Technology Populism

Full Title or Meme

Technology Populism is “an adoption trend led by a technology-native workforce that self provisions collaborative tools, information sources, and human networks – requiring minimal or no ongoing support from a central IT organization”

Context

• Wikipedia defines Techno-populism as either a populism in favor of technocracy or a populism concerning certain technology – usually information technology – or any populist ideology conversed using digital media. It can be employed by single politicians or whole political movements respectively. Neighboring terms used in a similar way are technocratic populism, Technology Populism and cyber-populism. Italy’s Five Star Movement and France’s La République En Marche! have been described as technopopulist political movements.
• Like many people part of a demographic that currently have power, Nietzsche saw democracy as a tool of the masses to oppress the few. As Nietzsche despised the “herd”, he was not only opposed to the idea of the majority having all the power but was outright afraid of it. While he was not particularly political, he was less concerned with the majority making poor choices and more with them using the state to impose their morality on the free-spirited loners who made up a small part of the population. These are the ideas espoused by Ayn Rand in her Objectivism.

The Role of Conflict

• Populism is a style of politics used to mobilize mass movements against ruling powers. Populists claim to speak for ordinary people, taking an “us versus them” stance. Its leaders have used rhetoric that stirs up anger, floated conspiracy theories, pushed the distrust of experts, promoted nationalism and demonized outsiders.
• For George Wallace of Alabama in 1966 the values didn't matter, the principles didn't matter, the politics and the votes were all that mattered. "Moderation was political suicide." His plan was "to give the people something to dislike and hate." He created a straw-man for his votes to hate. "I would rather be against something than for something." In particular he was against integration and the Federal government.
• Early examples in the deployment of the web starting in 1990 are cypherpunks and the Electronic Freedom Foundation. In these the conflict was with governments that were considered too intrusive into people's everyday lives. Somehow the proposed lack of regulation of the internet would make for a better society. The reality has turned out to be very different.
  • John Gilmore is a good exemplar for a cypherpunk. He said "I want a guarantee -- with physics and mathematics, not with laws -- that we can give ourselves things like real privacy of personal communications. Encryption strong enough that even the NSA can't break it. We already know how. But we're not applying it. We also need better protocols for mobile communication that can't be tracked." This was written in an age when David Chaum created fully anonymized digital cash and a variety of Privacy Enhancing Technology Providers were proposed by companies like IBM and Microsoft. Today there appear to be no such technology that is acceptable to the majority of web users.
  • John Perry Barlow served on the EFF's board of directors, where he was listed as a co-founder. The EFF was designed to mediate the "inevitable conflicts that have begun to occur on the border between Cyberspace and the physical world". It tried to build a legal wall separating and protecting the Internet from territorial government, especially the US government. He supported Brand's idea the "Information Wants to be Free".
• Blockchain technology claims to disrupt the existing financial system, the way of doing business, and to empower ordinary citizens against an elitist economy through decentralization of the decision-making process. In the political arena, the disruptive ideology branded as ‘populism’ challenges the neo-liberal establishment. By appealing to peoples’ fears, frustrations, and dissatisfaction with the political elites, exploiting distrust in the so-called establishment, populism claims to deliver more power to the people. Ultimately, the blockchain and cryptocurrency world has perfected what political populists have pioneered — unrealistic promises, turning the citizen against “the elites” only so long as they are not the elites in charge.

Reality

• User have roundly rejected all attempts to give them complete autonomy and Agency on a web that runs without regulation. There still is a demand for anonymous cash from criminals, but most folk are happy if the are protected on the web and can recover accounts that may be lost for any of a variety or reasons. For most people security and consistency provides a better experience than anonymity.
• The concept of user Agency is still popular, but the distraction caused by Technology Populism is more likely to distract developers from making real progress rather than enabling Agency.