2021 when she was made the border czar. A natural leader like, say Obama, might have relished the opportunity and taken on progressive factions of the party to recommend and implement tough border policies that would have positioned her well for the general. Also, solving this vexing issue would have made it easier for voters to see she was qualified to be POTUS. But she played it safe so she to avoid antagonizing any progressive factions. That strategy clearly worked to the extent that she won the nomination, but she also had not real achievements to tout to voters. I suspect many undecideds who voted against her did so for that reason — they were just not convinced she was POTUS material. I voted for her, but I was not convinced either; I just did not want Trump to win.
John Wilson, responding to the same essay:
If reading Doctor Zhivago and Red China Blues have taught me anything ... it's that the people are most awful when they are most powerful ... but still, we press forward, I guess.
See you next week!
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I get the point from Douthat and others about the tech-trad alignment. But I think there’s also a part that’s missing: humility. The tech bros have an implicit assumption that they can figure it all out. Wonder, yes, but optimize/analyze too. In that sense, the true humility that is a necessary part of spiritual traditions/practices goes missing. We’re seeing it already.
Take psychedelics. People are doing ayahuasca / psilocybin on hipster retreats or in the halls of Silicon Valley. But without the ritualistic guardrails provided by traditional ceremonies/shamans, up to 20% of trips go badly. Stripping chemicals from ancient practices just shows hubris. Same for tech and spirituality. We’re already seeing robot/AI “priests” and advisors. Yes, people believe they can show empathy and wisdom, but it’s a veneer that seems acceptable because so much of our life is lived interacting with technology rather than other people.
What worries me is the confidence the tech industry has that it can solve the big questions. To borrow Greg Epstein’s phrase, tech is becoming like a new religion, but to me it’s one based on optimization without wisdom.
Musk "agrees" with Jesus... that's rich. We must have different understandings of the word... I wonder how Musk defines "servant" or "sacrifice"? Perhaps "humility" needs reviewed as well.
I'm sure Musk thinks he's the savior of the world... that is probably where the confusion begins