Preach, (Tech) Brother: the Religious Zeal of the Techno-Optimist ‘Manifesto’

If the Techno-Optimist Manifesto was an undergraduate term paper in the social sciences, it would fail. When it comes to lazy thinking and writing, examples abound:

Sweeping statements (‘Technology is the ultimate open society’/ ‘our present society has been subjected to a mass demoralization campaign for six decades…’);¹

Frequent demagoguery (‘we are being lied to’/ ‘We are told to be angry, bitter and resentful about technology’/ ‘We are not victims, we are conquerors’);²

Belief claims in place of evidence (the phrase ‘we believe’ features 113 times, usually in a short, one-sentence paragraph);

Key terms being left undefined (‘our community’, ‘our society’, ‘technology’, ‘luxury beliefs’, ‘zombie ideas’) or shifting meaning (‘we’);³

Oversimplifying complex, nuanced realities into either/or terms (‘The Enemy’/ ‘…institutions that in their youth were vital and energetic and truth-seeking, but are now compromised and corroded and collapsing…’);⁴ and, at the end,

An instruction simply to ‘read the work of these people’,⁵ followed by a list, instead of properly documented endnotes or citations which would lead to the precise information being relied upon.

Of course, this piece hasn’t been written for academic credit, or to engage thoughtfully with the vast, existing bodies of literature addressing its key themes – markets, economics, technology, the social world, and philosophies of ‘the good life’. Any doubts about that are well and truly settled by the author’s trenchant, puzzling dismissal of the tertiary sector in the ‘manifesto’ itself (more on that later). Instead, the point of the piece appears to be to reach out to existing ‘techno-optimist’ believers, and to create some new ones: the ‘manifesto’ is posted to the website of the author’s own venture capital firm.

In other words, this piece is not simply a manifesto in the sense of declaring policy aims, views or intentions. It’s a creed, a core statement of religious beliefs promoted by a billionaire who has served on the board of Facebook/Meta for sixteen years, and is a member of the Homeland Security Advisory Council. It’s an article of faith from someone with the political, economic and social/cultural clout to push his belief system onto others, should he wish to do so. And given the piece’s endorsementof ‘ambition, aggression, persistence, [and] relentlessness’,⁶ that possibility is very much left open.

Here’s why you need to be concerned about the Techno-Optimist ‘Manifesto’:

(1) It’s not really a manifesto. It’s Scripture.

Scripture, in the sense of being styled as a sacred text for the ‘techno-optimists’. Various features makes this evident. The 113 ‘we believe’ statements have already been mentioned. It is inherent to the very nature of a manifesto that its author/s believe whatever its contents contain; readers already understand this. Consider, for instance, the Communist Manifesto (1848), the Futurist Manifesto (1909) and the De Stijl Manifesto (1918). None of these include even one ‘we believe’ statement, because it is unnecessary. Against this backdrop, the presence of 113 ‘we believe’ statements is instructive.

The religious underpinnings of this text are further indicated by its one and only reference in first-person singular: ‘I am here to bring you the good news’, plus, at the end, the list of background sources, which are designated expressly as ‘Patron Saints’.⁷ Even those only somewhat familiar with Christianity would pick up automatically on the phrase ‘good news’, would connect it to the notion of gospel, and, in turn, would be reminded of the last guy who claimed to bring them that. At the very least, the Techno-Optimist ‘Manifesto’ flirts with a messiah complex.

Because the Techno-Optimist ‘Manifesto’ isn’t really a manifesto, from here on in it shall be referred to by its acronym – TOM.

(2) This is not techno-optimism. It’s techno-evangelism.

While in theory, optimism and pessimism are binary opposites, in practice – out in the real world of people – there are nuances. One might be a cautious optimist, for instance, or, where the likelihood of a particular outcome is concerned, more or less pessimistic. When challenged to explain their outlook – whether optimistic, pessimistic, or somewhere in between – a person might cite some combination of evidence, experience and/or their values in support. So it is entirely possible to be an optimist, while acknowledging factors that might lead to the opposite result. Similarly, it is entirely possible to be a pessimist, while recognising reasons not to be.

This sort of complexity and nuance is completely shunned by TOM, in which the world is divided into techno-optimists and – everyone else. By implication, the latter are the ‘techno-pessimists’, although that term is never used. Curiously, for a text that centres on the idea of ‘optimism’, it has almost nothing to say directly about pessimism – with the exception of ‘we are told to be pessimistic’.⁸ Nor does the text even admit the possibility of net negative effects associated with technology. The following, totalising excerpts are instructive:

We believe that there is no material problem – whether created by nature or by technology – that cannot be solved with more technology.⁹

We believe Artificial Intelligence is best thought of as a universal problem solver.¹⁰

…A common critique of technology is that it removes choice from our lives as machines make decisions for us. This is undoubtedly true, yet more than offset by the freedom to create our lives that flows from the material abundance created by our use of machines…¹¹

…We believe Artificial Intelligence can save lives – if we let it…We believe any deceleration of AI will cost lives. Deaths that were preventable by the AI that was prevented from existing is a form of murder.¹²

What about other critiques of aspects of technology, such as the deliberately attention- and intention-shredding qualities of certain social media platforms;¹³ and the well-documented race, gender and other forms of bias showing up in everything from search engines,¹⁴ to facial recognition technology,¹⁵ to mortgage-approval algorithms,¹⁶ and more¹⁷? What about the deaths and other harms in which already existing AI has played a major part?¹⁸ TOM has nothing substantive to say about these. Nor does it define ‘deceleration’, or even allow that there might ever be good social, economic, legal or moral reasons to act cautiously with respect to technology. If one’s starting point is that more technology is always the solution, and that ‘deceleration’ (however defined) is fatal, there isn’t a lot of room left over to confront such messy realities – let alone work one’s way through them to create a better reality.

Instead, in the world of TOM, these other concerns, critiques and considerations are really just your techno-pessimism talking, and pessimism’s a lie you’ve been told. The real-life, actually-existing negative impacts of technology aren’t real, they’re just a product of your negative outlook. Hey, become a techno-optimist and this other stuff won’t just stop worrying you anymore – it will disappear completely….!

A viewpoint that demands this level of blind loyalty, brooking no consideration of possible negative and/or unintended consequences, is not a form of ‘optimism’. It’s nothing short of techno-evangelism. It’s a particularly strident perspective from someone with a long-standing, ringside seat at Facebook/Meta, given the harms caused or inflamed by its flaw-ridden platforms, as revealed by the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post.

(3) Where is the Technology?

Considering its name, there isn’t much specific, contemporary technology in TOM. Social media, apps, webcams, online gaming, cryptocurency, streaming platforms, IoT… none of this is mentioned at all. Instead, there are fleeting references. The browser, smartphone and chatbot are the only technologies of today that are cited, and they are simply name-dropped next to an Andy Warhol quote.¹⁹ AI is cited a few times, but only as a general category. Passing mention is made of the microchip (1958), the neural network (1943), the rocket (c. 13th century), and the split atom (1932), in the context of ‘the romance of technology’. But these are positively ancient developments, especially in tech terms. Other passing mentions include older examples – the train (1804), the car (1886), the electric light (1809) and the skyscraper (1884). Has almost everything the tech sector been doing for the last 50 years entirely escaped TOM’s memory?

What’s interesting is that when TOM is looking for enemies (its word, not mine),²⁰ suddenly that memory comes back. Ideas that have taken hold across the world over the last half-century – such as sustainability, ESG, Sustainable Development Goals, social responsibility, precautionary principle, tech ethics and others – are all in TOM’s line of fire. Together, they apparently amount to ‘a mass demoralization campaign for six decades – against technology and against life…’.²¹ And yet, despite this, it is undeniable that extraordinary technological innovations have taken place over that same timespan. How does TOM explain this seeming contradiction? It doesn’t. Who’s the techno-pessimist now?

TOM’s extremely light-touch approach to today’s technological landscape is odd.

(4) Who is ‘We’?

This is where things really come unstuck for TOM. ‘We’ is referred to 215 times in TOM, including the ‘we believe’ statements mentioned above. But who are ‘we’, is never defined. That’s important, because if there is no clear and consistent idea of who ‘we’ is, then the meaning of the text can shift, resulting in mixed messaging that leaves it open for different readers to assign their own preferred meaning to the term – even if that meaning is the exact opposite of another reader’s. Superficially perfect conversion material, in other words.

Well, ‘we’ obviously refers to the techno-optimists themselves, you might answer. Yes, but who actually are they? What values, ideas, characteristics, interests, preferences and/or opinions do they share, which unite them under this umbrella term?

While no definition is directly provided by TOM, there are some pretty strong hints. TOM refers to the following problems that ‘we’ had – ie, in the past tense: starvation, darkness, cold, heat, isolation, pandemics.²² Luckily, ‘we’ also invented solutions to these problems: the Green Revolution, electric lighting, indoor heating, air conditioning, the Internet, and vaccines, respectively.²³ At another point, TOM announces:

‘…We believe this is the story of the material development of our civilization; this is why we are not still living in mud huts, eking out a meagre survival and waiting for nature to kill us.’²⁴

From these problems that ‘we’ once had, the solutions ‘we’ invented, and the apparent end of survival conditions for ‘our civilization’, one can surmise that the ‘we’ of TOM refers to a bunch of older (or dead) wealthy white men largely based in the West.²⁵ In reality, only in the richest neighbourhoods of this region are these problems yesterday’s challenges; for vast swathes of the human population worldwide – including in parts of the West – one or more of these problems remain very much present-tense, and/or income-related. Not only does TOM fail to acknowledge this basic truth, it replaces this complex, nuanced, human reality with a laughably obtuse, self-centred, almost algorithmic approach to reality: we had problems, we invented solutions. End of story. Is it really the apparently God-like ‘inventing’ powers of the techno-optimists that have solved these problems (if only for the techno-optimists themselves), or rather levels of wealth with which they can, if they choose, insulate their lives almost entirely from those currently experiencing hunger, darkness, cold, heat, isolation, widespread disease, mud huts and deadly nature? It’s clear which of these conclusions TOM is promoting.

Techno-optimists, therefore, occupy a pretty insular position, which is made possible through the cushioning of their exceptional wealth: their concerns are their concerns, and the concerns of others do not concern them at all. The ‘we’ of TOM do recognise one present-tense problem – poverty – but glibly conclude ‘so we invent technology to create abundance’.²⁶ Once again, no definitions, no specifics, no explanations, no timelines. Just ‘Give us a real world problem, and we can invent technology that will solve it’.²⁷ Oh, and there’s that messiah complex lurking in the air again.

Other indicators also highlight the overwhelmingly white male qualities of TOM, in terms of its tenets, membership and target audience. Of the 26 public figures individually quoted, cited or mentioned with approval in the text of TOM itself, 24 are white men. Sixteen of the 26 are dead. Many of the 26 public figures are economists; others are drawn from fields such as philosophy, science, literature, academia, and art, to name a few. Thomas Sowell, an African-American economist and political commentator, is the only person of colour included in the 26. Carrie Fisher, an actress, is the only woman included. While certainly no slouch in the smarts department, Carrie Fisher and her view on resentment are a curious addition alongside the various quotes and references from high-profile intellectuals used to support TOM’s positions on economics, markets, technology and the like. It’s almost as if no woman in history has ever written anything worth reading on such topics.

The list of so-called ‘Patron Saints’ at the end of TOM is not much more diverse than this: of the 34 names of real people,²⁸ there are 25 white men, 5 white women, 1 Black man, and 1 Black woman. In the early 1970s, one of these white men was named by Time Magazine and the National Organization for Women as Male Chauvinist Pig of the Year.

Finally, although it is not explicitly named, TOM paraphrases an excerpt from the Futurist Manifesto (1909).²⁹ Its author, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, is listed amongst TOM’s so-called ‘Patron Saints’. Like the unquestioningly obedient robot TOM takes its readers for, I followed its blunt instruction to ‘read the works of these people’, and consulted the rest of the Futurist Manifesto. Here’s a telling excerpt:

‘9. We want to glorify war – the only cure for the world – militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of the anarchists, the beautiful ideas which kill, and contempt for woman.
10. We want to demolish museums and libraries, fight morality, feminism and all opportunist and utilitarian cowardice.’

Hmm, I wonder what Carrie Fisher would have thought of that? I wonder what any one of the highly educated people cited with approval by TOM would think of that?

Against all of this, it is hard to take seriously TOM’s invitation to ‘everyone’ ‘to join us in Techno-Optimism’,³⁰ nor TOM’s insistence that:

‘…technology is universalist. Technology doesn’t care about your ethnicity, race, religion, national origin, gender, sexuality, political views, height, weight, hair or lack thereof…Anyone with a positive attitude and a cheap laptop can contribute…’³¹

Perhaps this is true of ‘technology’ in the abstract, but various examples drawn from the actually-existing technologies of today have demonstrated they incorporate many of the same biases, prejudices and blindspots affecting humans. If TOM is correct in asserting that ‘technology’ is ‘a lever on the world’,³² then who is designing, implementing and operating that lever, how they are doing that and why they are doing that, are crucially important questions. A perspective on technology that reflects, promotes and seeks to justify the economic interests of one dominant, narrow demographic group under the cloak of ‘universalism’ does nothing to help address these fundamental issues. If anything, by sweeping such weighty matters under the rug of so-called ‘techno-optimism’, TOM only makes things worse. And no amount of ‘positive attitude’ alone can overcome these problems.

(5) What makes ‘The Enemy’ the enemy?

There is a lot to unpick in TOM’s section on ‘The Enemy’, however for obvious reasons, I will focus on TOM’s criticism of the tertiary sector:

‘Our enemy is the ivory tower, the know-it-all credentialed expert worldview, indulging in abstract theories, luxury beliefs, social engineering, disconnected from the real world, delusional, unelected and unaccountable – playing God with everyone else’s lives, with total insulation from the consequences.’³³

Yikes. None of this is elaborated, specified, qualified, or further articulated; TOM simply moves on to the next ‘enemy’ straight after launching this broadside. In response to this, two points are worth making. First, it is a peculiar thing to conduct a wholesale attack on academia, considering the number of people with university appointments TOM cites with approval (or makes ‘Patron Saints’). Second, TOM’s vitriolic description of the ‘ivory tower’ contains criticisms that are far more accurate vis-à-vis Big Tech, based on current information in the public domain, as cited above. Moreover, certain dimensions of TOM’s invective against academia could also be said of TOM itself.

Like other religions, TOM comes with its own holy mission – a set of people that needs to be saved, plus the emotive, manipulative and self-righteous language to go with that. Thus, all of the ‘enemies’ identified by TOM are:

‘…captured people…suffering from ressentiment – a witches’ brew of resentment, bitterness, and rage that is causing them to hold mistaken values, values that are damaging to both themselves and the people they care about.

We believe we must help them find their way out of their self-imposed labyrinth of pain.’³⁴

What are these mistaken, damaging values? A commitment to democracy; to holding power (including power in the digital space) to account; to individual, human agency; to the sanctity of human intention and attention; to speaking truth to power; to the knowledge and wisdom created via the best scholarship; to the celebration and preservation of a diverse, inclusive and nuanced world?

I guess we’ll never know. Oh, and at this point, no prizes for picking up on the language of the visual imagery – the ‘witches’ brew’. Women are bad, obviously. Unless they’re Carrie Fisher.