Silicon Valley escape fantasies abandon politics while hiding their own power.

Evidence

The kind of escape that Walden Two embodies reminds me of a more recent utopian proposal. In 2008, Wayne Gramlich and Patri Friedman founded the nonprofit the Seasteading Institute, which seeks to establish autonomous island communities in international waters. For Silicon Valley investor and libertarian Peter Thiel, who supported the project early on, the prospect of a brand-new floating colony in a place outside the law was interesting indeed. In his 2009 essay “The Education of a Libertarian,” Thiel echoes Skinner’s conclusion that the future requires a total escape from politics. Having decided that “democracy and freedom are incompatible,” Thiel’s gesture toward some other option that is somehow not totalitarian is either naive or disingenuous: Because there are no truly free places left in our world, I suspect that the mode for escape must involve some sort of new and hitherto untried process that leads us to some undiscovered country; and for this reason I have focused my efforts on new technologies that may create a new space for freedom. — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 191

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Silicon Valley’s ideology fuses technological determinism with libertarian individualism. — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 118; Silicon Valley startups function like cults and clans demanding total identification — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 183; Silicon Valley’s self-image elevates entrepreneurship as society’s universal problem-solving model — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 713 (+2 more)