Strange New Thoughts: The Origins and Rise of the Tech Right [9781250430199]

Overview

The first comprehensive history of the background, origins, and philosophical evolution of the Tech Right—the movement blending Silicon Valley futurism with reactionary politics that is now reshaping power in the US and beyond

The alignment of Silicon Valley figures like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk with the Trumpian right might seem like a marriage of convenience, but it is the culmination of an intellectual movement decades in the making.

In Strange New Thoughts, Geoff Shullenberger brings together all the major threads of the story of how the technological vanguard merged with the political rearguard. He parses out the underground currents that contributed to the high-tech reactionary worldview, which combines a driving concern with technological progress with a deep hostility to progressive politics, and shows how this worldview has spread from the fringes of academia to blogs, social media, boardrooms, and now Capitol Hill and the White House. It’s driven by radical notions about the problems with democracy and the virtues of monarchy, and sees dangers in everything from Anthropic to the Antichrist. It’s also led by a cast of eccentric characters, from philosophers to anonymous influencers to venture capitalists, from England to Palo Alto to Capitol Hill.

Shullenberger profiles the key figures who have shaped the Tech Right worldview, many of whom were once obscure, from early mentors like René Girard to renegade cyber-philosophers like Nick Land to industry intellectuals like Curtis Yarvin, and shows how a movement skeptical of democracy ended up allying itself with Trump’s rabble-rousing populism. Regardless of whether Silicon Valley’s rising counter-elite gets what it wants out of the second Trump administration, its ideas have now gained a solid foothold in the corridors of power in the United States and beyond. To understand the future that is upon us, we must understand where these ideas came from and where they are taking us.