The Cybernetic Web – The Scholar's Stage

35 Theses on the WASPs

12 January, 2026By The People, Culture, Demographics, Electoral Intrigues, Monied Interests, The Cybernetic Web

LAST MONTH American Affairs published my review of Alexander Karp’s The Technological Republic. While I had plenty critical to say about Karp’s book, the meat of my essay was a historical survey of the ascendant “Eastern Establishment” of the Gilded Age. This class of men dominated American industry and exerted outsized influence in American politics in the decades between 1860 and 1930. They pioneered humanity’s leap into the industrial age and America’s rise to global preeminence. Much can be learned from them.

There are two groups who may reap special benefits from pondering the old Establishment’s origins and accomplishments.

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Book Notes: The Technological Republic (2025)

10 December, 2025Complex Systems, Culture, History, Monied Interests, The Cybernetic Web

ALEXANDER KARP AND NICHOLAS ZAMISKA’S The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West may not be the worst book I have read this year, but it is by far the most disappointing. Karp is the rare CEO more famous for his intellect than his entrepreneurship. The overlap between the students of Jürgen Habermas and captains of industry is small. Among the technology brethren, Karp is regularly portrayed as a latter-day philosopher king. Karp leans into this image. I do not begrudge him this—founders must sell both themselves and their companies, and a company like Palantir is easier to sell when its founder is wreathed in mystique.

There are some downsides to mystique. If people believe you are some philosophic savant, they expect you to write a book with real intellectual heft. An important book. The sort that teaches men how to merge principle with practice. The sort of book that might be remembered.

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The Silicon Valley Canon: On the Paıdeía of the American Tech Elite

21 August, 2024Books and Literature, Community, Complex Systems, The Cybernetic Web

I often draw a distinction between the political elites of Washington DC and the industrial elites of Silicon Valley with a joke: in San Francisco reading books, and talking about what you have read, is a matter of high prestige. Not so in Washington DC. In Washington people never read books—they just write them.

To write a book, of course, one must read a good few. But the distinction I drive at is quite real. In Washington, the man of ideas is a wonk. The wonk is not a generalist. The ideal wonk knows more about his or her chosen topic than you ever will. She can comment on every line of a select arms limitation treaty, recite all Chinese human rights violations that occurred in the year 2023, or explain to you the exact implications of the new residential clean energy tax credit—but never all at once.

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35 Theses on the WASPs

Book Notes: The Technological Republic (2025)

The Silicon Valley Canon: On the Paıdeía of the American Tech Elite

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