Member-only story
Why And How Technocracy Will Fail
The tech billionaires want to replace democracy with algorithms. They’re about to discover why that’s impossible.
Our world, say the tech billionaires, will be a much better place when we recognise that algorithms know better than voters, that data beats debate and that their engineering minds will mean a much better run society. No more gridlock, no more uninformed opinions, just clean technocratic rule by the engineers.
We’ve been here before, nearly a century ago in the 1930s. That technocracy movement collapsed spectacularly within a year. And while today’s tech billionaires seem to hold the same ideas as sacred, but claim the technology is now ready, they will still fail. In fact, they already are.
It may seem that their ideals and visions are inevitable in these changing times, for we are entering a period of massive societal change. A period of revolution that will be as profound as the 1960s in the United States. And with some tech billionaires funding populist movements, it might seem they have the upper hand in gaining control. Driving us towards a society ruled by algorithms. Except that’s not happening.
Just as in the 1930, cultures immune system is kicking into high gear. What we are already starting to see is systemic…
