> [!meta]- Document Info > **Author**: [[Brian Merchant]] > **Full Title**: For Tech CEOs, the Dystopia Is the Point > **Category**: #articles > > **Summary**: Tech CEOs draw inspiration from dystopian sci-fi films and books to market their products, portraying consumers as protagonists in bleak futures. This approach, while aspirational in branding, reflects a misanthropic mindset that prioritizes individual enjoyment over societal well-being. It's crucial to recognize and challenge the underlying narcissistic and self-serving mentality driving these tech advancements. > > **Source**: [Original URL](https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/for-tech-ceos-the-dystopia-is-the) ## 📄 Full Document → [[For Tech CEOs, the Dystopia Is the Point]] ## 🔦 Highlights & Commentary - “I Am Once Again Asking Our Tech Overlords to Watch the Whole Movie,” [Wired’s Brian Barrett wrote in a fun piece](https://www.wired.com/story/openai-gpt-4o-chatgpt-artificial-intelligence-her-movie/) that runs through recent some recent offenders in the genre, including Elon Musk and his suggestion that the Cybertruck is “what bladerunner [sic] would have driven,” and Mark Zuckerberg’s love of the metaverse, the idea for which came from Snowcrash and Ready Player One — both pessimistic cyberpunk dystopias. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hxy3nyw8p04vqdyj166rjsg9)) - That’s the gist of it! And yet. As much as we needle, or mock, or point out that the tech titans are stripping their references and products of context — it’s all in vain. The CEOs obviously don’t much care what some flyby cultural critics think of their branding aspirations, but beyond even that, we have to bear in mind that *these dystopias are actively useful to them*. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hxy7f69f8bzdm03dcb5krn8r)) - The CEOs obviously don’t much care what some flyby cultural critics think of their branding aspirations, but beyond even that, we have to bear in mind that *these dystopias are actively useful to them*. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hxy3qs6jp08ghwf9d9b0vd5n)) - What’s the common denominator of Elon Musk’s cybertruck Blade Runner pitch/dystopia and Mark Zuckerberg’s metaverse pitch/dystopia? That the presumed user or owner of the product is the protagonist! If you buy a cybertruck, you’ll keep yourself safe from a world on the brink, from replicants, whatever. If you’re in the metaverse, you can be like the guy from Ready Player One; a hero going on all kinds of adventures even if the world at large is collapsing outside the VR helmet — it’s a useful dystopia for marketing what is otherwise an antisocial and cumbersome technology. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hxy7frdgdbecav6xq6vt8whm)) - So it turns out it *is* aspirational branding, it’s just a deeply misanthropic variety — we want *you* to have the cool high tech thing, even if it is at the expense of everyone else, or the wellbeing of, well, society in general. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hxy7g39ja08c13vm8gm30exq)) - So it turns out it *is* aspirational branding, it’s just a deeply misanthropic variety — we want *you* to have the cool high tech thing, even if it is at the expense of everyone else, or the wellbeing of, well, society in general. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hxy3t0v0mahcdc9n3yxvp9ky)) - Same can be said of his other prominent products — with Tesla, Musk has begun shying away from pitching it as a solution to climate change, and leaning into pitching it as a self-driving pleasure capsule, with big screens and high top speeds. (The better to zip through, and ignore, a crumbling world.) ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hxy7gebgy2xp9pvke6khej0m)) - with Tesla, Musk has begun shying away from pitching it as a solution to climate change, and leaning into pitching it as a self-driving pleasure capsule, with big screens and high top speeds. (The better to zip through, and ignore, a crumbling world.) ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hxy3vbh8qavfpj0fnh6fvbs0)) - By attaching the new product to a popular speculation, especially one with built-in dramatic tension, the founders can elevate a buggy, unproven, or partially conceived technology into the cultural firmament, even if only briefly. It’s a cheat code, a way of getting us to relate to a future that’s already been culturally prototyped, and it can be quite successful. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hxy7et40tvjp9hrqpprn91t4)) - It’s a cheat code, a way of getting us to relate to a future that’s already been culturally prototyped, and it can be quite successful. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hxy3xyq21tyejbkwp2xr18ws))