2022 – Present, Techno-Fascism, Carbon Bombs, and Fighting Back

1. Historical Context - Dark Enlightenment Ascends

By 2023, Silicon Valley stopped hiding its authoritarian desires. Now, the private VC meeting whispers and blog pseudonyms are openly celebrated in boardrooms and at presidential inaugurations.

A. Curtis Yarvin: The Prophet of CEO-Monarchs

The loose collection of ideas that comprise Dark Enlightenment thinking emerged in the late 2000s through blogs and online forums popular among the Silicon Valley set. The two intellectual leaders of this movement—American software engineer Curtis Yarvin and British philosopher Nick Land—have written numerous essays that reject core Enlightenment principles such as democracy, egalitarianism, and universal liberty. Cascade Institute

Yarvin's Core Thesis:

Dark Enlightenment thinkers advocate for hierarchical, authoritarian systems of governance, enabled by technological innovation, and led by hybrid CEO-meets-monarch-like figures.

In a recent essay, Yarvin called for voters to elect a president who would assume complete executive authority (essentially monarchical power) and dismantle the American government system. Yarvin has also written that democracies should be replaced with "for-profit sovereign corporations." Cascade Institute

Curtis Yarvin supports hierarchical, authoritarian forms of government and advocates using democratic methods to dismantle democracy and install an absolute ruler. Encyclopedia Britannica

The "RAGE" Plan:

For years Mr. Yarvin has called for a "RAGE" (retire all government employees) plan to "reboot" the U.S. government. Cascade Institute

"The Cathedral":

Beyond democracy, Dark Enlightenment thinkers are highly critical of other modern institutions, such as the media, civil service and academia. The movement collectively refers to these institutions as "the Cathedral" and advocates for them to be torn down. Cascade Institute

B. From Fringe Blog to Presidential Inauguration

Peter Thiel's "House Philosopher":

Influential tech billionaire, Peter Thiel, described Yarvin as the "house political philosopher" for a network of technologists called "the Thielverse." Yarvin himself has claimed Thiel is "fully enlightened." And leading American venture capitalist Marc Andreesen called Mr. Yarvin "a friend of mine." Cascade Institute

Yarvin and Land drew inspiration from libertarians such as Thiel, particularly his statement "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible" in a Cato Unbound essay. Wikipedia

The Political Pipeline:

Recently, the popularity of this philosophy has spread from Silicon Valley to Washington. Vice-President JD Vance, who formerly worked for Peter Thiel, considers Yarvin a friend and has spoken favourably about his ideas. Steve Bannon is (reportedly) a fan of dark philosopher and Mr. Land's writing. Elon Musk, who has echoed Dark Enlightenment ideas in public statements, is now using the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to attempt the institutional dismantling the movement has advocated. Finally, and perhaps most tellingly, Curtis Yarvin was a guest of honour at President Donald Trump's inauguration ball in January. Cascade Institute

Vice-president JD Vance also praised Yarvin in 2021, and said, drawing from his 2012 "Retire All Government Employees" talk, that "what Trump should do, if I was giving him one piece of advice: Fire every single midlevel bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, and replace them with our people." Wikipedia

C. Scientific Racism and Algorithmic Supremacy

Yarvin has defended the institution of slavery, and has suggested that certain races may be more naturally inclined toward servitude than others. He has argued that whites have inherently higher IQs than black people and opposes U.S. civil rights programs. Wikipedia

For Yarvin, Karp, Thiel and the other elites that embrace these ideas, we're are idiots.

A favourite quote (likely apocryphal) is from Churchill, stating the best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter. The Conversation

The Vision:

"A government is just a corporation that owns a country," Yarvin stresses.

Musk has echoed this line: "the government is simply the largest corporation". The Conversation In this vision, citizenship is not a political right but a contractual position. Citizens become shareholders—or just users. The government becomes a service to be optimized. This idea of "algorithmic sovereignty" has seduced many minds in Silicon Valley. Reset DOC

2. Ayn Rand - The Spiritual Foundation

While Yarvin provided the blueprint for neo-monarchism, Ayn Rand had long ago laid the ideological foundation for Silicon Valley's contempt for ordinary people.

A. Objectivism's Core

Ayn Rand's popularity has had four significant high points:

From the publication of The Fountainhead to the appearance of Atlas Shrugged (1943–1957);
among newly ascendant neoliberals during the 1980s;
Among the new tech tycoons of Silicon Valley during the 1990s and after;
During and after the 2008 crash. Dissent

The Philosophy:

Rand's appeal in Libertarian circles is often linked to a belief system that she termed "Objectivism." The philosophy's detractors argue that Rand's worldview amounts to little more than extreme rejection of empathy and altruism. Metro Silicon Valley

In Silicon Valley, her belief in the relentless pursuit of individual profit as the ultimate happiness, and her deep conviction that "looters" are out to oppress the "producers" of society, have animated hordes of tech bros, notably Travis Kalanick (Uber), Kevin Systrom (Instagram) and Jack Dorsey (Twitter) and Peter Thiel (Facebook investor), to "move fast, and break things." Los Angeles Review of Books

B. Silicon Valley's Randian Heroes

You cannot understand American politics, or the "Founder as Superman" mythology of Silicon Valley, without understanding the radical libertarian views of Rand. In Silicon Valley, her belief in the relentless pursuit of individual profit as the ultimate happiness have animated hordes of tech bros. LinkedIn

The Devotees:

The most popular and beloved science fiction author in Silicon Valley by a huge margin is Ayn Rand. The author of Anthem, The Fountain Head, and Atlas Shrugged is a major inspiration to tech billionaires like Steve Jobs, Travis Kalanick, Jack Dorsey, Elon Musk, and countless others. Ouropinionsarecorrect

Travis Kalanick, another noted libertarian and Rand devotee, runs Uber just as a devoted follower of Ayn Rand would, continuously fighting regulators. Alternet

C. The Convergence: Yarvin + Rand = Techno-Feudalism

Dark Enlightenment meets Objectivism:

Both reject democracy as mob rule. Both worship the "creative genius" over the masses. Both see government regulation as theft from the worthy.

But Yarvin went further—he gave Silicon Valley permission to stop pretending democracy mattered at all.

The theme of the conference was Silicon Valley, and as I'd recently written a decidedly anti-capitalist book about the tech industry (Abolish Silicon Valley), I found the prospect of attending one fascinating. The environmentalist movement, as symbolised by activist Greta Thunberg's urge to reduce fossil fuel consumption, was met with derisive laughter; for Brook, the environment was something to adapt to human needs, not the other way around.

Wendy Liu

New Statesman

The philanthropic trend among billionaires was derided as an attempt to conform to societal expectations; apparently, braver billionaires would simply keep their money and do with it as they wished.

Wendy Liu

New Statesman

3. The AI Boom - Silicon Valley's Carbon Bomb

A. The Energy Explosion

In 2024, data centers consumed approximately 415 TWh of electricity, representing approximately 1.5% of total global demand. By 2030, this figure is projected to increase to nearly 945 TWh, or roughly 3% of global electricity consumption. arxiv

The impact is especially acute in the United States, accounting for 45% of global data center electricity consumption in 2024. The IEA estimates that data center demand for energy in the U.S. will increase by 130% by 2030. Brookings

The U.S. Specifically:

U.S. data centers consumed 183 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity in 2024. That works out to more than 4% of the country's total electricity consumption last year—and is roughly equivalent to the annual electricity demand of the entire nation of Pakistan. By 2030, this figure is projected to grow by 133% to 426 TWh. Pew Research Center

In 2023, data centers consumed 4.4% of all U.S. electricity—a number that could triple by 2028. Penn State

The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimated that AI systems accounted for 15% of total data center electricity demand (excluding cryptocurrency mining) in 2024, and other recent research has suggested that AI systems represented 20% of total data center power demand by the end of 2024. nih

Server energy use more than tripled from 2014 to 2023. A large portion of this increase came from GPU-accelerated AI servers, which grew in energy usage from less than 2 TWh in 2017 to more than 40 TWh in 2023. Penn State

C. Carbon Emissions

Our findings reveal that data centers accounted for more than 4% of total US electricity consumption—with 56% derived from fossil fuels—generating more than 105 million tons of CO₂e (2.18% of US emissions in 2023). Data centers' carbon intensity—the amount of CO₂e emitted per unit of electricity consumed—exceeded the US average by 48%. arxiv

The IEA estimated that in 2024, the electricity generation for global data centers could have produced approximately 182 million tons of CO₂ emissions. PubMed Central

As of 2024, natural gas supplied over 40% of electricity for U.S. data centers. Pew Research Center

Translation: AI runs on fossil fuels. The "clean tech" narrative is a lie.

D. Water Consumption

They were responsible for 560 billion L of water consumption in 2023. PubMed Central

In 2023, U.S. data centers consumed about 17 billion gallons of water, with most—84%—used for hyperscale and colocation facilities. Direct water consumption in hyperscale data centers alone is expected to consume 16 billion to 33 billion gallons annually by 2028. Brookings

AI servers are expected to drive annual increases in water consumption of 200-300 billion gallons and add 24-44 million metric tons of CO₂-equivalent emissions by 2030. arxiv

E. Regional Strain

Since data centers are often geographically concentrated, they can significantly strain the power grids. In 2023, data centers consumed about 26% of the total electricity supply in Virginia and significant shares of the supply in North Dakota (15%), Nebraska (12%), Iowa (11%) and Oregon (11%). Pew Research Center

F. Electronic Waste

The short lifespan of GPUs and other HPC components results in a growing problem of electronic waste, as obsolete or damaged hardware is frequently discarded. Penn State

The Contradiction: Tech billionaires claim they're saving the world while building infrastructure that will accelerate climate collapse and possibly doom us all.

4. Palantir - Surveillance Capitalism and the Cyber War Machine

A. Project Maven: The Foundation

What is Project Maven?

Palantir developed its AI system to serve the Pentagon's Project Maven, which began as a drone-imagery labeling program in 2017. The Pentagon awarded Palantir a contract worth up to $480 million in 2024. In May 2025, the Pentagon increased the contract ceiling to $1.3 billion. Substack

Project Maven was a Pentagon programme that used AI to detect and analyze objects in drone video feeds. Palantir took it over after Google withdrew (see section 9). Palantir's Maven investment has since grown to $13 billion. TNW | Google

Maven artificial intelligence system will become an official program of record, a move that locks in long-term use of Palantir's weapons-targeting technology across the U.S. military. Substack

B. "Optimizing the Kill Chain"

The company's technology has been described by a Palantir executive as a way of "optimizing the kill chain." Drop Site News

There are reasonable grounds to believe Palantir has provided automatic predictive policing technology, core defence infrastructure for rapid and scaled-up construction and deployment of military software, and its Artificial Intelligence Platform, which allows real-time battlefield data integration for automated decision-making. Liberation News

C. Israel's Genocide in Gaza (2023–2026)

The Strategic Partnership:

In January 2024, Palantir signed a partnership agreement with Israel's Ministry of Defense to provide technology for "war-related missions", with Palantir's Executive Vice President Josh Harris stating that "both parties have mutually agreed to harness Palantir's advanced technology in support of war-related missions." Liberation News

In October 2023, it took out a full-page ad in the New York Times reading, "Palantir stands with Israel," and in January 2024 it held a full company board meeting in Tel Aviv. AFSC Investigate

Alex Karp's Statements:

Palantir CEO Alex Karp had repeatedly and vocally expressed support for Israel, stating for example: "I am proud that we are supporting Israel in every way we can." He later acknowledged that he is not bothered by employees leaving the company over its work with Israel. AFSC Investigate

In April 2025, Palantir's Chief Executive Officer responded to accusations that Palantir had killed Palestinians in Gaza by saying, 'mostly terrorists, that's true'. Substack

The AI Death Machine:

A report from UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese says there are "reasonable grounds" to believe that Palantir supplied predictive policing technology, "core defence infrastructure," and the AI platform that powers "Lavender," "Gospel," and "Where's Daddy"—AI platforms that make life-and-death surveillance and military decisions. Truthout

Palantir's software mines data from intelligence records. The AI System "Lavender" and "Gospel" then spit out lists of tens of thousands of targets. "Where's Daddy" alerts the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) when a target enters their family home. The IOF then bombs them, their families, and often everyone else in the building. Truthout

A 2024 investigation by The Nation revealed how Palantir's technology enables AI-driven targeting systems that have contributed to mass civilian deaths in Gaza. According to investigative reports, Palantir's algorithms help generate target lists for Palestinian neighborhoods, directly informing IDF bombing campaigns. Liberation News

D. Stock Performance & Profit from Genocide

Palantir's stock has surged over 200% since Trump's election, including 80% in 2025 alone, revealing how Pentagon contracts—fueled by the nearly $900 billion U.S. military budget—directly enrich military tech companies. Liberation News

In October 2024, Norway's largest asset manager Storebrand divested its Palantir shares, worth $24 million, because of concerns that the company's "work for Israel might put the asset manager at risk of violating international humanitarian law and human rights." AFSC Investigate

E. "Anti-Woke" as Marketing Strategy

Fast forward to 2025, Karp told investors that Palantir is "the first company to be completely anti-woke." Palantir relocated from Silicon Valley to Denver in 2020, deliberately distancing itself from the U.S. tech sector, which Karp frequently accuses of being "too progressive". AFSC Investigate

Translation: "Anti-woke" means "we profit from killing Palestinians and we're proud of it."

5. The Prevailing Philosophy (2025 – 2026) - It's Just Techno-Fascism

A. Democracy Is an 'Obstacle'

By 2023-2026, Silicon Valley's billionaires had stopped pretending they believed in democracy.

Peter Thiel, one of the most influential libertarians of our time, sees democracy as an obstacle to innovation and openly speaks of the 'tragedy' that a free society can restrict the will of extraordinary individuals. oikon LAW

B. The End Justifies Nothing

What Rand rejected, Yarvin and his Silicon Valley disciples embraced: pure power, justified by nothing but code.

This is the dark heart of the Dark Enlightenment: not a mere reaction to liberalism, but cold, calculated negation. In the comparison between Yarvin and Land, we glimpse a new grammar of post-democratic power: technocratic, authoritarian, and post-human. Reset DOC

C. The Military-Tech Complex

In June 2025, Palantir's Chief Technology Officer, Shyam Sankar, was sworn in as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve alongside executives from Meta and OpenAI. Liberation News

The barrier between Silicon Valley and the Pentagon is gone.

6. How Silicon Valley Changed the US (2023–2026)

A. Normalized Techno-Authoritarianism/Feudalism

Yarvin's outsize influence on tech executives has now made its way to Washington. The signs are everywhere: Yarvin was celebrated at Trump's so-called "Coronation Ball" in January 2025. Vice President J.D. Vance, a protegee of Thiel's, spoke admiringly of the blogger's influence on his thinking. Time

The idea that democracy should be replaced with CEO-dictators went from a fringe blog to presidential policy.

B. AI as Climate Catastrophe

Data centers now consume more electricity than Pakistan—and growing 133% by 2030.

In 2023, data centers consumed 4.4% of all U.S. electricity—a number that could triple by 2028. Penn State

Silicon Valley promised "green tech."

Instead, we get fossil-fuel-powered AI that accelerates climate collapse.

C. War as a Cash Cow

Palantir developed its AI system to serve the Pentagon's Project Maven. The Pentagon increased the contract ceiling to $1.3 billion. Substack

"Don't be evil" became "optimize the kill chain."

Mother Jones cites Clearview AI and its founder Hoan Ton-That (who were in connection with Thiel and Yarvin) as an example of the Dark Enlightenment or neo-reactionary thinking's influence on the development of surveillance technology. Wikipedia

7. How Much Money Was Invested/Concentrated (2023–2026)

A. Palantir's War Profiteering

Project Maven Contract: Started at $480M, increased to $1.3B (2025)
Total Maven Program: $13 billion
Stock Performance: 200%+ surge since Trump election, 80% in 2025 alone

B. AI Infrastructure Spending

In the U.S., hyperscalers like Google, Meta, and Amazon were estimated to spend $364 billion on data center construction in 2025. Brookings

$364 billion to build infrastructure that will:

Consume as much electricity as entire nations
Run on 40%+ fossil fuels
Drain billions of gallons of water
Generate millions of tons of e-waste

C. Pentagon AI Budget

The fiscal 2027 request, submitted in April, asks for $54.6 billion for the Defence Autonomous Warfare Group, a 24,000% increase over the prior year, within a total defence budget of $1.5 trillion that represents a 42% year-over-year increase. TNW | Google

$54.6 billion for Autonomous Weapons. A 24,000% increase.

8. What We as a Nation Lost

A. Climate Stability

AI's energy demands make decarbonization impossible:

945 TWh by 2030 (global data centers)
426 TWh by 2030 (US alone)
182M tons CO₂ annually
56% from fossil fuels

We had 10 years to avoid climate catastrophe. Silicon Valley spent it training chatbots.

B. Democratic Governance

When the "house philosopher" of Silicon Valley's most powerful billionaires advocates for CEO-monarchs, and that philosopher is a guest of honor at a presidential inauguration, democracy is not theoretical—it's actively under siege.

C. Any Pretense of "Don't Be Evil"

From Google's "Don't Be Evil" to Palantir's "mostly terrorists, that's true"—the mask came off entirely.

D. Water Resources

In 2023, U.S. data centers consumed about 17 billion gallons of water. Hyperscale data centers alone are expected to consume between 16 billion and 33 billion gallons annually by 2028. Brookings

Regions facing drought are giving water to AI training runs.

9. The Tech Workers Fighting Back: The Hope

But this is not a story of inevitability. Workers resisted. Workers organized. Workers said no.

A. Project Maven: The 2018 Victory

In 2018, roughly 4,000 workers signed an internal petition and at least 12 resigned over Project Maven, a Pentagon programme that used AI to detect and analyse objects in drone video feeds. TNW | Google

"We ask that Project Maven be cancelled, and that Google draft, publicize and enforce a clear policy stating that neither Google nor its contractors will ever build warfare technology," the letter states. CNBC

What the Workers Achieved:

The protest forced Google to introduce AI principles pledging not to pursue weapons or surveillance technology, and to let the Maven contract expire in March 2019. TNW | Google

By June of 2018, Google announced it would let the contract expire. As a result of the campaign against Project Maven, Google's AI principles were updated to say that Google's AI will never be used for military or surveillance purposes. Tech Policy Press

It worked. 4,000 workers forced one of the world's most powerful corporations to withdraw from a Pentagon contract.

B. The Broader Movement (2018–2021)

That summer, a second wave hit over Project Dragonfly, Google's plan to build a censored search engine for China. Over fourteen hundred employees signed a protest letter. In the fall of 2018, employees organized a global walkout over the company's handling of sexual harassment claims. Tech Policy Press

When Google fired AI ethics researcher Timnit Gebru in December 2020, more than twenty-six hundred colleagues signed a public letter of protest. By January 2021, these years of rolling activism crystallized into the Alphabet Workers Union. Tech Policy Press

The Alphabet Workers Union formed in January 2021—tech workers organizing as workers, not as "talent."

C. No Tech for Apartheid (2024)

In April 2024, under the banner of No Tech for Apartheid, workers staged sit-ins and protests at Google offices including New York, Sunnyvale, and Seattle to contest a $1.2 billion contract with the Israeli government and military to provide cloud services called Project Nimbus. Tech Policy Press

D. The 2026 Fight Continues

More than 580 Google employees, including 20+ directors and VPs and senior DeepMind researchers, signed a letter urging CEO Sundar Pichai to refuse classified military AI work for the Pentagon. TNW | Google

The Letter Argues:

On air-gapped classified networks, Google cannot monitor how its AI is used, making "trust us" the only guardrail against autonomous weapons and mass surveillance. TNW | Google

E. Palantir Protests (2025)

Behind them, nearly 100 activists from Jewish Voice for Peace filled the lobby of Palantir's Seattle offices on July 14, 2025. Activists carried banners featuring giant eyes with yellow irises: "First Palantir Surveils, then IDF Kills." "First Palantir Tracks, then ICE attacks." Arm in arm, they blocked the elevators to the building, preventing employees from accessing their offices. Truthout

F. Why This Matters

Worker Resistance: More than 430 Google and OpenAI employees signed a letter urging leaders to refuse Pentagon demands tied to mass surveillance and autonomous lethal weapons. WinBuzzer

The difference between 2018 and 2026:

What has changed since Project Maven is not that objections disappeared, but that they now arrive as letters and appeals inside a company more willing to defend military-AI relationships than retreat from them. WinBuzzer

In 2018, 4,000 signatures and a dozen resignations were enough to kill a contract worth a few million dollars. In 2026, 580 signatures face a classified AI market worth tens of billions, a Pentagon that has shown it will retaliate against companies that refuse its terms, a company that has already removed its own red lines. TNW | Google

But Resistance Continues:

The letter's organisers said "Maven is not over. Workers are going to continue organizing against the weaponization of Google's AI technology until the company draws clear, enforceable lines." TNW | Google

10. The Alternative - What Could've Been

Instead of $364B on AI data centers, we could have built:

Universal Renewable Energy Grid: Solar/wind infrastructure for every US household
Public AI Research: Democratically controlled, transparent, and energy-efficient
Climate Adaptation: Infrastructure for communities facing climate disasters
Water Infrastructure: Desalination, conservation, and universal clean water access

Instead of Palantir's $13B Maven Contract, we could have:

Universal Healthcare for Veterans
Mental Health Treatment for all PTSD Survivors
Housing for Every Homeless Veteran
Education Funding for Communities Devastated by War

Instead of CEO-Monarchs, we could have:

Worker-Owned Tech Cooperatives: Democratic control of technology
Public Social Media: No surveillance, no algorithmic manipulation
Community-Controlled AI: Transparent, accountable, and energy-efficient
Tech as a Public Good: Not weaponized, not monetized, not oligarchic

The Struggle Continues

What Silicon Valley became (2023–2026):

Ideologically: Techno-fascist (Dark Enlightenment + Objectivism)
Environmentally: Climate catastrophe accelerant (AI's carbon bomb)
Militarily: Death-machine manufacturer (Palantir "optimizing the kill chain")
Politically: Democracy's assassin (CEO-monarchs at presidential inaugurations)

But workers fought back.

4,000 Google employees forced their company to withdraw from Project Maven.

The Alphabet Workers Union organized tech workers as workers.

580+ employees—including directors, VPs, DeepMind researchers—are still saying no to military AI in 2026.

100 Jewish Voice for Peace activists blocked Palantir's elevators, chanting "First Palantir Surveils, then IDF Kills."

This is not a story of inevitable decline. This is a story of class struggle.

On One Side: Billionaires who believe democracy is obsolete, workers are idiots, and "optimizing the kill chain" is innovation.

On the Other Side: Workers who refused to build weapons. Workers who organized unions. Workers who said no more.

Silicon Valley's founders worship Ayn Rand's heroes—lone geniuses who withdraw to "Galt's Gulch" and let society collapse.

But tech workers are building something different: solidarity.

Not the libertarian fantasy of heroic individuals.

Not the Dark Enlightenment's CEO-monarchs.

Collective power. Democratic control. Technology as public good.

The fight continues. The workers haven't given up.

And neither should we.