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Comment by nonrandomstring | Hacker News Reader

I think he spelt Technofascism wrong.

To whomever "flagged" my post. I am saddened that your mind is not open enough to seriously consider the implied political question and that you cower behind anonymous censorship. It seems wretched to implicitly deem Feudalism "acceptable", beside a title that announces the "death of capitalism", and yet fail to have the stomach to entertain for a second that - in an era of rising authoritarianism - the logical trajectory is indeed a form of technologically applied fascism? Does the word scare you so much? Consider carefully your position and what you are being part of.

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Varoufakis is pretty clear in using the feudalism, in that the technological elite are carving up their own monopolistic fiefdoms.

How far you want to take the analogy for modern tech corporates is debatable, as we're still a long way from the EIC and VOC in the 17th/18th centuries. The EIC was literally given a feudal grant by the Mughal Emperor over the territory is controlled, and had a standing army at one point larger than that of the British Crown.

But how is it fascism? These corporations are above the nation state.

Based on the definitional ideas of Griffin's "Palingenetic Ultranationalism" [0] (where "fascism" is identifiable primarily by motiviational myths) any corporations that operate with impunity could still qualify as fascist if they are still promising to snatch the last hope of a restored golden age for the "right" people, etc.

Somehow makes me think of the scene from Iron Man (2008) where Tony Stark boasts that he's successfully privatized world peace... except imagine the untouchable CEO of SacreBleuCorp boasting that they've outdone the government to restore the glory and honor of the French or whatever.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palingenetic_ultranationalism

And what group today is the "right people" that these corporations push for?

I can't speak for the other poster, but I'm not saying I believe that's happening now.

I'm merely pointing out that it's possible without being a contradiction in terms, especially if it gets to the point where there's ambiguity between the de jure state versus the de facto state. (Or worse, a Snow Crash scenario.)

> "fascism" is identifiable primarily by motiviational myths

I always found "The Singularity" and the dreams of the cosmist elites to transcend mere humanism to be a quite grand "myth", easily comparable with any Thousand Year Reich.

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