Bifurcation. You can remark that there’s a deep structural similarity between a socialist professor and technologist founder: both feel like they should be in charge. That’s why tech is a cultural fork of the US establishment, just as the US itself was a fork of the British Empire. It’s the same root, different branches. The ambitious intellectual who would in a previous life have become an academic theorist, jurist, or journalist is now a founder, engineer, or investor.54 Because there’s a common thread between media and tech, which is the handling and presentation of information. Computer science took it one step further: it collapsed the distinction between the word and the deed, and turned a generation of intellectuals into software CEOs. Many people who previously thought they’d just advocate for a law to be passed and not worry about the details found out how hard it was to build things, to manage people, to turn a profit, to be the one in the arena. They became people of the Network. And then they came into conflict with those who remained people of the State.
Link:: The Network State