More Everything Forever — Gary L. Schroeder

“More Everything Forever” by Adam Becker is a deep dive into the philosophical foundations upon which modern techno utopians sit, providing insight into why today's tech bros seem bent on delivering a future that few people actually want, including: why they're largely Libertarians; why their embrace of Effective Altruism bears all the hallmarks of a cult; and how a generation of white men raised on classic sci-fi and cyberpunk somehow managed to take away all of the wrong lessons from their reading. For those deeply unsettled by the trend of unbounded, unregulated technology that threatens to disrupt society for the sake of disruption itself, this is an urgently important book.

My personal takeaway from this book is that a handful of young men who either had a gift for software engineering, an acute sense for business, an extraordinary facility for startup culture, or a combination of all three have amassed a wealth so great, that they have psychologically dissociated from the rest of us. Because they have power that is so beyond anything most of us can imagine, they've bought into the idea that they exist in that realm because they *deserve* to, because they are the new Übermenschen, the Great Men of history who deserve to determine the fate of others. This is why they trend Libertarian; they don't see that society positioned them to achieve what they have. Instead, they believe they arrived there because they are uniquely gifted or simply destined to lead.

Now that they've reached their lofty perches, they see rules as encumbrances...restrictions that should only apply to "little people." They disdain democracy because they don't believe in the idea of mediocre minds directing What Comes Next. That right should be reserved for them. The fact that their messianic beliefs in merging humans and machines, ending aging and death, populating the galaxy to "maximize utility" (and other things most of us would find unhinged) are what drives them should be the basis for ensuring that no single group of individuals can ever be allowed to concentrate this level of power and influence. It clearly drives men mad.