In the 1930s, Howard Scott's Technocracy Incorporated movement promised a future where engineers and technicians would replace politicians and businesspeople, creating a society organized around 'energy accounting' and managed by technological experts. The movement peaked during the Great Depression, boasting hundreds of thousands of members who dressed in gray uniforms and hailed with Roman salutes.

Technocracy's vision included a unified North American state called 'The Technate,' where every citizen would receive an 'energy distribution card' and social life would be reduced to quantifiable inputs and outputs. The movement attracted support from prominent figures including Hugo Gernsback, who coined the term 'science fiction,' and scientists like Richard C. Tolman and M. King Hubbert. However, Scott's lack of scientific credentials and the movement's cult-like characteristics led to its decline by the 1940s.

Today's tech elite have adopted many of technocracy's core ideas through different means. With advanced algorithms and Big Data, companies can now surveil, predict, and influence social behavior in ways impossible in the 1930s. Figures like Marc Andreessen, Balaji Srinivasan, and Peter Thiel pursue technological advancement as a revolutionary force, viewing the public as secondary to unimpeded progress. While today's technocrats lack the mass movement aspect of their predecessors, they possess the capital and influence to pursue social engineering through covert means, raising questions about free will and the role of technology in shaping society.