Technofeudalism: The Players (Musk, Palantir & Oligarchy)

Technofeudalism: The Players (Musk, Palantir & Oligarchy)

379 bookmarks
Newest
World's richest man: "the only escape route for humans to avoid being eliminated by AI is to voluntarily merge with machines and become a new species." In other words, you will be assimilated into the Borg. Resistance is futile. How are any conservatives OK with this?
World's richest man: "the only escape route for humans to avoid being eliminated by AI is to voluntarily merge with machines and become a new species." In other words, you will be assimilated into the Borg. Resistance is futile. How are any conservatives OK with this?
Explore this post and more from the agi community
·reddit.com·
World's richest man: "the only escape route for humans to avoid being eliminated by AI is to voluntarily merge with machines and become a new species." In other words, you will be assimilated into the Borg. Resistance is futile. How are any conservatives OK with this?
AI Oligarchs Are Poisoning Our Society – New Issue Of JOHNSTONE
AI Oligarchs Are Poisoning Our Society – New Issue Of JOHNSTONE
Caitlin Johnstone Sep 01, 2026 The new issue of JOHNSTONE is now available to order in print or download as a pay-what-you-want e-book version. This issue features a painting of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. In a recent interview with Time Magazine, Altman said he knows most people hate the technology that he and his fellow
·attackthesystem.com·
AI Oligarchs Are Poisoning Our Society – New Issue Of JOHNSTONE
Sally Mju (@sallymju)
Sally Mju (@sallymju)
A few thoughts on Yanis Varoufakis’s 'Technofeudalism'. A friend basically threw the book at me, so I had no choice but to read it. My general feeling after reading it was: WTF??????????? Because in so many parts I kept thinking: what is this, really? I understand why the book is popular. The image is strong and memorable. Varoufakis argues that capitalism has been “killed” by a new form of capital - cloud capital - and that Big Tech is owning platforms, data, algorithms, visibility, infrastructure. Want to sell? Go through Amazon. Want to be seen? Please the algorithm. Want your app to exist? Go through Apple or Google. So we are no longer simply “free consumers” in a market; we are turned into data and attention. It feels like renting a house, except the house is the platform. BUT THIS IS NOT NEW! To be fair, Varoufakis is right to stress the new power of platforms and cloud rent. But WHY DID BRO TURN it into the death of capitalism rather than a mutation within capitalism. So much of what he describes is already inside capitalism. It is just being inflated into something that sounds very new, very “we have entered another historical stage now.” 'Cloud capital', 'cloud serfs', 'technolords'??? But what is actually new here? Marx's Capital already captured all that, machinery in the hands of capital, living labour, labour-power, rent, monopoly, surplus value, accumulation, and the control of the labour process. Beneath the glamorous cloud there are still human beings: coders, delivery workers, warehouse workers, content moderators, data labelers, creators. People are still hired, pressured, exhausted, turned into data, and made to produce value. To me, instead of abandoning the critique of capital and inventing another historical “layer,” we should return to Marx to see more clearly the forms of exploitation being hidden under AI, platforms and the cloud. The issue is that people are still mystified and alienated by their own labour. What we produce, machines, data, algorithms, platforms, AI, comes back to confront us as something alien, independent, intelligent. So when people see AI as the threat, or technology as the thing exploiting them, they are really seeing the alienated form of social labour. AI does not exploit anyone by itself. Capital uses AI to organize, control, accelerate and extract labour, and we see our labour alienated in front of us. THIS IS NOT NEW! The social relation that makes human products turn back and dominate human beings. Everything is still stagnant, still illusion-ridden, still capitalist. What new stage are we even talking about????? Magical, la la land?? ?
·substack.com·
Sally Mju (@sallymju)
Silicon Valley Panics Over Public Hatred Fueling Wealth Tax
Silicon Valley Panics Over Public Hatred Fueling Wealth Tax

Wow epic intro from Ryan 👏👌 Capitalists out here making the biggest case for socialism ever. Anything to shift the Overton Window back where it belongs: in the hands of the people.

But this won't ever go far enough: capitalism is a psychogical mindset that I argue must be treated as a mental health condition. I lay out this case in my essay overview and links below.

·youtube.com·
Silicon Valley Panics Over Public Hatred Fueling Wealth Tax