-It’s the first time I see the world so clearly divided into the good and the bad.
-There have always been bad ones; it’s just that today’s are so shameless.
Yes, these are the kinds of thoughts we exchange on the fyi.news Slack chat, and they often serve as the foundation for an editorial. Let’s start from the beginning; we, along with the rest of the world, are discussing the image of the super-wealthy tech company owners at Trump’s inauguration ceremony. What are Musk (Tesla, SpaceX, X), Zuckerberg (Meta), Bezos (Amazon), Cook (Apple), and Pichai (Google) doing there, alongside the sexist and conservative president, and why do they support him, at least for now?
The obvious answer is that they expect significant tax cuts and want the conflict with the EU promised by the new government, as their companies face restrictions on their freedom of action due to European legislation.
Finding the villains in the story is relatively easy. The hard part is deciding who will take on the role of the good guys in the fight against evil.
Margrethe Vestager, the former EU Competition Commissioner, has been a pain in their neck for years, handing out cancellations, lawsuits, and fines to major tech players every time they tried to create monopolies (Google, Apple, Amazon, Meta, and X have all been targeted by the Danish politician in sneakers). What more do the broligarchs want besides funding for technology development? A free field without tight regulations and to avoid hearing about the ethical aspects of technology.
Like it or not, these are understandable reasons because they serve a deal where if we were cynical, we’d wager on who will betray whom first and cause the deal to fall apart. Is this the first time something like this is happening? Of course not, but it used to happen in a more concealed way, requiring months of journalistic work to prove and expose. These particular guys, however, don’t hide; on the contrary, they boast of their arrogance. However, neither this nor the macho symbolism they consciously project is what directly places them in the role of the villain, but rather the scenario that this group sees lawlessness and the absence of control as normal, feeling so powerful they believe they can decide on our behalf. If the image of Elon making a fascist salute disgusts me, his blatant involvement in the German elections supporting the far-right AfD, along with the suspicion that they measure their egos by planning— as if they’re superior, like gods— where they will direct technological and economic development, impacting my life and “the future of humanity,” as VOX puts it, worries me even more.
Finding the villains in the story is relatively easy. The hard part is deciding who will take on the role of the good guys in the fight against evil. This is where the rubber meets the road.
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