From Disruption to Reaction: The Eschatology of Silicon Valley

This article contends that Silicon Valley’s apparent rightward turn reflects a structural continuity rather than a rupture with its founding ideology. Reconstructing the genealogy of the Californian Ideology, it shows how the fusion of libertarian market thought and countercultural individualism evolved into technocracy, meritocracy, and state platform capitalism. These formations exhibit clear affinities with neo-reactionary and accelerationist currents that reject democracy in favor of hierarchical, expert rule. Drawing on Geiger’s notion of high-tech eschatology, the article argues that contemporary tech elites mobilize apocalyptic and redemptive narratives to frame technological domination as inevitable and salvific. Silicon Valley’s endgame thus appears as a post-democratic order in which optimization replaces equality and technological destiny substitutes for political choice.