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Yep. Camp of the Saints.

The only republicans on this platform are bots. We are constantly talking to the choir on here.

I hope it makes them whimper in fear even a little bit how much the public resents them and how many of us would gladly see them mussolini'd lol

And the media owners are complicit, which is a huge reason why no one took the warnings seriously

Jeez, consolidating power like you know who. Are they so big as to negate boycott, national strike approach?

They made an alliance with the Christian fundamentalists & Catholic far right.

We've tried having the divine right of kings before and know the limitations of such a sh-tass system. I've read at least a bit of Thomas Hobbes and have some notion of the contents of a certain book by Machiavelli. Mindless cleaving to hierachies is known to be undesirable.

There are contradictions for all of them. Ben Horowitz (of Andreessen Horowitz) has a Black trans child.

The role of a public corporation exec prioritizes and rewards shareholder wealth over and at times in conflict with the public good, personal ethics, and for the benefit of the self. Tim Cook has to sleep at night focusing on the good things Apple products are doing.

The thing that tipped me off were those weird articles on "bossism" a few years ago, like it was a new idea to treat employees as serfs. I never had an idealistic view, but I thought they at least believed in the marketplace. As soon as workers exert market pressure, though, it's back to feudalism.

Thank you. I am a woman in a STEM field and have been tech-bro-adjacent much of my life. I took classes with people like this, went to conferences with them. It has been glaringly obvious to me for decades. Even many who aren't billionaires foster the ideas in your thread.

it IS a conspiracy. it’s just one that is out in the open rather than hidden and/or imaginary.

That’s exactly one example I was thinking of.

They *reward* killing! Andreesen hired a man solely on the basis that he strangled my unarmed neighbor to death! They are worse than good people’s imaginations can conceive.

It really clicked for me when I saw somebody write that "fascism is capitalism in decline." They bleed the system so dry that it's falling apart so they use the authoritarian power of the state to prop itself up and keep the profits coming.

Apropos. My first published work on this topic was in 1999. johnsundman.substack.com/p/i-created-...

It is a conspiracy, just not one they're hiding.

A lot like the Business Plot in the 1930s allthatsinteresting.com/the-business...

This is all correct and useful afaict, except that what you describe is - quite literally - a conspiracy

When good people design tools, they can be used for good.

I used to be very tech positive. My mind started to change starting with crypto, now I am wholly and relentlessly hostile. It's been a journey.

Yep. Here’s 8 of them. omarchy.org/news/2026/08...

Frank Herbert warned us of this in Dune.

Musk, Thiel, Yarvin Global economic control. Meta, Amazon, Google all the rest? See ya.

I still feel crazy but thanks for the confirmation of my formerly paranoid fears.

Where is our Smedley Butler, though? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley...

Don't get me started about what was happening to women in the tech industry at that time. Couldn't even get the "good" men to admit what was going on right under their noses. Just. Wouldn't. Register. Concluded it wasn't important. Very frustrating. And yes, the minority women suffered the most.

We're winning. Don't panic.

Listen to some music, watch a comedy, feel better. Same here. ❤️

Same ☹️

I felt this comment in my soul. It's bleak... but it's also strangely comforting to see my own feelings reflected in a comment from a stranger. Or as the youth might say: same, bestie.

Oof

Yet still …!!

Yes. It’s bizarro world.

Yeah that’s fair. But I think you take my meaning. Perhaps edit to say it’s not a secret conspiracy.

I wrote about Peter Thiel and Elon Musk for SPLC in 2012, but I didn’t take them seriously enough. They weren’t household names and I underestimated and flat-out lacked the imagination to consider the possibility of how things are now.

I felt so alone. I posted some early docs on the subject. It’s nearly complete and people still tell me I’m crazy.

Those with influence and reach who SHOULD have been raising alarms years earlier (Biden) waited until it was already too late. www.democracynow.org/2026/8/17/gi...

‼️‼️‼️ Yup and the disabled

I'm only here because the only way to make things better is by fighting to make it better, but my eye is on that slowly closing door...