Liz Cultivates | L.M. Fern

New episode of Literally 2c is up! Alex and I talked for a long time about the work of academic and philosopher David Golumbia, whose work The Politics of Bitcoin: Software as Right-Wing Extremism made me deeply sad for a number of reasons.

It was a fun conversation — I find myself gravitating toward these book review discussions. After some thought, I decided that it’s probably because I love and miss school and seminar-style classrooms. I was capital B Bad at graduate school, but I had a great time. Listening to smart people talk about things is one of my favorite activities (it might actually be my favorite social activity). I’m not sure I had a lot to contribute to the experiment of graduate school, but I certainly got a lot out of it.

All of that is to say that I enjoy these book club-style discussions more than anything else. Alex is one of the smartest people I know, and I love hearing him talk about literally anything. So these episodes are fun for me.

For this episode, we talked about cyberlibertarianism, which is a concept of identity that Golumbia applied to Silicon Valley tech bros. Golumbia’s argument is basically that cyberlibertarianism is a slippery slope to conservative politics. It made me sad because I know quite a few people in this pipeline.

There is a part II of this discussion, mostly because Golumbia is a pretty prolific writer and has a lot to say about libertarianism, Bitcoin, linguistics, and more. I was especially excited to talk about his work in conversation with Noam Chomsky’s “language organ” theory. Stay tuned for that!

So, in any case, enjoy!

David Golumbia retrospective, part 1: "Is Wario cyberlibertarian?" – Literally 2 Cents About Content!

Alex and Liz discuss only some of the works of linguist, philosopher, and academic David Golumbia, including:  The Cultural Logic of Computation (2009) The Politics of Bitcoin: Software as Right-Wing Extremism (2016) Cyberlibertarianism: The Right-Wing Politics of Digital Technology (2024) Technology and Silicon Valley are often associated with left-leaning politics. Still, various causes (SOPA/PIPA discourse, internet publication and copyright discourse, digital innovation) have roots in libertarian or conservative and reactionary narratives. Golumbia’s work shows that it’s difficult (read: impossible) to divorce reactionary values from Silicon Valley and its staunchest supporters. Reading list: The Great White Robot God A declaration of the independence of cyberspace The Language of Science and the Science of Language: Chomsky's Cartesianism  

1. David Golumbia retrospective, part 1: "Is Wario cyberlibertarian?" 01:36:50
2. An insult to dumpsters and fires 01:19:03
3. Book club: Kate Manne's "Unshrinking" 01:25:52
4. Unspoiled paradise of streaming content 01:24:17