The New Techno-Nationalism: Power, Ideology, and the Eclipse of Ethics

 

The New Techno-Nationalism: Power, Ideology, and the Eclipse of Ethics  

I. Introduction: A New Power Alignment

On January 20, 2025, Donald Trump was inaugurated as the 47th president of the United States, marking his controversial return to the White House. The ceremony, held inside the US Capitol rotunda, became a showcase of America's new power brokers. In the front row, a who's who of Silicon Valley sat shoulder to shoulder: Elon Musk, fresh from pumping over $275 million into Trump's victory[3] and poised to assume an unprecedented role in the administration; Mark Zuckerberg, who had just gutted Meta's fact-checking system at Trump's behest[2]; Jeff Bezos, and other tech titans, their combined net worth exceeding an astonishing $1 trillion.[1]

 The irony of this scene was palpable. Trump, who has long positioned himself as a populist champion of the "forgotten" rural Americans struggling with stagnant wages and rising living costs, surrounded himself with the ultra-elite oligarchs of the tech world. Yet this alliance was no mere marriage of convenience – it represented a deeper convergence between Silicon Valley's gospel of technological progress and nationalist politics, where self-appointed prophets of innovation found common cause with MAGA's vision of American renewal. The stark contrast between Trump's rhetoric of being the voice of the common people and the reality of his billionaire-studded inauguration highlights the bizarre nature of his populist claims – claims that somehow survived even as Musk doled out million-dollar daily "prizes" to voters in swing states through his PAC, a brazen scheme that distributed $17 million by election day.[4]

This gathering of tech moguls at the inauguration reflects a broader shift in our cultural values and the figures we choose to lionize. Nothing illustrates this transformation more clearly than examining who our leading biographers deem worthy of chronicling. When Walter Isaacson, perhaps America's preeminent biographer, looks to history, he finds subjects of profound humanistic impact: Leonardo da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein – figures who not only innovated but wrestled deeply with the moral implications of their work, contributing to human understanding far beyond their specific fields.[5]

Yet when Isaacson surveys our present era for subjects of similar stature, he finds science and tech titans and venture capitalists: Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Jennifer Doudna. These figures are celebrated not merely as innovators but as champions of American technological supremacy in an era of intensifying competition with China. This absence of contemporary figures whose impact transcends biotech, AI, and market disruption speaks volumes about our cultural priorities. That his collection marketed as the "genius biographies" places Jobs alongside Einstein, Franklin, and da Vinci reveals how thoroughly we've narrowed our vision of meaningful achievement. Where are today's philosophers? Poets? Composers and artists? Our culture seems to have lost interest in contributions that don't translate directly to big Tech and market capitalization.

II. The Origins of Techno-Futurism

The ideology that enables tech leaders to position themselves as humanity's rightful shepherds emerges from a peculiar fusion of science fiction and technical capability. This marriage of imagination and engineering has deep roots in humanity's eternal quest for transcendence. The term "transhumanism" first appeared in translations of Dante's Paradiso, describing the soul's journey toward divine life beyond mortal constraints.[6] When biologist Julian Huxley appropriated the term in 1957, he secularized this religious impulse, recasting transcendence as a scientific project.[7]

This secularization reached its apotheosis in Ray Kurzweil's vision of the "Singularity"—a predicted moment in 2045 when humans will achieve "digital immortality" by uploading their consciousness to computers.[8] As director of engineering at Google, Kurzweil transformed ancient dreams of eternal life into concrete research and development priorities. His prediction that "the human species, along with the computational technology it created, will be able to solve age-old problems ... and will be in a position to change the nature of mortality" exemplifies how religious promises of salvation get reframed as technological inevitabilities.[ibid.]

Today's tech leaders each offer their own variations on this technological salvation narrative. Elon Musk frames his Mars colonization project through Asimov's Foundation series, positioning himself as humanity's savior from a dying Earth. Mark Zuckerberg's Metaverse, inspired by Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, promises digital transcendence through virtual worlds, seemingly blind to that novel's dystopian warnings. Jeff Bezos draws directly from Star Trek and physicist Gerard O'Neill's space colony designs, envisioning millions living in cylindrical tubes among the stars.[9]

 

This fusion of scientific capability and science fiction imagination becomes institutionalized in elite technical education. At MIT's Media Lab, known as the 'Future Factory,' where Dr. Joy Buolamwini studied, students engage in courses that bridge speculative fiction and engineering practice. In one particular course, Science Fabrication, students were assigned science fiction novels and stories, and then challenged to imagine something futuristic to build—no matter how unrealistic it might initially seem—and attempt to create it within just six weeks.[10] Whether or not these inventions fully materialized, the nature of these assignments reveals a pedagogical commitment to balancing utopian imagination with engineering constraints. This approach treats AI as a fertile blend of futuristic imagination and contemporary technical knowledge, fostering a mindset where fictional possibilities shape technological development.

The result is a powerful ideology that can accommodate both utopian and catastrophic visions. Ray Kurzweil promises technological immortality while British philosopher Nick Bostrom warns of existential risks from artificial intelligence—yet both narratives serve to justify concentrated power and resources in the hands of tech leaders. As Buolamwini observes, investment in AI safety research is dramatically higher when framed in terms of existential risks than when addressing immediate harms like algorithmic bias or systemic discrimination.[11] Recent funding patterns support this observation: while organizations focused on existential AI risks receive multi-million dollar grants, initiatives addressing immediate concerns like algorithmic bias and discrimination typically receive far more modest support—often in the range of hundreds of thousands rather than millions of dollars.[12]

Meanwhile, immediate problems multiply. Beyond familiar concerns about job displacement, privacy violations, and algorithmic bias, new evidence reveals how AI's physical infrastructure strains power grids and depletes water resources.[13] The "apprentice gap" Buolamwini identifies—the elimination of entry-level positions through which expertise traditionally developed—threatens to create "the age of the last experts."[ibid.] Yet these concrete issues receive far less attention and funding than speculative future scenarios.

This techno-futurist ideology gains additional force by filling the void left by declining traditional religion. As tech leaders position themselves as prophets of a technological salvation, resistance to oversight becomes recast as heroic defiance of small-minded bureaucracy. The result is an ideology that simultaneously promises transcendence while demanding autonomy from democratic accountability—a powerful combination that would soon find expression in competing national projects.

III. Western Technological Theodicy

This techno-futurist framework meshes seamlessly with what effectively constitutes a technological theodicy—a system for justifying present suffering by appeal to future salvation. The pattern is familiar: just as Leibniz once offered a rational theodicy arguing that, due to God's ordering of the Universe, we live in "the best of all possible worlds,"[14] and Voltaire's satirical novella Candide mocked this rationalistic optimism through Dr. Pangloss's comical insistence that all suffering serves some greater good,[15] today's tech leaders offer their own, darker theodicy. While Pangloss merely glossed over suffering with jovial rationalization, tech leaders actively justify the negative consequences of their innovations—massive labor displacement, fragmenting of social cohesion, addiction-optimized platforms degrading mental health—as necessary sacrifices for their vision of technological transcendence.

The degraded character of this contemporary theodicy is illuminated by Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot. In the play, the ironically named Lucky—a slave to the wealthy Pozzo—delivers a rambling monologue that preserves the form of traditional theodicy while descending into nihilistic incoherence. His litany of modern comforts ("penicillin, flying, gliding, floating, tennis games, golf") mixed with assertions about a God who "loves us dearly with some exceptions for reasons unknown" while some are "plunged in torment plunged in fire" offers a prescient parallel to today's techno-optimist rhetoric.[16]

This parallel becomes especially striking when we examine how tech leaders and their followers discuss innovation. "There is no material problem—whether created by nature or by technology—that cannot be solved with more technology," declares Marc Andreessen in his "Techno-Optimist Manifesto,"[17] expressing what amounts to a contemporary version of Pangloss's optimism, but with none of its innocence and all of its blindness to human cost. Like Lucky celebrating the modern conveniences that fail to address his fundamental condition of servitude, tech enthusiasts catalog endless innovations while accepting their own diminishing agency in an increasingly technocratic system.

A hollowed-out version of Emersonian ideals of individual authenticity and self-reliance, reduced to the throwing off of all constraints and naked assertion of power, now legitimates both tech leaders' rejection of oversight and political strongmen who break democratic norms in the name of authentic leadership. The strongman validates the tech leaders' claims to prophetic vision and innovative genius—as when Trump celebrated Musk as a 'super genius' and 'new star' in his victory speech[24]—while they in turn provide both technological capability and cultural capital to legitimate his authority. This symbiosis has evolved into an unprecedented integration of tech power into governance: from Musk's secret communications with Putin about geopolitical matters[25], to his presence during crucial diplomatic calls[26], to his leadership of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with its sweeping access to sensitive government systems[27]. This fusion of tech and state power reached new heights when Musk, acting as both presidential advisor and DOGE director, announced plans to shut down USAID—with his team forcing access to secure systems and threatening federal officials who resisted, even as legal experts questioned the constitutional authority for such actions[28].

IV. Chinese Technological Theodicy

Where Western technological theodicy has degraded into nihilistic celebration of unconstrained innovation and raw power, Chinese theodicy presents a fundamentally different vision—one that transforms present suffering into meaningful sacrifice through a positive moral framework. Rather than explaining away hardships through appeals to market innovation or mysterious technological destiny, it provides clear state-sanctioned moral principles for understanding how individual sacrifice serves the collective good.

This theodicy gains force by combining traditional Confucian values with modern state technological ambitions, framed through official party doctrine and state-guided sci-fi stories and blockbuster movies that have taken off in China. The virtue of ren (仁)—humaneness or benevolence toward others—provides a moral foundation for self-sacrifice.[16] The 21st century revival of Confucianism, encouraged by Xi, is brought into alignment with official moral and political precepts and doctrines of the State.[17,18] These are then propagated through increasingly popular and nationalistic science fiction such as the blockbuster movie series The Wandering Earth (2019) and The Wandering Earth II: The Prequel (2023).[19,20]

 

In particular, Xi's signature slogan and ideology, the "Chinese Dream," emphasizes China's rise to "fully developed" superpower status by 2049—a date that will mark one century since the founding of the PRC.[21] By then, according to official doctrine, China will be at the forefront of technology, with a united and prosperous citizenry and a state functioning for the good of not only all citizens, but all nations and humanity writ large.

 

The latter altruistic face of rising China brings us to another key doctrine in current official Chinese thought, viz. that of "Human Community with a Shared Future"—first articulated by Hu Jintao and refined by Xi in recent years. It has been incorporated into the constitution twice—first under Jintao in 2012, and again by Xi in 2018. This doctrine and its core principles provide an underlying leitmotif in the stories and movies under discussion. In 2018, it was added to the Constitution of the People's Republic of China as a core value of international relations. It was articulated negatively and positively. Negatively, China claims to be opposed to imperialism, hegemonism, and colonialism (the US and collective West are implicated in those). Positively, it is committed to unity and harmony among all the peoples of the world. As The China Media Project points out in an article on the doctrine: "The phrase 'community of common destiny for mankind'... incorporates traditional elements of Chinese foreign policy that prioritize a [Chinese] state-centered approach to human rights, while subordinating individual rights to the basic question of national interest.[emph. added]"[22]

In "The Wandering Earth," this idealistic doctrine manifests powerfully when the hero Liu Peiqiang, after seventeen years away from his family on a space station mission, must choose between reuniting with them or sacrificing himself to save humanity.[19] His final apology to his son for breaking his promise to return, before undertaking the suicide mission that will save Earth, exemplifies how personal loss becomes meaningful through service to collective purpose.

Unlike the market-driven development of science fiction in the West, China's state actively shapes the genre's themes and purposes. As Neil Gaiman recounts, after Chinese officials learned that American tech innovators were often inspired by childhood exposure to sci-fi, the state implemented strategic support and oversight of the genre. A state official explained to Gaiman: "The Chinese were brilliant at making things if other people brought them the plans. But they did not innovate and they did not invent. They did not imagine."[19]

V. Competing Theodicies, Common Functions

These distinct theodicies reflect deep cultural and political differences while serving similarly powerful legitimating functions. Where Chinese theodicy provides a collective moral framework through state guidance, Western theodicy draws power from deeply rooted American ideals of individual authenticity and achievement. Tech leaders cast themselves as Emersonian heroes who have moved beyond mere resistance to oversight to actively seeking and wielding political power, all while claiming to serve innovation. Though this framework shows signs of degradation into nihilistic celebration of power, it maintains cultural resonance through its appeal to American dreams of individual achievement and expressive individualism.

The fusion of tech and political theodicies in the West creates new pathways for concentrated power. When tech leaders and political strongmen mutually reinforce each other's authority—as exemplified by Musk's unprecedented appointment as a 'special government employee' with direct involvement in federal operations[28]—they transform challenges to their authority into opposition to authentic leadership and innovation itself. Understanding these legitimating mechanisms and their evolving manifestations becomes crucial as the boundaries between tech power and state authority grow increasingly fluid.

VI. Conclusion

The scene that opened our analysis—tech billionaires gathered at Trump's 2025 inauguration—now reveals itself as a watershed moment in the transformation of American power. What appeared as a surprising political realignment can be understood as the natural outcome of how technological authority has come to be legitimated and exercised. The fusion of tech sector autonomy with nationalist mission creates an especially powerful mechanism for concentrating control while evading accountability.

This consolidation of power gains momentum through its dual character—simultaneously promising salvation and warning of existential threat. Each technological milestone, whether China's DeepSeek or America's latest corporate breakthrough, amplifies both messianic visions of transcendence and dire warnings about strategic vulnerability.[23] The pattern mirrors the Cold War arms race, where the imperative to maintain advantage overwhelmed ethical concerns about nuclear proliferation and mutual assured destruction.

The doctrine of perpetual research and development serves as the practical mechanism through which this ideology maintains power. By positioning technological advancement as humanity's supreme obligation to future generations, tech leaders transform their pursuit of autonomy from democratic oversight into a moral imperative. Their followers—whether American MAGA supporters celebrating tech "mavericks" or Chinese nationals proud of their country's technological ascent—internalize justifications for their own diminishing agency in an increasingly technocratic system.

The degradation of theodicy from Leibniz through Voltaire to Beckett's Lucky finds its contemporary echo in how tech discourse has devolved from philosophical argument to naked assertion of power. When Peter Thiel declares that "freedom and democracy are incompatible," or Marc Andreessen insists that "there is no material problem that cannot be solved with more technology," they no longer bother with reasoned justification. Like Lucky's rambling celebration of modern conveniences that fail to address his fundamental condition, today's tech enthusiasm catalogs endless innovations while accepting the concentration of unprecedented power in unaccountable hands.

This matters because the technologies being developed—from artificial intelligence to brain-computer interfaces—have the potential to reshape the human condition in fundamental ways. The sidelining of ethical oversight through appeals to competition, progress, or national destiny threatens to leave crucial decisions about humanity's future in the hands of those whose power derives from avoiding democratic accountability. Breaking this cycle requires more than just new regulations or policies—it demands reconsidering how we understand technology's role in human flourishing and who gets to make decisions about its development.

The alternative is to continue down a path where technological development becomes ever more divorced from ethical consideration, driven by competition dynamics that serve primarily to concentrate power while manufacturing consent for that concentration. The inauguration scene that opened this analysis may then come to mark not just a moment of transformation but a point of no return—when the convergence of tech power and nationalist politics created a framework for governance beyond democratic control.

Endnotes:

1. "Net Worth of Trump Inauguration Attendees Tops $1 Trillion with World's Richest in the Crowd," Sky News, January 21, 2025.
2. Kelvin Chan et al., "Meta Eliminates Fact-checking in Latest Bow to Trump," Associated Press, January 7, 2025.
3. "Elon Musk Spends $277 Million to Back Trump and Republican Candidates," CBS News, December 6, 2024.
4. "Judge Denies Philadelphia DA's Request to Block Elon Musk's $1 Million Giveaway," ABC News, November 4, 2024.
5. Meghan O'Gieblyn, "God in the Machine: My Strange Journey into Transhumanism," The Guardian, April 18, 2017.
6. Julian Huxley, New Bottles for New Wine: Essays (London: Chatto & Windus, 1957).
7. Raymond Kurzweil, The Singularity is Near (New York: Penguin Books, 2006).
8. Nick Bostrom, Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).
9. Sigal Samuel, "The Broligarchs Have a Vision for the New Trump Term," Vox, January 20, 2025.
10. Joy Buolamwini, Unmasking AI: My Mission to Protect What Is Human in a World of Machines (New York: Random House, 2023).
11. "Joy Buolamwini and Sam Altman: Unmasking the Future of AI," Commonwealth Club World Affairs, November 2023, YouTube video.
12. Karen Hao, "AI Is Taking Water from the Desert," The Atlantic, March 1, 2024.
13. G.W. Leibniz, Theodicy: Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man, and the Origin of Evil (La Salle: Open Court Publishing, 1985).
14. Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot: A Tragicomedy in Two Acts (New York: Grove Press, 1994).
15. Marc Andreessen, "The Techno-Optimist Manifesto," a16z (blog), October 2023.
16. Mario Poceski, Introducing Chinese Religions (New York: Routledge, 2009).
17. "How Xi Jinping is Going Back to Confucius to Define China's Future," South China Morning Post, November 24, 2024.
18. Zhao Shengnan, "Xi Cites Confucius as Positive Example for Modern Nation," China Daily, September 25, 2014
19. Pan and Xu, "What the Sci-fi Blockbuster Wandering Earth II Can Teach Us About China's Global and Local Aspirations," The Conversation, February 12, 2023.
20. Alexandra Grace Casale, "Sci-Fi, AI and the New Chinese Dream," Cognitive Business News, September 24, 2020.
21. Shannon Tiezzi, "Why 2020 Is a Make-or-Break Year for China," The Diplomat, February 13, 2015.
22. "Community of Common Destiny for Mankind," China Media Project, accessed January 31, 2025.
23. "DeepSeek Forces a Global Technology Reckoning," New York Times, January 27, 2025.
24. Siladitya Ray, "Trump Hails 'Super Genius' Elon Musk In Victory Speech—Ahead Of Likely Election Win," Forbes, November 6, 2024.
25. Thomas Grove et al., "Elon Musk's Secret Conversations With Vladimir Putin," Wall Street Journal, October 25, 2024.
26. Maggie Haberman, "Trump Put Musk on Phone With Zelensky During Call," New York Times, November 8, 2024.
27. Fatima Hussein, "Elon Musk's DOGE Commission Gains Access to Sensitive Treasury Payment Systems," Associated Press, February 1, 2025.
28. Chris Megerian, "Musk is a 'Special Government Employee,' the White House Confirms," Associated Press, February 3, 2025.