World Without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech

by Franklin Foer

WITHOUT KNOWING IT, Zuckerberg is the heir to a long political tradition. Over the last two hundred years, the West has been unable to shake an abiding fantasy, a dream sequence in which we throw out the bum politicians and replace them with engineers—rule by slide rule. The French were the first to entertain this notion in the bloody, world-churning aftermath of their revolution. A coterie of the country’s most influential philosophers (notably, Henri de Saint-Simon and Auguste Comte) were genuinely torn about the course of the country. They hated all the old ancient bastions of parasitic power—the feudal lords, the priests, and the warriors—but they also feared the chaos of the mob. To split the difference, they proposed a form of technocracy—engineers and assorted technicians would rule with beneficent disinterestedness.