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SEQUENCE:19066614
CREATED:20260906T183300Z
DESCRIPTION:"Stanford, UC Berkeley, the High-tech Frenzy on the Campuses How (NOT) to 
 Rule the World"\n\nPresentation by Barry Thornton and discussion of the 
 article he wrote about the book, How to Rule the World: An Education in 
 Power at Stanford University\n\nIn this book, Theo Baker calls out 
 Stanford’s integration into the high-tech capitalist behemoth, Silicon 
 Valley, and how this has driven a stultifying and terrible culture of 
 greed, extreme individualism and cutthroat competition among the students, 
 on the campus in general, and the whole society. Stanford is the extreme 
 expression, but high-tech capitalism is transforming UC Berkeley, and other 
 campuses.\n\nStudents Swept Up in the Start-Up Madness Think They Are Going 
 to Be “Masters of the Universe”—but the truth is They Are in Training 
 to be, as Marx put it, “Capital Personified”.\n\nUC Berkeley has seen 
 years of conscious work by top administrators to chase the high tech gold 
 rush and to change the culture: no more of this “down with corporate 
 greed” atmosphere Berkeley has been known for, it’s time for “greed 
 is good”.\n\nWhat does this reveal about capitalism itself (digging 
 deeper than “it’s just greed”)?\n\nHow does this reflect the extreme 
 parasitism of the system now dominating the world, where enormous profits 
 are made inside the US from production which takes place outside of the US 
 under extreme conditions of exploitation?\n\nWhat does it mean to 
 meaningfully stand up to all this on a campus?\n\nHow can people work for 
 an emancipatory, revolutionary future as the world hurtles to 
 extremes?\n\nWhat future will you work for? High-tech Nightmare? Or An 
 Emancipated Humanity?\n\n“If you have had a chance to see the world as it 
 really is, there are profoundly different roads you can take with your 
 life. You can just get into the dog-eat-dog, and most likely get swallowed 
 up by that while trying to get ahead in it. You can put your snout into the 
 trough and try to scarf up as much as you can, while scrambling desperately 
 to get more than others. Or you can try to do something that would change 
 the whole direction of society and the whole way the world is. When you put 
 those things alongside each other, which one has any meaning, which one 
 really contributes to anything worthwhile? Your life is going to be about 
 something—or it’s going to be about nothing.” Bob Avakian, 
 revolutionary leader and architect of the new communism. From Ike to Mao 
 and Beyond: My Journey from Mainstream America to Revolutionary Communist, 
 A Memoir by Bob Avakian, 2005\n\n 
 https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2026/09/06/18888429.php
SUMMARY:Stanford, UC Berkeley, the High-Tech Frenzy on the Campuses.How (NOT) to Rule the World
LOCATION:Revolution Books\n2444 Durant Avenue\nBerkeley, CA
URL:https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2026/09/06/18888429.php
DTSTART:20260912T020000Z
DTEND:20260912T040000Z
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