The Guardian

How a half-educated tech elite delivered us into evil | John Naughton

If our supersmart tech leaders knew a bit more about history or philosophy we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in now
Oh, the humanities: Donald Trump meeting PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel and Apple CEO Tim Cook in December last year. Photograph: Evan Vucci/AP

One of the biggest puzzles about our current predicament with fake news and the weaponisation of social media is why the folks who built this technology are so taken aback by what has happened. Exhibit A is the founder of Facebook, , whose political education . But he’s not alone. In fact I’d say he is quite representative of many of the biggest movers and shakers in the tech world. We have a burgeoning genre of “” angst coming from former Facebook and Google employees who have begun to realise that the cool stuff they worked on might have had, well, antisocial consequences.

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