“Silicon Valley schreibt Geschichte”

In the series “Silicon Valley schreibt Geschichte”, journalist and Deutschlandfunk editor Christine Watty, co-developer of the “Tech-Bro-Topia”-podcast, takes us deep into Silicon Valley: from its ideological beginnings and connections to Christian fundamentalist actors to futuristic designs in which elements of older theories continue to have an impact.

Together with sociologist Oliver Nachtwey, she reads libertarian authoritarianism from the source code of the new spirit of digital capitalism. With historian Annika Brockschmidt, she traces the connections between faith and Silicon Valley, especially between the messianic promises of salvation made by techno-optimists and those made by the Christian right. And together with media theorist Paul Feigelfeld, she finally sheds light on the re-visions of Silicon Valley’s tech ideologues, whose envisioned singularity not only ties in with older anti-egalitarian theories, but also seeks to transcend and leave behind the limits of biology, and thus, of time itself.

Christine Watty is hosting the series. She is a journalist based in Berlin, focusing on culture, society, and digital issues. After years of working as a freelance writer and presenter, she has been a permanent staff member at Deutschlandfunk Kultur since 2016. There, she worked among other roles as editorial lead for digital audio. Today, she is a culture editor and presenter, and co-develops and curates digital formats for Deutschlandfunk, such as “Tech Bro Topia”.

“Quellcode”

9 March 2026, 7pm, KörberForum, Hamburg

Silicon Valley is still regarded as the mythical birthplace of digital innovation and entrepreneurial creativity. At the same time, it has become the ideological centre of a new political economy. A new spirit of digital capitalism, in which promises of freedom, venture capital, and authoritarian aspirations intertwine in a peculiar way.

To kick off the series Silicon “Valley schreibt Geschichte”, Christine Watty and sociologist Oliver Nachtwey reconstruct the intellectual genealogy of Californian ideology: from 1960s counterculture to alliances with the global right.

In doing so, Nachtwey and Watty turn their attention to the source code of Silicon Valley: the elective affinity between libertarian beliefs in freedom, technological idealism, and military-industrial promotion. Between hippie communes, cybernetic thinking, and government research, a mindset emerged in which disruption, the market, and power were inextricably intertwined. How did the narrative of a rebellious Silicon Valley become a political formation in which technological freedom and libertarian authoritarianism are barely distinguishable?

“Glaube”

26 March 2026, 7pm, KörberForum, Hamburg

In our second event, historian and author Annika Brockschmidt and Christine Watty discuss what Silicon Valley has in common with the religious right in the United States. At first glance, there seems to be little in common between tech billionaires and evangelicals. But they share surprisingly similar ways of thinking: libertarian messianism, evangelical mission consciousness, apocalyptic thinking. They promise salvation through radical renewal – whether through technology or faith.

Authoritarian-libertarian tech elites and right-wing evangelicals share more than just interests: they operate within a dualistic worldview of good and evil, progress and decline, the chosen and the lost. How deep do these religious roots reach into the ideology of Silicon Valley? Where do evangelicalism, tech capitalism and neoliberal thinking intersect? And what do these interconnections reveal about our digital present, which has long understood itself as a promise of salvation?

Our guest Annika Brockschmidt is a historian, journalist, and author. She has written for ZEIT Online, Tagesspiegel, Freitag, taz, and FR, among others; developed and produced the bpb’s “HistoPod”; and is currently co-host of the podcasts “Feminist Shelf Control” and “Kreuz und Flagge.” Her bestseller “Amerikas Gotteskrieger” analyses the religious right in the US.  

“Re-Vision”

9 April 2026, 7pm, KörberForum, Hamburg

What does a world look like in which familiar points of reference in time disappear, in which there may be neither past nor present in the conventional sense?

In the third and final event in the series “Silicon Valley schreibt Geschichte”, Christine Watty and media theorist Paul Feigelfeld examine the ideas of the past, present, and future of the “Dark Enlightenment”; this tech ideology by self-described neo-reactionaries Curtis Yarvin and Nick Land, in which time itself is rethought.

The focus is on the observation that many current tech visions – from effective altruism to its opposite, effective accelerationism, to libertarian transhumanism and longtermism – not only want to go back to Hobbes and tie in with old anti-egalitarian, sometimes fascist ideas such as eugenics. They also long for a singularity that transcends the boundaries of biology and evolution. Illness, mortality, even humanity itself are to be overcome. What visions of the future arise from this longing, and what world did its pioneers dream of?

Our guest Paul Feigelfeld is a cultural and media scholar who researches transcultural knowledge and media histories as well as critical perspectives on technology, art, and design. He has taught in Basel and Vienna, is a visiting professor at Humboldt University Berlin, and Professor of Digitality and Cultural Mediation at the Mozarteum Salzburg. In 2019, he curated the Vienna Biennale Uncanny Values.