Technology, a Double-Edged Sword

Technology is a two-edged sword, capable of forging utopias or dystopias depending on who wields it. Its creative potential—enabling new forms of communication, work, and innovation—coexists with its destructive power, dismantling valued institutions, eroding privacy, and concentrating control in the hands of a few. As Mark Twain famously quipped, history doesn’t repeat, but it rhymes, and today’s tech-driven authoritarianism echoes the early 20th-century Futurist fervor that fueled fascism. Striking parallels exist between Filippo Tommaso Marinetti’s influence on Benito Mussolini and Curtis Yarvin’s sway over tech-broligarchs like Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, JD Vance, and Donald Trump, all united by a worship of power and hierarchy. At the heart of this dynamic lies a Jungian psychological mechanism: the projection of the shadow psyche onto powerless groups, scapegoating them for societal woes. In the 1920s-30s, Nazis targeted Jews, homosexuals, and gypsies; today, MAGA rhetoric vilifies transsexuals, non-white immigrants, and Democrats. This essay explores how technology, shaped by these forces, risks ushering in a techno-feudal dystopia unless urgently regulated to preserve democracy.

Joseph Schumpeter’s concept of “creative destruction” captures technology’s dual nature. Digital innovation has unlocked unprecedented possibilities: instant global communication, remote work, and AI-driven medical advancements. Yet, this creativity comes at a cost. Bookstores and print newspapers have crumbled under the weight of e-commerce and digital media. Public broadcasters face existential threats as streaming platforms dominate and, in the US, Trump cuts their funding. Privacy, once a cornerstone of individual freedom, has been shredded by mass surveillance enabled by tech giants like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft. These firms, alongside Apple and Meta, mediate nearly every communicative act, amassing data to predict and manipulate behavior. As Neil Postman warned in his concept of “technopoly,” we live in a society that deifies technology, treating it as a benevolent force whose bountiful gifts demand trust and obedience. Yet, this “friend” has a dark side, eroding moral foundations and undermining the social relations that make life meaningful.

Postman’s insight explains why public discourse about technology is so lopsided. Evangelists—often corporate “cybertheorists” or “cyberhustlers”—dominate the narrative, hyping innovation’s creative potential while dismissing skeptics as luddites or technophobes. These enthusiasts, described in 2012 as a “corporatist species of the Leninist class,” advocate for constant revolution, but the beneficiaries are tech giants, not the public. Meanwhile, technology’s destructive impacts—job displacement, cultural erosion, and surveillance—are downplayed. Ignoring its dark side of technology risks societal peril. A balanced discourse is rare in a technopoly that equates technological progress with moral good.

History’s rhymes reveal how technology, when wielded by power-hungry ideologues, can fuel authoritarianism. In 1909, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, an Italian poet and founder of the Futurist movement, published his Founding and Manifesto of Futurism. Celebrating speed, violence, and technology—embodied by his four-cylinder Fiat sports car—Marinetti scorned democracy and egalitarianism. He called for the destruction of museums, libraries, and academies, envisioning a future unburdened by the past. His reactionary ideology, a precursor to fascism, profoundly influenced Benito Mussolini, whose regime fulfilled Marinetti’s dark promise by ravaging Europe’s cultural heritage. Futurism’s worship of technology and power laid the ideological groundwork for a totalitarian nightmare.

Today, a similar dynamic unfolds with Curtis Yarvin, software engineer and blogger whose “Dark Enlightenment” movement echoes Marinetti’s authoritarian zeal. Yarvin advocates for a techno-feudal state, replacing democracy with a corporate-style government led by a CEO-king accountable only to wealthy shareholders. His ideas have gained traction among tech moguls like Peter Thiel, who declared in 2009 that “freedom and democracy are incompatible,” and Marc Andreessen, who quoted Yarvin approvingly in a 2025 Hoover Institution interview. Yarvin’s influence extends to Washington, with JD Vance, a Thiel protégé, praising his ideas on a 2024 podcast, and Trump’s “Coronation Ball” in January 2025 feting Yarvin as a guest. The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk, operationalizes Yarvin’s vision, firing 30,000 federal workers since January 2025 under the guise of efficiency—a move straight from Yarvin’s “RAGE” (Retire All Government Employees) playbook.

Yarvin’s rhetoric mirrors Marinetti’s disdain for democratic institutions. He derides “The Cathedral”—a nexus of media, universities, and nonprofits—as a barrier to elite freedom, much as Marinetti sought to obliterate cultural relics. Yarvin’s 2021 call to “physically and economically liquidate” universities parallels Marinetti’s 1909 manifesto. Trump’s February 2025 tweet, “He who saves his country, violates no law,” and his doctored image captioned “Long Live the King!” reflect Yarvin’s monarchist aspirations, just as Mussolini’s regime embodied Futurism’s authoritarian dreams. Marinetti’s claim that “war is the hygiene of the world” finds a modern echo in Trump’s threats against allies like Canada and Mexico, signaling a belligerent nationalism enabled by tech-driven power.

The concentration of technological power in Big Tech amplifies this authoritarian threat. Microsoft, Amazon, and Google dominate AI development, controlling the computing infrastructure, data, and market reach needed to train and deploy models. The 2023 OpenAI-Microsoft saga, where Microsoft reinstated Sam Altman after his brief ouster, exposed this control. OpenAI, reliant on Microsoft’s Azure cloud, licenses its GPT-4 model exclusively to the tech giant, illustrating how startups are beholden to Big Tech. Even “open-source” AI, like Meta’s LLaMA-2, often operates under Big Tech’s compute credits or revenue-sharing agreements, undermining claims of independence. Nvidia’s near-monopoly on AI chips further chokes the ecosystem, as seen in Sam Altman’s failed bid for Saudi investment in a rival hardware venture.

This consolidation creates systemic risks. SEC chair Gary Gensler warned in 2023 that a few AI models and actors could destabilize the financial order if a single failure cascades. The Cambridge Analytica scandal highlighted how data-driven manipulation, powered by tech giants, undermines democracy. Big Tech’s surveillance business model, which fuels AI, thrives at the public’s expense, eroding privacy and agency. Pope Leo XIV’s 2025 declaration that AI threatens “human dignity, justice, and labor” underscores its democratic peril. Without regulation, AI becomes a tool for authoritarian control, scaling power to levels Marinetti could only dream of.

Authoritarians instinctively grasp AI’s potential to simulate, deceive, surveil, and dominate. AI can generate millions of personalized political messages, exploiting voters’ fears and biases. In 2024, AI robocalls mimicking Joe Biden misled voters, while a fake Taylor Swift endorsement for Trump spread widely. Globally, deepfakes disrupted elections in Turkey and Argentina, and AI-driven disinformation campaigns destabilized democracies in Georgia and Moldova, per the Carnegie Endowment. Entire fake news outlets, staffed by AI “journalists,” can flood social media with propaganda, evoking Joseph Goebbels’ machine but with superintelligent efficiency.

Surveillance is equally chilling. China’s facial recognition and loyalty scoring systems offer a blueprint that MAGA-aligned figures in the US could adapt. Right-wing sheriffs might use AI to track protesters or compile dossiers on “undesirable” communities. Algorithms trained on biased data—like Musk’s Grok, shaped by X’s far-right echo chambers—can deny permits, benefits, or due process, creating a techno-feudal system where dissent is algorithmically suppressed. The Carnegie Endowment notes AI’s use in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and the Philippines to monitor and intimidate citizens. If unchecked, AI could render freedom of thought obsolete, fabricating “evidence” to silence opponents.

Jungian psychology explains the psychological roots of this authoritarian surge. The shadow psyche—repressed fears, insecurities, and flaws—is projected onto powerless “others,” scapegoating them for societal problems. In the 1920s-30s, Nazis vilified Jews, homosexuals, and gypsies, channeling collective anxieties onto vulnerable groups. Today, MAGA rhetoric targets transsexuals, non-white immigrants, and Democrats, framing them as threats to a mythical “Christian America.” Yarvin’s “Cathedral” serves as a modern scapegoat, blamed for stifling elite power. Stephen Miller’s desire to suspend habeas corpus signals a purge of dissenters, echoing Nazi tactics to dehumanize and eliminate the “other.”

This projection fuels division, enabling authoritarians to consolidate power. AI amplifies this by spreading lies and surveilling scapegoated groups, as seen in Trump’s threats against political opponents and allies. Marinetti’s war-as-hygiene rhetoric finds a parallel in the MAGA cult’s readiness to fight “enemies” within, a dynamic Jung warned could fracture societies when shadows are externalized rather than confronted.

Authoritarians will exploit tools—radio in the 1930s, social media in the 2010s, AI today—to entrench power. The Futurists’ dismissal as mere provocateurs mirrors the initial underestimation of Trump and Yarvin’s ideas. To avert techno-feudalism, AI regulation is a democratic survival issue. We must ban deepfakes in political ads, enforce algorithmic transparency, develop public open-source AI, and treat disinformation infrastructure like nuclear weapons. Social media algorithms must be published to reveal manipulation. Liability regimes should force companies to prove their AI meets privacy, security, and bias standards before release. Governments must resist Big Tech’s lobbying, as seen in Microsoft’s £2.5 billion UK investment to blunt antitrust probes.

Democracy demands vigilance. Postman’s warning—that technology is both friend and enemy—reminds us that its outcome depends on who controls it. Marinetti’s Futurism led to fascist ruin; Yarvin’s Dark Enlightenment could birth a digital dictatorship. By confronting the shadow psyche, rejecting scapegoating, and regulating AI, we can steer technology toward utopia, not dystopia. The algorithm is watching, and the fight for self-governance hinges on people acting collectively to replace authoritarians with democrats.