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The Darkening of Silicon Valley
It was supposed to be a techno-topian paradise. What happened?
By Tedd Siegel
“[The] challenge of technology cannot be met with technology alone. It is rather a question of setting into motion a politically effective discussion… that brings the social potential constituted by technical knowledge and ability into a defined and controlled relation to our practical knowledge and will… this dialectic of potential and will takes place today without reflection, in accordance with interests for which public justification is neither demanded nor permitted.”
— Jürgen Habermas, Toward a Rational Society, 1970
“Fitter, happier, more productive!”
— Radiohead, 1997
Utopias, when they are still flush with cultural potency, are hard to critique. But when they darken into dystopian nightmares, the job gets much easier. In this way, it is becoming easier, perhaps, to characterize the meaning of “Silicon Valley” as a comprehensive cultural, socio-political, and economic phenomenon now that it has definitively jumped the shark.
Across its various iterations, from the 1950s to the present, Silicon Valley has actually become increasingly reflective about the unfolding of its own inner “techno-topianism.” By this, I…
