The Technocracy Movement of the 1930s

Technocracy always struck me as weirdly incoherent? If you take the economy, probably the most studied of government policies, it is not 1 number. There are many questions about what priorities ought to be. There is no 'expert' answer for how many starving poor people are a worthy trade off for a GDP point. Even if there was, there is an economist branch that disagrees with any possible position you might take. The question of which experts to listen to almost entirely subsumes the question of what experts say. More than anything it's a branding strategy. "Putting me, a surveillance investor, in charge of international relations is clearly more rational and scientific than putting the other guy in charge."

I first heard about this in an former coworker's (Robin Berjon) talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s878bm15mrk at an IPFS conference

Fascinating

He writes about these things on this blog as well(https://berjon.com/ethicswishing/), and has a forthcoming book on related topics last I heard

Commenters here are getting confused. There's technocracy, the governance[1]. And Technocracy, the pseudo-cult movement[2]. They quickly evolved into different things with different ideologies. The article is mostly about the latter movement.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocracy

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocracy_movement

One thing is for sure, whether you like it or not countries that adopt policies that promote tech will outcompete and destroy other countries (metaphorically). You can’t do anything but watch technology take over. It doesn’t care about what you want or prefer.

Back in the 1980s, I lived in Redlands, California, when the last adherents of this movement were still alive. From my conversations with them, it seemed the movement evolved into a semi-new age cult ala Scientology and the Process Church of the Final Judgement[1] (the original cult, not the one borne later, from the time later Skinny Puppy album). In the end, it felt like an anti-technology movement.

There was significant overlap between Scientology's Dianetics and Technocracy. At that time, they didn't seem to be very technology-inclined or tech-positive.

Nonetheless, despite being in their 80s or 90s, they were still quite devout and had their clothing and automobiles decorated with Technocracy ephemera.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process_Church_of_the_Final_Ju...

This idea seems to come and go all over the world.

It reminds me of the "Científicos" [1] in Mexico during the Porfirio Díaz dictatorship (early 1900s).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cient%C3%ADfico

Huh. I wonder if any of this was at all part of (or all of) the inspiration for C.O.C.'s EP "Technocracy"[1]?

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocracy_(EP)

“ However, the overall track record for technology being revolutionary on its own is poor. For the last 20-some-odd years, technological progress has been reduced to maximizing attention in the form of gimmicks, addiction, and apps nobody needs. It’s hardly the sci-fi future many once wrote about. ”

Ah yes all technological progress like AI, EVs and biotech are all bad because social media bad. Why is this article taken seriously

“Like religious millenarianism awaiting the Second Coming, tech elites believe technology alone will usher in a total and complete transformation of society.”

This is the standard view amongst most social theorists and economists. (Of course it’s not technology alone but that’s the prerequisite).

Without agriculture and the Industrial Revolution, say bye bye to your woke policies L G B T Q rights and feminism. Humans simply wont develop mentally while slogging in a farm or being hunter gatherers.

Surprisingly, Thiel has been quite right about this and the general populace whose sole ideology is “rich people bad” have not internalised some fundamental truths of ssociology and economics

Technology did change the world, and technocrats did shape it. This was part of what Burnham called the "managerial revolution". In the 1930s the fascists, communists, and New Dealers all took the reins and governed their societies in new technocratic ways. It has never really changed ever since.

The permanent war economy of the United States never ceased, the constant monetary tweaking by the Federal Reserve never ceased, the "nudge units" and public relations firms that manage opinion never ceased. The television was and is a technocratic tool. The birth control pill, and pharmaceuticals generally, were and are technocratic tools. They are technological means by which to manage populations. As Yuval Harari puts it, the answer to "unnecessary people" is "drugs and computer games".

The main difference between the original technocracy movement, and what actually played out in history, is that the technicians and engineers operating the machinery of population management were never really in charge. They were merely instruments -- means to an end. Aldous Huxley explained the situation in 1958:

"By means of ever more effective methods of mind-manip­ulation, the democracies will change their nature; the quaint old forms -- elections, parliaments, Supreme Courts and all the rest -- will remain. The underlying substance will be a new kind of non-violent totalitari­anism. All the traditional names, all the hallowed slo­gans will remain exactly what they were in the good old days. Democracy and freedom will be the theme of every broadcast and editorial -- but democracy and free­dom in a strictly Pickwickian sense. Meanwhile the ruling oligarchy and its highly trained elite of sol­diers, policemen, thought-manufacturers and mind-manipulators will quietly run the show as they see fit."

Today the biggest challenges to the Western technocratic oligarchy are 1) loss of narrative control via the internet, 2) external threats from other great (technocratic) powers, and 3) internal decline and incompetence.

It's so wild to believe humanity held such a hopeful political mythos, ever.

And I see such appeal here. To make efficient, to make a government that functions that builds that runs well. Mechanistic sympathy is a key term that sends the engineers heart aflutter; to work together holds great delight. The idea that there might be some shots for mankind at engineering not just a social, as the article highlights, but government itself has some real appeal, one that today seems doomed by mutual "it will will never work" / "it will never happen" anti-willpower.

Reciprocally through, I think many alas agree broadly (beyond Africa) with this the dark assessment of the political offered by Captain Ibrahim Traoré who today announced an end of Democracy, seemingly appointed himself dictator of Burka Faso:

> "The truth is, politics in Africa – or at least what we've experienced in Burkina - is that a real politician is someone who embodies every vice: a liar, a sycophant, a smooth-talker."

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly0zp1xgz3o

I do wish there were a stronger engineering to politics pipeline. Politics being such a money and campaigning game, a game of mass appeal, really ruins so much. Thats both a problem with the electorate, but also a problem with how we've let democracy evolve, how mass media and the courts and our systems themselves have iterated over the years. It would just be so nice to think we could take our living documents, our systems, & spirit them forward to respond to all that become, and hopefully redeem our collaborative search for a better more orderly well functioning state & world.

Maybe we should all fly that Vermillion & Chromium monad flag (the technocracy's flag), at least a bit, in our hearts!

(The Technocracy are also a fantastic somewhat unrelated quasi villain in the White Wolf game Mage, engineers of all manners including social working to end the undue influence of the supernatural on the world, defending and sometimes tyrannizing mankind with science. It's a lovely connection to know both Technocracies bit!)

There's a steady trickle of pretty good technocracy stories, btw. Some good reads, including Marageret Mead, https://hn.algolia.com/?query=technocracy

Expected to read about past and current connections between technocracy and fascism. Was not disappointed.

Musk, Altman, Thiel, Ellison, Zuckerberg, Page, and the like are trying to implement technocracy. And that's something we should be resisting at every opportunity.

It certainly doesn't sound like something many people would be into. More like a long trol.