{"id":545,"date":"2026-09-26T10:00:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-26T10:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ordinaryunhappiness.com\/?p=545"},"modified":"2026-10-08T20:21:37","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T20:21:37","slug":"episode-160-very-special-boys-feat-adrian-daub","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ordinaryunhappiness.com\/?p=545","title":{"rendered":"Episode 160: Very Special Boys feat. Adrian Daub"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/www.patreon.com\/api\/rss\/u\/d3m7PxEp5smvZbVJaT8akVDUsyede5Br\/e\/170501222.mp3?sig=vl_flqU5g8BULRKTqDwfy9GABxJBld3jJWFnJR6BtlA%3D\"><\/audio><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Abby and Patrick welcome back returning guest Adrian Daub. The occasion is Adrian\u2019s latest book, What Tech Calls Governing. A follow-up to his 2020 book What Tech Calls Thinking, an intellectual history of Silicon Valley and critique of tech culture, What Tech Calls Governing unpacks subsequent developments and continuities that go deeper than pundits\u2019 loose talk of a \u201cvibe shift.\u201d Indeed, as Adrian explains, recent years have seen Big Tech abandon the rhetoric of not being \u201cevil\u201d and promises of progressive uplift in favor of a rhetoric of inevitability, brazen collaboration with right-wing actors, and vague appeals to half-baked \u201clongterm\u201d utilitarianism. Adrian, Abby, and Patrick reflect on the distinctively gendered aspects of these developments, from the public antics of high-profile tech titans like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk to deeper logics of contempt for vulnerability and the celebration of dominance. Along the way, they explore questions of exhaustion, embarrassment, male homosociality, creepiness, narcissism, the indignities of middle age, generational anxieties, and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">References include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Adrian Daub, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/p\/books\/what-tech-calls-governing-adrian-daub\/96c1e86d077293fe?ean=9781503648333&amp;bkshp-astro=t\" target=\"_blank\">What Tech Calls Governing<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Adrian Daub, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/p\/books\/what-tech-calls-thinking-an-inquiry-into-the-intellectual-bedrock-of-silicon-valley-adrian-daub\/eaa5b8b0a0fd97b2?ean=9780374538644&amp;bkshp-astro=t\" target=\"_blank\">What Tech Calls Thinking<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Pre-order Adrian\u2019s forthcoming book, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.penguinrandomhouse.com\/books\/832997\/project-1933-by-adrian-daub\/\" target=\"_blank\">Project 1933: Fascism Then and Now<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Adrian\u2019s podcast, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.patreon.com\/c\/InBedWiththeRight\" target=\"_blank\">In Bed With The Right<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Friedrich Nietzsche, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/p\/books\/on-the-genealogy-of-morals-friedrich-wilhelm-nietzsche\/98c69057011b5144?ean=9780199537082&amp;bkshp-astro=t\" target=\"_blank\">On the Genealogy of Morals<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Novalis, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/p\/books\/the-novices-of-sais-with-sixty-drawings-by-paul-klee-novalis\/3f2372d1ca527d27?ean=9798886771060&amp;bkshp-astro=t\" target=\"_blank\">The Novices of Sais<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Albert Burneko, <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20150611150143\/https:\/theconcourse.deadspin.com\/i-dont-think-david-brooks-is-okay-you-guys-1702674607\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cI Don\u2019t Think David Brooks Is Okay, You Guys\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Anna Wiener, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/p\/books\/uncanny-valley-a-memoir-anna-wiener\/2c57e7a5351cdc93\" target=\"_blank\">Uncanny Valley<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Kate Manne, <a href=\"https:\/\/katemanne.substack.com\/p\/a-culture-hooked-on-generative-ai\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;A Culture Hooked on Generative AI is a Culture that Misses Female Sycophants&#8221;&nbsp;<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Have you noticed that Freud is back? Got questions about psychoanalysis? Or maybe you\u2019ve traversed the fantasy and lived to tell the tale? Leave us a voicemail! (646) 450-0847<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A podcast about psychoanalysis, politics, pop culture, and the ways we suffer now. New episodes on Saturdays. Find us online:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ordinaryunhappiness.com\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.ordinaryunhappiness.com<\/a><br>X: <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/unhappinesspod\" target=\"_blank\">@UnhappinessPod<\/a><br>Instagram: <a href=\"https:\/\/instagram.com\/ordinaryunhappiness\" target=\"_blank\">@OrdinaryUnhappiness<\/a><br>Patreon: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.patreon.com\/OrdinaryUnhappiness\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.patreon.com\/OrdinaryUnhappiness<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Theme song:<br>Formal Chicken &#8211; Gnossienne No. 1<br><a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/album\/2MIIYnbyLqriV3vrpUTxxO\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/album\/2MIIYnbyLqriV3vrpUTxxO<\/a><br>Provided by Fruits Music<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Abby and Patrick welcome back returning guest Adrian Daub. The occasion is Adrian\u2019s latest book, What Tech Calls Governing. A follow-up to his 2020 book What Tech Calls Thinking, an intellectual history of Silicon Valley and critique of tech culture, What Tech Calls Governing unpacks subsequent developments and continuities that go deeper than pundits\u2019 loose [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-podcast-episode"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ordinaryunhappiness.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ordinaryunhappiness.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ordinaryunhappiness.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ordinaryunhappiness.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ordinaryunhappiness.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=545"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ordinaryunhappiness.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":554,"href":"https:\/\/ordinaryunhappiness.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545\/revisions\/554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ordinaryunhappiness.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ordinaryunhappiness.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ordinaryunhappiness.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}