malteengeler on Nostr: I read David Golumbia's "The Politics of Bitcoin: Software as Right-Wing Extremism" ...

I read David Golumbia's "The Politics of Bitcoin: Software as Right-Wing Extremism" (2016) years ago and keep coming back to this one quote:



"A fourth and final pillar of extremist thought is also found both inside and outside Bitcoin discourse, but appears there with particular force: the idea that government itself is inherently evil, [...] Of course this view flows somewhat directly from the anarcho-capitalist thought of Rothbard and the antigovernment neoliberal doctrines of Reagan, Thatcher, and their supporters, the Koch brothers, the Cato and Heritage Foundations, and many more. It also flows [...] to only a slightly lesser extent from the general cyberlibertarian predisposition against internet regulation, and the way that many “privacy advocates” focus so much of their energy on what governments are apparently doing and so little on what corporations are provably doing."



Looking at the frustrating inability of (especially) the digital civil society to meaningfully expand their resistance beyond e.g. criticizing government surveillance or fighting for "fair" competition (as in: not question private corporations systemically), I find it as relevant today as the day I first read it.



Golumbia later updated his analysis in his phenomenal book "Cyberlibertarianism" but this - much shorter - book is a perfectly good way to start if you care about the ideologies that shaped todays digital discourse.