🪑✨The Nexialist #0213

technocracy incorporated | headed for technofascism | amplified roots: tecnobrega | ocitocina | turista | monobloc | diva

Feb 20, 2025

welcome to your weekly cyber trail mix, the nexialist

hey, you! i hope this message finds you chill despite the chaos (as seen above). these weeks have been tough with the news, and at the same time i’ve been noticing a lot of new music and content. not sure if it’s just a feeling, or if it’s real, and if it’s real, the conspiratory part of my brain wonders if they are connected. oh well, you can see how that is mixed in today’s nexialist, in the usual chaordic manner. i hope you enjoy or have at least one brainspark 🫀✨

—Rodrigo Turra

2 years ago » 🎭✨The Nexialist #0109 : jumping carnaval | salvador | pitanga aka surinam cherry | house of carnaval | thriving in paradox

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🍁technocracy incorporated

namibpulse

A post shared by @namibpulse

technocracy incorporated sounds like a sci-fi villAInous corporation, but more jaw dropping than the fact that it is a real thing, is that it was a fringe political movement lead by elon musk’s grandfather, almost 100 years ago, according to this investigation by chris mcgreal about the paypal mafia. it’s impressive how time is a spiral, for the good and for the bad.

Musk’s maternal grandfather, Joshua Haldeman, moved from Canada to South Africa in 1950 because he liked the newly elected apartheid government.
In the 1930s, Haldeman was the Canadian leader of a fringe political movement originating in the US, Technocracy Incorporated, that advocated abolishing democracy in favor of government by elite technicians but which took on overtones of fascism with its uniforms and salutes.

i was also not aware of this paypal mafia and its current influence in US politics:

Musk is part of the “PayPal mafia” of libertarian billionaires with roots in South Africa under white rule now hugely influential in the US tech industry and politics.
They include Peter Thiel, the German-born billionaire venture capitalist and PayPal cofounder, who was educated in a southern African city in the 1970s where Hitler was still openly venerated. Thiel, a major donor to Trump’s campaign, has been critical of welfare programs and women being permitted to vote as undermining capitalism. A 2021 biography of Thiel, called The Contrarian, alleged that as a student at Stanford he defended apartheid as “economically sound”.
David Sacks, formerly PayPal’s chief operating officer and now a leading fundraiser for Trump, was born in Cape Town and grew up within the South African diaspora after his family moved to the US when he was young. A fourth member of the mafia, Roelof Botha, the grandson of the apartheid regime’s last foreign minister, Pik Botha, and former PayPal CFO, has kept a lower political profile but remains close to Musk.

brainsparks: technofeudalism (tn#143), netocracy vs. consumtariat (tn#18), digital feudalism (tn#136)

🫡headed for technofascism

the syllabus podcast of the week had some synchrony with the content above so i had to bring it here. becca lewis takes us on a fascinating yet chilling trip to the 90s silicon valley, exposing its rightwing roots, somehow forgotten and now resurfacing alongside trumpism. a mysoginistic and anti-diversity rich white boys club. she got interviewed for ‘this is hell’ podcast but you can also read the article here.

An influential Silicon Valley publication runs a cover story lamenting the “pussification” of tech. A major tech CEO lambasts a Black civil rights leader’s calls for diversifying the tech workforce. Technologists rage against the “PC police”.
No, this isn’t Silicon Valley in the age of Maga. It’s the tech industry of the 1990s, when observers first raised concerns about the rightwing bend of Silicon Valley and the potential for “technofascism”. Despite the industry’s (often undeserved) reputation for liberalism, its reactionary foundations were baked in almost from the beginning. As Silicon Valley enters a second Trump administration, the gendered roots of its original reactionary movement offer insight into today’s rightward turn.

brainsparks: capitalists killed the internet (tn#212), seedless fruit: futureless tech (tn#198), [this tech is] killing me (tn#113), the tech boom is over (tn#97), data-driven DEI (tn#179)

🇧🇷amplified roots: tecnobrega

technocracy, technofascism… i have to bring something positive related to tech or techno, and this boiler room documentary about tecnobrega made me smile, tear up and shake my ass. it’s so fascinating to see the merging of technology and local culture, the warm and colorful artistic expression, and the sense of community and belonging of the tecnobrega culture (and all adjacent rhythms).

We're here, in the Amazon, in the middle of nowhere. We're miles away from the big city and high-end technology. How do we get access to it? In the '80s, some “aparelhagens” started to become businesses. What used to be a neighbourhood, tradition, and part of our street culture, started to get more visibility.
We got access to new technologies, you know. And that's where the crocodiles come in, right? The crocodile is a tech-driven “aparelhagem”, with lighting, LED panels, turning into a mix of technology with the state’s culture and musicality.

brainsparks: the new rules of youth culture (tn#212), beat diaspora (tn#125), amazonize the world (tn#153), solarpunk (tn#88), polyfuturism (tn#158), time for indigenous futurism (tn#65), scenius aka communal genius scenius (tn#31)

🫂ocitocina

i was checking if i had shared this here before and apparently not. you know i love jaloo so much, and this song gives me chills. the video was also filmed in the amazon, in the same region of the doc above. i cannot not comment how it sounds like early grimes stuff (which unfortunately leads us back to musk, as she’s his ex).

brainsparks: profano (tn#170), céu azul (tn#3), this city will kill me (tn#144)

🇵🇷turista

i have been loving bad bunny’s new album so much, not only sonically, but also all its social-political meaning (switched on pop podcast did a whole episode about it, explaining the references, samples and all.) in the new video nothing needs to be said. perfect timing with the release of white lotus s03.

brainsparks: DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS (tn#208), citizen tourist (tn#162)

🪑monobloc

this iconic chair, the monobloc, is featured on the cover of bad bunny’s album and i remembered seeing this video about it. who knew there would be so much to learn about a chair (or chairs in general, so many iconic and beautiful chairs are shown in the video). if you look for it, the monoblocs keep appearing, as it did in the tecnobrega doc. and even if the video is a few years old, the part below is spot on what i was thinking:

The monobloc might be a prime example of globalization, but it can also be a reminder of how locally different other objects around us still are. There are critical views on this chair and some rightly note that the Monobloc does not represent sustainable design. Some see the chair as a prime example of mass consumption of uniform goods that disregard any sense of individuality. Monoblocs can be used as an argument against globalization as they represent a decline in local culture but we can also turn this argument around. Their success does not come from nowhere. It's due to the fact that they are affordable. And affordability matters, since it allows social equality and economical advancement.

brainsparks: plastic vizualization (tn#23), global happiness (tn#166)

🍉 dive

i have such a crush on marwan aka saint levant and this new song/video made it even more intenset. such a nice groovy sound, and the video in the algiers is just stunning. i had to find the name of modernist church they are at the end of the video: cathédrale du sacré-cœur d'alger, so beautiful. i had to google if it was oscar niemeyer’s because i recently learned there are some iconic work by him there. it wasn’t. also, can you spot the monoblocs? and since we are talking about pop culture and politics, do you spot the watermelon?

brainsparks: deira (tn#163), green colonialism (tn#145)

see you next week, turistas 🫀✨

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