Balaji, a 43-year-old Long Island native who goes by his first name, has a solid Valley pedigree: He earned multiple degrees from Stanford University, founded multiple startups, became a partner at Andreessen-Horowitz and then served as chief technology officer at Coinbase. He is also the leader of a cultish and increasingly strident neo-reactionary tech political movement that sees American democracy as an enemy. In 2013, a New York Times story headlined “Silicon Valley Roused by Secession Call” described a speech in which he “told a group of young entrepreneurs that the United States had become ‘the Microsoft of nations’: outdated and obsolescent.”

“The speech won roars from the audience at Y Combinator, a leading start-up incubator,” reported the Times. Balaji paints a bleak picture of a dystopian future in a U.S. in chaos and decline, but his prophecies sometimes fall short. Last year, he lost one million dollars in a public bet after wrongly predicting a massive surge in the price of Bitcoin.

Still, his appetite for autocracy is bottomless. Last October, Balaji hosted the first-ever Network State Conference. Garry Tan—the current Y Combinator CEO who’s attempting to spearhead a political takeover of San Francisco—participated in an interview with Balaji and cast the effort as part of the Network State movement. Tan, who made headlines in January after tweeting “die slow motherfuckers” at local progressive politicians, frames his campaign as an experiment in “moderate” politics. But in a podcast interview one month before the conference, Balaji laid out a more disturbing and extreme vision.

What I’m really calling for is something like tech Zionism,” he said, after comparing his movement to those started by the biblical Abraham, Jesus Christ, Joseph Smith (founder of Mormonism), Theodor Herzl (“spiritual father” of the state of Israel), and Lee Kuan Yew (former authoritarian ruler of Singapore). Balaji then revealed his shocking ideas for a tech-governed city where citizens loyal to tech companies would form a new political tribe clad in gray t-shirts. “And if you see another Gray on the street…you do the nod,” he said, during a four-hour talk on the Moment of Zen podcast. “You’re a fellow Gray.”

The Grays’ shirts would feature “Bitcoin or Elon or other kinds of logos … Y Combinator is a good one for the city of San Francisco in particular.” Grays would also receive special ID cards providing access to exclusive, Gray-controlled sectors of the city. In addition, the Grays would make an alliance with the police department, funding weekly “policeman’s banquets” to win them over.

“Grays should embrace the police, okay? All-in on the police,” said Srinivasan. “What does that mean? That’s, as I said, banquets. That means every policeman’s son, daughter, wife, cousin, you know, sibling, whatever, should get a job at a tech company in security.”

In exchange for extra food and jobs, cops would pledge loyalty to the Grays. Srinivasan recommends asking officers a series of questions to ascertain their political leanings. For example: “Did you want to take the sign off of Elon’s building?”

This refers to the August 2023 incident in which Elon Musk illegally installed a large flashing X logo atop Twitter headquarters, in violation of building safety codes. City inspectors forced him to remove it. This was the second time Musk had run afoul of the city in his desire to refurbish his headquarters: In July, police briefly halted his attempt to pry the “Twitter” signage from the building’s exterior. But in Balaji’s dystopia, he implies that officers loyal to the Grays would let Musk do as he pleases (democratically-inclined officers, he suggests, can be paid to retire).

Simply put, there is a ton of fascist-chic cosplay involved. Once an officer joins the Grays, they get a special uniform designed by their tech overlords. The Grays will also donate heavily to police charities and “merge the Gray and police social networks.” Then, in a show of force, they’ll march through the city together.

  • NOT_RICK@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    These idiots really think people will be clamoring to sign up to wear one of their exploding collars to serve them as serfs once they finish destroying the world. They’re too high off their own farts.

  • Crismus@lemmynsfw.com
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    5 months ago

    This is like rebuilding the confederacy as some sort of tech evangelical utopia unholy union. Have the Silicon Valley Tech Bros been mixing Cocaine with an increased dosage of LSD microdosing?

    We already are dealing with a rise in fascism from the Republican Party, do they really think that tech jobs in security far away will somehow bribe Democrats and Republicans away from their own corridors of political power?

    • Tinidril@midwest.social
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      5 months ago

      The idea isn’t to usurp power from the Republicans and Democrats, it’s to rule through ownership of Republicans and Democrats. Controlling the code that runs the Internet is also power in it’s own right.

    • DigitalTraveler42@lemmy.worldOP
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      5 months ago

      That was one of my immediate thoughts, but Handmaid’s Tale has similar, then there’s the whole Civil war overtones, grey = Confederacy, blue = Union, this guy is pretty much telling us how much he wants slaves.

  • Tinidril@midwest.social
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    5 months ago

    Sounds like the vision of the Democratic establishment on steroids. Demented meritocracy as a thin veil over autocratic rule.

    • DigitalTraveler42@lemmy.worldOP
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      5 months ago

      Sounds like the vision of the Democratic establishment on steroids. Demented meritocracy as a thin veil over autocratic rule.

      Are you mentally handicapped?

      Bro the Republicans and tech bros are actually advocating for the Handmaid’s Tale, yet here you are with your “hurr durr just like the Democrats durrrrrrr”, let’s be fucking for real.

      You got brainworms or Trump Derangement Syndrome or some shit wrong with your brain.

      • Tinidril@midwest.social
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        5 months ago

        Silicon Valley has been in the hands of Democrats since it was a thing. It’s only very recently that some tech bros like Elon went fascist right. Republicans have traditionally had the fossil fuel industry, venture capitalists, and police unions, while Democrats have had “tech bros”, bankers, and teacher’s unions.

        So no, I’m not handicapped, I just wasn’t born yesterday. It was almost literally yesterday when Elon was rubbing up against the Clinton’s and Obama instead of Trump and Putin.

        Democrats fetishize demented elitist meritocracy, while Republicans fetishize tradition and piety. This particular story smells more like the former than the latter.

        I know it’s all the rage to divide the politicians into good guys and bad guys, but it’s really just bad and worse, with very few exceptions. I kind of get it since Trump makes it so easy but, if Democrats weren’t mostly shit then Republicans wouldn’t get away with what they do.

      • Tinidril@midwest.social
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        5 months ago

        Incidentally, where is all the Democratic opposition to “cop city”? Why did Democrats let Bill Gates wreak havoc on our national education system? Where are Democrats on citizen privacy from technocratic corporations? What about slicing up the Internet into walled gardens? Where are Democrats on consolidation in healthcare leading to doctor shortages, rapid medical inflation, and billions of healthcare dollars ending up on Wall Street?

        All of this and a whole lot more are why Republican demagoguery sells so well to poor and middle class Americans.

          • Tinidril@midwest.social
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            5 months ago

            Leftists: Defund the police!

            Democrats: The Biden administration announced new funding that will go toward hiring more than 1,730 law enforcement officers.

            Fascists: Give the cops grey shirts!

            Democrats: That be crazy!

            The first and foremost purpose of the police has always been to serve the interests of wealth and privilege. The earliest cops were slave hunters, and at this moment cops are violently oppressing protests on college campuses - all with the blessing of the Democratic establishment. All those big tech companies already have security organizations that coordinate with Federal agencies to share information in both directions. Where is the Democratic push back? They are fine with every substantive aspect of corporate power, as a long as it happens out of public view.