The problem is not that the technological elites, immensely rich, are devising a plan B, very restricted, based on fleeing the world to protect themselves and themselves. Rockets to escape the Earth because these elites are aware that we are leaving in horrors.
These are the words of the acting vice-president, Yolanda Díaz, in the context of a meeting on the future of our country. The problem with these technological elites is not that they go to outer space to save themselves, but that they stay and continue to control politics, the media, finance and citizen thought.
The vice president Yolanda Díaz was reflecting on some readings, I suspect science fiction, that she had done recently and that served to scare the staff that they will never be able to escape from Earth until the last of their days.
Elites have existed and will exist. They can be technological, financial, ideological or intellectual. The ones the vice-president is referring to are those who already practice space tourism and experience flights with rockets, always at an unaffordable cost for the average citizen, a test so that a day they consider not too far away will manage to transport them to a safe space, off Earth, where they can enjoy their wealth, safety and well-being. As long as there are no comfortable and fixed bases in the spaces, the Vice President is content with the world of the metaverse and the fortress mansions of New Zealand.
The speech is a way of entertaining the audience attending a session on the politics of the future on a Saturday afternoon. But don’t worry, vice-president, the technological elites are not going away just yet. They are here and politicians have no way to counter their ability to influence societies by creating states of opinion and fostering confusion in a world where narrative prevails over reality and insistence on the veracity of facts is discredited by algorithms that encourage campaigns often based on overt or covert lies.
The technological elites come to be an adaptation of the concept of the extractive elites put into circulation a few years ago by the economists Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson in their celebrated book Por qué fracasan los países. The elites, those of old and those of now, are those groups that separate themselves from the achievement of the general good and dedicate their efforts to their own well-being and that of the group to which they belong.
Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberger, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates must be placed in the ranking of technological elites. All of them are immensely rich and some have experimented with space tourism. These four characters have more power than all the G-7 leaders put together every year. They are the owners of Twitter (now X), Facebook-Meta and Instagram, among other companies. They were the ones who closed Donald Trump’s accounts on January 6, 2021 and the coup d’état that was underway in the Capitol could be stopped in time.
Today, politics and the transmission of knowledge pass through the sieve of social networks and those who direct and own the large platforms, including the one that manages artificial intelligence, an instrument that is already used by millions of people and that it escapes the control of governments, parliaments and tax agencies. Journalism is being reinvented with technological changes.
Before they take off on rockets and leave the Earth, I suggest to Vice President Díaz that she promote control policies so that the large technological conglomerates with media, economic and political ramifications hold accounts of their immense power, pay taxes and can be subject to control of governments and parliaments.
Is it logical that Elon Musk can decide on his own the use or deactivation of weapons in the Black Sea apart from the political decisions of the country where he resides? On more than a dozen occasions since the beginning of the year, Musk has challenged the authority of the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates.
I would advise Vice President Yolanda Díaz to pay more attention to what the technological elites are doing while they are on Earth doing and undoing what they see fit, before they leave.
