Gil Durán - The Nerd Reich

The book club's autumn looks like turning out to be a rather intense one.

A deep-dive into memento mori, after having read a superbly depressing book about how exploitative mental health care in our money-loving society can be, is now followed up with a journalist's exposé of technofascism in - and around - Silicon Valley.

American journalist and author Gil José Durán presents his examination of regulatory capture and abuses of power perpetrated by big tech and shows how the promise of technological liberation has transformed into a global movement for digital feudalism, powered by cryptocurrency, artificial intelligence and algorithmically driven propaganda on social media. Joy!

Goodreads writes the following about our chosen book:
``
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

A fearless and urgent exposé of technofascism – and a road map to resistance.

When Silicon Valley ‘moves fast and breaks things’, the world interprets the chaos as a necessary cost of innovation. Gil Durán reveals something far more sinister a decades-long campaign to replace elected governments with corporate rule.

Drawing on insider political experience and new investigations, Durán traces this ideology from its philosophical roots in The Sovereign Individual by James Dale Davidson and Lord William Rees-Mogg. He introduces its modern apostles – Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, Balaji Srinivasan and Elon Musk – and shows how the promise of technological liberation has transformed into a global movement for digital feudalism, powered by cryptocurrency, artificial intelligence and algorithmically driven propaganda on social media.

The Nerd Reich explains the origins, strategies and ambitions of Silicon Valley’s war on democracy for the first time. From San Francisco’s weaponised elections and secret billionaire projects to the White House, Durán exposes how the world’s richest men are building a new political order.

The Nerd Reich is more than a hidden history; it’s an urgent democracy is being dismantled, not by coups or tanks but by code, capital and the illusion of innovation. Durán insists there is still time to fight back – if we act now.
´´

The hardcover book, published through Simon & Schuster, is 352 pages, while the audiobook, published through Simon & Schuster Audio, is nine hours and twenty-nine minutes.