Materialized Science Fiction: Silicon Valley’s Ideological Infrastructures of Power and the Global Tech Order

This seminar examines the ideological role of science fiction in shaping the cultural, political, and technological imaginaries of Silicon Valley elites. Figures such as Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Jeff Bezos, Curtis Yarvin, and Marc Andreessen mobilise speculative narratives not as critique but as programmatic blueprints for frontier expansion, elite rule, and techno-solutionist governance.

Ali Rıza Taşkale will introduce the concept of materialised science fiction to describe the process by which speculative visions migrate from the realm of literature into infrastructural and institutional reality, legitimising new forms of post-democratic authority and consolidating asymmetries of power.

The seminar has two parts. First, it analyses how tech elites appropriate science fiction as an ideological infrastructure for political and economic power. Second, it reclaims science fiction as a critical method of defamiliarisation capable of destabilising these visions. Drawing on examples from radical science fiction (e.g. Ursula K. Le Guin, Octavia Butler), Ali will mobilise concepts such as cognitive estrangement and utopian critique as counter-infrastructures that expose the contradictions and dangers of Silicon Valley’s techno-political imaginaries.

In this sense, science fiction must be understood not only as a mirror of contemporary anxieties but also as a cultural force increasingly weaponised in the service of power, and equally indispensable for imagining alternatives. The key question is not whether science fiction shapes reality, but whose stories are allowed to materialise, and who is excluded from them.

How to attend

This event is held on Colchester campus at EBS.2.65 and on Zoom (916 7140 1574).