Keen On

One person I didn’t expect to see at DLD is the feted Turkish writer Ece Temelkuran. Not exactly a regular on the tech circuit, Temelkuran is best known as a critic of the Erdogan regime and author of the influential 2019 book How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship. In our conversation at DLD, Temelkuran argued that the world is experiencing a profound transformation comparable to the Industrial Revolution, where neoliberalism is eroding both democracy and basic human morals. She sees modern fascism operating through entertainment and spectacle rather than traditional military aesthetics, and emphasizes the importance of friendship as both a personal anchor and political concept in resisting authoritarian forces. Currently living in Berlin, she expressed concern about rising far-right movements across Europe. She critiques Silicon Valley and social media, arguing that questions of ownership and profit motives are often obscured by technological utopianism. Despite the challenges, s