The secret center of the world
My review of Theo Baker’s new book, reporting from the heart of Silicon Valley and his very turbulent freshman year
In every age, there is some place that epitomizes power. As I argue in my New York Times review of Theo Baker’s terrific debut, “How to Rule the World,” a shadowy, secretive Stanford-inside-Stanford may qualify as that place for our time:
“If America is the most powerful country on earth, and Silicon Valley the most powerful place in that country, and Stanford the most powerful institution in that place, and a secretive network of students and adult hangers-on there the hub of influence on campus (I know that’s a lot of ifs, but let me finish), then here lies the rapacious, awkward center of the world.”
Baker’s book, I argue, “follows in the tradition of Michael Lewis’s Wall Street chronicle ‘Liar’s Poker,’ but with more pimples and less eye contact.”
This may not be a world you want to know about, but it is one you need to know about, because it is deciding about your life, even if you have limited power to decide about it.
The peddlers of AI are now vowing to rewire all human commerce, connection, love, governance, and health. It is worth understanding the mentalities guiding them as they prosecute their attempts.
Here is a gift link from me to check out the review at The Times:
And I want to know what you think. Are these people and institutions you trust to reorder the world? Do you have any faith in their claims to be making the world better?
Mostly no. This center power being ultimate importance basically ignores the large populations of the world and concentrates on wealth and power for a centered few. How is that good for the world.
Thank you for reading so much and so quickly. I have to read it all more carefully to understand and to see if the lesson of Aaron Swartz’s tragic suicide is contemplated in your work or Baker’s. If not, it really needs to be.