[telchior]

Re: same thing not being able to happen a decade ago, perhaps so, but I'd argue that the signs were clear that it was about to happen. Some of the most powerful people in SV have been visibly showing hard right attitudes for at least that long. Not generally on social issues, but more of a muddy libertarianism. The social issues of SV just turned this into a pressure cooker; people who absolutely knew that they were brilliant revolutionaries, standing far above the masses, simultaneously had to put up with people telling them that the closest city had to be a haven for people on the lowest rung and that rich white men were essentially flawed and bad.

But I think whether that pressure cooker creating the most extreme examples had existed or not, the "Do no evil", utopian phase of tech was always destined to be a blip, caused by a sudden, massive influx of cash to people who hadn't been inculcated in the culture of how to defend and grow such a cash hoard. They learned. No surprise at all to see, for example, Zuckerberg tossing the president a $20 million "legal settlement" bribe a few days after he was voted in; he has his priorities in order for his role.