I have long loved the Atlantic and am proud of my association with it, but every time the Aspen Ideas Festival rolls around my inner Unabomber emerges and wants to burn the entire endeavor to the ground. It’s the only time of year when reading posts in the Atlantic makes me so angry I want to go kick something.
I think I would be okay with it if the shindig had a more accurate name, like the Ideas from Our Technocratic Overlords Festival. Often it seems that there are no ideas at the Aspen Ideas Festival that don’t serve to consolidate transnational technocracy, even the ones that seem to be offering critiques.
Maybe Code for America is reconsidering some of its priorities but it’s still Code for America and its “solutions” inevitably involve deepening people’s dependence on Big Tech. (“We can give you a texting tool that allows you to text with people and it’s been shown to decrease the rates of failure to appear.”)
Is there a crisis of affordable housing in Silicon Valley? Indeed there is. So let’s see what Google can do about it!
This is how it goes, session after session, year after year.
My recommendation: stop calling it an Ideas festival until at least two or three ideas featured there don’t defer to, appeal to, or consolidate the authority of, the world’s biggest technology corporations.
I’m exaggerating, of course. There are always a few sessions about “sustainable development” and “rethinking nutrition” and “civic engagement.” But nine times out of ten there’s an app for that — and, probably, an accelerated Master’s degree at a mid-tier university for only $80,000, please click through to apply for a loan.
For those of us who think there are interesting non-smartphone-connected ideas to be had about family, or faith, or poetry, Aspen is the one place you don’t want to be this summer, or any other.
