Silicon Valley is maximizing profit at everyone’s expense.

It doesn’t have to be this way

A public battle has broken out among the titans of Silicon Valley.

One side, led by #Elon #Musk, PayPal co-founder #Peter #Thiel and venture capitalists #Marc #Andreessen and #Ben #Horowitz,
is backing Donald #Trump for president.

The other, led by LinkedIn co-founder #Reid #Hoffman, is behind Kamala #Harris.

We should not make the mistake of thinking this is a battle over ideology or policy.

It’s a battle to maximize Silicon Valley’s profits regardless of the consequences for society.

On this objective, both sides agree.

Andreessen Horowitz is one of the largest investors in #cryptocurrency and #artificial #intelligence,
and Trump has signaled that he would keep the government out of its business.

Meanwhile, soon after donating $7 million to a Harris super PAC,
Hoffman called for her to oust Federal Trade Commission Chairwoman #Lina #Khan,
who has brought antitrust cases against Big Tech and introduced rules to protect workers.

Silicon Valley, a longtime engine of human achievement,
has become a significant source of human harm.

Aware of the gathering backlash, its leaders have dived into the political fray to protect their wealth.

Two Silicon Valley obsessions threaten the most damage:
creating human #addiction to increase profits
and #eliminating #humans altogether to decrease costs.

Social media platforms,
which started out by bringing old friends together and giving voice to the otherwise powerless,
have become “social slot machines”
compelling excessive use.

Gaming companies have a similar objective.

Teenagers today spend more than eight hours a day on screens,
fueling digital advertising revenues that reached $225 billion last year.

Meanwhile, the artificial intelligence revolution promises to cut labor costs.

A recent study by MIT economist #Daron #Acemoglu found that 50% to 70% of the growth in inequality between more and less educated workers can be attributed to automation.

Poverty rates in Silicon Valley’s home state are rising
even as AI makes Big Tech richer.

The broader prospects are equally concerning.

AI is enabling killer robots, autonomous weapons and massively destructive misinformation.

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-08-30/silicon-valley-big-tech-profit-ai-elon-musk-reid-hoffman-peter-thiel-andreessen-horowitz-kamala-harris-donald-trump-election-2024

Project 2025, the sweeping right-wing blueprint for a new kind of U.S. presidency,
would sabotage science-based policies that address
climate change,
the environment,
abortion,
health care access,
technology and
education.

It would impose #religious and #conservative #ideology on the federal civil service
to such an extent that Republican presidential candidate Donald #Trump has, dubiously,
tried to distance himself from the plan.

But in 2022 Trump said the Heritage Foundation
—the think tank that authored Project 2025
—would “lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do.”

The project’s main document, a lengthy policy agenda, was published the following year.
Although Trump is not among its 34 authors, more than half are appointees and staff from his time as president;
the words “Trump” and “Trump Administration” appear 300 times in its pages.

At least 140 former Trump officials are involved in Project 2025, according to a CNN tally.
It’s reasonable to expect that a second Trump presidency would follow many of the project’s recommendations.

Project 2025 presents a long-standing conservative vision of a #smaller #government
and describes specific, detailed steps to achieve this goal.
It would shrink some federal departments and agencies while #eliminating others

—#dividing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention into two weaker entities, for instance,
and #abolishing the Department of Education (ED) entirely.

What is even more unusual, and also mapped out in detail, is a plan to exert more #presidential #control over traditionally nonpartisan governmental workers
—those Trump might describe as members of the “deep state,”
or regulatory bureaucracy.

For example, Project 2025 claims that the the "National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration"
and other scientific institutions are
“vulnerable to obstructionism”
unless appointees at these agencies are
“wholly in sync” with presidential policy.

To that end, it would #reclassify tens of thousands of civil service jobs as political positions that answer to the president.

“The independence of science is being attacked across the board in this document,” says Rachel Cleetus,
policy director of the Climate and Energy program at the nonpartisan Union of Concerned Scientists.

“The importance of this science is that’s how we can ensure people’s health and the environment are being safeguarded.”

(Cleetus notes that her comments address the policy agenda’s contents, not the upcoming presidential election.)

Career scientists who are now employed by the federal government are
“terrified and polishing up their résumés,” says Jacqueline Simon, policy director of the "American Federation of Government Employees," or #AFGE,
a union that represents workers at the National Institutes of Health, the Environmental Protection Agency, the CDC and other agencies.

If Project 2025 becomes reality, she says,
“the very idea of scientific integrity will be flushed down the toilet.”

The Heritage Foundation did not respond to Scientific American’s request for comment.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/project-2025-plan-for-trump-presidency-has-far-reaching-threats-to-science/