What Techlords Don't Want You to Study

History. Religion. Philosophy. Classics. And, of course, literature.

Don’t go to college! says Peter Thiel (BA and JD, Stanford)

Now that the nihilistic techlords monopolize all the money & all the political power, why aren’t they content with that epochal omni-victory? I would be!

Why do they need to stake a claim to, of all things, intelligence? Academic achievement? Why do they need to be seen as ingenious?

They won, these men—the money, the nuclear codes, the freedom from taxes, the sadistic bill, our bodies, our fates.

But we humans retain one freedom! The freedom to know these guys are only pretend geniuses. In fact, they’re lazy, subliterate idiots without the experiences of hard work, skills training, or deep reading.

Let’s take Elon Musk’s new political party. Its platform appeared, kind of, in a tweet. It’s what you might run on to be emperor of the jungle gym at summer camp.

Here’s Paul Waldman’s analysis: “‘Responsible spending only,’ which means Whatever programs I like, but not the ones I don’t like. Then…Direct lots of public money to my companies and my industry, but with no regulation. Then there’s “free speech,” i.e. My right-wing sewer of a social media platform is awesome, but I’ll sue you if you say things that make me look bad. Then ‘pro natalist’ i.e. have lots of babies…And finally “centrist policies everywhere else,” which means absolutely nothing.”

So…not ingenious, exactly.

In The Dawn of Everything, David Graeber and David Wengrow wonder why we, today, so tightly associate riches with power.

Thousands of years of human history are studded with societies in which fatcats sitting on piles of shells and spices were not remotely considered fit to command armies or lead universities.

The Shell-and-Spice Monopolizer is a village eccentric, like a madman or a great beauty. To entrust the Shell-and-Spice Monopolizer with actual hard power would be to diminish his talent as a hoarder of shells and spices, screw up whatever organization he’s given power over, and end in folly—and tragedy—for the tribe.

But the equation of money and power is grooved too hard and too deep into American minds now. I’m not suggesting we give it up. Not today, anyway.

Rich people in 2025 simply have power. We take it as given. They exploit, extort, humiliate, subjugate, enslave; they lobby. They use their money to build systems of weapons, private armies, and surveillance networks. Their money buys them valets in D.C. who run worlds for them.