The Final Temptation of WIRED

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All good things come to an end right? What was Conquest’s Second Law? That the behavior of an organization can best be predicted by assuming it to be controlled by a secret cabal of its enemies?

Yeah that would explain alot of what I’m seeing.

I remember back in the 1990s, WIRED magazine was the public razor edge of the digital age. More than just about technology, it was also a lifestyle magazine showing geeks and nerds, especially autistic ones, to be the rebels leading us into broad, sunlit uplands. Neuromancer come to life. A libertarian utopia built on 1s and 0s

Wow have things have changed.

You have probably been following the story regarding DOGE and Musk’s team of six young computer engineers. These engineers have been tasked to analyze patterns in various government agencies and payment systems as a prerequisite to root out waste and inefficiency.

The story was broken by Vittoria Elliott at WIRED magazine. Ms Elliott covers “platforms and power” and a quick perusal of her past articles shows a nasty case of TDS. She has previously covered “disinformation” and worked at The New Humanitarian, Al Jazeera, and ProPublica. You can see where this is going.

The gist? She provides the names and backgrounds for six of the young engineers, aged 19 to 24, with the implication that a bunch of underqualified kids are up to nefarious deeds on the behalf of the Dark Lord Elon Musk. Back in the 1990s WIRED would have covered the story of a bunch of digital whiz kids uncovering the secrets of a corrupt, overbearing government much differently.

My favorite part of her article was its linking some of the engineers to Peter Thiel, who she breathlessly reveals has “long expressed opposition to democracy.” Well that’s true on both accounts because as a libertarian Thiel expresses doubt whether freedom and democracy are compatible and Thiel’s article that she links to was written in 2009. The old WIRED would not only have understood Thiel’s thesis, but supported it wholeheartedly.

The WIRED story doesn’t stop with Ms. Elliott. Last night CNN pulled onto the air WIRED editorial director Katie Drummond to reveal that one of Musk’s whiz kids once went by the name “Big Balls,” ran a company that leased several domains to somebody in Russia, and might have had indirect contact with blackhats. All before the age of 19.

Once upon a time, WIRED would have celebrated these young men not only for setting aside lucrative careers as digital pioneers in order to come to DC and root out corruption in government, but also for their connections to both Musk and Thiel. WIRED was once a place for wonder, for rebels, and the future. Now, and in reality for a long time, WIRED has become just another journalistic hit man for the Deep State.

Sad.

4 thoughts on “The Final Temptation of WIRED”

  1. Sad indeed! I used to have a subscription to Wired back in the 90’s, but haven’t looked at it for a long time. They had a lot of interesting and edgy writers back then, and definitely weren’t suffering from an infestation of ideological hacks. Things change! Maybe they received some “support” from USAID.

  2. This is is hilarious.

    “There are no thieves or thugs out here, we are members of Congress”

    Heroes do walk among us and they wear their glasses up on their forehead

  3. A couple of things.thoughts:

    There’s this over at X, https://x.com/MarioNawfal/status/1887851878928552242
    According to her LinkedIn profile, Long did work for USAID, back in 2016. Not exactly sure what the journalistic ethics are here but it’s something worth asking her and her editor. I’m sure Matt Taibi or Glenn Greenwald (who has been after Politco re: USAID) might ask.

    It won’t surprise me that there is very large “alumni” network out there in the media that has ties in some form or another to federal money

    I found the video I linked in the previous comment to be hilarious. Anybody trying to claim the moral high ground with Maxine Walters in the crowd is well…. that security guy is a saint.

    That’s just another data point of how desperate the Democrats are. I really don’t think they can believe the situation that they are currently in but it really is quite predictable as far back as last June, all the piece parts were there. The House was problematic, they were going to lose the Senate, and it just started to occur to them that everything they threw against Trump wasn’t going to work. They also knew it was likely that he was going on a vengeance tour when he came back. Yes it’s been last than 3 weeks but they seem completely bewildered, as if they did no planning after the Election/

    Somebody told me that they are doing all this performative theater because constituents are calling, the protests, all-night filibusters (OMB!) I think its donors. It sounds cliche, but now is the time in DC when people start looking to the midterms, testing the waters on whether to run again. If the Democrats look like an ineffectual clown show they could get donors who aren’t going to cough up money and a wave of retirements that will kill them.

    I would expect they will lose alot of corporation money. so they will be pushed to more radical action. I would take the talk of street action seriously, I don’t know if it will do any good but hey I don’t like them anyway. The thing I find hilarious is that Democrats want to go mattresses over USAID…. but. to paraphrase that line from “A Man from All Seasons” ….”Why Schumer, it profit a man nothing to give his political soul for the whole world. . . but for USAID!”

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