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April 29, 2025 8:00 AM subscribe
Ben smith writes in semafor about the private group chats where tech billionaires and right-wing pundits hash out their ideas.
"...And it was just another day in Chatham House, a giant and raucous signal group that forms part of the sprawling network of influential private chats that began during the fervid early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, and which have fueled a new alliance of tech and the Us right."
"...That same week in Chatham House, Lonsdale and the Democratic billionaire Mark Cuban sparred over affirmative action, and Cuban and Daily Wire founder Ben shapiro discussed questions of culture and work ethic.
This constellation of rolling elite political conversations revolve primarily around the venture capitalist Marc Andreessen and a circle of silicon Valley figures. None of their participants was surprised to see Trump administration officials firing off secrets and emojis on the platform last month."
"...And it was just another day in Chatham House, a giant and raucous signal group that forms part of the sprawling network of influential private chats that began during the fervid early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, and which have fueled a new alliance of tech and the Us right."
"...That same week in Chatham House, Lonsdale and the Democratic billionaire Mark Cuban sparred over affirmative action, and Cuban and Daily Wire founder Ben shapiro discussed questions of culture and work ethic.
This constellation of rolling elite political conversations revolve primarily around the venture capitalist Marc Andreessen and a circle of silicon Valley figures. None of their participants was surprised to see Trump administration officials firing off secrets and emojis on the platform last month."
But the center didn’t hold. The Harper’s types were surprised to find what one described an “illiberal worldview” among tech figures more concerned with power than speech. The conservatives found the liberal intellectuals tiresome, committed to what Rufo described to me as “infinite discourse” over action.
Incredibly funny that the "Cancel culture is a threat on a level with Republicans" people did not immediately grok that the "free speech" faff was a power struggle and that either social justice would continue forward or the right wing would use Free speech No Matter What (thanks Popehat and company) as a trojan horse for some not-super-secretly-coordinated-via-billions-of-dollars nazi shit. Convincing people in the free market of ideas with a normal human voice against not one but several billion dollar megaphones was... well it was really fucking stupid in hindsight and at the time it was laughable.
The old times of "it's just banter, we're chatting in the public square, why would we need a self-Defending Democracy doctrine" had already died (this was... 8 years on from Citizens United?) and we were at a fork in the road.
It really feels like another example of failing the "A Republic, if you can keep it" warning.
posted by slackermagee at 8:38 AM on April 29 [17 favorites]
Incredibly funny that the "Cancel culture is a threat on a level with Republicans" people did not immediately grok that the "free speech" faff was a power struggle and that either social justice would continue forward or the right wing would use Free speech No Matter What (thanks Popehat and company) as a trojan horse for some not-super-secretly-coordinated-via-billions-of-dollars nazi shit. Convincing people in the free market of ideas with a normal human voice against not one but several billion dollar megaphones was... well it was really fucking stupid in hindsight and at the time it was laughable.
The old times of "it's just banter, we're chatting in the public square, why would we need a self-Defending Democracy doctrine" had already died (this was... 8 years on from Citizens United?) and we were at a fork in the road.
It really feels like another example of failing the "A Republic, if you can keep it" warning.
posted by slackermagee at 8:38 AM on April 29 [17 favorites]
Old-style oligarchs convened in wood-paneled libraries over cigars and brandy. New-style oligarchs convene in locker rooms over ketamine and coke.
“If it wasn’t for the censorship all of these conversations would have happened in public, which would have been much better.”
No. Would have been better, but would never have happened and never will. These are closed doors.
Transparency and accountability no longer exist. History will be completely re-written by the rich.
posted by BlueHorse at 8:44 AM on April 29 [8 favorites]
“If it wasn’t for the censorship all of these conversations would have happened in public, which would have been much better.”
No. Would have been better, but would never have happened and never will. These are closed doors.
Transparency and accountability no longer exist. History will be completely re-written by the rich.
posted by BlueHorse at 8:44 AM on April 29 [8 favorites]
Barely related: Amazon denies rumour that it was going to list tariff surcharges besides item prices.
Well, somebody should. There needs to be a website to aggregate tariff info, has calculators, etc, that makes it easy for Americans to determine how much tariff is on an item.
Knowledge and transparency as hostile acts. Only in Trump's America... And, nice cave, Bezos.
posted by Artful Codger at 9:03 AM on April 29 [10 favorites]
Well, somebody should. There needs to be a website to aggregate tariff info, has calculators, etc, that makes it easy for Americans to determine how much tariff is on an item.
Knowledge and transparency as hostile acts. Only in Trump's America... And, nice cave, Bezos.
posted by Artful Codger at 9:03 AM on April 29 [10 favorites]
Temu is listing tariff charges separately now. Those 145% tariffs are being noticed, for sure.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:06 AM on April 29 [14 favorites]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:06 AM on April 29 [14 favorites]
Awesome if some people
i) made attack ads showing how much tarrifs cost everyday americans. show before and after.
ii) have an app for your phone that shows the latest price rises, and make tiktoks/insta/fb posts about it.
posted by lalochezia at 9:12 AM on April 29 [5 favorites]
i) made attack ads showing how much tarrifs cost everyday americans. show before and after.
ii) have an app for your phone that shows the latest price rises, and make tiktoks/insta/fb posts about it.
posted by lalochezia at 9:12 AM on April 29 [5 favorites]
Well, I mean, yes, of course the very rich collaborate to bring about fascism. There also is/was a semi-secret anti-trans email list for journalists and public figures which helped organize other parts of the hell we find ourselves in. I think that there was a great deal of anti-conspiracy-theory discourse which tried to pretend that this kind of thing didn't happen, and that maybe lulled people a little.
If you were rich, selfish, violent and badly socialized, of course you'd talk with your entitled buddies about controlling the world.
If you're reasonably intelligent, you can come up with a plan to wreck society. You or I could do it. It doesn't take genius - you just need to look at a system and think about how to exploit or undermine it. Most of us assume that we don't have this power, partly because we're not rich and partly because we're not organized, but many left/union/etc organizers think about this stuff from the side of the angels.
I just want to stress that this is not genius. It's just assuming that because you're rich you will be able to do what you want and the ability to read an org chart or a policy document.
We often assume that these guys on their little chats are extremely extremely clever, but if they're so fucking clever, why are they getting pushback? Every time they get pushback, everyone is all like "They are playing 11th level ninja chess, they WANT to lose so that they can win big later" but they could have been winning from jump and they're not.
They're not clever, they're just rich people with brainworms.
posted by Frowner at 9:17 AM on April 29 [29 favorites]
If you were rich, selfish, violent and badly socialized, of course you'd talk with your entitled buddies about controlling the world.
If you're reasonably intelligent, you can come up with a plan to wreck society. You or I could do it. It doesn't take genius - you just need to look at a system and think about how to exploit or undermine it. Most of us assume that we don't have this power, partly because we're not rich and partly because we're not organized, but many left/union/etc organizers think about this stuff from the side of the angels.
I just want to stress that this is not genius. It's just assuming that because you're rich you will be able to do what you want and the ability to read an org chart or a policy document.
We often assume that these guys on their little chats are extremely extremely clever, but if they're so fucking clever, why are they getting pushback? Every time they get pushback, everyone is all like "They are playing 11th level ninja chess, they WANT to lose so that they can win big later" but they could have been winning from jump and they're not.
They're not clever, they're just rich people with brainworms.
posted by Frowner at 9:17 AM on April 29 [29 favorites]
Attention Anonymous: There is a website that needs hacking.
#anonymous
posted by ZenMasterThis at 9:18 AM on April 29 [1 favorite]
#anonymous
posted by ZenMasterThis at 9:18 AM on April 29 [1 favorite]
New-style oligarchs convene in locker rooms over ketamine and coke.
I do miss the notion of a classy, brandy-soaked conspiracy in the classic mode, but I'm pretty sure these people have been cokeheads for at least 150 years.
posted by Phobos the space Potato at 9:20 AM on April 29 [9 favorites]
I do miss the notion of a classy, brandy-soaked conspiracy in the classic mode, but I'm pretty sure these people have been cokeheads for at least 150 years.
posted by Phobos the space Potato at 9:20 AM on April 29 [9 favorites]
see Jeff, that's the one weird trick about grovelling for the autocrat. Once you start you don't get to stop.
posted by cmfletcher at 9:31 AM on April 29 [6 favorites]
posted by cmfletcher at 9:31 AM on April 29 [6 favorites]
I guess one silver lining of all this is that rich people being online has exposed them as absolute buffoons. Like reading these chats these are not great minds engaging with each other at a high level. Musk's posts get stupider by the minute. I'd bet that's a part of why they're so mad. In the old days the great tycoons at least had a remove from the masses that gave them an aura of greatness even if it was false. In 1925 who knew what JD Rockefeller was thinking outside of his inner circle? Now we get to know what these guys think and say all the time and it's the dumbest shit.
posted by star gentle uterus at 9:35 AM on April 29 [30 favorites]
posted by star gentle uterus at 9:35 AM on April 29 [30 favorites]
that began during the fervid early days of the COVID-19 pandemic
"covid somehow broke billionaire brains even worse than the proles' " theory stays winning
posted by BungaDunga at 9:39 AM on April 29 [16 favorites]
"covid somehow broke billionaire brains even worse than the proles' " theory stays winning
posted by BungaDunga at 9:39 AM on April 29 [16 favorites]
Now we get to know what these guys think and say all the time and it's the dumbest shit.
so, they’re just like regular folk? seems like that would actually endear them to many.
posted by Thorzdad at 9:39 AM on April 29
so, they’re just like regular folk? seems like that would actually endear them to many.
posted by Thorzdad at 9:39 AM on April 29
the sort of mistakes toddlers make are endearing because they can't actually harm anyone, when adults with a billion dollars and private armies do them, on the other hand...
posted by BungaDunga at 9:40 AM on April 29 [5 favorites]
posted by BungaDunga at 9:40 AM on April 29 [5 favorites]
I will say that our failing was to misunderstand the status of what you might call the Bright Enlightenment*. You or I, ordinary little people, look at the Bright Enlightenment and its aftermath and think, "well, clearly only a monster would want to own slaves" or "it is trivially obvious looking at history that there is no actual 'superior' race" or simply "most of the time most people should be able to exercise as much choice as possible over their lives" and assume that these are stable principles. Elections should be free and fair, the elderly should not die in the street or the workhouse, a grossly unequal society with great human suffering at the bottom is bad, actually. We assume that these assumptions are so obvious as to be a real bedrock for human society going forward, and that rights will continue to expand**.
But of course, if you're a very, very rich person, you never hear no, you get told explicitly or implicitly that you are a very very special birthday boy, etc, and you get brainworms, and once you have the brainworms, you start to think "well if elections are free and fair I might lose" and "it sure would be convenient to enslave people, then they would have absolutely no choice except to do everything I told them, especially the underage girls" and so on.
We did not allow for this, or did not allow for it sufficiently. We should have removed the foundations of the dark tower, but we didn't and now we're in a fix.
*Those parts of Enlightenment culture and thought that were used to argue for, eg, human equality, consistent law applied to all, expansion of rights and freedoms, not having kings, etc.
**And rights have expanded. They've expanded hugely in my lifetime alone. I grew up in a time when it was taken as completely normal that any mainstream business would fire a gay employee because they were gay, and that holding a job required being closeted unless you worked in an unusual situation. It was taken for granted that preexisting conditions would shut huge numbers of people out of healthcare. Etc etc etc. The twentieth century was a period of extremely contested but expanding rights.
posted by Frowner at 9:49 AM on April 29 [14 favorites]
But of course, if you're a very, very rich person, you never hear no, you get told explicitly or implicitly that you are a very very special birthday boy, etc, and you get brainworms, and once you have the brainworms, you start to think "well if elections are free and fair I might lose" and "it sure would be convenient to enslave people, then they would have absolutely no choice except to do everything I told them, especially the underage girls" and so on.
We did not allow for this, or did not allow for it sufficiently. We should have removed the foundations of the dark tower, but we didn't and now we're in a fix.
*Those parts of Enlightenment culture and thought that were used to argue for, eg, human equality, consistent law applied to all, expansion of rights and freedoms, not having kings, etc.
**And rights have expanded. They've expanded hugely in my lifetime alone. I grew up in a time when it was taken as completely normal that any mainstream business would fire a gay employee because they were gay, and that holding a job required being closeted unless you worked in an unusual situation. It was taken for granted that preexisting conditions would shut huge numbers of people out of healthcare. Etc etc etc. The twentieth century was a period of extremely contested but expanding rights.
posted by Frowner at 9:49 AM on April 29 [14 favorites]
(Note that the issue is the assumptions - not that we live in paradise, but that we assume that the conditions of paradise are relatively widely accepted, that most people mostly think that a good society doesn't have huge amounts of human misery if they can possibly be avoided.
The brainworm crew thinks that human suffering and inequality are good because if the weak get crushed the billionaires will go to the stars.
posted by Frowner at 9:53 AM on April 29 [7 favorites]
The brainworm crew thinks that human suffering and inequality are good because if the weak get crushed the billionaires will go to the stars.
posted by Frowner at 9:53 AM on April 29 [7 favorites]
We assume that these assumptions are so obvious as to be a real bedrock for human society going forward
Indeed - and it's not even like these are implicit assumptions! We state them explicitly and hold them to be self-evident!
posted by nickmark at 10:18 AM on April 29 [4 favorites]
Indeed - and it's not even like these are implicit assumptions! We state them explicitly and hold them to be self-evident!
posted by nickmark at 10:18 AM on April 29 [4 favorites]
I hope I'm not the only one who came here thinking that maybe Ben smith had decided to relay this account in actual semifor, so as to lampoon the brazen transparency of corruption carried out over social media by the kleptocrats who created it and now steer it. Just me? Dude doing some slow-cook performance art about how grift moves at the speed of algarithms? The lie gets half way around the world before the truth has time to put on its shoes and open the door so democracy doesn't die in darkness? Yeah...ketamine and coke is the best description. Fantasizing really self-assuredly past that Jersey line.
posted by es_de_bah at 10:29 AM on April 29
posted by es_de_bah at 10:29 AM on April 29
Not questioning the article in general, but "put the pronouns back in people's bios fuck this market" was a joke on Wall street Bets (scroll down to where Wisex says "I didn't vote for Trump" and "how do I let these people know I'm a commie").
posted by subdee at 10:59 AM on April 29 [1 favorite]
posted by subdee at 10:59 AM on April 29 [1 favorite]
Lately I keep thinking about a post I saw on tumblr explaining Roko's basilisk as "imagine a boot so big you must start licking it in advance."
Imagine a climate-change driven collapse of society so complete, you must collapse society yourself in advance.
posted by subdee at 11:11 AM on April 29 [5 favorites]
Imagine a climate-change driven collapse of society so complete, you must collapse society yourself in advance.
posted by subdee at 11:11 AM on April 29 [5 favorites]
Incredibly funny that the "Cancel culture is a threat on a level with Republicans" people did not immediately grok that the "free speech" faff was a power struggle and that either social justice would continue forward or the right wing would use Free speech No Matter What (thanks Popehat and company) as a trojan horse for some not-super-secretly-coordinated-via-billions-of-dollars nazi shit. Convincing people in the free market of ideas with a normal human voice against not one but several billion dollar megaphones was... well it was really fucking stupid in hindsight and at the time it was laughable.
for a long time, i thought the trojan horsing was intentional on the part of the Harper's Letter crowd, and undoubtedly it is for some of them, but it's wild to find out how many were Actually That stupid
posted by Why Is The World In Love Again? at 11:23 AM on April 29 [9 favorites]
for a long time, i thought the trojan horsing was intentional on the part of the Harper's Letter crowd, and undoubtedly it is for some of them, but it's wild to find out how many were Actually That stupid
posted by Why Is The World In Love Again? at 11:23 AM on April 29 [9 favorites]
Meanwhile, among the young people...
The New Partisan Divide Is Old Gen Z vs. Young Gen Z
xposting my comment on tumblr:
The article mentions four reasons for the split: COVID restrictions disrupting K-12 schooling, a widening gender gap with more young men going for Trump, annoyance with cancel culture online which is associated with Democrats, and... TikTok. There were about twice as many pro-Trump posts on TikTok as pro-Biden posts.
In other words the move toward Trump is being driven by what young people are seeing on social media.... social media which is owned by tech billionaires who were themselves being radicalized in private signal chats during COVID lockdowns towards right-wing positions (and by a Chinese company with ties to the Chinese government).
I think ultimately, though, these social media impressions will have to collide with reality - the rapidly approaching reality of empty shelves and soaring prices, rising unemployment and rising inflation, a possible global recession.
Because the other difference between ages 18-21 and 22-29 is the extent to which you have to pay attention to these external realities, right? These so-called kitchen-sink issues become more important when you're paying for the food in the kitchen and doing the dishes in the sink.
But then on the other hand, if you're spending huge amounts of time online, which online environment do you suppose is "more fun" to be in right now? The one in despair because the country's being torn apart or the one that tears the country apart and pretends that means it is "winning"?
scary stuff, but hey, people are changeable. Trends can be reversed.
posted by subdee at 11:44 AM on April 29 [7 favorites]
The New Partisan Divide Is Old Gen Z vs. Young Gen Z
New data out of Yale’s Youth Poll broke the internet last week when it revealed a partisan split within Gen Z. Given a generic Democrat vs. Republican ballot for 2026, respondents ages 18-21 supported Republicans by nearly 12 points, while those ages 22-29 backed Democrats by about 6 points.
It was a stunning gap that undermined the longstanding notion of younger voters always trending more liberal. On the contrary, today’s youngest eligible voters are more conservative than their older counterparts: According to the poll, they are less likely to support transgender athletes participating in sports, less likely to support sending aid to Ukraine and more likely to approve of President Donald Trump. Fifty-one percent of younger Gen Zers view him favorably, compared to 46 percent of older Gen Z.
xposting my comment on tumblr:
The article mentions four reasons for the split: COVID restrictions disrupting K-12 schooling, a widening gender gap with more young men going for Trump, annoyance with cancel culture online which is associated with Democrats, and... TikTok. There were about twice as many pro-Trump posts on TikTok as pro-Biden posts.
In other words the move toward Trump is being driven by what young people are seeing on social media.... social media which is owned by tech billionaires who were themselves being radicalized in private signal chats during COVID lockdowns towards right-wing positions (and by a Chinese company with ties to the Chinese government).
I think ultimately, though, these social media impressions will have to collide with reality - the rapidly approaching reality of empty shelves and soaring prices, rising unemployment and rising inflation, a possible global recession.
Because the other difference between ages 18-21 and 22-29 is the extent to which you have to pay attention to these external realities, right? These so-called kitchen-sink issues become more important when you're paying for the food in the kitchen and doing the dishes in the sink.
But then on the other hand, if you're spending huge amounts of time online, which online environment do you suppose is "more fun" to be in right now? The one in despair because the country's being torn apart or the one that tears the country apart and pretends that means it is "winning"?
scary stuff, but hey, people are changeable. Trends can be reversed.
posted by subdee at 11:44 AM on April 29 [7 favorites]
assume that these are stable principles.
This reminded me of a recent Matt Yglesias column: "It’s officially Not Okay to be racist anymore after World War II. ... It’s not that there are no racists or that nobody ever says or does anything motivated by racial prejudice. But nobody says they are a racist. This is a big change. ... [But now among some on the right] there’s a counter-view ... you need to work to rehabilitate racism so that people can hold their heads high and believe in a hierarchy of races... it is necessary to destigmatize racism."
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 11:54 AM on April 29 [1 favorite]
This reminded me of a recent Matt Yglesias column: "It’s officially Not Okay to be racist anymore after World War II. ... It’s not that there are no racists or that nobody ever says or does anything motivated by racial prejudice. But nobody says they are a racist. This is a big change. ... [But now among some on the right] there’s a counter-view ... you need to work to rehabilitate racism so that people can hold their heads high and believe in a hierarchy of races... it is necessary to destigmatize racism."
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 11:54 AM on April 29 [1 favorite]
respondents ages 18-21 supported Republicans by nearly 12 points
I've been thinking about this lately. This age group has basically only known an American political atmosphere dominated by Trump. They were around 8 to 11 when he first became a major national force in 2015. That's about when I remember really starting to notice national news. Trump has always been "normal" for them and there hasn't been a strong opposition figure in that time. Just slightly older and you'd still have some memory of Obama and the before times and maybe have a vague sense that the Trump style is not what politics has always been.
posted by msbrauer at 12:16 PM on April 29 [5 favorites]
I've been thinking about this lately. This age group has basically only known an American political atmosphere dominated by Trump. They were around 8 to 11 when he first became a major national force in 2015. That's about when I remember really starting to notice national news. Trump has always been "normal" for them and there hasn't been a strong opposition figure in that time. Just slightly older and you'd still have some memory of Obama and the before times and maybe have a vague sense that the Trump style is not what politics has always been.
posted by msbrauer at 12:16 PM on April 29 [5 favorites]
> I just want to stress that this is not genius.
> The brainworm crew thinks that human suffering and inequality are good because if the weak get crushed the billionaires will go to the stars.
silicon Valley billionaires literally want the impossible - "Ars chats with physicist and science journalist Adam Becker about his new book, More Everything Forever."
the answer to fascism? pluralism, expanding (and overlapping ;) circles of concern![1,2,3]
posted by kliuless at 1:49 PM on April 29 [1 favorite]
> The brainworm crew thinks that human suffering and inequality are good because if the weak get crushed the billionaires will go to the stars.
silicon Valley billionaires literally want the impossible - "Ars chats with physicist and science journalist Adam Becker about his new book, More Everything Forever."
the answer to fascism? pluralism, expanding (and overlapping ;) circles of concern![1,2,3]
posted by kliuless at 1:49 PM on April 29 [1 favorite]
Thank you kliuless -- skimmed the ArsTechnica interview and immediately set about borrowing both Adam Becker books from my awesome state Library.
posted by Droll Lord at 3:14 PM on April 29
posted by Droll Lord at 3:14 PM on April 29
This reminded me of a recent Matt Yglesias
Please don’t remind me of this human case against legacy admits.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 4:50 PM on April 29 [2 favorites]
Please don’t remind me of this human case against legacy admits.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 4:50 PM on April 29 [2 favorites]
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posted by ishmael at 8:04 AM on April 29 [12 favorites]