4/23/2026 at 11:33:53 PM
If you are actually looking for an article on "How the Tech World Turned Evil", you are going to be sorely disappointed.This article is, as you might expect, the usual cast of villains and the usual cast of saviors. The villains only act like villains, and the heroes only act like heroes. Never once are the heroes actions suspect, and never once are the villains actions sympathetic.
If you support the heroes of this article, and your dopamine lights up when your opinions are echoed in a publication, then you may love this article. Having said that, I am sure you have read this same article over and over again in many different forms, I certainly have.
by sackfield
4/24/2026 at 12:57:59 AM
> I am sure you have read this same article over and over again in many different forms, I certainly have.Is it possible that we read it so often because it's obvious and undeniable?
In fairness, I do agree with your assessment that the moralizing of figures like Musk and Zuckerberg has gotten old. But it's old because we've been criticizing them for years and nobody responds. Elon and Mark are net-negative fraudsters that manage to stay liquid by spiting humanity. They do not bristle at the thought of invading your privacy, surveilling you or deceiving you through complex marketing campaigns. We have seen the same behavior from Nadella, Pichai, Cook and just about every other executive capable of redirecting their respective business.
In the interest of discussion, I'd challenge you to defend this trend instead of downplaying it. Why shouldn't we prosecute anticompetitive and misanthropic market abuses? Help me understand the sympathetic angle.
by bigyabai
4/24/2026 at 2:09:35 AM
I'm not interested in defending the trend as much as I am in understanding it, which the article promises but doesn't deliver.To begin to understand this, you have to examine the actions of the heroes as critically as the villains as defined in this piece. The article lays out clearly the negative desires of the villains, and the positive desires of the heroes, but do the heroes have any negative aspects? Does the EU simply want to protect consumers or is there an argument that they are the law to unfairly targeting American companies? What about the villains, do they have any positive aspects? Does Musk want humanity to keep existing to the point where he is willing to put capital on the line to give our species a backup planet?
The point of this comment isn't to defend the villains or vilify the heroes, its to recognise that these issues are not simple as defined by the article, and in presenting them as simple you don't end up with an understanding of the core question: "How the Tech World Turned Evil".
by sackfield
4/24/2026 at 6:48:51 AM
> To begin to understand this, you have to examine the actions of the heroes as critically as the villains as defined in this piece.I disagree.
To properly understand this, you need to focus not on the specific people who happen to have ended up on top of it, but the systems that enabled them to get there.
And to (probably over-)simplify it for the sake of a short post, I believe the root cause is in Ronald Reagan's deregulation and gutting of antitrust. With a robust antitrust regime through the '80s and '90s, we would not have had the kind of tech behemoths we did then, leading to the unstoppable tech juggernauts of today.
by danaris
4/24/2026 at 3:26:40 AM
> To begin to understand this, you have to examine the actions of the heroes as critically as the villains as defined in this piece.The possibility of EU betrayal or Musk's saviourdom is speculative, and also entirely subjective as to whether you think it's fair or righteous. I don't think either of those topics could be meaningfully explored to explain resentment towards American tech.
Consumers do not evaluate businesses with a reciprocal mentality, they don't need an absolute good to identify evil. This is a pretty poorly-written article that would not be improved with both-sidesing.
by bigyabai
