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CNET Tech Culture The real colonialism of Silicon Valley

The real colonialism of Silicon Valley

Technically Incorrect: Marc Andreessen was excoriated for calling India's rejection of Facebook's
Free Basics service immoral, but his spontaneous reaction reflects much of what the Valley
stands for.

Tech Culture
February 15, 2016
8:30 AM PST

by Chris
Matyszczyk
@ChrisMatyszczyk

Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech

that's taken over our lives.
Mastering the universe
isn't easy.
Ask Stephen Hawking.
Ask the hawks on Wall
Street.
You think you've got
things all sorted in
your head and then
some Black Swan
turns up to ruin the
social order or, at
least, the orders you'd
like to give society.

Facebook's efforts to reach into

developing countries may or may
not feel like colonialism,
depending on your view.
Screenshot by CNET

One or two people in Silicon Valley might have experienced that last week.
When the Indian government decided to say "thanks but no thanks" to Facebook's
Free Basics service, some folks associated with the company seemed upset by the
very, well, freedom of such a decision.
Free Basics, aka Internet.org, is Facebook's attempt to give free Internet to people
in developing countries, with the slight catch that Facebook decides which parts of
that Internet they can have.
How dare a government tell its people what they can or can't have? That's
Facebook's job.
Indeed, Facebook board member Marc Andreessen was so upset that he called
the decision "morally wrong."
It's quite odd that a valley renowned for enjoying a morality at least as libertarian as
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it is liberal would reach for such concepts as morality.

After all, libertarianism tends to simply place the "best" out front and let the alsorans run behind until they're tired and fall over.
Andreessen rose to even greater moral heights after he was criticized for
supporting colonialism.
"Anti-colonialism has been economically catastrophic for the Indian people for
decades. Why stop now?" he snorted on Twitter. (The tweet was subsequently
deleted.)
Naturally, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg disavowed Andreessen's comments.
They were bad for business. Even Andreessen apologized and acknowledged that
perhaps he didn't know everything about everything.
The incident won't, however, stop Silicon Valley from believing that it does, in fact,
know more about more things than anyone else and has the data to prove it.
The Valley is a collection of those who believe they have the biggest brains around.
They are, after all, making the world a better place.
If the Valleyites discover that there are somehow still ne brains outside their
sphere, they lure them in with lucre.
They know, being aspirant masters of the universe, that pesky entities such as
governments have failed to corral technology's inexorable push toward dominant
rationalism.
There was something quite quaint about the British government squeezing an
actual 130 million pounds (around $185 million) in taxes out of Google last month
and later witnessing the company's senior European executive mutter that he had
no idea how much he earned but could provide the gures if someone were that
interested.
The Valley exists to ensure that everyone falls within its system -- only that way can
it attain the systemic perfection of which Valleyites dream nightly.
A perfect system is one that governments cannot control and that people are
attached to far more than they're attached to, say, anything else.
Google's idea of self-driving cars, for example, needs to have that perfect system.
Otherwise, if the robocars nd humans on the road behaving in some random
human fashion, they crash into them.
Andreessen's frustration seems to stem, at least in part, from the notion that the
supranational system Facebook is building was halted by an institution as archaic
as a government and, worse, one from a developing country.
What do they know about progress? They're more famous for slumdogs than for
millionaires.
The deal that Facebook offered India is nothing new. It's the same deal that so
many around the world have already agreed to.

MORE TECHNICALLY INCORRECT

Company says its running shoes turn

zombies into millennials

The Valley gives you something for free. In return, you open
the whole of yourself to the Valley's data-swallowing
machinery and then behave in the ways the system sets out
for you.

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Kanye and Taylor Swift slap-ghting

on your Twitter feed

You never knew how much you needed to "like" things until
Facebook gave you the option, did you?

Drop everything. Microsoft wants to

tell you what dog your face is

The Valley gets frustrated when you don't play along. It tells
you it needs your phone number, as well as all your email
addresses -- for security purposes, you understand -- when in
fact it wants your phone number to identify you more
perfectly and attach every element of your behavior to your "prole."
That "prole" is most important, at least for now, in selling your every detail to the
advertisers whose money the Valley's system needs.
One day, though, when everyone is part of the system, the
Valley might start to dictate even more. Its algorithms can
subtly expose people to selected news. It can direct them to
looking at one political view rather than another.

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That way, perhaps you'll vote for governments that are a little
more friendly to, say, the Valley. This is a far more subtle
colonialism than, say, the British ever managed. The question
is whether anyone will ever rise up against it and what might
make them do so.
In the end, the people always rise up against their stiing
masters. Don't they?
Tags: Technically Incorrect, Tech Culture, Internet, Facebook

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