The Super-Scary Theory of the 21st Century - by Noah Smith
noahpinion.blog · 2,370 words · saved by 1 readers
The haunting specter of techno-authoritarianism has only gotten more haunting
I’m traveling again today, so I thought I’d do a repost from the earliest days of this Substack. Back in late 2020 I sketched a theory of how modern technology might lead to a shift in global power that favored totalitarian countries over free ones. In brief, the basic idea is that social media might throw democracies into instability and chaos, while AI allows totalitarian governments to control their populaces more tightly than ever before. Three years later, I’m still just as worried as I was back then. Pro-Palestine protests are rocking Western cities and college campuses, support for…
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