As 2020’s WFH policy loosened the geography of light industry, many individuals—and companies have begun operating out of locations that are, whether for tax or ideological reasons, more compatible with certain businesses and/or mindsets (e.g., the rise of defense contracting in Denver, CO., libertarian tech in Miami, and the draw of lighter taxes in Texas, Utah, and Nevada). With the strengthening of PATCHWORK communities across the political spectrum, one could imagine a new regionalism emerging in turn.
Carly Busta: So it's interesting because they [Palantir] have this plausible deniability where they're like, we just write the programs. What you do with it is what you do with it.
Daniel Keller: And so which is true, but then they know who their clients are, right? They were notorious for taking...one of their clients was Homeland Security, or ICE is part of Homeland Security. And they were somehow involved in finding illegal immigrants and rounding them up. And there was a huge amount of internal dissent in Palantir about that. So a lot of people quit the company in protest, they moved out of Silicon Valley, because they were sick of being bullied by the liberals there, I guess. I think it's just like this amoral thing, like..
CB: Yeah, is there with this decentralizing of Silicon Valley? Do you see the Anduril? Right? Andrew Palmer Luckey surveillance company? Do you see that like, are there certain enclaves that are more libertarian and others that are more like social justice oriented in
DK: In the scene or?
CB: Because now there's this geographical spread where increasingly companies are moving outside of...
DK: Where is Anduril, I'm wondering..
LIL INTERNET: Texas, right?
DK: Is it? I mean, that's the thing is a lot of people are moving to Texas, Utah, Nevada, those are the three I’ve heard about a lot because they have less taxes, you buy a much bigger house, you don't have to worry about lib policy
CB: But I wonder if new regional identities will be established based on where... because you would imagine that certain cultures may aggregate like, well, this area is like where you do like libertarian defense contract shit.
