The Techno-Optimist Manifesto(a16z.com)
a16z.com
The Techno-Optimist Manifesto
https://a16z.com/the-techno-optimist-manifesto/
413 comments
It's also a little hard to square that enemy with the earlier enemy of "...anti-merit, anti-ambition, anti-striving, anti-achievement, anti-greatness." So we're opposed to credentialed experts in favor of "the real world" but also opposed to those who don't care about merit or achievement? Are credentials and expertise not a reasonable measure of merit and achievement and aren't excessive appeals to the wisdom of the average textbook anti-merit populist nonsense?
I'm actually a fan of the overall idea of techno optimism. But it's hard to get behind a version that starts out with the premise that we should exclude experts who've spent their lifetime focused on getting really good at knowing WTF they are talking about presumably in favor of billionaire VCs who can speak to the "real world". Don't get me wrong, if we're going to become a galaxy spanning civilization or whatever, we'll certainly need large and regular doses of reality. But we'll also need a lot of credentialed expertise.
I'm actually a fan of the overall idea of techno optimism. But it's hard to get behind a version that starts out with the premise that we should exclude experts who've spent their lifetime focused on getting really good at knowing WTF they are talking about presumably in favor of billionaire VCs who can speak to the "real world". Don't get me wrong, if we're going to become a galaxy spanning civilization or whatever, we'll certainly need large and regular doses of reality. But we'll also need a lot of credentialed expertise.
> Are credentials and expertise not a reasonable measure of merit and achievement
I think the assumption behind their statement is that this in fact the case.
Media/politics use the words credentials and expertise interchangeably, and credentials invariably means those issued by universities. So a professor is assumed to always be an expert, even if they can't evidence that in reality. The result is a large number of ivory tower academics who call themselves experts in things, but who have no skin in the game and whose theories are never tested against reality. Hence the replication crisis, which Marc Andreessen is on the record as being very concerned/aware about.
Determining actual expertise is the Number 1 problem faced by both VCs and startup founders, and those are both communities who are famously rather indifferent to credentials.
I think the assumption behind their statement is that this in fact the case.
Media/politics use the words credentials and expertise interchangeably, and credentials invariably means those issued by universities. So a professor is assumed to always be an expert, even if they can't evidence that in reality. The result is a large number of ivory tower academics who call themselves experts in things, but who have no skin in the game and whose theories are never tested against reality. Hence the replication crisis, which Marc Andreessen is on the record as being very concerned/aware about.
Determining actual expertise is the Number 1 problem faced by both VCs and startup founders, and those are both communities who are famously rather indifferent to credentials.
I actually agree with the idea that we should judge people based on their popularity with customers rather than their peers. Credential are very often indicative of the former
Spectrum is the ‘most popular’ internet with the most customers in my area.
Not because they are liked but because they are the only option outside of maybe starlink.
Not because they are liked but because they are the only option outside of maybe starlink.
I'm surprised at how many people took the bait to treat this as an either/or proposition. One criteria of evaluation is never sufficient to make a good decision - why not ask both? A smart consumer reads the product label and the user reviews.
Who has a better idea whether a lawyer or a surgeon is actually good at their job - their clients or their peers?
With professionals it's their peers. Unfortunately that doesn't really help unless you're in the "club". In any community the other doctors all know who are the best surgeons and who are the butchers. But they won't publicly badmouth a peer or even privately tell you unless they really trust you.
When you book a hotel do you base your decision on reviews from other customers or other hotel owners?
genuinely curious what truth-distilling insight you think the average customer has that somehow can’t be manipulated artificially.
people get duped by deceptive marketing every day, man.
people get duped by deceptive marketing every day, man.
On the other hand, we have seen how perverse incentive amongst experts work too. Academia is rife with fraud (e.g. publishing 500 paper a year), because certain incentives make it possible. I agree expert are important and should be judged by peers, but incentives around budget allocation and prestige should not be attached to performance, especially in science. However I understand it's a complex topic so I probably miss a lot of information, just my 2 c.
skin in the game. They paid for the product, and if the company's still in business, didn't sue it or convince everyone else not to. A good review costs a restaurant critic nothing.
Also: a leader and beneficiary of various enormous centrally-planned economic units that only made him rich by carefully and deliberately avoiding competitive market forces (this is practically the only way to get rich—hypothetical perfect markets drive profits toward zero, you make the big bucks by ensuring you experience as little competitive pressure as possible) claims without qualification that central planning can’t beat market signals.
It’d sure be interesting if he took his own idea seriously and tried to apply it to the companies he has a major stake in. If his stated hard-line position is correct, it should make his companies do much better. If he actually believes it, he’ll surely try. Right?
It’d sure be interesting if he took his own idea seriously and tried to apply it to the companies he has a major stake in. If his stated hard-line position is correct, it should make his companies do much better. If he actually believes it, he’ll surely try. Right?
(a) indulge in abstract theories
(b) engage in social engineering
(c) disconnect from the real world
(d) delude themselves
(e) appoint themselves
(f) play God with anyone else's life with total insulation from the consequences.
That seems to describe developers, and this VC was one, Silicon Valley VC and/or SBF-types. Who the heck even comes close to (f) except Big Tech.
With respect to (e), "unelected", does anyone know when the next ICANN, ARIN, or ISOC "elections" will be held. Even assuming hypothetically the web is not controlled by private companies, and "non-profits" are actually governing it, the internet is not and has never been a democracy.
It's a truly hilarious quote, even if taken out of context. It's like he is describing himself and his portfolio companies. Who is the enemy. Look in the mirror.
But maybe SillyCon Valley VC knows the best way to communicate with developers who will potentially work like dogs to make him money is to speak their language. Maybe he is a meme maker.
(b) engage in social engineering
(c) disconnect from the real world
(d) delude themselves
(e) appoint themselves
(f) play God with anyone else's life with total insulation from the consequences.
That seems to describe developers, and this VC was one, Silicon Valley VC and/or SBF-types. Who the heck even comes close to (f) except Big Tech.
With respect to (e), "unelected", does anyone know when the next ICANN, ARIN, or ISOC "elections" will be held. Even assuming hypothetically the web is not controlled by private companies, and "non-profits" are actually governing it, the internet is not and has never been a democracy.
It's a truly hilarious quote, even if taken out of context. It's like he is describing himself and his portfolio companies. Who is the enemy. Look in the mirror.
But maybe SillyCon Valley VC knows the best way to communicate with developers who will potentially work like dogs to make him money is to speak their language. Maybe he is a meme maker.
>(f) play God with anyone else's life with total insulation from the consequences. [...] Who the heck even comes close to (f) except Big Tech.
Monsanto. Nestle. Enron, Goldman Sachs, the Pinkertons. BP, Chevron, Woodside, Rio Tinto, BHP.
Monsanto. Nestle. Enron, Goldman Sachs, the Pinkertons. BP, Chevron, Woodside, Rio Tinto, BHP.
I think the idea is that VCs and private companies can't force their will onto people. They can indulge in abstract theories, but it never becomes legislation that others have to abide to (e.g. laws that curtail speech meant to "protect democracy")
They can socially engineer but voluntarily, or in other words propose social norms in form of ux and product. But things get out of hand very quickly in a market. For instance, no one designed the method people use for retweeting, it wasn't engineered. Some decisions were made but with limited desires effect.
Similarly the market connects you to the real world. You put a product out there and it loves and dies on its usefulness to others.
Same with the rest. Everything is voluntary, which is kind of the point as opposed to mandated from top down.
Even big tech like Google have trouble controlling their own inventions. Think of SEO spam and bots, which is a constant battle. That's an example of the worse, but there are good things like distributing unfiltered information.
They can socially engineer but voluntarily, or in other words propose social norms in form of ux and product. But things get out of hand very quickly in a market. For instance, no one designed the method people use for retweeting, it wasn't engineered. Some decisions were made but with limited desires effect.
Similarly the market connects you to the real world. You put a product out there and it loves and dies on its usefulness to others.
Same with the rest. Everything is voluntary, which is kind of the point as opposed to mandated from top down.
Even big tech like Google have trouble controlling their own inventions. Think of SEO spam and bots, which is a constant battle. That's an example of the worse, but there are good things like distributing unfiltered information.
In democracies, laws don't emerge from nowhere as some top-down mandate... much to the chagrin of people who in the private sector actually can totally warp incentives to effectively induce or forbid certain behaviors in other people.
Forgot one.
(g) exhibit uncredentialed university dropout know-it-all worldview
(g) exhibit uncredentialed university dropout know-it-all worldview
We have seen how developers use the term "God-mode" in their software. (I will cite examples if requested.) From this end user's perspective such terminology suggests some strange if not comical delusions of grandeur.
Academic credentials in the US, especially at the 'prestige' institutions, have been hollowed out quite a lot by politics, groupthink, & logrolling.
Large government subsidies, & a self-replicating nearly-hereditary elite, have insulated much of their output from accountability to the broader society, and even from accountability to the truth.
Even an "uber-wealthy capital allocator" with a big personal-wealth buffer faces sharper feedback from today's concrete & changing reality – losses from mistakes, gains from smart choices – than tenured academics, or bureaucrats with lifelong sinecures.
In the text, he's not arguing from authority, or personal biography – so why would he need to waste any words about his personal particulars? (They're in the public record if you need them as part of your own heuristics.)
He's saying some ideas, & some systems, are better – not ranking people by class. Further, a "manifesto" like this is a resonant call to draw like minds, moreso than any sophisticated apologetic to try to convince doubters. (For that: read the other authors he name-checks.)
To obsess on the speaker's characteristic – their "self-awareness", their tone, their inability to "read the room", their station in life – rather than their words & ideas is a big part of the downbeat but in many places entrenched attitude he's criticizing.
Per Eleanor Roosevelt: "Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people."
Large government subsidies, & a self-replicating nearly-hereditary elite, have insulated much of their output from accountability to the broader society, and even from accountability to the truth.
Even an "uber-wealthy capital allocator" with a big personal-wealth buffer faces sharper feedback from today's concrete & changing reality – losses from mistakes, gains from smart choices – than tenured academics, or bureaucrats with lifelong sinecures.
In the text, he's not arguing from authority, or personal biography – so why would he need to waste any words about his personal particulars? (They're in the public record if you need them as part of your own heuristics.)
He's saying some ideas, & some systems, are better – not ranking people by class. Further, a "manifesto" like this is a resonant call to draw like minds, moreso than any sophisticated apologetic to try to convince doubters. (For that: read the other authors he name-checks.)
To obsess on the speaker's characteristic – their "self-awareness", their tone, their inability to "read the room", their station in life – rather than their words & ideas is a big part of the downbeat but in many places entrenched attitude he's criticizing.
Per Eleanor Roosevelt: "Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people."
Ah, I see. We’re supposed to engage these ideas in the “reality” in which interlocutors don’t have motivations, incentives, perspectives, personal histories, or attitudes toward topics that are revealed in their tone.
Which reality is that again?
In that reality, does this writing warrant more attention, or less?
Presumably we’re reading this to understand what Marc thinks, and to isolate the stated words from their context is naivety, not wisdom.
There are several “techno-optimist” (and adjacent) horses one can hitch their wagon to. My point is that everything about this screed — content, context, subtext, and omission — hints at this particular horse being pointed a bit askew.
Which reality is that again?
In that reality, does this writing warrant more attention, or less?
Presumably we’re reading this to understand what Marc thinks, and to isolate the stated words from their context is naivety, not wisdom.
There are several “techno-optimist” (and adjacent) horses one can hitch their wagon to. My point is that everything about this screed — content, context, subtext, and omission — hints at this particular horse being pointed a bit askew.
> Ah, I see. We’re supposed to engage these ideas in the “reality” in which interlocutors don’t have motivations, incentives, perspectives, personal histories, or attitudes toward topics that are revealed in their tone.
No, but if that's the 1st subtext into which you rush, rather than all the other ideas on offer here, much broader than any of Mr. Andreesen's life particulars, then you've chosen to play a pettier game. It's a free country.
> There are several “techno-optimist” (and adjacent) horses one can hitch their wagon to.
Ok, then. Who are your favorites, and in which ideas/dimensions are they offering something with better insight/appeal/non-'askew'ness than Andreesen?
Or do you only nitpick?
No, but if that's the 1st subtext into which you rush, rather than all the other ideas on offer here, much broader than any of Mr. Andreesen's life particulars, then you've chosen to play a pettier game. It's a free country.
> There are several “techno-optimist” (and adjacent) horses one can hitch their wagon to.
Ok, then. Who are your favorites, and in which ideas/dimensions are they offering something with better insight/appeal/non-'askew'ness than Andreesen?
Or do you only nitpick?
Sorry I’m not going to write a point by point rebuttal of a 250-line slam poem.
Sure: Henry George, Steven Pinker, Mustafa Suleyman off the top of my head.
What makes them better is pretty simple: they sound like thinkers who are engaging with the substance of a rather complicated topic, instead of like cult leaders who are making declarations of faith. Which, it should be obvious that the only reason anyone is engaging with this (and we have to) is because of the power held by the person saying it.
Also, listing people without their permission, especially posthumously, as if they’re co-signers on your manifesto is transparently intellectually dishonest. I honestly shudder to think of the calculus that would lead a serious thinker to believe that’s okay.
Marc is presumably a smart guy and I’m sure he’s perfectly friendly, but this stuff is starting to veer a little Kanye if you ask me. No one is immune to their own distorted reality, so I hope he has people he trusts who can (and do) provide pushback.
Sure: Henry George, Steven Pinker, Mustafa Suleyman off the top of my head.
What makes them better is pretty simple: they sound like thinkers who are engaging with the substance of a rather complicated topic, instead of like cult leaders who are making declarations of faith. Which, it should be obvious that the only reason anyone is engaging with this (and we have to) is because of the power held by the person saying it.
Also, listing people without their permission, especially posthumously, as if they’re co-signers on your manifesto is transparently intellectually dishonest. I honestly shudder to think of the calculus that would lead a serious thinker to believe that’s okay.
Marc is presumably a smart guy and I’m sure he’s perfectly friendly, but this stuff is starting to veer a little Kanye if you ask me. No one is immune to their own distorted reality, so I hope he has people he trusts who can (and do) provide pushback.
> Sorry I’m not going to write a point by point rebuttal of a 250-line slam poem.
Exactly! When you…
- emphasize personalities & personal biographies
- cite vague feels about which people "sound like thinkers" (why?)
- stretch to imply a recommended-authors list has been misrepresented as "co-signers" in some way that's vaguely not "okay" – and try to imply some unprecedented & counterproductive politeness norm that an author (even a dead author?!?) can't be cited favorably without permission
- layer on empty unevaluable intensifiers & slurs presuming agreement where it doesn't exist ('cult leader', 'obvious that the only reason anyone is engaging', 'transparently intellectually dishonest', 'honestly shudder', 'veer a little Kanye', 'distorted reality')
…you're taking the easier path: leaning on shallow attitudes, shifting fashions, & groupthink moreso than the actual text/ideas on offer.
And those lazy appeals to stereotypes & moods are what have dominated almost all of the negative reactions to this piece. It's all Regina bluffing mean-girl dominance via tone & slur, without reasoning: "Pmarca, stop trying to make tech-optimism happen. It's not going to happen."
Well, that kind of social flocking & mocking works in some places, for a while – until it doesn't.
Exactly! When you…
- emphasize personalities & personal biographies
- cite vague feels about which people "sound like thinkers" (why?)
- stretch to imply a recommended-authors list has been misrepresented as "co-signers" in some way that's vaguely not "okay" – and try to imply some unprecedented & counterproductive politeness norm that an author (even a dead author?!?) can't be cited favorably without permission
- layer on empty unevaluable intensifiers & slurs presuming agreement where it doesn't exist ('cult leader', 'obvious that the only reason anyone is engaging', 'transparently intellectually dishonest', 'honestly shudder', 'veer a little Kanye', 'distorted reality')
…you're taking the easier path: leaning on shallow attitudes, shifting fashions, & groupthink moreso than the actual text/ideas on offer.
And those lazy appeals to stereotypes & moods are what have dominated almost all of the negative reactions to this piece. It's all Regina bluffing mean-girl dominance via tone & slur, without reasoning: "Pmarca, stop trying to make tech-optimism happen. It's not going to happen."
Well, that kind of social flocking & mocking works in some places, for a while – until it doesn't.
Maybe you missed my original point: I agree with the argument for the most part.
My position has been validated in actual reality. The mainstream reporting -- that is, the reporting that the people who need convincing actually read -- has not been positive. I would bet this has pushed far, far more people away from techno-optimism than towards it.
If you were a pessimist already, this confirms and amplifies all of your fears. If you were neutral, well it looks like the pessimists were right: the big tech people are truly off the rails.
> And those lazy appeals to stereotypes & moods are what have dominated almost all of the negative reactions to this piece
Right! And aren't most reactions outside of HN negative?
Could it be that humans actually don't interpret words on the page as completely isolated from the actual context in which they're stated, who stated them, and how they're stated? Could it be that "the techno-optimists" need to convince humans of things? And no, the inclusion of context and tone in an argument is not some recent cultural wokeism phenomenon.
Just Kagi the article and see the response. I struggle to see how this advances the cause, regardless of how long you want to argue with me here on HN about overlooking the context/subtext/pretext.
My position has been validated in actual reality. The mainstream reporting -- that is, the reporting that the people who need convincing actually read -- has not been positive. I would bet this has pushed far, far more people away from techno-optimism than towards it.
If you were a pessimist already, this confirms and amplifies all of your fears. If you were neutral, well it looks like the pessimists were right: the big tech people are truly off the rails.
> And those lazy appeals to stereotypes & moods are what have dominated almost all of the negative reactions to this piece
Right! And aren't most reactions outside of HN negative?
Could it be that humans actually don't interpret words on the page as completely isolated from the actual context in which they're stated, who stated them, and how they're stated? Could it be that "the techno-optimists" need to convince humans of things? And no, the inclusion of context and tone in an argument is not some recent cultural wokeism phenomenon.
Just Kagi the article and see the response. I struggle to see how this advances the cause, regardless of how long you want to argue with me here on HN about overlooking the context/subtext/pretext.
You're citing biased samples, like how on HN itself:
- A disproportionate number of direct-replies to almost any opiniated submission are negative. (If you agree, an upvote is often enough! It's the objectors/nitpickers who are loudest in the comments – even if unrepresentative.)
- Often, also, it's sullen/underemployed people who have the most time to comment.
I disagree that the "mainstream reporting" represents "the people who need convincing". They're more of a neurotic clique than ever before. It's time to go around them, to folks doing real work.
Your arguments are still a bunch of impressionistic handwaving about appearances rather than substance: "I would bet this has pushed far, far more people away from techno-optimist than towards it."
Your emphatic belief about superficial "eww!" reactions from within your info-bubble is not much of an argument, nor does it engage with the actual ideas in the text.
For the 'manifesto' to work, it doesn't have to convince anyone who's already predisposed toward grumbling about Andreesen's tone or self-awareness, or who's fond of vague derogatory phrases like "truly off the rails".
It just has to reach the totally-separate set of people who are excited by, & eager to collaborate around, the positive vision within the text itself.
You know, those thousands of actual words written – against which you've only lodged abstract complaints about tone & emphasis, & that he didn't do enough to convince you, & the total cop-out-on-substance "but as far as I can tell most people agree with me!"
- A disproportionate number of direct-replies to almost any opiniated submission are negative. (If you agree, an upvote is often enough! It's the objectors/nitpickers who are loudest in the comments – even if unrepresentative.)
- Often, also, it's sullen/underemployed people who have the most time to comment.
I disagree that the "mainstream reporting" represents "the people who need convincing". They're more of a neurotic clique than ever before. It's time to go around them, to folks doing real work.
Your arguments are still a bunch of impressionistic handwaving about appearances rather than substance: "I would bet this has pushed far, far more people away from techno-optimist than towards it."
Your emphatic belief about superficial "eww!" reactions from within your info-bubble is not much of an argument, nor does it engage with the actual ideas in the text.
For the 'manifesto' to work, it doesn't have to convince anyone who's already predisposed toward grumbling about Andreesen's tone or self-awareness, or who's fond of vague derogatory phrases like "truly off the rails".
It just has to reach the totally-separate set of people who are excited by, & eager to collaborate around, the positive vision within the text itself.
You know, those thousands of actual words written – against which you've only lodged abstract complaints about tone & emphasis, & that he didn't do enough to convince you, & the total cop-out-on-substance "but as far as I can tell most people agree with me!"
Kagi results are biased? I mean... I guess.
You got it pal, hope all those people are feeling rah-rah!
You got it pal, hope all those people are feeling rah-rah!
No search engine's results will be an accurate census of reader reactions.
Such results will especially undersample Andreesen's intended audience of potential builders, which isn't the snarky cliquish media scene to which you've apprently outsourced your sensibilities.
And again: to repeatedly appeal to "most people agree with me (as far as I can see, according to my idiosyncratic media diet)" isn't the win you seem to think it is. It's more a confession that you're not bringing much of your own reasoning/logic/experience to a discussion, and defer to (often-faked) social proof for validation. If I cared what Kagi's crawl/ranking thinks, I'd search Kagi. (I don't.)
Such results will especially undersample Andreesen's intended audience of potential builders, which isn't the snarky cliquish media scene to which you've apprently outsourced your sensibilities.
And again: to repeatedly appeal to "most people agree with me (as far as I can see, according to my idiosyncratic media diet)" isn't the win you seem to think it is. It's more a confession that you're not bringing much of your own reasoning/logic/experience to a discussion, and defer to (often-faked) social proof for validation. If I cared what Kagi's crawl/ranking thinks, I'd search Kagi. (I don't.)
Very interesting how the goal here needn’t be to build a broad coalition or broad consensus in order to shape the future.
It’s almost as if technologists believe they can (and actually have a moral imperative to!) shape the world without being elected and without being accountable to the people whose world they’re shaping…
It’s almost as if technologists believe they can (and actually have a moral imperative to!) shape the world without being elected and without being accountable to the people whose world they’re shaping…
> but boy does this lack of self-awareness just shout “distance yourself and run, don’t walk!”
This feels a bit of an extreme reaction to me, I don't try and read into gotchas in writing and use them to "run away". Instead it makes me:
1. View the writing with skepticism
2. Try to understand what Andreessen thinks makes him not one of those ivory tower figures, because I certainly think of him as one.
2 seems the more insightful one to me, but certainly 1 qualifies how I view his writing.
This feels a bit of an extreme reaction to me, I don't try and read into gotchas in writing and use them to "run away". Instead it makes me:
1. View the writing with skepticism
2. Try to understand what Andreessen thinks makes him not one of those ivory tower figures, because I certainly think of him as one.
2 seems the more insightful one to me, but certainly 1 qualifies how I view his writing.
The “wanting to distance oneself” is an extremely pragmatic reaction: if you believe similar arguments need to be made, you have a legitimate interest in putting forth good versions of those arguments. He has a big platform and this will be portrayed as “the case” for techno-optimism, not to mention the attitude and tone.
I’m not really sure what the purpose of publishing something like this is. It doesn’t really seem intended to convince anyone of anything? Is the controversy the point? Galvanizing some “base?”
Most plausibly, it’s for attracting other ultra-wealthy/ultra-powerful (and yes, unelected!) LPs, which would make the tone rather ominous in my opinion.
I’m not really sure what the purpose of publishing something like this is. It doesn’t really seem intended to convince anyone of anything? Is the controversy the point? Galvanizing some “base?”
Most plausibly, it’s for attracting other ultra-wealthy/ultra-powerful (and yes, unelected!) LPs, which would make the tone rather ominous in my opinion.
> I’m not really sure what the purpose of publishing something like this is
He wants crypto to be cool
He wants crypto to be cool
> I’m not really sure what the purpose of publishing something like this is. It doesn’t really seem intended to convince anyone of anything? Is the controversy the point? Galvanizing some “base?”
The only thing that makes sense to me (other than he simply is that out of touch) is that he's actually trying to recruit followers to a new religion and so he actively wants to attract people with poor critical thinking skills.
The only thing that makes sense to me (other than he simply is that out of touch) is that he's actually trying to recruit followers to a new religion and so he actively wants to attract people with poor critical thinking skills.
Hearing himself talk
The manifesto comes from a guy whose business model for the past 3 years was grifting people into the NFT hype, so either he's just another conman selling a vision or a megalomaniac completely lacking self-awareness.
Why not both?
I gotta admit, I'm really impressed by Marc's ability to completely subvert so many historical facts and figures to "support" his self-contradictory line of thought. This is just on a whole other level - even Trump would be jealous.
The e/acc crowd is just _completely_ insane, at this point. I'd laugh hard if not for the fact that people like Marc have economic power over the rest of us.
The e/acc crowd is just _completely_ insane, at this point. I'd laugh hard if not for the fact that people like Marc have economic power over the rest of us.
I like how “we” prefer intrinsic motivation (near the end) but UBI is a bad idea (earlyish-middle, I think) because people need work to be happy (it’s for their own good, you see) and they won’t do any work if we don’t threaten them with poverty—the huge amounts of unpaid work ordinary people already perform, despite needing to also work for pay, is evidently invisible to our economic genius and Randian-Nietchien super-man, Mr Horowitz.
Clearly has a different sort of people in mind with these two ideas. Friggin’ elitist masquerading as some savior of humanity. Gross.
Clearly has a different sort of people in mind with these two ideas. Friggin’ elitist masquerading as some savior of humanity. Gross.
He's perfectly self aware that he has rejected his own class. It's weird that people think that's impossible or something and insist that he must be one in the same.
This isn't it, he was never part of the class in the first place and he does not share its insular self-serving worldview.
He didn't go to Harvard, he went to Illinois. He built his own tech firm when taking that path wasn't even a thing for people to do, he did not inherit banking interests.
He didn't go to Harvard, he went to Illinois. He built his own tech firm when taking that path wasn't even a thing for people to do, he did not inherit banking interests.
> he was never part of the class in the first place and he does not share its insular self-serving worldview
I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you over his 4,800-square-foot Tuscan-style Atherton mansion and 13-structure Malibu compound [1].
I went to public university. I then made money. Where you come from doesn't determine who you end up as. But it can leave chips on your shoulders if you never revisit your own past critically. I genuinely have no problem with Andreessen’s lifestyle. But his conspiratorial worldview is in lockstep with the class.
[1] https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lifestyle/lifestyle-news/b...
I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you over his 4,800-square-foot Tuscan-style Atherton mansion and 13-structure Malibu compound [1].
I went to public university. I then made money. Where you come from doesn't determine who you end up as. But it can leave chips on your shoulders if you never revisit your own past critically. I genuinely have no problem with Andreessen’s lifestyle. But his conspiratorial worldview is in lockstep with the class.
[1] https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lifestyle/lifestyle-news/b...
It's ironic he talks about markets yet Netscape came from Mosaic, developed at a public university (Urbana-Champaign in Illinois) without market forces. HTML and HTTP developed at CERN, another public institution.
In the usual pattern, there's something mysterious and totally unexplainable happening where all the systems have broken down somewhere between when Person X was a beneficiary of the system and when Person X is expected to be a benefactor to the system.
[deleted]
The piece is a view from the know-it-all UN-credentialed expert worldview, indulging in abstract theories, luxury beliefs, social engineering, disconnected from the real world, delusional, unelected, and unaccountable – playing God with everyone else’s lives, with total insulation from the consequences.
There’s a lot to unpack in the quoted passage, but it is not an ad hominem attack. That you think it is, and then turn around to make an ad hominem argument of your own explains your misinterpretation.
I think this clause makes it literally hard to parse the argument. That’s because of who he is, sure, but that’s not an ad hominem attack on it.
The peanut butter comment was snarky, I’ll admit that! The point is that it’d be a remarkable achievement if somehow he hasn’t lost touch with a huge portion of most people’s everyday reality.
The peanut butter comment was snarky, I’ll admit that! The point is that it’d be a remarkable achievement if somehow he hasn’t lost touch with a huge portion of most people’s everyday reality.
This was strange and disappointing thing to read. Why such a conspiratorial tone ("we are being lied to", "we have enemies", etc.)?
Since this is written by Marc Andreessen, I did a search for "crypto" and "web 3", but no results came up. Isn't that strange coming from someone who was so prominent in promoting and advocating for a crypto-based future? I guess that one didn't pan out…
"Our enemy is the ivory tower" is a bit rich coming from a billionaire who lives in one of the most exclusive California communities (and vociferously opposes any development in that community, despite loudly proselytizing to others that "it's time to build").
Looking at the "Patron Saints", after skipping the meme-posting pseudonymous Twitter accounts, I am pretty sure university professor is the most common profession. The ivory tower is the enemy indeed. And it does seem distasteful to use the names of dead scientists and intellectuals like John Von Neumann and Richard Feynman to burnish the image of this polemic.
Since this is written by Marc Andreessen, I did a search for "crypto" and "web 3", but no results came up. Isn't that strange coming from someone who was so prominent in promoting and advocating for a crypto-based future? I guess that one didn't pan out…
"Our enemy is the ivory tower" is a bit rich coming from a billionaire who lives in one of the most exclusive California communities (and vociferously opposes any development in that community, despite loudly proselytizing to others that "it's time to build").
Looking at the "Patron Saints", after skipping the meme-posting pseudonymous Twitter accounts, I am pretty sure university professor is the most common profession. The ivory tower is the enemy indeed. And it does seem distasteful to use the names of dead scientists and intellectuals like John Von Neumann and Richard Feynman to burnish the image of this polemic.
The Patron Saints section is where the truth is laid bare because it contains Filippo Tommaso Marinetti. He was quite in the business of writing Manifestos. Check which one he co-authored in 1919.
I never read (or studied in class) the fascist manifesto, your comment inspired me to look it up. The Wikipedia summary is a hoot: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascist_Manifesto
Politically, the Manifesto calls for: * Universal suffrage with a lowered voting age to 18 years, and voting and electoral office eligibility for all ages 25 and up; * Proportional representation on a regional basis; * Voting for women; * Representation at government level of newly created national councils by economic sector; * The abolition of the Italian Senate (at the time, the Senate, as the upper house of parliament, was by process elected by the wealthier citizens, but were in reality direct appointments by the king. It has been described as a sort of extended council of the crown); * The formation of a national council of experts for labor, for industry, for transportation, for the public health, for communications, etc. Selections to be made of professionals or of tradesmen with legislative powers, and elected directly to a general commission with ministerial powers.
In labor and social policy, the Manifesto calls for: * The quick enactment of a law of the state that sanctions an eight-hour workday for all workers; * A minimum wage; * The participation of workers' representatives in the functions of industry commissions; * To show the same confidence in the labor unions (that prove to be technically and morally worthy) as is given to industry executives or public servants; * Reorganization of the railways and the public transport sector; * Revision of the draft law on invalidity insurance; * Reduction of the retirement age from 65 to 55.
In military affairs, the Manifesto advocates:
Creation of a short-service national militia with specifically defensive responsibilities; Armaments factories are to be nationalized; A peaceful but competitive foreign policy.
In finance, the Manifesto advocates:
* A strong extraordinary tax on capital of a progressive nature, which takes the form of true partial expropriation of all wealth; * The seizure of all the possessions of the religious congregations and the abolition of all the bishoprics, which constitute an enormous liability on the Nation and on the privileges of the poor; * Revision of all contracts for military provisions; * The revision of all military contracts and the seizure of 85 percent of the profits therein.
Politically, the Manifesto calls for: * Universal suffrage with a lowered voting age to 18 years, and voting and electoral office eligibility for all ages 25 and up; * Proportional representation on a regional basis; * Voting for women; * Representation at government level of newly created national councils by economic sector; * The abolition of the Italian Senate (at the time, the Senate, as the upper house of parliament, was by process elected by the wealthier citizens, but were in reality direct appointments by the king. It has been described as a sort of extended council of the crown); * The formation of a national council of experts for labor, for industry, for transportation, for the public health, for communications, etc. Selections to be made of professionals or of tradesmen with legislative powers, and elected directly to a general commission with ministerial powers.
In labor and social policy, the Manifesto calls for: * The quick enactment of a law of the state that sanctions an eight-hour workday for all workers; * A minimum wage; * The participation of workers' representatives in the functions of industry commissions; * To show the same confidence in the labor unions (that prove to be technically and morally worthy) as is given to industry executives or public servants; * Reorganization of the railways and the public transport sector; * Revision of the draft law on invalidity insurance; * Reduction of the retirement age from 65 to 55.
In military affairs, the Manifesto advocates:
Creation of a short-service national militia with specifically defensive responsibilities; Armaments factories are to be nationalized; A peaceful but competitive foreign policy.
In finance, the Manifesto advocates:
* A strong extraordinary tax on capital of a progressive nature, which takes the form of true partial expropriation of all wealth; * The seizure of all the possessions of the religious congregations and the abolition of all the bishoprics, which constitute an enormous liability on the Nation and on the privileges of the poor; * Revision of all contracts for military provisions; * The revision of all military contracts and the seizure of 85 percent of the profits therein.
After Wikipedia has been caught to be influenced by the Polish, Hungarian and Croatian far right -- and you bet there are more -- I would be very slow to trust a summary of that manifest from it. It's one of those topics where a little omission here and there can make quite a difference and you don't even need to insert a lie into Wikipedia. Not that's hard, just put down an obscure book as a source, no one checks whether your quote is in it.
Your comment primed me for some wikipedia shenanigans, but when I looked up and translated the 1919 original, it’s more or less exactly the same as the Wikipedia summary.
http://web.tiscalinet.it/regno76/testi/manifesti/Il%20manife...
Thanks for prodding me to go down that rabbit hole.
Seems like Marinetti didn’t foresee how horrible the “industry councils” would be.
The nationalized military industrial complex could or could not be a good idea.
http://web.tiscalinet.it/regno76/testi/manifesti/Il%20manife...
Thanks for prodding me to go down that rabbit hole.
Seems like Marinetti didn’t foresee how horrible the “industry councils” would be.
The nationalized military industrial complex could or could not be a good idea.
> Why such a conspiratorial tone
Marc has been meeting up with neoreactionaries, this is a normal viewpoint in SV VC circles. See how his article recommends the co-author of the Fascist Manifesto.
Marc has been meeting up with neoreactionaries, this is a normal viewpoint in SV VC circles. See how his article recommends the co-author of the Fascist Manifesto.
I used to have a similar worldview. I read about the consequences of technological advance in the past always with the present firmly in mind. Who cares if there were initially some unintended consequences and collateral damage? Things got better. Advances in technology have usually increased the size of the pie. It's easy to ignore the bumps in a trendline that's steadly headed skyward. However, when you look more closely, it's not just technological advances that keep things headed in the right direction. Social advances, critically those that help divide the pie more equally, are also responsible for the bounty we enjoy today.
e.g. The industrial revolution is typically credited with a great leap forward in quality of life for the average citizen, but it actually did the opposite at first. Workers crowded into dirty, unhealthy cities and started to live shorter, nastier, more brutish lives. Initially, many English workers were legally barred from seeking employment elsewhere. If you didn't like the wages you were getting at one job and tried to take another, you could be sent to jail. It's hard to ask for a raise or even safety equipment when the alternative is jail! It was the concentration of workers in cities that allowed labor movements to form and demand changes that granted more people a fairer share of the pie, such as the right to change jobs.
Technological advance is generally a good thing, but it's social advances that harness it for all. Be wary of philosophies that ignore part of the equation. If we want to avoid bumpy periods where life gets worse for the majority of us before getting better again, we can make conscious choices about how to use new technologies.
e.g. The industrial revolution is typically credited with a great leap forward in quality of life for the average citizen, but it actually did the opposite at first. Workers crowded into dirty, unhealthy cities and started to live shorter, nastier, more brutish lives. Initially, many English workers were legally barred from seeking employment elsewhere. If you didn't like the wages you were getting at one job and tried to take another, you could be sent to jail. It's hard to ask for a raise or even safety equipment when the alternative is jail! It was the concentration of workers in cities that allowed labor movements to form and demand changes that granted more people a fairer share of the pie, such as the right to change jobs.
Technological advance is generally a good thing, but it's social advances that harness it for all. Be wary of philosophies that ignore part of the equation. If we want to avoid bumpy periods where life gets worse for the majority of us before getting better again, we can make conscious choices about how to use new technologies.
Absolutely. People act like we can't or shouldn't seek both technological and social advancement. Social advancement is the key difference between a dystopian and a utopian technologically advanced future.
Fair but… I think the last hundred years should have also taught us to be wary of believing in any novel social system too fervently
I wouldn't say I "used to" have a similar worldview. In fact I find myself agreeing with most every passage in the manifesto. Agreeing with "yes, but..." - because while we can assert our "belief" in things, when those beliefs are taken for granted while not lining up with actual reality, they form their own oppressive dogma! For example it's quite rich for a VC to make assertions about free markets while simultaneously having drastically altered their investment strategy due to government ending the decade long feeding trough of near-zero interest rates. Hence the general criticism of being out of touch.
Your comment is a good synthesis point. In fact one might say the amount of criticism and nay-saying is directly related to the inequality, either economic or social (dis)enfranchisement of lacking purpose. So pushing in the opposite direction isn't really helping the cause of growth, but rather causing that gulf to widen and the criticism of "techno optimism" to grow.
The fundamental problem I see is making sure governments pass productive laws that encourage computational wealth to remain distributed, as opposed to authoritarian laws that actually cement routine corporate control while reserving ultimate control to the state. The latter approach basically only works with quantifiable monetary wealth, in that the state can collect taxes and then convert them into material welfare. But this approach doesn't work with non-fungible liberty, where the distributed structure must be preserved rather than ever being centralized to begin with. eg GDPR vs TikTok hysteria. Or antitrust enforcement to end this anticompetitive bundling of software, services, and hosting, versus "eliminate sec 230".
Your comment is a good synthesis point. In fact one might say the amount of criticism and nay-saying is directly related to the inequality, either economic or social (dis)enfranchisement of lacking purpose. So pushing in the opposite direction isn't really helping the cause of growth, but rather causing that gulf to widen and the criticism of "techno optimism" to grow.
The fundamental problem I see is making sure governments pass productive laws that encourage computational wealth to remain distributed, as opposed to authoritarian laws that actually cement routine corporate control while reserving ultimate control to the state. The latter approach basically only works with quantifiable monetary wealth, in that the state can collect taxes and then convert them into material welfare. But this approach doesn't work with non-fungible liberty, where the distributed structure must be preserved rather than ever being centralized to begin with. eg GDPR vs TikTok hysteria. Or antitrust enforcement to end this anticompetitive bundling of software, services, and hosting, versus "eliminate sec 230".
For hundreds of years, we properly glorified this – until recently.
We really didn't. At least, not at the time, and certainly not everyone. Plenty of people throughout history have been adamantly against the rapid progress of technology. The Luddites are the most famous group but there have been lots more.
Even if you ignore those people for being frankly a bit weird, the driving force behind technology for the first ten thousand or so years has been the improvement of the human race and to win in the struggle to survive. Those were definitely noble goals. Compare that to the past 200 or so years and much of the progress has been about the consolidation of power and wealth in the hands of a few extraordinarily rich people. The technological gains have been spread widely, sure, but they've come at a high cost. That's different to the past where the gains have come with very little cost.
We could transform society to benefit everyone using technology if we wanted to. I suspect we won't though. We'll sell a few AI powered gadgets to the masses, and that will cause power over everyone to coalesce in the hands of a few people. That's not really much of a win.
We really didn't. At least, not at the time, and certainly not everyone. Plenty of people throughout history have been adamantly against the rapid progress of technology. The Luddites are the most famous group but there have been lots more.
Even if you ignore those people for being frankly a bit weird, the driving force behind technology for the first ten thousand or so years has been the improvement of the human race and to win in the struggle to survive. Those were definitely noble goals. Compare that to the past 200 or so years and much of the progress has been about the consolidation of power and wealth in the hands of a few extraordinarily rich people. The technological gains have been spread widely, sure, but they've come at a high cost. That's different to the past where the gains have come with very little cost.
We could transform society to benefit everyone using technology if we wanted to. I suspect we won't though. We'll sell a few AI powered gadgets to the masses, and that will cause power over everyone to coalesce in the hands of a few people. That's not really much of a win.
The Luddites were not anti-technology per se. Rather, they were against an unequal distribution of that technology because it was destroying their community and livelihood, precisely because that technology concentrated power in the hands of the capital class [1]. Given the rest of your comment, it seems the Luddites are your natural allies.
Related HN discussion on [1] from 3 weeks ago: [2]
[1]: https://archive.ph/ZUiC7 ("Rethinking the Luddites," The New Yorker)
[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37664682
Related HN discussion on [1] from 3 weeks ago: [2]
[1]: https://archive.ph/ZUiC7 ("Rethinking the Luddites," The New Yorker)
[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37664682
> Rather, they were against an unequal distribution of that technology because it was destroying their community and livelihood, precisely because that technology concentrated power in the hands of the capital class [1]
I find discussions about the Luddites online to be deeply illustrative not of the Luddites themselves but of a person's political beliefs. The Luddites did indeed fight for their community and livelihood, but theirs came by dismantling another one. For hundreds of years prior the textiles trade was dominated by the Mughal Empire. British colonization in South Asia, fed by a multitude of factors including industrialization, dismantled the subcontinent's dominant position in the market and eventually catapulted British textile production to the world stage. This created the skilled textile jobs that were eventually mechanized and displaced. The Luddites then did not want to turn back the textile market fully back to a world dominated by South Asia but into the middle where they owned the means of production.
Accelerationists view Luddites as obstructionists. Labor sympanthizers view Luddites as a movement for labor protections. The wider view of history paints a more subtle picture.
I find discussions about the Luddites online to be deeply illustrative not of the Luddites themselves but of a person's political beliefs. The Luddites did indeed fight for their community and livelihood, but theirs came by dismantling another one. For hundreds of years prior the textiles trade was dominated by the Mughal Empire. British colonization in South Asia, fed by a multitude of factors including industrialization, dismantled the subcontinent's dominant position in the market and eventually catapulted British textile production to the world stage. This created the skilled textile jobs that were eventually mechanized and displaced. The Luddites then did not want to turn back the textile market fully back to a world dominated by South Asia but into the middle where they owned the means of production.
Accelerationists view Luddites as obstructionists. Labor sympanthizers view Luddites as a movement for labor protections. The wider view of history paints a more subtle picture.
> dismantled the subcontinent's dominant position in the market
That doesn't happen until after the luddite's first appearance in ~1816 [1]
> This created the skilled textile jobs that were eventually mechanized and displaced.
No, The displacement is what the Luddites were railing against. Weavers had been highly paid, profitable and skilled occupation from the "dark ages" onwards. Technological advances meant that they were ruined almost overnight. The concept of high minded observations on empire are anachronistic embellishments[2]. The weavers just weaved, the merchants sourced the raw materials. the concept that the average weaver knew the conditions, circumstance, much less people that produced it is on very shaky ground. I suspect that given that the producers were Christian, much less protestant, would have meant that sympathy would have been limited. Given how xenophobic people were back then.
The wool trade supplied wealth to large parts of the cotswolds, east anglia, the lowlands and other places.
The weaver's guilds had a hand in various wars, revolutions and many other social developments between 1100 and at least 1500.
[1] https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/2534... page 39, turning point is 1830
[2] https://www.marxists.org/history/england/combination-laws/ne... They are literally talking about powered frames, and nothing else.
That doesn't happen until after the luddite's first appearance in ~1816 [1]
> This created the skilled textile jobs that were eventually mechanized and displaced.
No, The displacement is what the Luddites were railing against. Weavers had been highly paid, profitable and skilled occupation from the "dark ages" onwards. Technological advances meant that they were ruined almost overnight. The concept of high minded observations on empire are anachronistic embellishments[2]. The weavers just weaved, the merchants sourced the raw materials. the concept that the average weaver knew the conditions, circumstance, much less people that produced it is on very shaky ground. I suspect that given that the producers were Christian, much less protestant, would have meant that sympathy would have been limited. Given how xenophobic people were back then.
The wool trade supplied wealth to large parts of the cotswolds, east anglia, the lowlands and other places.
The weaver's guilds had a hand in various wars, revolutions and many other social developments between 1100 and at least 1500.
[1] https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/2534... page 39, turning point is 1830
[2] https://www.marxists.org/history/england/combination-laws/ne... They are literally talking about powered frames, and nothing else.
Thank you for debunking this. Even with my basic knowledge of history I was pretty sure this guy was far off mark.
You're being juvenile. If you're going to cheer for a historical faction that you feel reflects your values and jeer their opponents, it's probably best to not have a "basic knowledge of history". Historical groups aren't sports teams.
I read about history constantly bro. I probably have more knowledge than most I just was being humble because I felt like the person above me knew more than I did on this particular topic. I was not saying I was cheering or jeering anyone. I meant I knew some things about this topic that lead me to believe that what the other person was saying was historically inaccurate. But it is not something I had looked into in a while, so I would have needed to check my vague memories of the facts. This person did that for me and provided sources. Great! That's all I was saying. Why the hell do you feel the need to ridicule a stranger for your massive assumption of their values.
> That doesn't happen until after the luddite's first appearance in ~1816 [1]
According to Parthasarathi [1], Indian cloth already began having issues from the 1720s as East India Company contracts begun squeezing out local merchants. From the late 1760s, Indian weavers begun having trouble. South Indian weavers reported that in 1779 their incomes had dropped 35% since 1768 (Parthasarathi p. 78-79.) The Luddites first appear in history around 1811, a good 40 years after the beginning of the decline of Indian cloth.
1830 is much too late for the "turning point" as the Cuddalore Weaver's Protest had already occurred by 1778 [2]. I suspect your source comes from before the opening of the East India Company records.
> No, The displacement is what the Luddites were railing against.
Correct, I never disagreed.
> Weavers had been highly paid, profitable and skilled occupation from the "dark ages" onwards.
> The weaver's guilds had a hand in various wars, revolutions and many other social developments between 1100 and at least 1500.
The class consciousness of weavers only appeared from the beginning of industrialization. Weavers guilds operated in different economic and social circumstances with very different economic arrangements than the Luddite-era weavers. Guilds often enjoyed exclusive market privileges and thus had much more pricing power than weavers in the post-feudal era.
> The weavers just weaved, the merchants sourced the raw materials. the concept that the average weaver knew the conditions, circumstance, much less people that produced it is on very shaky ground.
Of course, at that time the flow of information and general levels of education were low. But it's hard to imagine that weavers weren't aware of the prodigy of Indian textiles at the time. Indian exports dominated the textile market until the late 18th century and weavers would have been competing for sales to merchants with Indian exporters. Naturally most weavers would be completely unaware of the contracts and pricing power of the East India Company at the time and its knock-on effects in India. I'm not trying to imply that the Luddites cheered on the EIC in their exploitation, and don't think they did at all unless there's evidence of the contrary.
> I suspect that given that the producers were Christian, much less protestant, would have meant that sympathy would have been limited. Given how xenophobic people were back then.
Europe and the Islamicate world had a lot of mutual animosity and respect for each other at the time. The British viewed Mughal wealth and organization favorably, and this was the basis for the term "mogul" as used in "business mogul". [3] Whether that would lead to sympathy or not is unclear.
> Technological advances meant that they were ruined almost overnight.
Correct but their relative market position came at the expense of the market position of the Mughals. The guild based systems which created guaranteed markets of the middle ages were already long broken by the time of the Luddites. The very ruin from relative riches due to mechanization itself was based on riches based off the ruin of the Mughals. That the Luddites were trying to protect their own lifestyle is neither enigmatic nor evil. The Mughals attempted the same. But instead of trying to cast the Luddites as virtuous heroes, it's important to contextualize them as parties who were protecting a treasure that they had received at another's expense.
[1]: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/transition-to-a-col... The Transition to a Colonial Economy: Weavers, Merchants and Kings in South India, 1720–1800
[3]: Parthasarathi p. 103 and Revolt, Testimony, Petition: Artisanal Protests in Colonial Andhra by Swarnalatha
[3]: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mogul
According to Parthasarathi [1], Indian cloth already began having issues from the 1720s as East India Company contracts begun squeezing out local merchants. From the late 1760s, Indian weavers begun having trouble. South Indian weavers reported that in 1779 their incomes had dropped 35% since 1768 (Parthasarathi p. 78-79.) The Luddites first appear in history around 1811, a good 40 years after the beginning of the decline of Indian cloth.
1830 is much too late for the "turning point" as the Cuddalore Weaver's Protest had already occurred by 1778 [2]. I suspect your source comes from before the opening of the East India Company records.
> No, The displacement is what the Luddites were railing against.
Correct, I never disagreed.
> Weavers had been highly paid, profitable and skilled occupation from the "dark ages" onwards.
> The weaver's guilds had a hand in various wars, revolutions and many other social developments between 1100 and at least 1500.
The class consciousness of weavers only appeared from the beginning of industrialization. Weavers guilds operated in different economic and social circumstances with very different economic arrangements than the Luddite-era weavers. Guilds often enjoyed exclusive market privileges and thus had much more pricing power than weavers in the post-feudal era.
> The weavers just weaved, the merchants sourced the raw materials. the concept that the average weaver knew the conditions, circumstance, much less people that produced it is on very shaky ground.
Of course, at that time the flow of information and general levels of education were low. But it's hard to imagine that weavers weren't aware of the prodigy of Indian textiles at the time. Indian exports dominated the textile market until the late 18th century and weavers would have been competing for sales to merchants with Indian exporters. Naturally most weavers would be completely unaware of the contracts and pricing power of the East India Company at the time and its knock-on effects in India. I'm not trying to imply that the Luddites cheered on the EIC in their exploitation, and don't think they did at all unless there's evidence of the contrary.
> I suspect that given that the producers were Christian, much less protestant, would have meant that sympathy would have been limited. Given how xenophobic people were back then.
Europe and the Islamicate world had a lot of mutual animosity and respect for each other at the time. The British viewed Mughal wealth and organization favorably, and this was the basis for the term "mogul" as used in "business mogul". [3] Whether that would lead to sympathy or not is unclear.
> Technological advances meant that they were ruined almost overnight.
Correct but their relative market position came at the expense of the market position of the Mughals. The guild based systems which created guaranteed markets of the middle ages were already long broken by the time of the Luddites. The very ruin from relative riches due to mechanization itself was based on riches based off the ruin of the Mughals. That the Luddites were trying to protect their own lifestyle is neither enigmatic nor evil. The Mughals attempted the same. But instead of trying to cast the Luddites as virtuous heroes, it's important to contextualize them as parties who were protecting a treasure that they had received at another's expense.
[1]: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/transition-to-a-col... The Transition to a Colonial Economy: Weavers, Merchants and Kings in South India, 1720–1800
[3]: Parthasarathi p. 103 and Revolt, Testimony, Petition: Artisanal Protests in Colonial Andhra by Swarnalatha
[3]: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mogul
[deleted]
> the driving force behind technology for the first ten thousand or so years has been the improvement of the human race and to win in the struggle to survive
This seems naive to me (setting aside the issue of even defining or identifying "the driving force behind technology"). The Romans were famously engineering-minded and they certainly weren't doing it just for the improvement of the human condition; it had material and political consequences which they wanted to see realized. From my understanding of history this is true in pretty much any era and any location throughout history. Certainly there have always been people inventing new tools for the fun of it, or to improve their and others' lives, but it's not at all clear to me how you could show that the balance between these motivations has shifted so dramatically only in the last ~200 years. It seems far more plausible (to me) that technological development has always been a fulcrum for accumulation of wealth and power, and that our current moment is better explained as a shift in whose wealth and power is benefited (kings and emperors replaced by multinational corps and capital owners), rather than a complete reorientation of the nature of technology itself.
This seems naive to me (setting aside the issue of even defining or identifying "the driving force behind technology"). The Romans were famously engineering-minded and they certainly weren't doing it just for the improvement of the human condition; it had material and political consequences which they wanted to see realized. From my understanding of history this is true in pretty much any era and any location throughout history. Certainly there have always been people inventing new tools for the fun of it, or to improve their and others' lives, but it's not at all clear to me how you could show that the balance between these motivations has shifted so dramatically only in the last ~200 years. It seems far more plausible (to me) that technological development has always been a fulcrum for accumulation of wealth and power, and that our current moment is better explained as a shift in whose wealth and power is benefited (kings and emperors replaced by multinational corps and capital owners), rather than a complete reorientation of the nature of technology itself.
I think that's wholesale falsehood. The wins in the last 200 years are so dramatic for the average person, especially in the West. Infant mortality rate and the chance of survival to adulthood alone are such glorious victories against Death that I would gladly vote for any system that would give us those wins and create a trillionaire.
All that wondrous science has come from this system. No. Evidence is evidence. This thing works, and works dramatically well. We live like Gods compared to people of the 1800s. My wife and I noticed this the other day. They fought wars back in the day for a fraction of the spices that I buy ethically today.
No retvrn. Forward only.
All that wondrous science has come from this system. No. Evidence is evidence. This thing works, and works dramatically well. We live like Gods compared to people of the 1800s. My wife and I noticed this the other day. They fought wars back in the day for a fraction of the spices that I buy ethically today.
No retvrn. Forward only.
We live like Gods compared to people of the 1800s.
Some of us do. If you're at the poorer end of society things are still pretty damn bleak. People live with long term treatable illness. People don't have basic necessities like shelter or food or water. People live with very little prospect of escaping a life of drudgery. Sure, those of us who can afford them have lots of shiny gadgets that save us from a bit of manual labor, but that's not really worth much if stepping outside of your front door means you're scared of being mugged.
I'm not saying I'd give any of it up. Hell no. I'm saying that a few less rockets and a few more homeless shelters might go some way to helping balance things out a little.
Some of us do. If you're at the poorer end of society things are still pretty damn bleak. People live with long term treatable illness. People don't have basic necessities like shelter or food or water. People live with very little prospect of escaping a life of drudgery. Sure, those of us who can afford them have lots of shiny gadgets that save us from a bit of manual labor, but that's not really worth much if stepping outside of your front door means you're scared of being mugged.
I'm not saying I'd give any of it up. Hell no. I'm saying that a few less rockets and a few more homeless shelters might go some way to helping balance things out a little.
Strongly advise reading Thomas Piketty's book Capital in the 21st Century.
One of the key points made in the book, which is full of wonderful data and is a GREAT read if you’re into that sort of thing, was the idea that *wealth is much more unequal than income*.
From Vox’s coverage of the book:
> You hear a lot about income inequality, but as this chart makes clear wealth inequality is much more severe. In the United States, just 1 percent of the population owns about 35 percent of all the wealth. Even in relatively egalitarian Europe, the top 1 percent owns around 25 percent of the wealth. In both continents, the top 10 percent owns over half the wealth.
It’s hugely important to understand that point, which gets lost frequently.
Wealth inequality > Income inequality.
https://www.vox.com/2014/4/10/5561608/9-charts-that-explain-...
You can’t argue about the benefits of the system — they are material. You can try to argue about global incomes rising. But it’s a hard argument to win when it comes to global wealth distribution.
One of the key points made in the book, which is full of wonderful data and is a GREAT read if you’re into that sort of thing, was the idea that *wealth is much more unequal than income*.
From Vox’s coverage of the book:
> You hear a lot about income inequality, but as this chart makes clear wealth inequality is much more severe. In the United States, just 1 percent of the population owns about 35 percent of all the wealth. Even in relatively egalitarian Europe, the top 1 percent owns around 25 percent of the wealth. In both continents, the top 10 percent owns over half the wealth.
It’s hugely important to understand that point, which gets lost frequently.
Wealth inequality > Income inequality.
https://www.vox.com/2014/4/10/5561608/9-charts-that-explain-...
You can’t argue about the benefits of the system — they are material. You can try to argue about global incomes rising. But it’s a hard argument to win when it comes to global wealth distribution.
> People live with long term treatable illness.
None of what were treatable at the 1800.
> People don't have basic necessities like shelter or food or water.
In relative terms, almost none. I'm not sure how they compare in absolute terms, but just the answer not being obvious while the population increased by an order of magnitude already makes your claim quite bad.
> People live with very little prospect of escaping a life of drudgery.
And nobody had no prospect back them.
You can complain that there are some people living almost as badly as people lived in the 1800s. But it's not the majority by far, and you can't claim they are currently living worse.
And, of course, none of that is reason to not demand better things.
None of what were treatable at the 1800.
> People don't have basic necessities like shelter or food or water.
In relative terms, almost none. I'm not sure how they compare in absolute terms, but just the answer not being obvious while the population increased by an order of magnitude already makes your claim quite bad.
> People live with very little prospect of escaping a life of drudgery.
And nobody had no prospect back them.
You can complain that there are some people living almost as badly as people lived in the 1800s. But it's not the majority by far, and you can't claim they are currently living worse.
And, of course, none of that is reason to not demand better things.
As many have pointed out, technological advancement is pointless without social advancement. We have learnt how to treat diseases 10 times over at this point, and yet people still live with them. That is a failure at engineering our social system. Social change is the decisive factor. Technological change without social change is just giving the rich new ways to subjugate or ignore the poor.
This is total bullshit. Rich or poor, infant mortality rate and maternal mortality rate have plunged. The rich do better than the poor, but you're not losing your firstborn to cholera and shit. We have antibiotics and post-natal care. Shit is good now. Forget 200 years ago like the OP said. Try just 1900: 9 out of every 1000 live births resulted in mum dying. Today? In the bottom quartile in my state of California? 18. Per. Hundred Thousand. That's right, two orders of magnitude, almost three.
Back then there were cities in the US where a third of newborns wouldn't see their first birthday. Look at us now! We stand like a colossus. Our children stand healthy. Strong.
You've created some fictional subjugation narrative that is nothing near the truth.
Back then there were cities in the US where a third of newborns wouldn't see their first birthday. Look at us now! We stand like a colossus. Our children stand healthy. Strong.
You've created some fictional subjugation narrative that is nothing near the truth.
A completely fictional narrative that for some reason is uncritically accepted by so many.
No it's not bullshit. Obviously over time all our conditions improve, partially because eventually it just becomes so cheap to do this stuff that even the peasants can get it, or because there was actual TANGIBLE SOCIAL CHANGE. It's usually both. In the UK the NHS was created after ww2, by golly isn't it a feat of technology that less poor people die here. In fact our life expectancy for the poorest is several years higher than in the US, and some countries in Europe have a life expectancy for the poorest people that is 10 years higher than the US. God, I thought the US had some of the most advanced technology on earth? How can this be the case? Surely it can't be beacause of social policy?????? heavy /s
> Some of us do
Almost every single one of us does. The great, huge, gigantic majority of us does. Few realize it though.
Almost every single one of us does. The great, huge, gigantic majority of us does. Few realize it though.
At the scale of 200 years, you have some absolutely staggering human atrocities, fueled by technology. Colonialism, modern warfare, carpet bombing/nukes, industrialized genocide, truly ghastly urban factory life. We can maybe look at the past few decades as the point at which most of the world finally began to enjoy the effects of the industrial revolution. Although the cost may be the collapse of the carrying capacity of the earth for humans and many, many other species.
There's maybe a world in which we select for the biggest wins for human lifespan, like modern medicine, and filter out the parts that are destructive. But that's not the world we live in.
There's maybe a world in which we select for the biggest wins for human lifespan, like modern medicine, and filter out the parts that are destructive. But that's not the world we live in.
It is possible, in this world, for you to move to a less civilized part of the world and emulate the life of 200 years ago. We can have both if we so desire. But your children will almost all die before they see 5 winters. Behave in line with your convictions if you so desire.
You do understand that the countries "stuck in the life of 200 years ago" aren't stuck there just because they don't want to go on, right? Right? Colonization and resource extraction were a thing.
>This thing works, and works dramatically well
Really? It has produced a climate destabilization that may well destroy civilization within the next decade or two.
Really? It has produced a climate destabilization that may well destroy civilization within the next decade or two.
> and that will cause power over everyone to coalesce in the hands of a few people
"Alwsys has been Moon guy gets shot in the back" meme ...
seriously this has been documented over and over most prominently and especially in Jacques Ellul's "La Technique" https://archive.org/details/JacquesEllulTheTechnologicalSoci...
"Alwsys has been Moon guy gets shot in the back" meme ...
seriously this has been documented over and over most prominently and especially in Jacques Ellul's "La Technique" https://archive.org/details/JacquesEllulTheTechnologicalSoci...
He literally cites not-recent examples (and his list is far from exhaustive) of technological skepticism in the paragraph right before. You can rebut that silly claim with his own text, you don’t even need to reach beyond it.
In a world where abundance reigns, the old structures and the leaders who champion them fade into obsolescence. The energy that once went into seeking more begins to flow into sharing, nurturing, and sustaining. In this transformed landscape, resource hoarding and centralized control are not just out of place; they become barriers to the collective human journey toward wisdom and spiritual fulfillment.
When everyone's basic needs are met effortlessly, the focus of life shifts from surviving to thriving, from acquiring to becoming. In such a world, market mechanisms and venture capital don't just lose relevance; they begin to feel like vestiges of an era defined by limitations that no longer exist. The skills once lauded for amassing resources lose their sheen when the quest becomes one of meaning, connection, and collective wellbeing.
The hearts and minds of people turn toward unlocking human potential, fostering creativity, and deepening relationships. In this new reality, leaders who can guide us toward spiritual and emotional enrichment will supersede those who have mastered the art of material accumulation.
In this context, the prominence of individuals like Andreessen, along with constructs such as markets and money, would naturally diminish into insignificance. The irony lies in the fact that such a manifesto would even be conceived, indicating a profound disconnect from the emergent realities of a post-scarcity world.
When everyone's basic needs are met effortlessly, the focus of life shifts from surviving to thriving, from acquiring to becoming. In such a world, market mechanisms and venture capital don't just lose relevance; they begin to feel like vestiges of an era defined by limitations that no longer exist. The skills once lauded for amassing resources lose their sheen when the quest becomes one of meaning, connection, and collective wellbeing.
The hearts and minds of people turn toward unlocking human potential, fostering creativity, and deepening relationships. In this new reality, leaders who can guide us toward spiritual and emotional enrichment will supersede those who have mastered the art of material accumulation.
In this context, the prominence of individuals like Andreessen, along with constructs such as markets and money, would naturally diminish into insignificance. The irony lies in the fact that such a manifesto would even be conceived, indicating a profound disconnect from the emergent realities of a post-scarcity world.
We do not live in a post-scarcity world.
Every day people get up, enforce the laws, execute the national defense, bury themselves up to their elbows in humans’ abdomens to heal their broken bodies, and pick your turnips.
The world is not self-executing.
Market mechanisms coordinate that activity by transmitting information through the price signal. In their absence, the material abundance you mistake for post-scarcity would quickly collapse.
Every day people get up, enforce the laws, execute the national defense, bury themselves up to their elbows in humans’ abdomens to heal their broken bodies, and pick your turnips.
The world is not self-executing.
Market mechanisms coordinate that activity by transmitting information through the price signal. In their absence, the material abundance you mistake for post-scarcity would quickly collapse.
> Every day people get up, [...] and pick your turnips.
There are turnip harvesting machines in wide use:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyAOQtnOJh4
There are turnip harvesting machines in wide use:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyAOQtnOJh4
Why use a throwaway to say that? It’s just truth in the current system, and the current system is the most abundant we’ve had for any significant duration.
It seems that you are describing a utopia, where there are no more problems to solve, other than the purpose of our own existence, and the reconciliation of our mortality in our minds. Although I do think that we can get to a point where things are pretty damn good, perhaps even as good as you describe, I don't think that humans' desire for growth and appetite for problem solving will be quenched. Even if all of our basic and supra-basic needs were met, we would become preoccupied with preserving ourselves from extraterrestrial threats - asteroids, our sun burning out, our earth not being able to permanently sustain us in one way or another, etc. If that's the case, then the desire for planetary defense and intergalactic travel will ensure that techno-capatalist forces are alive and well.
If you are talking about a society that has gotten past that point already, then all bets are off as to what their lives are like.
If you are talking about a society that has gotten past that point already, then all bets are off as to what their lives are like.
While the term 'utopia' might imply a final state of perfection, what I describe is more akin to an inevitable transformation, one that you can almost sense unfolding around us. Machine intelligence is advancing at an unprecedented pace, economic landscapes are shifting, and sociopolitical tensions are reaching critical points. This is not the end of a journey but a metamorphosis toward a different way of life.
Unlike a utopia, which suggests a static state where all problems are solved, this new paradigm acknowledges the insatiable human drive for growth and problem-solving. It doesn't eliminate challenges; it redefines them. In a world where our basic and even our complex needs are met, our focus would naturally shift to grander scales—planetary defense, interstellar travel, and even the quest for existential understanding. However, the metrics of value and systems of exchange that govern this new reality would be fundamentally different, rendering current techno-capitalist forces obsolete in their traditional forms.
Unlike a utopia, which suggests a static state where all problems are solved, this new paradigm acknowledges the insatiable human drive for growth and problem-solving. It doesn't eliminate challenges; it redefines them. In a world where our basic and even our complex needs are met, our focus would naturally shift to grander scales—planetary defense, interstellar travel, and even the quest for existential understanding. However, the metrics of value and systems of exchange that govern this new reality would be fundamentally different, rendering current techno-capitalist forces obsolete in their traditional forms.
One could call liberal democracy a utopia, when compared to feudalism that preceded it. There will always be problems to solve, what the OP is describing is not the absence of problems, but the evolution of social and economic relations in the same way capitalism was the evolution of social and economic relations from feudalism.
really well written reply, much I agree with. Except one part about markets. I think even in the Age of Abundance, market forces will still be present. But I think they will be more like how trees grow to the light, or roots to the water. We will still need signals for efficiency and regrowth.
Hard to say the same about money. I can't see a world without value, and I can't comprehend a system with value but no means to exchange value (money).
In envisioning a future landscape, I see energy—both its generation and consumption—as well as human attention serving as the core currencies of value. These measures transcend the limitations of material wealth, opening avenues for a more holistic understanding of worth. The question of whether this will manifest as a 'market' is less clear, but what is certain is that it would be fundamentally distinct from the systems we navigate today. The incentives driving such an ecosystem would be radically different, to the extent that calling it a market or associating it with money, as we currently understand them, would likely be a misnomer.
In this envisioned system, the nature of transactions could also change fundamentally. Currently, transactions are exchanges that often end relationships; you pay for a good, receive it, and both parties move on. In a framework centered on energy and attention, transactions could become cyclical or ongoing, fostering long-term relationships and community engagement. This extends the concept of "value" beyond one-off exchanges into a more interconnected, perhaps even symbiotic, system.
Just some thoughts from a nobody on a tiny glowing screen.
In this envisioned system, the nature of transactions could also change fundamentally. Currently, transactions are exchanges that often end relationships; you pay for a good, receive it, and both parties move on. In a framework centered on energy and attention, transactions could become cyclical or ongoing, fostering long-term relationships and community engagement. This extends the concept of "value" beyond one-off exchanges into a more interconnected, perhaps even symbiotic, system.
Just some thoughts from a nobody on a tiny glowing screen.
LLMs already radically change the attention economy
I don't understand why people find this idea compelling. I find it without any supporting evidence that this is how it would turn out. They hypothesis is unproven and doesn't match my own observed anecdata around how people function. Yet it seems like everytime it comes up everyone thinks it's obvious.
I just fundamentally don't think a post scarcity society functions even remotely the way everyone else seems to think it would.
I just fundamentally don't think a post scarcity society functions even remotely the way everyone else seems to think it would.
We are already at a point where no human needs to be starving on this earth. Most jobs are useless and unemployment is a constant necessity of the system we live under that benefits elites yet we have all been brainwashed to view unemployed people as the scourge of society rather than the necessary victims of an unequal system. Social change is what creates better living standards, not technological change. Both help, but you can have technological advancement without significant social advancement and that's bad.
The things which people really want will never be abundant. Social status is a zero-sum game.
Status driven monkeys fighting over tree position
That’s why we got Facebook over jet packs. That’s what we are. We need to accept it
That’s why we got Facebook over jet packs. That’s what we are. We need to accept it
We have jet packs. You can buy one if you want, although it isn't very practical.
https://gravity.co/
Status is one of the main factors that drives innovation.
https://gravity.co/
Status is one of the main factors that drives innovation.
Woosh…
There's a lot of this that I agree with wholeheartedly and aggressively. One of the worst modern impulses is techno-pessimism in my opinion, but some of it is somewhere between strange and frankly downright stupid.
Take the "patron saints of techno-optimism". It includes "BasedBeffJezos", a pseudonymous Twitter account that subscribes to NRx ideology, and Nick Land, the progenitor of elitist, bigoted NRx ideology. How exactly do these deserve to be on the same list as great Americans like John Von Neumann? Likewise Thomas Sowell, Mises, the fictional John Galt?
This isn't a serious manifesto, and I say this as someone that would love to see techno-optimism pushed further into the forefront of politics and culture. This is Twitter inside-baseball, not designed to convince anyone that isn't already following a smattering of e/acc accounts that spend 1/3 of their time posting racist memes.
Take the "patron saints of techno-optimism". It includes "BasedBeffJezos", a pseudonymous Twitter account that subscribes to NRx ideology, and Nick Land, the progenitor of elitist, bigoted NRx ideology. How exactly do these deserve to be on the same list as great Americans like John Von Neumann? Likewise Thomas Sowell, Mises, the fictional John Galt?
This isn't a serious manifesto, and I say this as someone that would love to see techno-optimism pushed further into the forefront of politics and culture. This is Twitter inside-baseball, not designed to convince anyone that isn't already following a smattering of e/acc accounts that spend 1/3 of their time posting racist memes.
It's the very definition of sophomoric. A lot of half-baked intellectualism from someone who doesn't actually understand (or pretends not to) any of the actual principles. Surely any Econ 101 student could tell you that Economics isn't the study of capital markets. Things like a clean environment, a vote or personal safety follows the laws of scarcity economics. Addressing the environmental costs of industrialization is absolutely part and parcel of free market economics and the agitators for a clean environment are just trying to get those costs priced in. Declaring them as being opposed to growth because they oppose technological advancement is facile at best and a deliberate straw man at worst.
What worries me most is that this guy is supposed to be the inspirational leader of many startup founders and technologists, in Silicon Valley and elsewhere.
Reading this made me really sad.
It's actually hard for me to conjure the strength to write and share an appropriate response, and explain why.
Let me just mention one of many thoughts. Mark Andreessen cites a number of Patron Saints of Techno-Optimism, "In lieu of detailed endnotes and citations, read the work of these people, and you too will become a Techno-Optimist."
One of them is Filippo Tommaso Marinetti.
This is what FTM writes in his Manifesto of Futurism [0]. (original Italian first, then English translation).
""Noi vogliamo glorificare la guerra - sola igiene del mondo - il militarismo, il patriottismo, il gesto distruttore dei liberatori, le belle idee per cui si muore e il disprezzo della donna."
"We will glorify war - the only true hygiene of the world - militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of anarchist, the beautiful ideas which kill, and the scorn of woman"
In 2023, reading about the "glory of war", and the "scorn of woman", should be enough to know what's needed to judge this guy.
Mark, you are really smart and successful and most people would envy your fame and wealth and intelligence, but you need to grow up for once and realize how sick some of your ideas are.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifesto_of_Futurism
Reading this made me really sad.
It's actually hard for me to conjure the strength to write and share an appropriate response, and explain why.
Let me just mention one of many thoughts. Mark Andreessen cites a number of Patron Saints of Techno-Optimism, "In lieu of detailed endnotes and citations, read the work of these people, and you too will become a Techno-Optimist."
One of them is Filippo Tommaso Marinetti.
This is what FTM writes in his Manifesto of Futurism [0]. (original Italian first, then English translation).
""Noi vogliamo glorificare la guerra - sola igiene del mondo - il militarismo, il patriottismo, il gesto distruttore dei liberatori, le belle idee per cui si muore e il disprezzo della donna."
"We will glorify war - the only true hygiene of the world - militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of anarchist, the beautiful ideas which kill, and the scorn of woman"
In 2023, reading about the "glory of war", and the "scorn of woman", should be enough to know what's needed to judge this guy.
Mark, you are really smart and successful and most people would envy your fame and wealth and intelligence, but you need to grow up for once and realize how sick some of your ideas are.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifesto_of_Futurism
The idea of someone unironicly promoting Marinetti (a co-author of the Fascist Manifesto) in 2023 is mind-blowing. I get the idea of wanting to be optimistic about technology, but Marinetti is a cautionary tale of how optimism about technology can morph into disdain for humanity. He’s an anti-role model, the thing we need to be careful not to become.
This is where the Overton window is shifting.
See the deafening silence of the media on Nazis in Ukraine, and the recent mind-blowing case of the heads of state of Canada, Ukraine, and the entire Canadian parliament giving a standing ovation to a literal SS officer, which has triggered discussions (even here on HN) in the vein of “actually some Nazis were good guys”, which would also be unthinkable just a few years ago.
See the deafening silence of the media on Nazis in Ukraine, and the recent mind-blowing case of the heads of state of Canada, Ukraine, and the entire Canadian parliament giving a standing ovation to a literal SS officer, which has triggered discussions (even here on HN) in the vein of “actually some Nazis were good guys”, which would also be unthinkable just a few years ago.
I think the Canada thing was an honest oversight. The party in power isn’t even a right wing party. Pretty centrist. They don’t have any motivation to shift the overton window in the “maybe we’re okay with Nazis now?” direction.
I know what you mean but I think there is more context that enables such an oversight to happen.
It feels like a product of the "we have always been at war with Russia" political fluidity when the applause was triggered by claims of fighting Russia in 1940. Today we funnel guns to units wearing SS unit patches with no scandal. There is no international effort for peace. There is no widely held principle that we must turn enemies into allies. Instead there is glee at every Russian death and disinterest, unless useful, in every Ukrainian death. To be anti-war gets you treated as a crank. It makes me feel sick.
It feels like a product of the "we have always been at war with Russia" political fluidity when the applause was triggered by claims of fighting Russia in 1940. Today we funnel guns to units wearing SS unit patches with no scandal. There is no international effort for peace. There is no widely held principle that we must turn enemies into allies. Instead there is glee at every Russian death and disinterest, unless useful, in every Ukrainian death. To be anti-war gets you treated as a crank. It makes me feel sick.
One can hope that every single one of the 200+ highly educated members of the elite ruling class of Canada made this “honest oversight”. At least they can claim it after some kind of apologies were made. Not so much for Zelensky who didn’t mention this incident at all, since honoring Nazis is business-as-usual in Ukraine.
Still, I can see how it can benefit the Canadian party too, because the original electorate would either not notice this or accept the apology and forget about it, thus not impacting the status quo, but now they also get the neo-Nazi vote after this wink and nod.
Still, I can see how it can benefit the Canadian party too, because the original electorate would either not notice this or accept the apology and forget about it, thus not impacting the status quo, but now they also get the neo-Nazi vote after this wink and nod.
> Markets prevent monopolies and cartels.
A lot of the optimism seems to rely on this statement and...I'm not convinced? But I also admit I'm not well informed on the topic. Does anyone have suggested reading on 'market discipline', as they're calling it?
I mean, the first person on their "Patron Saints of Techno-Optimism" is Jeff Bezos, who is actively dealing with an antitrust lawsuit from the FTC regarding Amazon's frequent and regular push toward monopoly power.
A lot of the optimism seems to rely on this statement and...I'm not convinced? But I also admit I'm not well informed on the topic. Does anyone have suggested reading on 'market discipline', as they're calling it?
I mean, the first person on their "Patron Saints of Techno-Optimism" is Jeff Bezos, who is actively dealing with an antitrust lawsuit from the FTC regarding Amazon's frequent and regular push toward monopoly power.
I really want to love this manifesto. This is my one sticking point. Regulatory capture, monopolies, and cartels are the fatal flaw in this techno-optimism, and they break everything. Let's say I subscribe to this wonderful story Marc tells. Please tell me the purpose of government if it is not to destroy cartels and monopolies. They are every bit as bad as the government, which is a type of monopoly itself.
Isn't that them speaking from multiple sides of the mouth? It's a manifesto by... venture capitalists. They have a very specific and diverse audience that they want to read this.
I mean, there is not going to be any low-interest capital flowing in to fuel all these techno-optimist ideals if the start-ups can't later be acquired by the existing monopolies.
I mean, there is not going to be any low-interest capital flowing in to fuel all these techno-optimist ideals if the start-ups can't later be acquired by the existing monopolies.
Point me to a resistant monopoly or cartel and I will show you a government granted/supported one. Free markets are naturally resistant through free competition (startups!) and, you know, laws.
> Point me to a resistant monopoly or cartel and I will show you a government granted/supported one.
Microsoft famously made deals with laptop vendors to prevent Dell, HP, and so on from selling computers with any operating system other than Windows: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundling_of_Microsoft_Windows
Similarly, Intel stifled AMD by providing financial incentives to vendors who offered no AMD-based products: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Micro_Devices,_Inc._v....
Were those government supported monopolistic behaviors? Does the "free market" mean that a competitor could have simply made one company that produced an entire laptop, OS, and CPU from scratch to provide the consumer a cheaper choice?
Why would the "free market" lead to vibrant competition, rather than monopolistic hoarding of power?
Microsoft famously made deals with laptop vendors to prevent Dell, HP, and so on from selling computers with any operating system other than Windows: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundling_of_Microsoft_Windows
Similarly, Intel stifled AMD by providing financial incentives to vendors who offered no AMD-based products: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Micro_Devices,_Inc._v....
Were those government supported monopolistic behaviors? Does the "free market" mean that a competitor could have simply made one company that produced an entire laptop, OS, and CPU from scratch to provide the consumer a cheaper choice?
Why would the "free market" lead to vibrant competition, rather than monopolistic hoarding of power?
Government's action did had zero effect against Microsoft. Slap on the wrist. Their monopoly was naturally made irrelevant by the market moving onto the next tech frontier: mobile & cloud.
The free market lead to that. Countless startups trying everything under the sun made sure incumbents like Apple or Google had to innovate, acquire and evolve to avoid Microsoft's fate. In a free market there is always a chance a new startup will spring up and upend the order. Tons of VC money are continuously trying exactly that.
The free market lead to that. Countless startups trying everything under the sun made sure incumbents like Apple or Google had to innovate, acquire and evolve to avoid Microsoft's fate. In a free market there is always a chance a new startup will spring up and upend the order. Tons of VC money are continuously trying exactly that.
The only reason that mobile went the way it did was because Microsoft was so afraid of government Antitrust action that they let Apple survive
Apple survived thanks to Steve Jobs and Steve Jobs alone. He could've built his vision in any company or startup though, when he took over Apple was a few weeks away from bankruptcy.
Without Microsoft Office and Internet Explorer, the Mac would have been dead. Gil Amelio negotiated their continuation (as settlement for the old Look & Feel and QuickTime lawsuits) with Microsoft and Jobs closed the deal by letting up on some of Amelio's demands. Microsoft could have just said no and the Mac would have been useless to both education and business and they would have been dead in weeks as you said.
NeXT would never have built the iPhone, they had given up on hardware.
NeXT would never have built the iPhone, they had given up on hardware.
It’s not possible to know what other factors would’ve or wouldn’t have come into play, who would’ve done what else in this alternate history of yours. It’s just speculation.
> Free markets are naturally resistant through free competition
That's circular logic. Free markets are defined as those in which competition happens. Unregulated markets often tend towards cartelization and monopoly.
> and, you know, laws.
Which need to be enforced by governments.
> Point me to a resistant monopoly or cartel and I will show you a government granted/supported one.
The whole robber baron era is a counterexample - the likes of Standard Oil getting broken up by the goverment. Market competition is powerful but it only works when the government is actively enforcing a competitive market, which there is sadly little enthusiasm for lately.
That's circular logic. Free markets are defined as those in which competition happens. Unregulated markets often tend towards cartelization and monopoly.
> and, you know, laws.
Which need to be enforced by governments.
> Point me to a resistant monopoly or cartel and I will show you a government granted/supported one.
The whole robber baron era is a counterexample - the likes of Standard Oil getting broken up by the goverment. Market competition is powerful but it only works when the government is actively enforcing a competitive market, which there is sadly little enthusiasm for lately.
Nobody said anything about not having governments. Rule of Law is required for societies to even exist.
Read some more on the robber baron era - you'll find out Standard Oil was already losing to competition before government action. For another great example how the free market broke a cartel, read up on how Dow Chemical fought the German bromine cartel:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Henry_Dow#Breaking_a_m...
No government intervention necessary.
Read some more on the robber baron era - you'll find out Standard Oil was already losing to competition before government action. For another great example how the free market broke a cartel, read up on how Dow Chemical fought the German bromine cartel:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Henry_Dow#Breaking_a_m...
No government intervention necessary.
> Nobody said anything about not having governments.
That's very clearly where you're going with this though.
> Point me to a resistant monopoly or cartel and I will show you a government granted/supported one.
That's very clearly where you're going with this though.
> Point me to a resistant monopoly or cartel and I will show you a government granted/supported one.
Please don't put words in my mouth. Government's role in a free market economy is quite essential: upholding rule of law (specifically contract law) and taxing externalities. Overreach is the problem though (like regulating the charging port on my damn phone).
Any capital intensive project can become a resistant monopoly for the first mover, who then manipulates pricing to prevent competition.
> who then manipulates pricing to prevent competition
How exactly? Reducing profits defeats the purpose of becoming a monopoly, while any sliver of profit is the startup's opportunity.
To create a monopoly you need to restrict competition some other way, like through governmental regulation.
How exactly? Reducing profits defeats the purpose of becoming a monopoly, while any sliver of profit is the startup's opportunity.
To create a monopoly you need to restrict competition some other way, like through governmental regulation.
> Reducing profits defeats the purpose of becoming a monopoly, while any sliver of profit is the startup's opportunity.
Only if you ignore the concept of loss leaders, or the very act of competing in the market itself by undercutting competitors' prices. Companies are very happy to receive less money in the short term in exchange for guaranteed recurring revenue in the long term, it's only rational after all, and applies as much to a yearly subscription being cheaper than 12 individual monthly subscriptions as it does to established companies accepting reduced revenue in the short term to guarantee their share of the market in the long term.
This is all pretty obvious from a basic understanding of how companies work TBH.
Only if you ignore the concept of loss leaders, or the very act of competing in the market itself by undercutting competitors' prices. Companies are very happy to receive less money in the short term in exchange for guaranteed recurring revenue in the long term, it's only rational after all, and applies as much to a yearly subscription being cheaper than 12 individual monthly subscriptions as it does to established companies accepting reduced revenue in the short term to guarantee their share of the market in the long term.
This is all pretty obvious from a basic understanding of how companies work TBH.
Loss leaders, price dumping and price wars are as old as the world and free markets are perfectly capable to deal with them. Here's how how Dow Chemical fought the German bromine cartel's price dumping at the beginning of the last century:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Henry_Dow#Breaking_a_m...
No government intervention necessary.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Henry_Dow#Breaking_a_m...
No government intervention necessary.
And how do you think a government reinforcing a monopoly comes to be?
Countless ways. From sheer governmental incompetence like when regulating the competition out of markets. To simply not understanding second order effects when “helping markets” with patents and humongous copyright terms. To not understanding supply and demand when pressed to fulfill voter promises like when attempting to control and fix prices. To being captive to interest groups that end up controlling a huge chunk of economy like in heath care.
But most of all through sheer, pure corruption. Because why else would someone become a politician - a relatively low paid position - if not to be in a position to transform all that power and influence into money, for the highest bidder?
But most of all through sheer, pure corruption. Because why else would someone become a politician - a relatively low paid position - if not to be in a position to transform all that power and influence into money, for the highest bidder?
And who are the highest bidders?
Corporations, in America, where the travesty known as Citizens United exists.
(I'm not claiming that other countries don't have money in politics; but America is the one where it is most clearly enshrined with an actual name to the philosophy)
(I'm not claiming that other countries don't have money in politics; but America is the one where it is most clearly enshrined with an actual name to the philosophy)
Incumbents, of course. The ones holding the largest interest in preserving the status-quo and freezing competition. Professional organizations needing power to preserve the barrier of entry. Huge, trans-national Unions.
But other power brokers as well. Other politicians with more money. Their own stock holdings. Foreign powers. Well moneyed interest groups. Ideological organizations siphoning old money.
Occasionally even the scrappy start-up trying to game the system. These usually fail, see SBF - but they are not saints either.
There is no shortage in interests vying to corrupt politicians. Somehow they never mind and always succumb.
But other power brokers as well. Other politicians with more money. Their own stock holdings. Foreign powers. Well moneyed interest groups. Ideological organizations siphoning old money.
Occasionally even the scrappy start-up trying to game the system. These usually fail, see SBF - but they are not saints either.
There is no shortage in interests vying to corrupt politicians. Somehow they never mind and always succumb.
Right. Land and air telecommunications are almost totally controlled by Verizon and AT&T. They are also some of the largest cable companies, although Comcast is a competitor. Although Comcast owns NBCUniversal, and we can start getting into the media monopoly.
We can go through business by business and see the rise of monopolies and oligopolies. Universal owns half of the US music market - Universal, Sony and Warner own over 80% of the US music market. Accounting is done by the Big Four, advertising by its own Big Four.
Just down the line - consolidation, oligopoly, monopoly. That is what markets produce. Standard Oil reversed its breakup into ExxonMobil, as did the Baby Bells into Verizon and AT&T. Even the government intervention into the monopolies gets reversed.
We can go through business by business and see the rise of monopolies and oligopolies. Universal owns half of the US music market - Universal, Sony and Warner own over 80% of the US music market. Accounting is done by the Big Four, advertising by its own Big Four.
Just down the line - consolidation, oligopoly, monopoly. That is what markets produce. Standard Oil reversed its breakup into ExxonMobil, as did the Baby Bells into Verizon and AT&T. Even the government intervention into the monopolies gets reversed.
What organization has a media monopoly? You have access to the internet, with which you can access media from individuals all the way up to multiple large corporations.
On the national level, there are multiple sources of news (NYT/News Corp/Disney/Comcast/Paramount/WaPo/LATimes/etc). There are lots of sources of professionally and amateur produced entertainment. Apple/Amazon/Comcast/Disney/Sony/WarnerBrosDiscovery/Paramount/etc.
If anything, the monopoly exists on wired broadband to peoples homes, which is usually only available from one seller.
On the national level, there are multiple sources of news (NYT/News Corp/Disney/Comcast/Paramount/WaPo/LATimes/etc). There are lots of sources of professionally and amateur produced entertainment. Apple/Amazon/Comcast/Disney/Sony/WarnerBrosDiscovery/Paramount/etc.
If anything, the monopoly exists on wired broadband to peoples homes, which is usually only available from one seller.
Ownership:
NYT - billionaire Sulzberger family
WaPo - Jeff Bezos
LA Times - billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong
Disney/Comcast/Paramount represent the consolidation of an industry that used to be hundreds of independent newsrooms into a dozen or so corporations. The murdoch family's New Corp is regularly analyzed as a political force on par with individual elected leaders, if not more so.
Entertainment: Apple/Amazon/Comcast/Disney/Sony/WarnerBrosDiscovery/Paramount
The problem is that the industry has consolidated into a number of players you can count on one hand.
NYT - billionaire Sulzberger family
WaPo - Jeff Bezos
LA Times - billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong
Disney/Comcast/Paramount represent the consolidation of an industry that used to be hundreds of independent newsrooms into a dozen or so corporations. The murdoch family's New Corp is regularly analyzed as a political force on par with individual elected leaders, if not more so.
Entertainment: Apple/Amazon/Comcast/Disney/Sony/WarnerBrosDiscovery/Paramount
The problem is that the industry has consolidated into a number of players you can count on one hand.
Market discipline acts as a challenge, and humans figure out ways around challenges to maximize some reward (money). Market discipline is only enforced by humans and they have weaknesses.
This manifesto wants to pretend that the rules enforce themselves by some natural property of the system akin to physics or biology, and not from humans.
The manifesto is completely flawed on markets because what requires people to be discriminatory buyers is scarcity, which is opposite of what this manifesto is suggesting we work towards. It has no plans on how to handle technological abundance's (not post-scarcity) affect on market behavior:
>We believe markets are the way to generate societal wealth for everything else we want to pay for
This manifesto wants to pretend that the rules enforce themselves by some natural property of the system akin to physics or biology, and not from humans.
The manifesto is completely flawed on markets because what requires people to be discriminatory buyers is scarcity, which is opposite of what this manifesto is suggesting we work towards. It has no plans on how to handle technological abundance's (not post-scarcity) affect on market behavior:
>We believe markets are the way to generate societal wealth for everything else we want to pay for
> I mean, the first person on their "Patron Saints of Techno-Optimism" is Jeff Bezos
No, it's an anonymous Twitter account, you read the name wrong, "Beff Jezos" (sic), not "Jeff Bezos".
Also if you look at the purest form of markets, which is probably high frequency trading, there are no monopolies and no cartels. It's an intensely competitive industry with relatively small profits given their transaction volume.
No, it's an anonymous Twitter account, you read the name wrong, "Beff Jezos" (sic), not "Jeff Bezos".
Also if you look at the purest form of markets, which is probably high frequency trading, there are no monopolies and no cartels. It's an intensely competitive industry with relatively small profits given their transaction volume.
I don't think that's correct. Access to the fiber links or colocation in a facility is not only ridiculously expensive you have to know the right people (the cartel) to get it done.
I can't just offer a crazy amount of money and get access, the other major players have to let me play.
I can't just offer a crazy amount of money and get access, the other major players have to let me play.
You actually can just offer a (not very large) amount of money and get access. The fees aren't even that large and they are public see [1] for example. The startup costs for an HFT would be comparable to a restaurant buildout, it's really not a capital intensive business.
[1]: https://www.nyse.com/publicdocs/Wireless_Connectivity_Fees_a...
[1]: https://www.nyse.com/publicdocs/Wireless_Connectivity_Fees_a...
If that's "the purest form" of something, give me the dirty version any day.
An utterly useless human activity, that does nothing for actual humanity but simply serves as a wealth redistribution technique shared among a tiny number of highly-self-interested individuals ... it might be "pure" but it's not "pure" in any way.
An utterly useless human activity, that does nothing for actual humanity but simply serves as a wealth redistribution technique shared among a tiny number of highly-self-interested individuals ... it might be "pure" but it's not "pure" in any way.
You don't understand market making and it's not ok to pretend you do.
I don't know if you have been on the other side of what market makers do, but its not exactly a day at the beach. Once you gain enough insight to see whats going on the charts you just see it as a graveyard of traders positions, stop losses and their capital. This happens every minute the market is open at every timeframe.
Have you ever wonder why the markets appear so irrational? Great economic data and the worse drop in months or vice versa. These are the expectations, emotions and psychology of the masses that are liquidated by market makers. Have you also just had a gut instinct to buy or sell and market moves completely opposite beyond your psychological limit. Only for it to start moving into profit once you have closed at a huge loss. This is all market makers do all day.
In principle there is nothing immoral here. Participants are all taking risks voluntarily, no one is forcing you risk trading the stock market. But in practice market makers take positions at the stop losses 90% of market participants giving them significantly overwhelming supply of assets at the best prices, while everyone else sees consistent intractable losses.
This is a Darwinian environment where only the biggest, fiercest and most aggressive players will win by killing weaker, smaller and less knowledgeable players. The only way for a small fish to win is to understand the rules the market makers play by. Their strengths, desires, weaknesses, limitations and once you do you realize that this was someone's capital, but it's also capital not going to the market makers.
Have you ever wonder why the markets appear so irrational? Great economic data and the worse drop in months or vice versa. These are the expectations, emotions and psychology of the masses that are liquidated by market makers. Have you also just had a gut instinct to buy or sell and market moves completely opposite beyond your psychological limit. Only for it to start moving into profit once you have closed at a huge loss. This is all market makers do all day.
In principle there is nothing immoral here. Participants are all taking risks voluntarily, no one is forcing you risk trading the stock market. But in practice market makers take positions at the stop losses 90% of market participants giving them significantly overwhelming supply of assets at the best prices, while everyone else sees consistent intractable losses.
This is a Darwinian environment where only the biggest, fiercest and most aggressive players will win by killing weaker, smaller and less knowledgeable players. The only way for a small fish to win is to understand the rules the market makers play by. Their strengths, desires, weaknesses, limitations and once you do you realize that this was someone's capital, but it's also capital not going to the market makers.
I think you intended to reply to me (GP), not the parent.
You're ignoring my objection to this stuff, which has nothing to do with immorality and everything to do with with the waste and misdirection of resources. Why do people participate in this stuff? Because someone might get rich. From my POV, that's a waste and misdirection of resources. People getting rich is not the right motivation for pareto or utilitarian optimal allocations.
You're ignoring my objection to this stuff, which has nothing to do with immorality and everything to do with with the waste and misdirection of resources. Why do people participate in this stuff? Because someone might get rich. From my POV, that's a waste and misdirection of resources. People getting rich is not the right motivation for pareto or utilitarian optimal allocations.
People are entitled to do things that are not an optimal resource allocation. Social systems that block that tend be very nasty.
Capitalism and people getting rich is for better or worse exactly the stabilizing factor that has lead to the success of the modern world we take for granted. Capitalism is the worst except for all the others.
I empathize that it appears the case it's not an optimal allocation, but to say you know it's a misallocation leans overly simplistic.
What you see as misdirection of resources is the product of competitive market forces that drive innovation and efficiency. And the market often finds value in ways not immediately apparent.
Is less efficient resource arbitration (futures, forex) worth the trade-off? Producers can make their own market and set their own prices. But do that in an information vacuum and there will be increased deadweight loss in the form of higher bid-ask spreads, increasing costs, reducing economic activity.
There are more benefits in the form of reducing volatility and increasing liquidity.
It is not at all as obvious as you make it that society would be better off had HFTs and similarly received sorts of "financialization" not exist.
I empathize that it appears the case it's not an optimal allocation, but to say you know it's a misallocation leans overly simplistic.
What you see as misdirection of resources is the product of competitive market forces that drive innovation and efficiency. And the market often finds value in ways not immediately apparent.
Is less efficient resource arbitration (futures, forex) worth the trade-off? Producers can make their own market and set their own prices. But do that in an information vacuum and there will be increased deadweight loss in the form of higher bid-ask spreads, increasing costs, reducing economic activity.
There are more benefits in the form of reducing volatility and increasing liquidity.
It is not at all as obvious as you make it that society would be better off had HFTs and similarly received sorts of "financialization" not exist.
> I empathize that it appears the case it's not an optimal allocation, but to say you know it's a misallocation leans overly simplistic.
I empathize that it appears the case that the market has some emergent properties that allow it to optimize allocation, but to say you know its an optimal allocation leans overly simplistic.
"I think investing in a venture that will do <X> seems like a good idea" may, indeed, have some connection to an at least pareto optimal resource allocation.
"I will offer your $X in N months for <X>" might also play a useful role in resource allocation.
"I will buy this 3rd derivative instrument that reflects guesswork about guesswork about preferences and hold it for 3 hours" is just the financial service industry fucking us over.
I empathize that it appears the case that the market has some emergent properties that allow it to optimize allocation, but to say you know its an optimal allocation leans overly simplistic.
"I think investing in a venture that will do <X> seems like a good idea" may, indeed, have some connection to an at least pareto optimal resource allocation.
"I will offer your $X in N months for <X>" might also play a useful role in resource allocation.
"I will buy this 3rd derivative instrument that reflects guesswork about guesswork about preferences and hold it for 3 hours" is just the financial service industry fucking us over.
I did not suggest knowing it's optimal either.
I'm pointing out The Economy/Market and its mechanisms is a complex system. I urged caution making conclusions from facile knee jerk first order observables when it's the unknown nth order effects we should probably try to identify and characterize first.
> just the financial service industry fucking us over.
Maybe. But why think you know this? I haven't even tried to quantify the pros/cons, and I'm unwilling to stake a position until I do.
I'm pointing out The Economy/Market and its mechanisms is a complex system. I urged caution making conclusions from facile knee jerk first order observables when it's the unknown nth order effects we should probably try to identify and characterize first.
> just the financial service industry fucking us over.
Maybe. But why think you know this? I haven't even tried to quantify the pros/cons, and I'm unwilling to stake a position until I do.
I don't know it in the way that I know about gravity or garbage collection. But I know it in the sense that the end results of this complex system are at best subject to debate as a net win given metrics that include the environment and equitability. A system with the set of pros and cons that the current one demonstrates on a daily basis seems incredibly unlikely to me to be remotely close to optimal.
Now, what does seem true is that it is easy to tell stories about this system that focus on its pros, of which there are many, and thus to construct the overall impression that we should be cautious about changing or discarding it.
In and of itself, that's not a problem. However, combined with the fact stories about the cons are routinely marginalized, discarded as not serious, simply ignored and forth, this is a problem. It leads to a strong bias in favor of the status quo - look at the all the good things we get! we must careful not to lose them! - and an equally strong bias against change attempting to target the much, much less culturally visible cons.
When I see a system that combines externalities, wild inequality of outcome and this sort of builtin restistance to tackling the cons, my facile knee jerk reaction is to assume that it is rigged. More pertinently, even if the alternatives do present various risks, we should be exploring "the neighborhood" with an awareness that we may not even be in a local optimum, let alone a global one.
Now, what does seem true is that it is easy to tell stories about this system that focus on its pros, of which there are many, and thus to construct the overall impression that we should be cautious about changing or discarding it.
In and of itself, that's not a problem. However, combined with the fact stories about the cons are routinely marginalized, discarded as not serious, simply ignored and forth, this is a problem. It leads to a strong bias in favor of the status quo - look at the all the good things we get! we must careful not to lose them! - and an equally strong bias against change attempting to target the much, much less culturally visible cons.
When I see a system that combines externalities, wild inequality of outcome and this sort of builtin restistance to tackling the cons, my facile knee jerk reaction is to assume that it is rigged. More pertinently, even if the alternatives do present various risks, we should be exploring "the neighborhood" with an awareness that we may not even be in a local optimum, let alone a global one.
> When I see a system that combines externalities, wild inequality of outcome and this sort of builtin restistance to tackling the cons, my facile knee jerk reaction is to assume that it is rigged.
But that's just the brain's bias towards simple explanations and well-defined actors - the Ockham's Razor heuristic you could call it. Truth is we're still in the early stages of capitalism where most (all?) nations aren't stably resourced and as such geopolitical strategy and internal unrest can and will undo capital expansion with a stroke of the pen or a bullet from a gun. The need for monopolisable extractative resources such as fossil fuels ensures that capital will trend towards monopolistic behemoths with deep connections to their governments, and that permeates down into capital as a whole.
Moving to a more decentralised model of resourcing means less need for national security to favour and support massive quasi-governmental corporations that are "too vital to fail" and which leads to an environment where the inevitable endpoint of every market sector is consolidation into their own behemoth conglomerates. The more dispersed your resource acquisition is, the less dependent on massive corporations governments will be.
But that's just the brain's bias towards simple explanations and well-defined actors - the Ockham's Razor heuristic you could call it. Truth is we're still in the early stages of capitalism where most (all?) nations aren't stably resourced and as such geopolitical strategy and internal unrest can and will undo capital expansion with a stroke of the pen or a bullet from a gun. The need for monopolisable extractative resources such as fossil fuels ensures that capital will trend towards monopolistic behemoths with deep connections to their governments, and that permeates down into capital as a whole.
Moving to a more decentralised model of resourcing means less need for national security to favour and support massive quasi-governmental corporations that are "too vital to fail" and which leads to an environment where the inevitable endpoint of every market sector is consolidation into their own behemoth conglomerates. The more dispersed your resource acquisition is, the less dependent on massive corporations governments will be.
Instead of reaching for this horribly irritating snark (I'm sure GP understands market making enough to understand why HFT exists), why not be charitable and consider the opportunity cost of the smartest people spending their mental energy to create a slightly more efficient market? Is this really a responsible use of this resource?
Consider a similar irritation when seeing those with a superficial grasp of a complex topic oversimplify and make unwarranted conclusions.
And it's precisely the GPs unwavering certainty that HFTs are net negative that accurately informs they do not understand the full implications of what HFTs offer.
Because when you're aware of the full picture, it is not at all obvious society will be better off without it.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37912662
And it's precisely the GPs unwavering certainty that HFTs are net negative that accurately informs they do not understand the full implications of what HFTs offer.
Because when you're aware of the full picture, it is not at all obvious society will be better off without it.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37912662
HFT is a dance in the shadows of the most highly-regulated practices in history (securities exchanges), I don't think it's a good example of "pure" markets being immune to monopolies.
Each of those regulations is a tombstone for the monopolies and cartels that came before, and there will absolutely be more tombstones to come. The history of the stock market is rife with corruption, stock manipulation, and short-thrifting the general public. The great fortunes of the 20th century were made on the backs of practices that are all kinds of illegal today, and with good reason.
Each of those regulations is a tombstone for the monopolies and cartels that came before, and there will absolutely be more tombstones to come. The history of the stock market is rife with corruption, stock manipulation, and short-thrifting the general public. The great fortunes of the 20th century were made on the backs of practices that are all kinds of illegal today, and with good reason.
Sigh, sad b/c I actually know this, but just a small correction.
That's an anonymous Twitter/X account @BasedBeffJezos not the actual head Jeff himself.
Founder(?) of the e/acc philosophy
That's an anonymous Twitter/X account @BasedBeffJezos not the actual head Jeff himself.
Founder(?) of the e/acc philosophy
This is worse than the actual Jeff Bezos, who constructed a trillion dollar company that underpins the internet, and is instead just an alt-right NRx troll on the internet.
Hah! Thanks for the correction / info; I do appreciate it.
Yeah. If anything, monopolies and cartels spring into being within a free market. Over and over and over again.
They're so dangerous to free markets because they hack the core freedoms into a positive feedback loop. Collusion beats naked competition; it's why our ancestors evolved to form societies instead of eating each other.
They're so dangerous to free markets because they hack the core freedoms into a positive feedback loop. Collusion beats naked competition; it's why our ancestors evolved to form societies instead of eating each other.
Read more closely: Jeff Bezos isn't mentioned. A pseudonymous X account known for gonzo tech/AI optimism, @BasedBeffJezos, is.
Even absent contracts (which exist to enable collusion) the iterated prisoner's dilemma and its generalizations seem to be solvable by tacit agreement (in the two party case, by tit for tat).
The only people who maintain that markets have the perfect competition property are those who define markets this way. Their existence is left as an exercise.
The only people who maintain that markets have the perfect competition property are those who define markets this way. Their existence is left as an exercise.
Free markets allow for and even encourage monopolies and cartels in the short term because those drive up profit margins. But over a longer time scale most are eventually destroyed by missing a disruptive innovation.
[deleted]
This was deeply depressing to read, and indicates that the trend of disengagement between VCs (and SV tech culture, more generally) and our larger society is continuing apace.
Rather than doing anything else, a man worth approximately $1.8B[1] is posting screeds wherein he churlishly tells the rest of us to read Internet-poisoned reactionaries. No sane culture would be optimistic about any system or scheme that produces such results; we do much better to run screaming in the exact opposite direction.
[1]: https://www.forbes.com/profile/marc-andreessen/
Rather than doing anything else, a man worth approximately $1.8B[1] is posting screeds wherein he churlishly tells the rest of us to read Internet-poisoned reactionaries. No sane culture would be optimistic about any system or scheme that produces such results; we do much better to run screaming in the exact opposite direction.
[1]: https://www.forbes.com/profile/marc-andreessen/
Hear, hear. I was especially appalled by seeing aforementioned reactionaries listed alongside thinkers that likely would've pulled this manifested to shreds (e.g. Bertrand Russell).
> Markets
> We believe central economic planning elevates the worst of us and drags everyone down; markets exploit the best of us to benefit all of us
> We believe central planning is a doom loop; markets are an upward spiral
There's many things off with this. The USSR from the 1920s to early 1950s had enormous economic growth - particularly in the 1930s when so-called free markets in the West had collapsed, by the 1950s and early 1960s it was sending satellites and men to space - before the West. Also, the PRC had enormous economic growth from the early 1950s to late 1970s (and afterward as well).
Also, the US economy is centrally planned. Billions are flowing to military contractors for Israel right now as they were to the Ukraine before - the US is pumping over $800 billion (really over a trillion) this year into this centrally planned economy, and it also de facto plans for the giant medical sector. The Internet we type on was built over decades with government money.
But most importantly, as these are more minor issues - it is a false comparison. The Soviet Union had markets selling radishes for rubles, just like the US does (for dollars). So both had markets.
The difference is the USSR from the 1920s to mid-1960s made production decisions based on the general welfare, the desire for a space program etc. Workers on collective farms made their own decisions, with perhaps some government quotas. In the US decisions are made to benefit the heirs who own companies as opposed to the workers who do the work.
But that is a minor point. The point is that both had markets, little different from one another. But the distribution portion of the economy for the US is compared to the centrally planned production if the other economy. It makes no sense. The US production controlled by and for the benefit of heirs is unmentioned. The USSR-like market identical to to the US market is unmentioned. We compare US production to USSR-like distribution. The comparison makes no sense. Purposefully.
> We believe central economic planning elevates the worst of us and drags everyone down; markets exploit the best of us to benefit all of us
> We believe central planning is a doom loop; markets are an upward spiral
There's many things off with this. The USSR from the 1920s to early 1950s had enormous economic growth - particularly in the 1930s when so-called free markets in the West had collapsed, by the 1950s and early 1960s it was sending satellites and men to space - before the West. Also, the PRC had enormous economic growth from the early 1950s to late 1970s (and afterward as well).
Also, the US economy is centrally planned. Billions are flowing to military contractors for Israel right now as they were to the Ukraine before - the US is pumping over $800 billion (really over a trillion) this year into this centrally planned economy, and it also de facto plans for the giant medical sector. The Internet we type on was built over decades with government money.
But most importantly, as these are more minor issues - it is a false comparison. The Soviet Union had markets selling radishes for rubles, just like the US does (for dollars). So both had markets.
The difference is the USSR from the 1920s to mid-1960s made production decisions based on the general welfare, the desire for a space program etc. Workers on collective farms made their own decisions, with perhaps some government quotas. In the US decisions are made to benefit the heirs who own companies as opposed to the workers who do the work.
But that is a minor point. The point is that both had markets, little different from one another. But the distribution portion of the economy for the US is compared to the centrally planned production if the other economy. It makes no sense. The US production controlled by and for the benefit of heirs is unmentioned. The USSR-like market identical to to the US market is unmentioned. We compare US production to USSR-like distribution. The comparison makes no sense. Purposefully.
There is a lot wrong with your statement. The US economy has parts that are centrally planned.
The PRC had enormous economic growth - and also a famine that killed millions of people. It was a centrally planned absolute catastrophe. Then in the 1970s, they realized that central planning wasn't going to keep working, so they moved to more of a free market approach - not totally, but much more than they had. And growth continued for several more decades.
> But the distribution portion of the economy for the US is compared to the centrally planned production if the other economy. It makes no sense.
Where are you getting this from? Certainly not from the parts you quote.
The PRC had enormous economic growth - and also a famine that killed millions of people. It was a centrally planned absolute catastrophe. Then in the 1970s, they realized that central planning wasn't going to keep working, so they moved to more of a free market approach - not totally, but much more than they had. And growth continued for several more decades.
> But the distribution portion of the economy for the US is compared to the centrally planned production if the other economy. It makes no sense.
Where are you getting this from? Certainly not from the parts you quote.
Workers on collective farms up until the early 70s were not allowed to have passports issued to them. Without a passport one couldn't move to a city.
Also, those millions of the most productive of them murdered in the Gulag "from the 1920s to mid-1960s" surely "made their own decisions" poorly.
Where your position touches upon reality is that the US economy has been getting increasingly centrally planned since 2008. It's a major problem.
Also, those millions of the most productive of them murdered in the Gulag "from the 1920s to mid-1960s" surely "made their own decisions" poorly.
Where your position touches upon reality is that the US economy has been getting increasingly centrally planned since 2008. It's a major problem.
> Workers on collective farms made their own decisions, with perhaps some government quotas.
Was this before famine and being sent to prisons or killed for objecting to having their land taken by the state?
Was this before famine and being sent to prisons or killed for objecting to having their land taken by the state?
This is a pretty crazy post full of misunderstandings and misinformation.
For example, the existence of government spending does not mean the country's economy is centrally planned. Central planning refers to a very specific type of system where the central government plans the minutiae of the economy, such as how many widgets will be produced per year and how much they will be sold for. In Western economies, those decisions are made by market participants.
For example, the existence of government spending does not mean the country's economy is centrally planned. Central planning refers to a very specific type of system where the central government plans the minutiae of the economy, such as how many widgets will be produced per year and how much they will be sold for. In Western economies, those decisions are made by market participants.
How many board of directors out there control half the economy (boards make all the important decisions). I bet it's smaller than the number of aparachiks. US economy is centrally planned, just not all publicly planned.
Of course, people in USSR were starving while free markets were making Westerners fatter and fatter.
If you design a system that can only really last for a single generation or two it's not really an appropriate model for a civilization is it?
The USSR had 3 decades of solid growth? That's cute. The U.S. has been booming for hundreds of years at this point.
The US economy is not centrally planned. Government expenditure is 37 percent of GDP, not even a majority. Even much of the government expenditures that do occur are not planned (ie a social security recipient is not dictated how they must spend it).
The USSR from the 20s to 60s made decisions based on what was good for the leaders of the USSR and what would hold power. Stalin ran the Gulag from 1929 through 1953. This was not just a form of modern slavery. People died by the millions. Up to 7 million people died in a Soviet famine from 1932-1933. The U.S. may have had bread lines at the time, but people weren't dying of mass starvation. There were a number of political purges in the 30s that cost a million or so Soviets their lives. Another famine cost 1 to 1.5 million Soviets their life in 1948. Millions more were force relocated.
The USSR had 3 decades of solid growth? That's cute. The U.S. has been booming for hundreds of years at this point.
The US economy is not centrally planned. Government expenditure is 37 percent of GDP, not even a majority. Even much of the government expenditures that do occur are not planned (ie a social security recipient is not dictated how they must spend it).
The USSR from the 20s to 60s made decisions based on what was good for the leaders of the USSR and what would hold power. Stalin ran the Gulag from 1929 through 1953. This was not just a form of modern slavery. People died by the millions. Up to 7 million people died in a Soviet famine from 1932-1933. The U.S. may have had bread lines at the time, but people weren't dying of mass starvation. There were a number of political purges in the 30s that cost a million or so Soviets their lives. Another famine cost 1 to 1.5 million Soviets their life in 1948. Millions more were force relocated.
> The U.S. has been booming for hundreds of years at this point.
Glorifying the early US economic system is not doing much for your argument.
Glorifying the early US economic system is not doing much for your argument.
I'm speaking to the last several hundred years including colonial times, early 1800s, post Civil War, early and late 20th century and the present. The number one economy in the world for over a century and counting.
Even in recent times, the U.S. has out-paced the EU. The U.S. economy is now 50 percent larger than the EU. There was a lot of talk of China surpassing the U.S. as recent as 8 years ago, however, the U.S. has pulled out ahead as China's growth has stalled. And the USSR no longer exists, but to the extent that you can equate it to Russia, well the Russian GDP is smaller than some individual U.S. states.
[1] https://archive.ph/zygD4 [2] https://www.straitstimes.com/world/united-states/as-china-s-...
Even in recent times, the U.S. has out-paced the EU. The U.S. economy is now 50 percent larger than the EU. There was a lot of talk of China surpassing the U.S. as recent as 8 years ago, however, the U.S. has pulled out ahead as China's growth has stalled. And the USSR no longer exists, but to the extent that you can equate it to Russia, well the Russian GDP is smaller than some individual U.S. states.
[1] https://archive.ph/zygD4 [2] https://www.straitstimes.com/world/united-states/as-china-s-...
> The U.S. may have had bread lines at the time, but people weren't dying of mass starvation.
Only if you consider the millions that suffered mass extermination, incarceration and forced labor in the US not to be humans.
Only if you consider the millions that suffered mass extermination, incarceration and forced labor in the US not to be humans.
Mass extermination never occurred in the United States, what are you even talking about?
Forced labor, in the 1930s through 1960s? No. Just no.
Half of the early U.S. had slavery up til 1865 when a brutal Civil War that cost 600K plus people their lives settled the question. That was all the way back in the 1800s when Russia was still a medieval serfdom indistinguishable from a slave based economy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serfdom_in_Russia), which it had conducted for over 700 years.
Forced labor, in the 1930s through 1960s? No. Just no.
Half of the early U.S. had slavery up til 1865 when a brutal Civil War that cost 600K plus people their lives settled the question. That was all the way back in the 1800s when Russia was still a medieval serfdom indistinguishable from a slave based economy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serfdom_in_Russia), which it had conducted for over 700 years.
> Mass extermination never occurred in the United States, what are you even talking about?
You've made me curious about how the American media describes US history. It's interesting that the mass extermination of Native Americans is referred to as the "Indian Wars". It sounds almost patriotic.
> Forced labor, in the 1930s through 1960s? No. Just no.
Right. Because with the Indian Citizenship Act, the US magically transformed into a different country and therefore shouldn't be held accountable for anything that happened before 1930. But Russia...
You've made me curious about how the American media describes US history. It's interesting that the mass extermination of Native Americans is referred to as the "Indian Wars". It sounds almost patriotic.
> Forced labor, in the 1930s through 1960s? No. Just no.
Right. Because with the Indian Citizenship Act, the US magically transformed into a different country and therefore shouldn't be held accountable for anything that happened before 1930. But Russia...
Incarceration rates right now in 2023 too. Slavery is outlawed, unless...
Man, what is with HN and weirdly detailed posts explaining how awesome the Soviet economy was?
For my money, the Soviet economy failed while the NATO countries succeeded for reasons described by Hayek, summarized reasonably well in Marc Andreessen's weird diatribe. At best your post is splitting hairs, at worst it's Zizek-like nonesense "20th century communists established the real free markets!"
For my money, the Soviet economy failed while the NATO countries succeeded for reasons described by Hayek, summarized reasonably well in Marc Andreessen's weird diatribe. At best your post is splitting hairs, at worst it's Zizek-like nonesense "20th century communists established the real free markets!"
Externalities of progress are very real, and the speed with which the modern age has arisen, and it's brevity, should give us pause every time we assert that it is all good or all evil. It is certainly both.
The great problem of our time is the unrestrained accumulation of wealth. Tech wealth is the product of both innovation and making that innovation artificially scarce. Without the former there is no demand, without the later there is no profit. The techno optimists always seem to forget that second component! Once you've earned Enough, either drop the artificial scarcity and share freely, or give someone else a turn to earn their own Enough. Don't keep hoarding it all for yourself and lying that your wealth is proportional to the value you created. No. Especially in tech. It's proportional to the value you captured with the 1-2 punch of innovation and artificial scarcity, and that itself required a functioning society to which you owe your success and your allegiance.
The great problem of our time is the unrestrained accumulation of wealth. Tech wealth is the product of both innovation and making that innovation artificially scarce. Without the former there is no demand, without the later there is no profit. The techno optimists always seem to forget that second component! Once you've earned Enough, either drop the artificial scarcity and share freely, or give someone else a turn to earn their own Enough. Don't keep hoarding it all for yourself and lying that your wealth is proportional to the value you created. No. Especially in tech. It's proportional to the value you captured with the 1-2 punch of innovation and artificial scarcity, and that itself required a functioning society to which you owe your success and your allegiance.
So the Economist reported today that Tuvalu is planning for its disappearance as sea levels rise [1].
What a great opportunity for Msrs Andreeson, Thiel, Musk and all the other neo-Rand true believers to step in and create their seasteading utopia. They could cast this manifesto in gold at the entrance. Years from now, when we visit their brave new world below the waves I'm sure it will have worked out great!
[1] https://www.economist.com/asia/2023/10/12/tuvalu-plans-for-i...
What a great opportunity for Msrs Andreeson, Thiel, Musk and all the other neo-Rand true believers to step in and create their seasteading utopia. They could cast this manifesto in gold at the entrance. Years from now, when we visit their brave new world below the waves I'm sure it will have worked out great!
[1] https://www.economist.com/asia/2023/10/12/tuvalu-plans-for-i...
I would caution against encouraging the billionaires to get into coastal engineering
https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2023/05/fiji-surf-wars
https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2023/05/fiji-surf-wars
Surely this is the more apposite link when talking about libertarian tropical island paradises? :D
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/05/michael-oliver-r...
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/05/michael-oliver-r...
> We believe energy should be in an upward spiral. Energy is the foundational engine of our civilization. The more energy we have, the more people we can have, and the better everyone’s lives can be. We should raise everyone to the energy consumption level we have, then increase our energy 1,000x, then raise everyone else’s energy 1,000x as well.
Let's not do that on Earth please. If you want to build a planet-sized solar concentrator in space for reasons, knock yourself out.
In fact, until we figure out how to not rely on fossil fuels, I think we're better off reducing energy use. We can do that and get more useful work done at the same time by using energy more efficiently. In many respects that will be the natural consequence of electrification of formerly fossil-fuel technology. EVs are far more efficient than ICE vehicles.
> We believe there is no inherent conflict between the techno-capital machine and the natural environment. Per-capita US carbon emissions are lower now than they were 100 years ago, even without nuclear power.
[citation needed]
Even if true, about half the CO2 emissions since the industrial revolution happened in the last 30 years or so. The path we're on is one that leads to environmental and economic devastation and misery.
Let's not do that on Earth please. If you want to build a planet-sized solar concentrator in space for reasons, knock yourself out.
In fact, until we figure out how to not rely on fossil fuels, I think we're better off reducing energy use. We can do that and get more useful work done at the same time by using energy more efficiently. In many respects that will be the natural consequence of electrification of formerly fossil-fuel technology. EVs are far more efficient than ICE vehicles.
> We believe there is no inherent conflict between the techno-capital machine and the natural environment. Per-capita US carbon emissions are lower now than they were 100 years ago, even without nuclear power.
[citation needed]
Even if true, about half the CO2 emissions since the industrial revolution happened in the last 30 years or so. The path we're on is one that leads to environmental and economic devastation and misery.
The idea of increasing per-capita energy consumption to 1,000x current American levels is so ludicrous Andreesen should immediately be laughed out of town without any further consideration.
I did some back of the envelope calculations (and obviously made a few assumptions about what he meant), but, roughly, 1,000x current US per capita energy consumption is about enough to keep you airborne in a (fully occupied) corporate jet continuously with fuel synthesised from air and water.
I did some back of the envelope calculations (and obviously made a few assumptions about what he meant), but, roughly, 1,000x current US per capita energy consumption is about enough to keep you airborne in a (fully occupied) corporate jet continuously with fuel synthesised from air and water.
For all that work you did you could have used some imagination and thought about projects like Starlink + space mining.
Yes, if you imagine a world where large numbers of people live off-Earth, that kind of energy consumption is likely necessary.
But that society will not exist in the lifetimes of my children’s children’s children, and I’m not letting venture capitalists loose to create more “inventions” like NFTs on the basis that it will make it happen sooner and better.
But that society will not exist in the lifetimes of my children’s children’s children, and I’m not letting venture capitalists loose to create more “inventions” like NFTs on the basis that it will make it happen sooner and better.
We should not reduce energy use. Energy and prosperity are the same thing. The only way out of the climate crisis is innovation, which cheap energy accelerates. The moment we create the tesseract, the climate crisis is solved. With unlimited energy, we can purify infinite water, capture carbon, send drones into the atmosphere.
Say we cut our energy consumption and carbon emissions by 50%. This would disproportionately affect the poor and kill millions (deaths due to cold/heat), and we still have the same climate problem in double the time.
The choice is accelerate innovation OR decelerate emissions. Which has the better track record for humanity?
Say we cut our energy consumption and carbon emissions by 50%. This would disproportionately affect the poor and kill millions (deaths due to cold/heat), and we still have the same climate problem in double the time.
The choice is accelerate innovation OR decelerate emissions. Which has the better track record for humanity?
I don't think we should forego many of the various amenities that we use energy for, but we definitely can reduce overall energy use without causing a humanitarian catastrophe.
Take transportation. Gas engines are somewhere in the neighborhood of 20-30% efficient; the rest gets wasted as heat. Modern electric vehicles use motors with efficiencies in the high 90's. With battery/charging losses maybe you're somewhere around 80% efficiency. It'd be nice if people drove less on average as well because traffic can be a problem, but even without that we could reduce the energy needs of transportation to less than half the energy we use now, just by being less wasteful. The transition to EVs is slow because EVs are still expensive and cars in general can have long lifespans, but we should be hitting an inflection point if we haven't already where new EVs are cheaper overall than new ICE vehicles, and in a decade or so that should be true in the used market as well.
There's similar gains to be made by using heat pumps instead of natural gas for heating.
We're going to need a lot more electricity production even in a world that uses less energy overall because a lot of the stuff that's fossil-fuel powered now will need to be transitioned to run on electricity. So, I'm in favor of vastly increasing our deployment of solar and wind farms, and nuclear.
The choice between faster innovation or do something to avert climate catastrophe is a false one. We can do one or the other or neither or both. I really hope we do something about the CO2 problem, though.
Take transportation. Gas engines are somewhere in the neighborhood of 20-30% efficient; the rest gets wasted as heat. Modern electric vehicles use motors with efficiencies in the high 90's. With battery/charging losses maybe you're somewhere around 80% efficiency. It'd be nice if people drove less on average as well because traffic can be a problem, but even without that we could reduce the energy needs of transportation to less than half the energy we use now, just by being less wasteful. The transition to EVs is slow because EVs are still expensive and cars in general can have long lifespans, but we should be hitting an inflection point if we haven't already where new EVs are cheaper overall than new ICE vehicles, and in a decade or so that should be true in the used market as well.
There's similar gains to be made by using heat pumps instead of natural gas for heating.
We're going to need a lot more electricity production even in a world that uses less energy overall because a lot of the stuff that's fossil-fuel powered now will need to be transitioned to run on electricity. So, I'm in favor of vastly increasing our deployment of solar and wind farms, and nuclear.
The choice between faster innovation or do something to avert climate catastrophe is a false one. We can do one or the other or neither or both. I really hope we do something about the CO2 problem, though.
Assuming the CO2 stat is even true (that stood out to me, too, so I did a search, but couldn’t find a good source either way) I 100% guarantee it’s sophistry: carbon produced in the US per-capita is perhaps down—that’s not impossible, at least—but I’ll eat my hat if carbon released due to US consumption is down.
US embodied carbon imports are not nearly as large as is sometimes assumed, apparently in the order of 7% of total emissions:
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/no-the-us-didnt-outsource-our-...
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/no-the-us-didnt-outsource-our-...
"I’ll eat my hat if carbon released due to US consumption is down."
Markets will figure out how to do more with less to reduce costs, and this includes energy.
Markets will figure out how to do more with less to reduce costs, and this includes energy.
It is a bit of a strange part of the manifesto. Surely increasing energy efficiency is a better way to the same endpoint of abundance that Marc champions. After all, if we make everything 1,000x energy efficient (to use his example) we get to the same endpoint.
The big problem is the "Markets" section. The author assumes that free markets just happen. But what we see today are monopolies or oligopolies. The end state seems to be 1-3 big players who tend not to compete on price. Price competition doesn't seem to happen until there are 4 or more roughly comparable players. Margins get much better as competition disappears, which produces a huge pressure towards consolidation.
Why this is is another discussion, but it's very clearly the case in the US.
Why this is is another discussion, but it's very clearly the case in the US.
Like, I see myself as a techno-optimist. But this whole manifesto sure does remind me of a Dr. Bronner's label.
Following A16Z's RSS feed has gotten weirder and weirder, even mostly just reading headlines and leads. Anecdotally, I feel there was a turn when they went "all in" on blockchain and started having people drum out constant "ecosystem-level" booster pieces. Then there was a turn in how I took it all after the new-hotness AI post, earlier this year.
It's all intuitive, but I get the distinct feeling they took a big decision toward conscious reality distortion at the top. Not just to shore up credibility of their investment theses to LPs, but to will the very success of their investments into being. Maybe that's just natural for equity flippers on a particular time scale with enough management fees and brand rec: grease both sides of the two-sided market you turn in. Envelop as many minds as you can.
They route systematically important gobs of capital. I guess I just keep watching the space, to note the content and timing of their big investment-theme announcements. Stick to headlines and leads.
I do wonder who the other 5,000 words are for.
It's all intuitive, but I get the distinct feeling they took a big decision toward conscious reality distortion at the top. Not just to shore up credibility of their investment theses to LPs, but to will the very success of their investments into being. Maybe that's just natural for equity flippers on a particular time scale with enough management fees and brand rec: grease both sides of the two-sided market you turn in. Envelop as many minds as you can.
They route systematically important gobs of capital. I guess I just keep watching the space, to note the content and timing of their big investment-theme announcements. Stick to headlines and leads.
I do wonder who the other 5,000 words are for.
Keep in mind that they changed the header in this, so thankfully Erin Kissane shared the original header for the record: https://mas.to/@kissane/111245487051384089
Talk about a falling off the rails type of piece, this is it.
Talk about a falling off the rails type of piece, this is it.
Can't believe they didn't put a ring on the leftmost hand.
I'm sure the author considers himself a giver :)
A fitting rebuttal to Andreesen's manifesto is Erin Kissane's recent series about how Meta enabled a genocide in Myanmar. "Trust and safety" as enemies, indeed. https://erinkissane.com/meta-in-myanmar-full-series
What if technology has worked out as well as it has because of techno-pessimism? I.e. what if it's because we're suspicious of change that most change has been positive? Maybe filter out the bad ideas through a slow but necessary process.
I agree with the premise, but why does this read like a tech bro and his finance/business major buddy in their early 20s got high and wrote it with the help of an LLM trained on /r/iam14andthisisdeep?
Can't recall too many pieces of writing that fail this hard at what they're intended to do? I mean, if you've never read any other technology-related writing ever, there's some stuff in here I suppose.
I think though, it best highlights what's missing from a lot of visible technological aspirations -- which is a sense of fun?
I think though, it best highlights what's missing from a lot of visible technological aspirations -- which is a sense of fun?
I think this will come to be seen as a turning point in the history of Silicon Valley when people woke up from a collective slumber and realized most people hailed as great "visionaries" and "technologists" actually had nothing whatsoever to offer in that department. It will be seen as hilariously ironic that those very people in fact had no idea what technology even is — a means to an end, not an end in itself, and that they had literally nothing to offer for what to do with all the technology they built. It's a conceptual dead end, sprinkled with badly digested sophomoric references. Truly embarrassing emperor has no clothes moment.
i can't take a16z seriously ever since they were a major driver of all the pump & dump crypto crap, publishing a grandiose manifesto doesn't really help with the perception of being bullshit merchants.
stop listening to people just because they have money, it's not a measure for greatness and definitely not as reason to give them any credibility outside of their expertise.
stop listening to people just because they have money, it's not a measure for greatness and definitely not as reason to give them any credibility outside of their expertise.
I was thinking that, especially having just read the book Number Go Up.
Andreessen's firm put a bunch of money into the Axie Infinity play to earn ponzi which ended up taking money from thousands of hard up Filipinos and then the company was then hacked by N Korea with the money likely ending up in some weapons program.
I'm a techno optimist and a believer in markets but regulated markets where the worst effects are mitigated.
(some from the Number Go Up author on Axie https://youtu.be/THdU00jutvo?t=1864)
Andreessen's firm put a bunch of money into the Axie Infinity play to earn ponzi which ended up taking money from thousands of hard up Filipinos and then the company was then hacked by N Korea with the money likely ending up in some weapons program.
I'm a techno optimist and a believer in markets but regulated markets where the worst effects are mitigated.
(some from the Number Go Up author on Axie https://youtu.be/THdU00jutvo?t=1864)
Honestly, I felt this post just shows how delusional the people are who made out with billions during the tech boom of the past 25 years.
I was a huge techno-optimist in the late 90s and early 00s. If anything, my opinion has totally switched over the past 10-15 years as I increasingly see technology ripping societies apart, and benefits only accruing to those at the very top. So excuse me if I gag a bit from a post from newly minted billionaires saying how those crowing about the downsides of tech are just a bunch of Debbie Downers.
Tristan Harris, who was featured a lot in The Social Dilemma documentary, was on Bill Maher recently, and I totally agreed with this point he made: we have to forget all the optimistic stories we tell ourselves about tech, and instead just look at the incentives. With social media, we told ourselves all these stories about how it would bring us closer together and keep us better in touch with friends. But the financial incentives that exist for social media companies is solely based on stealing more and more of your attention: what keeps you scrolling to the next block. And it turns out nothing grabs attention like outrage. Tristan's point was that with newer tech like AI, we're likely to repeat the same mistakes if we just tell ourselves the same stories about all the good that can come from AI and ignore the incentives of those top companies speeding ahead as fast as they can. And if you look at those incentives, I don't think it bodes well for the rest of the 99.9% who won't control major AI systems.
I was a huge techno-optimist in the late 90s and early 00s. If anything, my opinion has totally switched over the past 10-15 years as I increasingly see technology ripping societies apart, and benefits only accruing to those at the very top. So excuse me if I gag a bit from a post from newly minted billionaires saying how those crowing about the downsides of tech are just a bunch of Debbie Downers.
Tristan Harris, who was featured a lot in The Social Dilemma documentary, was on Bill Maher recently, and I totally agreed with this point he made: we have to forget all the optimistic stories we tell ourselves about tech, and instead just look at the incentives. With social media, we told ourselves all these stories about how it would bring us closer together and keep us better in touch with friends. But the financial incentives that exist for social media companies is solely based on stealing more and more of your attention: what keeps you scrolling to the next block. And it turns out nothing grabs attention like outrage. Tristan's point was that with newer tech like AI, we're likely to repeat the same mistakes if we just tell ourselves the same stories about all the good that can come from AI and ignore the incentives of those top companies speeding ahead as fast as they can. And if you look at those incentives, I don't think it bodes well for the rest of the 99.9% who won't control major AI systems.
> we have to forget all the optimistic stories we tell ourselves about tech, and instead just look at the incentives
I like how people keep coming up with dialectical materialism independently. Just don't drop the M-word and no one will get triggered.
I like how people keep coming up with dialectical materialism independently. Just don't drop the M-word and no one will get triggered.
Right — the technology we need is not the technology that is incentivized and produced by the market. Indeed, the market is tending to block the development we need.
I guess some people have an inherent inability to adopt some kind of middle ground stance.
It's either exponential growth forever and colonizing Mars or "why do you want to drag us back to the caves".
Having a conversation for the 1000th time with such people who don't recognize nuance is very tiresome and not worth it.
It's either exponential growth forever and colonizing Mars or "why do you want to drag us back to the caves".
Having a conversation for the 1000th time with such people who don't recognize nuance is very tiresome and not worth it.
Social media does not promote middle ground because that doesn't maximize engagement.
Everything must be maximally divisive, maximally triggering, and compressible into <200 characters.
Everything must be maximally divisive, maximally triggering, and compressible into <200 characters.
> I guess some people have an inherent inability to adopt some kind of middle ground stance
Try "almost all people". People crave certainty.
Try "almost all people". People crave certainty.
This isn't a techno-optimist manifesto.
This is a libertarian, anarcho-capitalist manifesto with a sprinkling of 1960 tech boosterism so that they can point at people who disagree and call them luddites.
I'm a massive techno-optimist. I think science and technology has self-evidently bought vast improvements to the human experience. I think it's an absolutely essential part of solving many of the problems that plague the world right now, and will do so in the future. But I whole-heartedly reject sizeable chunks of this teenage-political-science-student level manifesto.
If that somehow makes me a luddite, then pass me an iron bar and point me towards the nearest cropping frame, because apprently I have some wrecking to do?
This is a libertarian, anarcho-capitalist manifesto with a sprinkling of 1960 tech boosterism so that they can point at people who disagree and call them luddites.
I'm a massive techno-optimist. I think science and technology has self-evidently bought vast improvements to the human experience. I think it's an absolutely essential part of solving many of the problems that plague the world right now, and will do so in the future. But I whole-heartedly reject sizeable chunks of this teenage-political-science-student level manifesto.
If that somehow makes me a luddite, then pass me an iron bar and point me towards the nearest cropping frame, because apprently I have some wrecking to do?
I think a TO would be how can we make the whole world more democratic, more self sufficient, more distributed with the lowest possible impact on the environment. And to do that, we would need to educate the world's population to never before seen levels. Technology is a byproduct of an educated population. 1/10th of everyone who has been alive is right now. This is a huge resource we are wasting with the subjugation of the classes.
Which parts do you reject?
Well, essentially the libertarian anarcho-capitalist bits.
TBH, I can can just strongly disagree with people like that, but what got me worked up about this pile of high-school grade political science was the way it conflated all that libertarian anarcho-capitalism with being pro-tech, and implying that any concern for the negative effects of developement (or of the economic system) therefore automatically puts you on the "enemies" side of things.
It's a frantastically offensive false catagorisation that I strongly reject.
TBH, I can can just strongly disagree with people like that, but what got me worked up about this pile of high-school grade political science was the way it conflated all that libertarian anarcho-capitalism with being pro-tech, and implying that any concern for the negative effects of developement (or of the economic system) therefore automatically puts you on the "enemies" side of things.
It's a frantastically offensive false catagorisation that I strongly reject.
The whole thing reads like the Nicene Creed from Roman Catholicism [0]; a series of statements of belief. If you put 1-5 (Agree/Disagree) below each paragraph, it could also be a personality test.
[0]: https://www.usccb.org/prayers/nicene-creed
[0]: https://www.usccb.org/prayers/nicene-creed
The redacted version by Ben Grosser is better. https://bengrosser.com/files/Techno-Optimist-Manifesto-Andre...
Wow. So that was a bunch of navel gazing from the man who brought us Netscape. Are we sure he didn't just get lucky? I don't think I've ever seen anything discredit Marc in such a big way since the last time I remember him saying or doing something that discredited him in such a big way, like investing in crypto or claiming India was better under Empire colonization.
Also, citing Nick Land (neo-nazi), Filippo Marinetti (co-author of the Fascist Manifesto), Milton Friedman and John Galt (A LITERALLY MADE UP CHARACTER) is a bad read. Yikes.
Also, citing Nick Land (neo-nazi), Filippo Marinetti (co-author of the Fascist Manifesto), Milton Friedman and John Galt (A LITERALLY MADE UP CHARACTER) is a bad read. Yikes.
We are not pessimistic about technology, just the few who own and control it. Markets? Literally everything was developed in the public sector. The two leading drivers of technological development in the 20th century was the US government and soviet union, none of it relying on market forces. If anything markets are local optimizations with the wrong loss function.
I think anybody endorsing this should be forced to work in a rare-earths mine for a couple of weeks beforehand, especially Billionaires.
I think this needs a close reading by a historian or something. I'm certainly not qualified to do it but still there are so many lines that even to my layman's understanding seem like just obvious, fortune cookie horseshit (ironic, given how aggressively the author is touting "truth-seeking"). The Nietzsche stuff reads like something a stoner freshman engineer would post on /r/atheism.
> Our enemy is the ivory tower, the know-it-all credentialed expert worldview, indulging in abstract theories, luxury beliefs, social engineering, disconnected from the real world, delusional, unelected, and unaccountable – playing God with everyone else’s lives, with total insulation from the consequences.
Coming from the mouth of Andreeson-Horowitz this is...beyond rich. Didn't they just hand Adam Neumann a massive stack of cash (and to do nothing but extract rent from urban economies, no less)? Their entire milieu does nothing but play god and dick around with abstract theories. How is The Precautionary Principal delusional but cryptocurrency not "a luxury belief"?
This whole post smacks of a god-complex masquerading as a commitment to rationality. Clearly Marc Andreeson knew what he was doing at some point, but if this is representative of the current thought leadership in Big Tech I think we're heading towards some dark years. Victory has defeated us.
> Our enemy is the ivory tower, the know-it-all credentialed expert worldview, indulging in abstract theories, luxury beliefs, social engineering, disconnected from the real world, delusional, unelected, and unaccountable – playing God with everyone else’s lives, with total insulation from the consequences.
Coming from the mouth of Andreeson-Horowitz this is...beyond rich. Didn't they just hand Adam Neumann a massive stack of cash (and to do nothing but extract rent from urban economies, no less)? Their entire milieu does nothing but play god and dick around with abstract theories. How is The Precautionary Principal delusional but cryptocurrency not "a luxury belief"?
This whole post smacks of a god-complex masquerading as a commitment to rationality. Clearly Marc Andreeson knew what he was doing at some point, but if this is representative of the current thought leadership in Big Tech I think we're heading towards some dark years. Victory has defeated us.
Between the times the piece twists itself up in knots of self-contradiction or is just, purely internally, gibberish, plus the amount of it that’s, as you rightly call out, “fortune cookie horseshit” and is best ignored, it’s a challenge to even reach a point of beginning to address and critique its substance.
This suggests to me that Marc Andressen struggles with bipolar disease. This blog post reeks like the tailings of a manic episode.
Was he not able to find anyone to bounce this off before pressing "publish"?
Was he not able to find anyone to bounce this off before pressing "publish"?
First of all, they aren't serious about the scientific method or they'd fund Hume's Guillotine (see github). Moreover, they aren't even serious about reforming sociology -- which is what is needed for them to make strong claims about their "beliefs" aka social theory. That "ivory tower" publication Nature is leading them to but a step or two from a new scientific revolution based on technology, but they refuse to drink. Over 200 ecologists were supplied with the same set of data and asked to make predictions. This was "the first study of its kind" according to Nature, but this is exactly the purpose of Hume's Guillotine with regard to social theories, such as theirs. Why blather endlessly about their "beliefs" about the scientific method as providing the keys to techne kingdom and ignore the opportunity to not only nuke the social pseudosciences, but perform what, in other initiatives with which they are familiar, would be called "due diligence" regarding their own social theory?
Second, if they aren't going to be serious about their own social theory, what business do they have thinking of themselves as "apex" anything?
Second, if they aren't going to be serious about their own social theory, what business do they have thinking of themselves as "apex" anything?
Really more of an e/acc manifesto.
Interesting to see a twitter thing slowly leak into the mainstream one step at a time.
Interesting to see a twitter thing slowly leak into the mainstream one step at a time.
WTF is e/acc for people that don't live on Twitter?
Effective Altruism is a charity / social club / networking opportunity for young STEM types based on pretty extreme beliefs about Utilitarianism and recently AI. The most famous EA right now is probably SBF.
Accelerationism is the belief that we should race towards catastrophe so that we can rebuild society in a better way.
E / Acc is a (sometimes ironic) amalgam of the two.
You won't be surprised to learn that not many in these groups have studied history.
Accelerationism is the belief that we should race towards catastrophe so that we can rebuild society in a better way.
E / Acc is a (sometimes ironic) amalgam of the two.
You won't be surprised to learn that not many in these groups have studied history.
Utilitarianism has very real utility monsters, and some people seem like they want to make AI into another one...
The original accelerationist manifesto was written by people who did study history. You can find it here: https://criticallegalthinking.com/2013/05/14/accelerate-mani...
#accelerate was a meme (which, mainly referred to a set of aesthetics) on Google circles around 2011
Since then, the meme evolved into a bit of a war between l/acc (the original sense of the term) and r/acc (Nick Land flavored).
e/acc is a play on this—but a decade removed, the original context has been mostly forgotten
To understand the original historical context, you can read this book: https://www.amazon.com/Accelerate-Accelerationist-Reader-Urb..., which traces it back to, among other things, an essay by Marx
#accelerate was a meme (which, mainly referred to a set of aesthetics) on Google circles around 2011
Since then, the meme evolved into a bit of a war between l/acc (the original sense of the term) and r/acc (Nick Land flavored).
e/acc is a play on this—but a decade removed, the original context has been mostly forgotten
To understand the original historical context, you can read this book: https://www.amazon.com/Accelerate-Accelerationist-Reader-Urb..., which traces it back to, among other things, an essay by Marx
[deleted]
It's a twitter thing, that was picked up by the more twitter brained VCs.
Mostly an AI thing originally I think? (I'm addicted to the site, but don't follow the d list celeb drama lol.)
Stands for effective accelerationism, more or less what you read in this Manifesto (Marc Andresson said he identified it a while ago too so makes sense.)
Mostly an AI thing originally I think? (I'm addicted to the site, but don't follow the d list celeb drama lol.)
Stands for effective accelerationism, more or less what you read in this Manifesto (Marc Andresson said he identified it a while ago too so makes sense.)
Original e/acc manifesto [0]
[0] https://www.effectiveacceleration.org/posts/4LtypqdAmQ3AgKtJ...
[0] https://www.effectiveacceleration.org/posts/4LtypqdAmQ3AgKtJ...
First Google result was a small air conditioning reseller, the second was []1. I'm going with the former.
1: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/cultures/eacc-effective-accel...
1: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/cultures/eacc-effective-accel...
It stands for Effective Acceleration, I think
it's ironic, because wouldn't marx be considered the OG accelerationist?
Lenin, more like. Marx reckoned it’d all happen more-or-less naturally, others decided it needed a push.
[edit] ok, nuance, yes he advocated movements to replace capitalism with communism, but he’s not the one mainly associated with attempts to bring communism “too early” (too early by Marx’s reckoning of the timeline of capitalism, that is)
[edit] ok, nuance, yes he advocated movements to replace capitalism with communism, but he’s not the one mainly associated with attempts to bring communism “too early” (too early by Marx’s reckoning of the timeline of capitalism, that is)
One of the OG ones, maybe. It was a quite widespread idea.
The philosophy goes back to him by Deleuze and Guattari via Nick Land, though most lump Marx's thought with the sins of the 20th century.
There's a fair bit to like about this, and it's roughly aligned with my worldview: that, on balance, technology and market forces are a force for good; and that there is a little bit too much techno-pessimism abound that has led to bad outcomes (such as the relative lack of nuclear power). I think it's generally under appreciated just how good things are. The world, overall, is getting continuously better (Factfulness by Hans Rosling demonstrates this better than any other source I've come across).
Then again, there are bits of it which are a little bit strange - the enemies section, for example. SV could "move fast and break things" previously, but with its size, power and influence, it probably needs to take a slightly more "win friends and influence people" approach.
But most of all, it is a little bit contrary to some of a16z most high profile recent investments: Clubhouse, NFTs, web3. It's hard to see how these investments and products align with building towards abundance. I wonder if he's spent a little too much time away from the hands-on detail, where the next tech innovation will probably happen.
Then again, there are bits of it which are a little bit strange - the enemies section, for example. SV could "move fast and break things" previously, but with its size, power and influence, it probably needs to take a slightly more "win friends and influence people" approach.
But most of all, it is a little bit contrary to some of a16z most high profile recent investments: Clubhouse, NFTs, web3. It's hard to see how these investments and products align with building towards abundance. I wonder if he's spent a little too much time away from the hands-on detail, where the next tech innovation will probably happen.
I'm a tech optimist but this isn't my manifesto. I'm good with the tech but then he mixes in:
"The Enemy": “social responsibility”, “tech ethics”...
"Patron Saints": John Galt
which it quite a different thing. You can be tech optimistic without being Randian.
"The Enemy": “social responsibility”, “tech ethics”...
"Patron Saints": John Galt
which it quite a different thing. You can be tech optimistic without being Randian.
I think Ezra Klein and Jerusalem Demsas are far better writers about the 'abundance agenda', without some of the bizarre baggage from this guy.
This is a good critique:
https://www.threads.net/@alex.stamos/post/CyeBy06PZGw
Also, wasn't Andressen's VC fund the one that sank all that money into crypto?
This is a good critique:
https://www.threads.net/@alex.stamos/post/CyeBy06PZGw
Also, wasn't Andressen's VC fund the one that sank all that money into crypto?
From the original "[...] Manifesto for an Accelerationist Politics" from 2013[1]:
> 7. We want to accelerate the process of technological evolution. But what we are arguing for is not techno-utopianism. Never believe that technology will be sufficient to save us. Necessary, yes, but never sufficient without socio-political action. Technology and the social are intimately bound up with one another, and changes in either potentiate and reinforce changes in the other. Whereas the techno-utopians argue for acceleration on the basis that it will automatically overcome social conflict, our position is that technology should be accelerated precisely because it is needed in order to win social conflicts.
[1] https://criticallegalthinking.com/2013/05/14/accelerate-mani...
> 7. We want to accelerate the process of technological evolution. But what we are arguing for is not techno-utopianism. Never believe that technology will be sufficient to save us. Necessary, yes, but never sufficient without socio-political action. Technology and the social are intimately bound up with one another, and changes in either potentiate and reinforce changes in the other. Whereas the techno-utopians argue for acceleration on the basis that it will automatically overcome social conflict, our position is that technology should be accelerated precisely because it is needed in order to win social conflicts.
[1] https://criticallegalthinking.com/2013/05/14/accelerate-mani...
Oh my, he actually quoted Italian futurism. We live in sacry times.
"Love doesn't scale" is crazy.
Incredibly good line.
It's beyond stupid. Literally we have families and children out of love. It's the foundation of everything else in human society.
You're wrong on the basics: many people on earth are arguably most of the western world until the 19th century had families out of a sense of pragmatic and religious obligation to continue their line.[1] This is not love. But worse, nobody has built a city out of love, or completed a major research project backed by love alone; these kinds of projects require an entirely different kind of force that scales.
Money and force are the blood of megaprojects.
[1]: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1260022.The_Ancient_City
Money and force are the blood of megaprojects.
[1]: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1260022.The_Ancient_City
> You're wrong on the basics
No, friend, you are.
Money and force are both powered by love.
Do you know of the "Five Whys" technique? It turns out there's a psychological version. Without going into a long thing about it, it turns out that all human motivations follow a chain of desired outcomes the eventually terminate in one of five profound states: Love, Bliss, Oneness, Okayness, and huh! I forgot the fifth one. (It's not important for the sake of discussion.) All human actions are attempts to re-engender these deep and profound states, just with more or less yak-shaving.
- - - -
As an aside, thanks for the book recommendation, that looks really interesting. I believe the ancient Greeks and Romans were not strangers to love, though, eh?
No, friend, you are.
Money and force are both powered by love.
Do you know of the "Five Whys" technique? It turns out there's a psychological version. Without going into a long thing about it, it turns out that all human motivations follow a chain of desired outcomes the eventually terminate in one of five profound states: Love, Bliss, Oneness, Okayness, and huh! I forgot the fifth one. (It's not important for the sake of discussion.) All human actions are attempts to re-engender these deep and profound states, just with more or less yak-shaving.
- - - -
As an aside, thanks for the book recommendation, that looks really interesting. I believe the ancient Greeks and Romans were not strangers to love, though, eh?
It's way too long and at the same time skipping over crucial human traits like kindness or compassion. Might be better to stick with Adam Smith.
> We had a problem of isolation, so we invented the Internet.
Is this real life
Is this real life
Only someone in league with or benefiting from the centralization of power, mass surveillance, wealth, and the use of technology to further the rapid concentration and centralization of such could write such a one-sided piece.
Unless they're somehow unaware that, in its current manifestation, technology is a tool that converts knowledge into power.
An improved and expanded strategy for -- with articulated tactics to achieve -- the decentralization of power and wealth, a dismantling of hierarchy, and increasing personal agency, privacy and freedom must not be sacrificed in favor of technology for technology's sake.
Can we even do this? I don't know.
Unless they're somehow unaware that, in its current manifestation, technology is a tool that converts knowledge into power.
An improved and expanded strategy for -- with articulated tactics to achieve -- the decentralization of power and wealth, a dismantling of hierarchy, and increasing personal agency, privacy and freedom must not be sacrificed in favor of technology for technology's sake.
Can we even do this? I don't know.
This is decent as a "rah rah techno-optimism" piece, but it continues Marc's pattern of cheapening the discourse when opining on the topic of AI existential risk.
It's easy to mistake this piece as making an argument for accelerating AI development by touting the virtues of techno-optimism. It's not, though.
The claim that "AI has a high risk of becoming unaligned & uncontrollable in our lifetimes", if sufficiently true (e.g. 99% confidence), implies that the current speed of AI development is unwise, independent of how much one likes techno-optimism in general.
It's easy to mistake this piece as making an argument for accelerating AI development by touting the virtues of techno-optimism. It's not, though.
The claim that "AI has a high risk of becoming unaligned & uncontrollable in our lifetimes", if sufficiently true (e.g. 99% confidence), implies that the current speed of AI development is unwise, independent of how much one likes techno-optimism in general.
[deleted]
At the end of the day, technology does little to nothing. It's the people who use it for good or ill, and the people who organize economic, political and other social systems to capture markets, enhance or suppress wages, create or remove regulation, compete or stifle competition. This essay doesn't really address the people side, just that "we" (he and some others) believe that tech is enough.
This is so ignorant: > We are told that technology takes our jobs, reduces our wages, increases inequality, threatens our health, ruins the environment, degrades our society, corrupts our children, impairs our humanity, threatens our future, and is ever on the verge of ruining everything.
PFOAs are tech. Unexploded cluster bomblets are tech. Fracking fluids are tech. Plastics in the guts of ocean life are tech. Ransomware and doxxing trucks are tech. There's a lot of tech that pmarca wishes would be far away from his gated home.
Then there are dental anesthetics, Polartec, electric cars, power tools, elevators, and snowplows. Lots of tech does good. No one complains much about power tools or elevators.
Minority viewpoints are set up as a strawman. A piece like this should be more thoughtful to be taken seriously.
This is so ignorant: > We are told that technology takes our jobs, reduces our wages, increases inequality, threatens our health, ruins the environment, degrades our society, corrupts our children, impairs our humanity, threatens our future, and is ever on the verge of ruining everything.
PFOAs are tech. Unexploded cluster bomblets are tech. Fracking fluids are tech. Plastics in the guts of ocean life are tech. Ransomware and doxxing trucks are tech. There's a lot of tech that pmarca wishes would be far away from his gated home.
Then there are dental anesthetics, Polartec, electric cars, power tools, elevators, and snowplows. Lots of tech does good. No one complains much about power tools or elevators.
Minority viewpoints are set up as a strawman. A piece like this should be more thoughtful to be taken seriously.
The problem with Marc’s exposition is that it mixes up techno-optimist ideas with personal right wing ideologies.
More fission reactors? Yes. Massively accelerate technological progress, and reduce the barriers to doing so? Yes. Is AI “extinction risk” overblown to the extent of being an obstacle to progress? Yes.
But markets aren’t self-balancing and do not prevent monopolies or cartels on their own. “Experts” generally know a lot, even though there’s gate keeping and credentialism. The ESG paragraph probably should just focus on the fact that making policy through finance is anti-democratic.
Beff Jezos, who Marc is cribbing here (and who is partially cribbing Nick Land) is pretty openly to the right.
In a document that’s being framed as capturing all of techno-optimism, these arguments are out of place. Without addressing the validity of the arguments themselves, they should have sanded off the explicitly political edges to maximize effectiveness.
More fission reactors? Yes. Massively accelerate technological progress, and reduce the barriers to doing so? Yes. Is AI “extinction risk” overblown to the extent of being an obstacle to progress? Yes.
But markets aren’t self-balancing and do not prevent monopolies or cartels on their own. “Experts” generally know a lot, even though there’s gate keeping and credentialism. The ESG paragraph probably should just focus on the fact that making policy through finance is anti-democratic.
Beff Jezos, who Marc is cribbing here (and who is partially cribbing Nick Land) is pretty openly to the right.
In a document that’s being framed as capturing all of techno-optimism, these arguments are out of place. Without addressing the validity of the arguments themselves, they should have sanded off the explicitly political edges to maximize effectiveness.
First, ignore the boiling planet like a good frog, technology will solve all the problems technology caused if you just believe hard enough. Second, get high on the idea of hardcore Randian Objectivism because you're definitely just a temporarily embarrassed billionaire sitting on the next unicorn. Third, keep billions in poverty and precarity for your own ends/amusement before tossing them to die in the inevitable resource wars that will spread by 2040 (2030 imo).
/savedyouaclick
/savedyouaclick
This aligns well with the Cyberparadism aesthetic: https://aesthetics.fandom.com/wiki/Cyberparadism
> Cyberparadism is a subset of Cyberprep and therefore of Post-Cyberpunk. The word is an amalgam of the prefix "cyber-", referring to cybernetics, and "paradism" as in paradise, meaning that a paradisal aspect has to be present within the cybernetic part of the aesthetic. The paradisal aspect can either manifest itself in literal terms as it would when representing a derivation of a Garden of Eden or the Elysian Fields, or alternatively in a more abstract way as a reflection of a utopia state of things. > > It differs itself from Cyberprep insofar that not only the positive benefits of technological progress are a central tenet, but that said technological progress has reached a level of sophistication where the principles of economics and conventional labour are fundamentally transformed in such that the subjects at hand can and are likely to pursue higher goals of scientific, technological, civilizatory and/or spiritual fulfillment.
There’s also a manifesto for Cyberparadism: https://github.com/zarazinsfuss/cyberparadism-manifesto/blob...
> We believe that technology can be a powerful force for good, when used in a responsible and thoughtful way. By harnessing the power of technology, we can create a world of abundance and prosperity, where all individuals have the opportunity to thrive and reach their full potential.
> Cyberparadism is a subset of Cyberprep and therefore of Post-Cyberpunk. The word is an amalgam of the prefix "cyber-", referring to cybernetics, and "paradism" as in paradise, meaning that a paradisal aspect has to be present within the cybernetic part of the aesthetic. The paradisal aspect can either manifest itself in literal terms as it would when representing a derivation of a Garden of Eden or the Elysian Fields, or alternatively in a more abstract way as a reflection of a utopia state of things. > > It differs itself from Cyberprep insofar that not only the positive benefits of technological progress are a central tenet, but that said technological progress has reached a level of sophistication where the principles of economics and conventional labour are fundamentally transformed in such that the subjects at hand can and are likely to pursue higher goals of scientific, technological, civilizatory and/or spiritual fulfillment.
There’s also a manifesto for Cyberparadism: https://github.com/zarazinsfuss/cyberparadism-manifesto/blob...
> We believe that technology can be a powerful force for good, when used in a responsible and thoughtful way. By harnessing the power of technology, we can create a world of abundance and prosperity, where all individuals have the opportunity to thrive and reach their full potential.
What ideas pop up in your head about someone who deems their enemies "trust and safety" or "risk management"?
Especially risk takers should manage their risks. Someone who complains about risk management when taking risks is usually not an innovator, but an opportunistic liability to progress and shared benefits.
You are free to take risks where negative downsides of unchecked technology are taken by you, but AI will impact everyone ("playing God with everyone else’s lives, with total insulation from the consequences.").
It is precisely because the potential and power of AI are so impactful and transformative that AI developers have more responsibility to not squander this and mess this up. Being optimistic about the benefits, should make one pessimistic about the risks.
So, yes. Promote benefits. Build, create, fail, refine. Focus you attention fully on it. Ignore risks and risks management and trust and safety. But don't label these an enemy when these speak up.
Doomerism has hurt AI safety discourse tremendously. Unrealistic and restrictive risk management hurts progress and reasoned debates. Roko and Yudkowski get way too much attention and dominate and control the public debate, pushing out moderate and careful arguments. The e/acc crowd similarly hurt AI safety: almost like these don't believe that either technology can be dangerous, or that such danger is to be accepted, or even required, to make progress.
Maximize benefits, while minimizing risks. Both can work. One without the other won't. Don't try to launder your Waifu-generators as decentralization or progress. Don't damage AI safety by making everyone disgusted at the thought, because you just had to talk about existential threats of nano-bots, not the current and very real risks associated with (generative) AI.
The problem with the current debate on AI safety, is that AI ethicists are too enthusiastic to come up with many rules to bind AI and stifle progress. While the AI acceleration have trouble to come up with just one rule we could put to a democratic vote. If you really can not come up with severe and avoidable negative consequences from computing, then maybe you should not have strong opinions on computer safety.
Accelerate benefits, reduce risks. We owe it to the future we are building right now.
Especially risk takers should manage their risks. Someone who complains about risk management when taking risks is usually not an innovator, but an opportunistic liability to progress and shared benefits.
You are free to take risks where negative downsides of unchecked technology are taken by you, but AI will impact everyone ("playing God with everyone else’s lives, with total insulation from the consequences.").
It is precisely because the potential and power of AI are so impactful and transformative that AI developers have more responsibility to not squander this and mess this up. Being optimistic about the benefits, should make one pessimistic about the risks.
So, yes. Promote benefits. Build, create, fail, refine. Focus you attention fully on it. Ignore risks and risks management and trust and safety. But don't label these an enemy when these speak up.
Doomerism has hurt AI safety discourse tremendously. Unrealistic and restrictive risk management hurts progress and reasoned debates. Roko and Yudkowski get way too much attention and dominate and control the public debate, pushing out moderate and careful arguments. The e/acc crowd similarly hurt AI safety: almost like these don't believe that either technology can be dangerous, or that such danger is to be accepted, or even required, to make progress.
Maximize benefits, while minimizing risks. Both can work. One without the other won't. Don't try to launder your Waifu-generators as decentralization or progress. Don't damage AI safety by making everyone disgusted at the thought, because you just had to talk about existential threats of nano-bots, not the current and very real risks associated with (generative) AI.
The problem with the current debate on AI safety, is that AI ethicists are too enthusiastic to come up with many rules to bind AI and stifle progress. While the AI acceleration have trouble to come up with just one rule we could put to a democratic vote. If you really can not come up with severe and avoidable negative consequences from computing, then maybe you should not have strong opinions on computer safety.
Accelerate benefits, reduce risks. We owe it to the future we are building right now.
While I love the article and premise, he doesn’t make any points on preventing monopolies, rent seeking and regulatory capture.
Like the “It’s time to build” article, it’s great VC porn but a16z is still mostly funding SaaS companies instead of hard tech.
Have they brought down prices of food, healthcare, housing, energy, infrastructure?
Since the beginning pandemic, things are heading in the wrong direction for the median American.
Like the “It’s time to build” article, it’s great VC porn but a16z is still mostly funding SaaS companies instead of hard tech.
Have they brought down prices of food, healthcare, housing, energy, infrastructure?
Since the beginning pandemic, things are heading in the wrong direction for the median American.
[deleted]
I am a techno optimist and love to see the rise of it, even if there are risks associated with it.
But I also see the sky rocketing rates of mental health issues and suicide rates in the most techno developed nations. I don't now if there's a correlation or causation. But would like to understand. Is humanity built to be simple and at the mercy of nature?
But I also see the sky rocketing rates of mental health issues and suicide rates in the most techno developed nations. I don't now if there's a correlation or causation. But would like to understand. Is humanity built to be simple and at the mercy of nature?
Quoting Charlie Munger:
> Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome.
Unfortunately for the original spirit of the internet that they've cashed in on over and over in the previous 25 years, I can't imagine a more Marc Andreessen/Andreessen Horowitz post, today, than this one here.
> Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome.
Unfortunately for the original spirit of the internet that they've cashed in on over and over in the previous 25 years, I can't imagine a more Marc Andreessen/Andreessen Horowitz post, today, than this one here.
Sitting on the Board of Facebook must really mess with you...
Somehow this reminds me of pre-y2k Nick Land (Meltdown [0] etc.) (Hope that doesn't correlate with the emergence of a 'post-y2k-Landian' Andreesen-Horowitz!)
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiaWsgtJrNI
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiaWsgtJrNI
Yeah, I have a soft spot for this kind of thinking but it always goes off the rails. It either gets unhinged and culty or flips and goes hard-reactionary or even luddite.
I think the fallacy might be a little too much "magic happens here." Yes you can be optimistic about the future, but a good future is not automatically guaranteed. It requires very hard work and constant vigilance. It's not just a matter of having faith and waiting for the messiah.
Both blind optimism and blind pessimism are easy when you're not the one doing the work. Those doing the work tend toward realism.
I think the fallacy might be a little too much "magic happens here." Yes you can be optimistic about the future, but a good future is not automatically guaranteed. It requires very hard work and constant vigilance. It's not just a matter of having faith and waiting for the messiah.
Both blind optimism and blind pessimism are easy when you're not the one doing the work. Those doing the work tend toward realism.
It’s romanticism that’s afraid to admit it and dresses itself up in dubious “reason” and “rationality”, which is why it always ends up seeming confused and self-contradictory and to be relying on a lot of magic to fill in the gaps.
This piece is better than some in that it at least makes the romanticism explicit near the end, but it’s burdened with the same self-conscious need to try to “prove” it’ll also make everything better in any terms one might choose, which is why these are all silly: they want to make believe that there aren’t meaningful costs or trade-offs for their romantic ideal. Nuance and shades of truth can’t be allowed, because they threaten the fake-reasoned rationalization for the romanticism, which romanticism is the point of the whole exercise, so cannot be threatened or alloyed, else they’d lose interest in it.
This piece is better than some in that it at least makes the romanticism explicit near the end, but it’s burdened with the same self-conscious need to try to “prove” it’ll also make everything better in any terms one might choose, which is why these are all silly: they want to make believe that there aren’t meaningful costs or trade-offs for their romantic ideal. Nuance and shades of truth can’t be allowed, because they threaten the fake-reasoned rationalization for the romanticism, which romanticism is the point of the whole exercise, so cannot be threatened or alloyed, else they’d lose interest in it.
The level of lack of nuance (given how high profile the fund is) is eye popping.
Okay one thing I had to laugh out loud about in this piece is the "Techno Capital Machine" section:
"Combine technology and markets and you get what Nick Land has termed the techno-capital machine[...] We believe the techno-capital machine is not anti-human – in fact, it may be the most pro-human thing there is. It serves us. The techno-capital machine works for us. All the machines work for us"
Mark might find it fashionable to quote Land but I'm unsure if he's actually read him. Here's what Land had to say on the techno-capital machine working for us, from Fanged Noumena:
“Machinic desire can seem a little inhuman, as it rips up political cultures, deletes traditions, dissolves subjectivities, and hacks through security apparatuses, tracking a soulless tropism to zero control. This is because what appears to humanity as the history of capitalism is an invasion from the future by an artificial intelligent space that must assemble itself entirely from its enemy's resources.”
"Combine technology and markets and you get what Nick Land has termed the techno-capital machine[...] We believe the techno-capital machine is not anti-human – in fact, it may be the most pro-human thing there is. It serves us. The techno-capital machine works for us. All the machines work for us"
Mark might find it fashionable to quote Land but I'm unsure if he's actually read him. Here's what Land had to say on the techno-capital machine working for us, from Fanged Noumena:
“Machinic desire can seem a little inhuman, as it rips up political cultures, deletes traditions, dissolves subjectivities, and hacks through security apparatuses, tracking a soulless tropism to zero control. This is because what appears to humanity as the history of capitalism is an invasion from the future by an artificial intelligent space that must assemble itself entirely from its enemy's resources.”
Not to mention that Nick Land is an avowed Néo-nazi.
... that reads like a conspiracy theory.
[deleted]
> When market discipline is absent, there is no limit to how crazy things can get.
That is... really putting absurd amounts of weight on the term "Market Discipline".
That is... really putting absurd amounts of weight on the term "Market Discipline".
For anyone trying to engage with this nonsense seriously: this is just a man with a fragile ego who is annoyed that the public no longer take his brand seriously after the collapse of crypto and other SV-adjacent grifts and wants to keep his latest AI grift going on as long as possible.
Honestly reads like an essay written by a 15 year old who has just got introduced to Robert Heinlein and Ayn Rand.
Honestly reads like an essay written by a 15 year old who has just got introduced to Robert Heinlein and Ayn Rand.
>Our enemy is the ivory tower
Cool, so I guess our enemy is you
Cool, so I guess our enemy is you
>> 'Our present society has been subjected to a mass demoralization campaign for six decades – against technology and against life – under varying names like “existential risk”, “sustainability”, “ESG”, “Sustainable Development Goals”, “social responsibility”, “stakeholder capitalism”, “Precautionary Principle”, “trust and safety”, “tech ethics”, “risk management”, “de-growth”, “the limits of growth”.'
I wonder how many of these terms were focus grouped and promoted by him or people in his cohort.
I wonder how many of these terms were focus grouped and promoted by him or people in his cohort.
This is all well and good and I agree with most of it, but at some point you need to ask does abundance doesn’t mean happiness or true satisfaction. Can A society they thrives off always pushing be truly content? And if not then what is the point?
I used to be completely optimistic about technology.
A Personal computer! what a wonderful concept. It was mine, and enhanced my abilities.
But there was a change when businesses connected and became anti-customer. They learned to manipulate, surveil and control their customers and products. sigh.
A Personal computer! what a wonderful concept. It was mine, and enhanced my abilities.
But there was a change when businesses connected and became anti-customer. They learned to manipulate, surveil and control their customers and products. sigh.
I dunno man.
Kinda feel like the true Techno-Optimists were the people collectively hacking together solutions under open source principles, and that quite a lot of the libertarian-eque mumbo-jumbo here invisibly stands on the shoulders of those giants.
The free market is arguably more aligned to a product that allows a monkey direct access to its dopamine center than one that lets a monkey rule the stars.
While I agree that technology growth is one of the most important metrics for the future health of a society, the idea that optimal growth necessitates uncontrolled markets or a whole host of the other things piggybacking on that core here is a bit silly.
A more narrowly scoped manifesto that was essentially just "tech accelerates beneficial progress; there's an opportunity cost to delaying tech" would likely have had better legs than an umbrella of rhetoric that tries to cover all bases and as such alienates everyone other than the author and the sycophants in their circle.
It's frustrating, as I agree with a lot of the broad sentiment and have been extremely disappointed in the tech pessimism I've been seeing grow dramatically over the past few months and years - but I really don't feel this manifesto speaks for nor to me, as optimistic about tech as I might be.
Kinda feel like the true Techno-Optimists were the people collectively hacking together solutions under open source principles, and that quite a lot of the libertarian-eque mumbo-jumbo here invisibly stands on the shoulders of those giants.
The free market is arguably more aligned to a product that allows a monkey direct access to its dopamine center than one that lets a monkey rule the stars.
While I agree that technology growth is one of the most important metrics for the future health of a society, the idea that optimal growth necessitates uncontrolled markets or a whole host of the other things piggybacking on that core here is a bit silly.
A more narrowly scoped manifesto that was essentially just "tech accelerates beneficial progress; there's an opportunity cost to delaying tech" would likely have had better legs than an umbrella of rhetoric that tries to cover all bases and as such alienates everyone other than the author and the sycophants in their circle.
It's frustrating, as I agree with a lot of the broad sentiment and have been extremely disappointed in the tech pessimism I've been seeing grow dramatically over the past few months and years - but I really don't feel this manifesto speaks for nor to me, as optimistic about tech as I might be.
I appreciate the optimism, and sometimes its great to put out a manifesto filled with hope.
But this part: [The Enemy] Our enemies are not bad people – but rather bad ideas.
This is true - but it really doesn't engage with how the Enemy operates, and why many Bad ideas do MUCH better than good ideas.
But this part: [The Enemy] Our enemies are not bad people – but rather bad ideas.
This is true - but it really doesn't engage with how the Enemy operates, and why many Bad ideas do MUCH better than good ideas.
> We believe the techno-capital machine is not anti-human – in fact, it may be the most pro-human thing there is. It serves us. The techno-capital machine works for us. All the machines work for us.
This assumes that only human agency is possible, I doubt that.
This assumes that only human agency is possible, I doubt that.
Techno-optimism? lifts hood hey, it was techo-feudalism all along!
When writing a manifesto about embracing the benefits of change through technology, maybe don't use as your first analogy an animal whose gross anatomy hasn't changed in 450 million years.
The relationship between technology and society is one filled with complexity. A statement like: "We had a problem with darkness so we invented electrical lighting", isn't representative of the real thing.
If we think for example about the printing press it should be clear that there are certain forms of society that would make the invention of the printing press more likely — namely ones where books played a big role and literacy became more desireable. But on the other side the invention of the printing press had huge impacts on the societies that adopted them and branched them off into a totally different timeline.
The relationship between a society and a technology is always dialectical: society changes technology and technology changes society. Part of our role as technologists is to be aware of that — if we care about where humanity is moving at all.
Now if you jump back into the beginning of the last century a lot of the promises made by modernity were about automation making our lives easier. One could say: "We had hard labour so we invented automation" — only that the fruits of these automations haven't reached those whose jobs got replaced.
Somebody working an average job 40 years ago could easily sustain a family. That is no longer possible. Technology got nothing to do with it, where the money flows does.
A household appliance 40 years ago would last you decades. Today you are lucky if it lasts you 4 years. Technology, again, got nothing to do with it, where the money flows does.
Endless growth works till you hit saturation. All growth requires external inputs in order to work. And in an finite world those inputs are finite as well. You can't put a mic into a loudspeaker and get infinite loudness because that would take infinite energy and all components in the circuit would have to be able to handle that.
There is no free such thing as free lunch — also not with economic growth.
There are many things that can look really great if you are good at selectively ignoring a big chunk of it's systemic in- and outputs or handwave them away.
If we think for example about the printing press it should be clear that there are certain forms of society that would make the invention of the printing press more likely — namely ones where books played a big role and literacy became more desireable. But on the other side the invention of the printing press had huge impacts on the societies that adopted them and branched them off into a totally different timeline.
The relationship between a society and a technology is always dialectical: society changes technology and technology changes society. Part of our role as technologists is to be aware of that — if we care about where humanity is moving at all.
Now if you jump back into the beginning of the last century a lot of the promises made by modernity were about automation making our lives easier. One could say: "We had hard labour so we invented automation" — only that the fruits of these automations haven't reached those whose jobs got replaced.
Somebody working an average job 40 years ago could easily sustain a family. That is no longer possible. Technology got nothing to do with it, where the money flows does.
A household appliance 40 years ago would last you decades. Today you are lucky if it lasts you 4 years. Technology, again, got nothing to do with it, where the money flows does.
Endless growth works till you hit saturation. All growth requires external inputs in order to work. And in an finite world those inputs are finite as well. You can't put a mic into a loudspeaker and get infinite loudness because that would take infinite energy and all components in the circuit would have to be able to handle that.
There is no free such thing as free lunch — also not with economic growth.
There are many things that can look really great if you are good at selectively ignoring a big chunk of it's systemic in- and outputs or handwave them away.
I just don't understand how you could, in good faith, start off a manifesto in favor of techno-optimism with a quote from, of all people, Walker Percy.
Gosh this is weird. So many of the points here seem really good and important, yet many of the other points here are so distorted as to be almost unrecognizable. It reads to me like bad religion.
E.g. he knows about the Aral sea and yet argues against the "Precautionary Principle"!?
(It seems strange to me to mention the Aral sea as an example of Soviet ecological incompetence, which it surely is, but then fail to mention the Salton sea, a similar disaster perpetuated by non-Communists.)
The biggest problem I have with this manifesto is that there's nothing actionable in it. What are we, the little people who aren't techno-elite billionaires, supposed to do now? Just wait for techno-Jesus to save us?
E.g. he knows about the Aral sea and yet argues against the "Precautionary Principle"!?
(It seems strange to me to mention the Aral sea as an example of Soviet ecological incompetence, which it surely is, but then fail to mention the Salton sea, a similar disaster perpetuated by non-Communists.)
The biggest problem I have with this manifesto is that there's nothing actionable in it. What are we, the little people who aren't techno-elite billionaires, supposed to do now? Just wait for techno-Jesus to save us?
i have some spiritual practice suggestions:
1. maintain and improve your emacs&nixos configurations,
2. create a personal database and add new capabilities to it (for example you could start by making a database to track github stars that could for instance store hashes of specific commits)
3. with your newfound data model and programmable/configurable environment, slowly integrate AI into your life
1. maintain and improve your emacs&nixos configurations,
2. create a personal database and add new capabilities to it (for example you could start by making a database to track github stars that could for instance store hashes of specific commits)
3. with your newfound data model and programmable/configurable environment, slowly integrate AI into your life
I think you may have replied to the wrong thread? Your comment is non sequitur.
"The biggest problem I have with this manifesto is that there's nothing actionable in it. What are we, the little people who aren't techno-elite billionaires, supposed to do now? Just wait for techno-Jesus to save us?"
Ah, that makes more sense, thank you.
FWIW, I'm going to be using Guix on my next computer.
FWIW, I'm going to be using Guix on my next computer.
I want to change my comment (but the edit window is long gone.)
This "manifesto" is batshit insane.
This "manifesto" is batshit insane.
I'm very skeptical of anyone trying to fit history in a single narrative. This whole text sounds like an over simplification.
It also presents the usual contradiction that any neo-liberal argument is "not a political argument". The author states :
> Techno-Optimism is a material philosophy, not a political philosophy.
Then proceeds to glorify the techno-capital (their term) and shun communism. How is that not political ?
While I do like technology and optimism, I prefer a more honest view. I think I'm glad this manifest exists: I disagree with almost every item of the list, but it's useful as a reference of the views of rich techno-advocates capitalist and everything wrong with it.
It also presents the usual contradiction that any neo-liberal argument is "not a political argument". The author states :
> Techno-Optimism is a material philosophy, not a political philosophy.
Then proceeds to glorify the techno-capital (their term) and shun communism. How is that not political ?
While I do like technology and optimism, I prefer a more honest view. I think I'm glad this manifest exists: I disagree with almost every item of the list, but it's useful as a reference of the views of rich techno-advocates capitalist and everything wrong with it.
Very poorly reasoned. How is advocating for quality of life in terms of environmental or social responsibility anti-growth, anti-development or anti-technology? It's none of those things. It's anti-greed. It's against GDP as a proxy for prosperity. It's the true essence of free market economics that hasn't been captured by narrow-minded capitalists. And his entire opening statement is straw man after straw man. "They told us" a whole load of things that represent the opinion of a handful of people through the lens of a person who personally dislikes them.
Not a single mention of "privacy", so I'm going to assume that this is a manifesto written by someone who just wants everyone's private data.
Reminds me of the spirit of "Data for Good", which has become a whitewashed phrase to avoid ethical scrutiny (see: shotspotter, Wejo, palantir)
Reminds me of the spirit of "Data for Good", which has become a whitewashed phrase to avoid ethical scrutiny (see: shotspotter, Wejo, palantir)
That’s one explanation. Another might be that for non-tech insiders (ie the majority of the world’s population), the formulation of privacy and its claimed harms that is so often championed(desired state)/decried (current state) here on HN is just a total non-issue. And thus, it goes unmentioned.
Ever see the movie Don't Look Up?
The real message here is: "subscribe to my bad ideas if you ever want funding."
e/acc and its consequences have been a disaster for online technology discourse
It's alarming to see this particular blend of ideas without any historical acknowledgment. The mix of Nietzsche's ideas about the superman, a messianic belief in the transformative power of industry, and a paranoid fear and hatred of "wreckers" who would deny and destroy greatness all have an awfully dark history.
yeah he quotes the Futurist Manifesto further down the page, also with no historical context, which ... I dunno, that's gotta be a dog whistle, right?
The part that gets me is the insistence on technology-as-purely-good-and-beneficial and an obsession with population growth (if you’ve not read to the end: yes, the population-growth stuff drops off a little in the middle, but by the end “obsession” is definitely a fair characterization) without ever addressing that technology is the reason population growth is leveling off.
I disagree with basically all of what he was getting at with those things, but the pointed failure to even note the tension there was downright funny by the end. Putting aside my material disagreements with the whole thrust of that argument, it’s just comically inept on its own terms.
“Technology is one of three ways to increase production, and another is population growth… uh, actually, I just noticed, as the alert reader may have, that that whole bit was dumb, it’s just technology… also population growth especially is very good… what do you mean, ‘and why is population growth declining’?”
I disagree with basically all of what he was getting at with those things, but the pointed failure to even note the tension there was downright funny by the end. Putting aside my material disagreements with the whole thrust of that argument, it’s just comically inept on its own terms.
“Technology is one of three ways to increase production, and another is population growth… uh, actually, I just noticed, as the alert reader may have, that that whole bit was dumb, it’s just technology… also population growth especially is very good… what do you mean, ‘and why is population growth declining’?”
What's funny about this is that another way to increase production is to improve conditions for working class people - free college, free medical care, protections against speculation on housing to allow for affordable housing, better transit options and urban design... these political choices would dramatically improve our operational abilities as a country, but wealthy people like Andreessen tend to oppose measures like this in favor of laissez faire policies. This ultimately limits his ability to serve as the visionary he clearly would like to be.
Yeah to be honest I think approvingly quoting the author of "The Fascist Manifesto" probably well exceeds the cutoff for "dogwhistle." At this point the only thing left is for a16z to start a youth brigade and invade Ethiopia.
Marc did a podcast chatting about tv shows with fascist and white supremamcist Richard Hanania, so maybe I shouldn't have been as surprised as I was to see that.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/richard-hanania-white-suprema...
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/richard-hanania-white-suprema...
This is very troubling, because Hanania is a genuine white supremacist.
But it turns out he hid it well, and that HuffPost expose only came out two years after the Andreessen podcast, so it's reasonable to think he didn't know.
And on the podcast Andreessen makes a pretty strong criticism of the Right (as well as the left):
> And the main principle of the right is that it hates the left. This is the old Buckley thing: the role of conservatism is to stand athwart history yelling stop. Which from the right you view as all social change happening around us is from the left, driving things further to the left. They’re all leading societies in directions the left thinks they should go, and that those things are bad because they’re against tradition, history, the way things have always worked and things that have been proven.
> So I think technology kind of gets trapped up in this dynamic. To your point, the left hates technology because they hate capitalism because they hate markets because they’re anti-egalitarian, we kind of slot naturally into that critique. And the right hates technology because it seems like technology is a tool of the left.
But it turns out he hid it well, and that HuffPost expose only came out two years after the Andreessen podcast, so it's reasonable to think he didn't know.
And on the podcast Andreessen makes a pretty strong criticism of the Right (as well as the left):
> And the main principle of the right is that it hates the left. This is the old Buckley thing: the role of conservatism is to stand athwart history yelling stop. Which from the right you view as all social change happening around us is from the left, driving things further to the left. They’re all leading societies in directions the left thinks they should go, and that those things are bad because they’re against tradition, history, the way things have always worked and things that have been proven.
> So I think technology kind of gets trapped up in this dynamic. To your point, the left hates technology because they hate capitalism because they hate markets because they’re anti-egalitarian, we kind of slot naturally into that critique. And the right hates technology because it seems like technology is a tool of the left.
In what way did he hide it well? I’d best describe the story as “racist has a secret life where he’s even more racist”
https://twitter.com/RichardHanania/status/165754101074508185...
https://twitter.com/RichardHanania/status/165754101074508185...
> In what way did he hide it well?
I don't know - I'm just going off the HuffPost article you posted where they exposed it ("Unmasking Richard Hoste").
> https://twitter.com/RichardHanania/status/165754101074508185...
Again, this was after the HuffPost article came out, and after the Andreessen interview.
I'd note that Hanania also interviewed Steven Pinker who I don't think anyone has accused of being a racist even by association.
I don't know - I'm just going off the HuffPost article you posted where they exposed it ("Unmasking Richard Hoste").
> https://twitter.com/RichardHanania/status/165754101074508185...
Again, this was after the HuffPost article came out, and after the Andreessen interview.
I'd note that Hanania also interviewed Steven Pinker who I don't think anyone has accused of being a racist even by association.
Pinker associated with known racist Steve Sailer and there’s plenty of articles calling his views on IQ race science.
Yeah and he quotes neo-reactionary Nick Land
Not just neo-reactionary, actively accelerationist who seems to believe that heat death just can't come quick enough.
I wasn't sure if this audience would recognize the term ‘accelerationist', but yes. Of those on HN who do recognize the term, I wonder how many would consider that a good thing.
Back in the day we had another word for accelerationist groups: apocalyptic cults.
Back in the day we had another word for accelerationist groups: apocalyptic cults.
Everyone needs to read The Limits to Growth and then come back to this piece for a laugh. Donella Meadows is far more profound and intelligent then the vast majority of non-system thinkers who stumbled into the halls of power.
This is a super bizarre read coming from a16z.
Riiight, please ignore the existential planetary destruction we are hurtling towards, trust these ubermensch to decide what's best for you.
Man does not live by bread alone. If you want to make technology and the standard of living a god, that might be rational, just as communism may be an earlier rational attempt in the same vein. But I believe these ideas are naive. The central idea seems to be “eliminate enough of man’s animal suffering and cater to his animal wants and you’ll have paradise” but I think these schemes undervalue the human need for freedom, love, self discovery, and meaning.
Is this missing an /s at the end?
I do believe in the power of technology to make a better world. That's why a venture capitalist using it for profit and then writing a manifesto about how virtuous it is, is the sort of disgusting corruption that makes me skeptic about technology.
But hackernews is the perfect venue to get some minor support from techbros that have grown accustomed to this rat race.
I do believe in the power of technology to make a better world. That's why a venture capitalist using it for profit and then writing a manifesto about how virtuous it is, is the sort of disgusting corruption that makes me skeptic about technology.
But hackernews is the perfect venue to get some minor support from techbros that have grown accustomed to this rat race.
Why does he include "John Galt" in the list of (real) authors to read, but not Ayn Rand? What am I missing?
Indeed, in the spirit of Rand using an agreeable term "Objectivism" to label her confused hyperindividualism, A16Z uses the agreeable "Techno-Optimism" to repackage the same.
I'm highly optimistic about technology, but not whatever this blog post is about.
Indeed, in the spirit of Rand using an agreeable term "Objectivism" to label her confused hyperindividualism, A16Z uses the agreeable "Techno-Optimism" to repackage the same.
I'm highly optimistic about technology, but not whatever this blog post is about.
The list is labeled "Patron Saints" — only a following sentence mentions "reading their works". Many listed aren't really "authors" at all. And Ayn Rand would have enjoyed having "John Galt" listed in her place, I think.
And this post is definitely about technology!
And this post is definitely about technology!
> And Ayn Rand would have enjoyed having "John Galt" listed in her place, I think.
What a bizarre ideology!
What a bizarre ideology!
This is too full of Silicon Valley VC language. ugh
Go to the source materials.
- Rational Optimist. Matt Ridley
- The Better Angels of Our Nature. Steve pinker
- Progress: Ten Reasons to Look Forward to the Future. Johan Norberg
- the capitalist manifesto: why the global free market will save the world. Norberg
- Wizard and the prophet. Charles Mann
- Factfulness. Hans rosling
Or, just look at the data
Go to the source materials.
- Rational Optimist. Matt Ridley
- The Better Angels of Our Nature. Steve pinker
- Progress: Ten Reasons to Look Forward to the Future. Johan Norberg
- the capitalist manifesto: why the global free market will save the world. Norberg
- Wizard and the prophet. Charles Mann
- Factfulness. Hans rosling
Or, just look at the data
http://ourworldindata.org/
http://www.gapminder.org/> the capitalist manifesto: why the global free market will save the world
pretty crazy they'd put a fallacy in the title of their book
pretty crazy they'd put a fallacy in the title of their book
read the book.
Overall, since the 1990s total global inequality (inequality across all individuals in the world) declined ...
In 1990, 36% of the world's population lived in extreme poverty. By 2019, this number had fallen to 9.2%.
It's not a fallacy ... it's reality
Overall, since the 1990s total global inequality (inequality across all individuals in the world) declined ...
In 1990, 36% of the world's population lived in extreme poverty. By 2019, this number had fallen to 9.2%.
It's not a fallacy ... it's reality
And most of that elimination of extreme poverty? In China. Now, I suppose you can consider Dengism capitalism, if you ignore the fact that it's markets and capital under controlled conditions being used to build up industrial capacity for the transition to communism, but hey. Whatever definitions let you sleep at night.
what is the source of this data?
the fallacy is that global free markets are exclusive to capitalism. we're trading with china, and aren't they supposed to be socialist?
and i'll add to my reading list to challenge my bias!
the fallacy is that global free markets are exclusive to capitalism. we're trading with china, and aren't they supposed to be socialist?
and i'll add to my reading list to challenge my bias!
How is it a fallacy? Do you know that it won't?
I think the big criticism with The Capitalist Manifesto is that it was essential the guiding philosophy in the late-1990's to early 2010s where the belief was that building a strong trade with China based on capitalist principles would lead to political change there.
It's impossible to say whether or not it is a fallacy of course, but this is a criticism that does need addressing.
The other major criticism is that it doesn't take into account externalities. It was written in the 1950s, before the birth of the modern environmental movement, but non-the-less the effect of unbound lassize-fair capitalism was understood and the book could do more to address this.
For me (as is common in political/economic trade offs) it's enough to say that the book makes some good points that seem more true than false, and there is enough data to show that it does work much of the time.
It's impossible to say whether or not it is a fallacy of course, but this is a criticism that does need addressing.
The other major criticism is that it doesn't take into account externalities. It was written in the 1950s, before the birth of the modern environmental movement, but non-the-less the effect of unbound lassize-fair capitalism was understood and the book could do more to address this.
For me (as is common in political/economic trade offs) it's enough to say that the book makes some good points that seem more true than false, and there is enough data to show that it does work much of the time.
DNF. Seems like this thread has more supporters so I'll just say it again for fun. Put your money where your mouth is Marc. So sick of you and the geezers lies, haven't you and that monoculture ilk extracted enough wealth over that juicer shaped head of yours?
"We believe ..."
Modernity requires reasoned argument and evidence.
Modernity requires reasoned argument and evidence.
Marc
Thank you for taking the time to so carefully lay out your philosophy on how technology will save humanity. I think it would have been simpler and to the point if you just posted a hand drawn picture with you in Superman costume so people could really understand what a hero you are.
Truly, it is tremendously selfless of you to advance society with your investments designed explicitly to maximize your returns. What a massive coincidence that so much of your investment over the past 5-6 years has been so focused on web3 and crypto - many, many alt coins that you have successfully committed securities fraud with by dumping them on unwitting retail investors who then eat the loss. Progress!
We, the commoners, are so so grateful that you have enlightened us with your incredibly deep take on how the world will advance specifically through technological ideas that all have one thing in common: they all are explicitly designed to line your pockets first and foremost - societal benefits are an afterthought. Oops, I must have gotten that backwards.
At this point in my essay I will quote a philosopher to sound very very deep and contemplative like you - somehow I bet you are a fan of Ayn Rand and objectivism so I'll use her.
In the Atlas Shrugged version of the world, this worldview places you as the modern day John Galt. We are all oh-so-grateful for your ability to save the world by exclusively investing in tech projects that give you massive returns. We are all so grateful that the modern day Galt's Gulch is not a humble valley disconnected from society where honest men work together, but rather a $155 million dollar coastal property in Malibu from which you command your minions. It is literally the most expensive property in all of California. A home befitting the god that you are, reigning on high over all the peasants who don't understand or appreciate your benevolence.
Don't change a thing, don’t listen to anyone who says you have delusions of grandeur. Thank you for saving the world and meagerly only asking for a few billions of dollars and an insane amount of international power and influence in return. You truly are the most selfless and deep philosopher of this age. What a hero.
Thank you for taking the time to so carefully lay out your philosophy on how technology will save humanity. I think it would have been simpler and to the point if you just posted a hand drawn picture with you in Superman costume so people could really understand what a hero you are.
Truly, it is tremendously selfless of you to advance society with your investments designed explicitly to maximize your returns. What a massive coincidence that so much of your investment over the past 5-6 years has been so focused on web3 and crypto - many, many alt coins that you have successfully committed securities fraud with by dumping them on unwitting retail investors who then eat the loss. Progress!
We, the commoners, are so so grateful that you have enlightened us with your incredibly deep take on how the world will advance specifically through technological ideas that all have one thing in common: they all are explicitly designed to line your pockets first and foremost - societal benefits are an afterthought. Oops, I must have gotten that backwards.
At this point in my essay I will quote a philosopher to sound very very deep and contemplative like you - somehow I bet you are a fan of Ayn Rand and objectivism so I'll use her.
In the Atlas Shrugged version of the world, this worldview places you as the modern day John Galt. We are all oh-so-grateful for your ability to save the world by exclusively investing in tech projects that give you massive returns. We are all so grateful that the modern day Galt's Gulch is not a humble valley disconnected from society where honest men work together, but rather a $155 million dollar coastal property in Malibu from which you command your minions. It is literally the most expensive property in all of California. A home befitting the god that you are, reigning on high over all the peasants who don't understand or appreciate your benevolence.
Don't change a thing, don’t listen to anyone who says you have delusions of grandeur. Thank you for saving the world and meagerly only asking for a few billions of dollars and an insane amount of international power and influence in return. You truly are the most selfless and deep philosopher of this age. What a hero.
[deleted]
Get a load of this clown.
Not sure how optimism in technology translates into raging free market libertarian in a few sentences, but then this guy's never been very subtle or aware. I'm sure his 30-year-younger self would want to kick his today's ass.
I could see one being a techno-optimist and also not be a capitalist, but this strikes me more of a half-baked libertarian manifesto with some technology sprinkled in as a garnish.
My main bugbear with this is that - similar to many American screeds on free markets - it conflates "free markets" with "capitalism". You can have one without the other (employee co-operatives, partnerships), and vice versa (monopolies, cartels).
Free markets are about letting the market set the price. That requires multiple providers who are not allowed to engage in extreme anti-competitive behavior that prevents new entrants from becoming providers.
Capitalism is about being able to own shares in an organisation (you provide capital), where others do work and you get a share of the profits generated from that work proportionate to the size of share you own.
A lot of people say "I'm a capitalist", who go to work each day and get paid a wage. These are not capitalists. They're employees. They are normally an expressing an opinion that is pro-free market, and think that investment can drive more opportunities for work for themselves. They may own shares, and hope for it become a primary income source one day, but the majority have to have jobs.
It is reasonable to be optimistic about technology, and to make the case for free markets. It is not reasonable to suggest the only mechanism to make this happen is capitalism.
Capitalism drives the fly-wheel of what Cory Doctorow has called "enshitification". There is a constant need to service ever growing numbers in order to sate the appetite of truly pure capitalists, because it's the only thing they care about. This means we see the slow, painful death of multiple products we care about, because the things that make them something we care about are nothing to do with shareholder value, but functional value (even if that function is "fun").
I earnestly believe that technology firms need to start looking away from all forms of external investment - including venture capital - and to alternative economic models and structures of ownership. If you want to build a unicorn, they might get you there, for a while. But it you want to build something that really lasts, that you get to enjoy running and owning as a career (and why would you want to build any other kind of company), there are other models. And those models will eventually win out, because they are fundamentally, foundationally, impossible to "enshitificate".
This paragraph in particular made me laugh:
> Our enemy is the ivory tower, the know-it-all credentialed expert worldview, indulging in abstract theories, luxury beliefs, social engineering, disconnected from the real world, delusional, unelected, and unaccountable – playing God with everyone else’s lives, with total insulation from the consequences.
A bunch of VCs whose only work is taking pitch meetings and allocating capital to who they think will win and who will lose, sat down and wrote this. Think about that.
Go start your big idea now with friends and family and people you like, making sure you build it in a way that is resistant to capitalism, but open to exploiting everything the free market offers. Technology is brilliant. But these idiots have all the gear and no idea - they're about to be found out, and their beloved copies of Ayn Rand books aren't going to help them.
Free markets are about letting the market set the price. That requires multiple providers who are not allowed to engage in extreme anti-competitive behavior that prevents new entrants from becoming providers.
Capitalism is about being able to own shares in an organisation (you provide capital), where others do work and you get a share of the profits generated from that work proportionate to the size of share you own.
A lot of people say "I'm a capitalist", who go to work each day and get paid a wage. These are not capitalists. They're employees. They are normally an expressing an opinion that is pro-free market, and think that investment can drive more opportunities for work for themselves. They may own shares, and hope for it become a primary income source one day, but the majority have to have jobs.
It is reasonable to be optimistic about technology, and to make the case for free markets. It is not reasonable to suggest the only mechanism to make this happen is capitalism.
Capitalism drives the fly-wheel of what Cory Doctorow has called "enshitification". There is a constant need to service ever growing numbers in order to sate the appetite of truly pure capitalists, because it's the only thing they care about. This means we see the slow, painful death of multiple products we care about, because the things that make them something we care about are nothing to do with shareholder value, but functional value (even if that function is "fun").
I earnestly believe that technology firms need to start looking away from all forms of external investment - including venture capital - and to alternative economic models and structures of ownership. If you want to build a unicorn, they might get you there, for a while. But it you want to build something that really lasts, that you get to enjoy running and owning as a career (and why would you want to build any other kind of company), there are other models. And those models will eventually win out, because they are fundamentally, foundationally, impossible to "enshitificate".
This paragraph in particular made me laugh:
> Our enemy is the ivory tower, the know-it-all credentialed expert worldview, indulging in abstract theories, luxury beliefs, social engineering, disconnected from the real world, delusional, unelected, and unaccountable – playing God with everyone else’s lives, with total insulation from the consequences.
A bunch of VCs whose only work is taking pitch meetings and allocating capital to who they think will win and who will lose, sat down and wrote this. Think about that.
Go start your big idea now with friends and family and people you like, making sure you build it in a way that is resistant to capitalism, but open to exploiting everything the free market offers. Technology is brilliant. But these idiots have all the gear and no idea - they're about to be found out, and their beloved copies of Ayn Rand books aren't going to help them.
preach!
Someone should hand Marc Andreessen a copy of “The Technological Society” by Jacques Ellul
Ursula Franklin’s “The Real World of Technology” as well.
Almost any decent book about history, economics, philosophy, science, or technology, really. This looks like a sequence of autogenerated tweets from a libertarian technobot.
Here's a great list of books about exactly those subjects.[1] I have enjoyed many of them.
[1]: https://x.com/pmarca/status/1577365972469489665
[1]: https://x.com/pmarca/status/1577365972469489665
It has the hall marks of Ayn Rand philosophy. Not bad per say.
Techno-optimism manifesto written by a multi-billionaire founder of a venture capital. It doesn't get more dystopian than this.
Where have the hackers gone?
Where have the hackers gone?
You can't buy a crappy house for less than 1mil in SV. The hackers are all on corporate payrolls.
You sure it isn’t because they just grew up, like the hippies?
I'd love to be free to hack on interesting things. If I didn't have to spend so much on housing, I'd have more freedom. Of course, there are also tradeoffs in that, in the sense that I do not want to live in Cyanide Springs, Oklahoma just to have cheap housing...
It seems like there is a tendency to become occupied with obligations as you age, regardless of exactly how the discretionary time / money is eaten up.
Oh, absolutely, but housing eats up the biggest share of most peoples' paychecks.
The higher those costs are, the fewer people can afford to just go do something adventurous, new and interesting.
I mean, think about the staggering amounts of VC money in the bay area that pretty much flows straight to landlords.
The higher those costs are, the fewer people can afford to just go do something adventurous, new and interesting.
I mean, think about the staggering amounts of VC money in the bay area that pretty much flows straight to landlords.
I am all for reducing rent seeking, including in this case literally. However, my point is that the hippies became squares in the same way the hackers became squares. It's not clear that housing costs are causal; they might just be incidental.
I think it's one of those things where you'd want to look at it statistically, or 'at the margin'. Many - most - people will grow up and settle down some. But high housing costs kind of force the issue even more, and leave less room for people to have some more freedom to explore.
If we are thinking about this as a dynamic system, then: many people who moved to the valley before 2010 got some sort of windfall, whether through home equity or participating in a notable period of wealth creation. Why didn’t that mint a bunch of hackers on the margin, if disposable income is so explanatory?
Hackers would know a "techno-propagandist manifesto" when they see one.
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Yeah, this being written by Andreesen is a non-starter for me. I have no interest in what he has to say at this point - hard pass.
C'mon. We dont hate people we hate bad ideas. He's not wrong about that.
I've seen enough bad/tone deaf takes/perspectives from him over the years to know that, unless he's had some kind of wild change of heart, this isn't going to be any different and likely won't hit home for me. I don't hate Andreesen, but I do hate bad ideas, and he's full of 'em.
Judging from the bulk of the comments in here, it doesn't look like I'm wrong.
Judging from the bulk of the comments in here, it doesn't look like I'm wrong.
Who's to say that's a good idea? I beg to differ.
Sounds like he actually hates people, though.
More like a Techno-Capitalist Fantasy. This part had me laughing out loud:
> Markets prevent monopolies and cartels.
No, markets naturally culminate into monopolies and cartels. That's just human nature.
History has shown over and over again that monopolies and cartels are naturally occurring and that the only successful way to deal with them is to break them up via government intervention. Sure, some monopolies may eventually dissolve due to things like technical obsolescence but that's the type of thing that takes so long that entire generations can come and go, suffering the effects the entire time, before they break up.
This manifesto also doesn't seem to have a solution to "natural monopolies" like ISPs or utilities (water, sewer, electricity). It just pretends such things don't exist.
It also doesn't have anything at all to say about economic externalities (e.g. pollution/downstream impacts), policing of bad behavior, or "tragedy of the commons" sorts of problems.
If you had a technology-oriented country that sends all of its pollution to another country it could be the perfect world envisioned by this "Techno-Optimist Manifesto".
> Markets prevent monopolies and cartels.
No, markets naturally culminate into monopolies and cartels. That's just human nature.
History has shown over and over again that monopolies and cartels are naturally occurring and that the only successful way to deal with them is to break them up via government intervention. Sure, some monopolies may eventually dissolve due to things like technical obsolescence but that's the type of thing that takes so long that entire generations can come and go, suffering the effects the entire time, before they break up.
This manifesto also doesn't seem to have a solution to "natural monopolies" like ISPs or utilities (water, sewer, electricity). It just pretends such things don't exist.
It also doesn't have anything at all to say about economic externalities (e.g. pollution/downstream impacts), policing of bad behavior, or "tragedy of the commons" sorts of problems.
If you had a technology-oriented country that sends all of its pollution to another country it could be the perfect world envisioned by this "Techno-Optimist Manifesto".
Agreed. Not acknowledging regulation's role in enabling a sustainable free market economy is navel gazing.
Yeah I'm equally annoyed by people who can see absolutely nothing of value in competitive capitalist markets and people who can see absolutely nothing of value in regulation of those markets by society. Both things are good, and both things are bad. The goal is to seek the best balance that maximizes the good parts of each while minimizing the bad parts of each.
Every monopoly that exists (and has ever existed) does so because of some combination of government granted monopoly rights. Mineral rights, patents, intellectual property, and all other regulatory barriers to entry.
There is no "natural" culmination into monopoly, monopoly is THE ANTITHETICAL END of the market. Where monopoly exists there is no longer a competitive market floating prices. The state itself in then in control of all production or in affiliation with a stagnant racket that controls all production. There is no market anymore, because the state (a monopoly of its own) has ceased to enforce a market. It is a choice for the state to make. The contrast between the choice between a market and monopoly is as stark as the contrast between South Korea vs North Korea, or Norway vs Venezuela.
There is no "natural" culmination into monopoly, monopoly is THE ANTITHETICAL END of the market. Where monopoly exists there is no longer a competitive market floating prices. The state itself in then in control of all production or in affiliation with a stagnant racket that controls all production. There is no market anymore, because the state (a monopoly of its own) has ceased to enforce a market. It is a choice for the state to make. The contrast between the choice between a market and monopoly is as stark as the contrast between South Korea vs North Korea, or Norway vs Venezuela.
> The myth of Prometheus – in various updated forms like Frankenstein
"if you democratize power, the powerful will hate you for it" and "if you play with powers beyond your ability to control, they may backfire" seem like really different myths to me
> We are told to denounce our birthright – our intelligence, our control over nature, our ability to build a better world.
huh, I don't know that I've ever been told this
> We believe the market economy is a discovery machine, a form of intelligence – an exploratory, evolutionary, adaptive system.
I love how intellectually shallow the power of this reasoning is. Oh, a person who is drowning will pay more for a gulp of air? Wow, what an amazing conclusion, how could we have ever figured that out without the beautiful Divine Glory of The Market?
> Decentralization harnesses complexity for the benefit of everyone; centralization will starve you to death. ... Our enemy is statism, authoritarianism, collectivism, central planning, socialism.
centralization is bad, collectivism is bad, only markets and individuals are good... yeah, this is anarcho-capitalism. Like at no point do they recognize that under this line of thinking, people with a lot of money may be incentivized to cause harm to people without a lot of money, gee I wonder why they might not be so keen to acknowledge that?
> Markets prevent monopolies and cartels.
ah yes that's why the market produced the Sherman act. oh, wait, shoot, that was statist action motivated by collectivist goals.
> We believe there is no conflict between capitalist profits and a social welfare system that protects the vulnerable.
I dunno man, thought experiment here, do you make more money by curing someone of a sickness or by keeping them sick and charging them for treatment forever?
> We believe the ultimate moral defense of markets is that they divert people who otherwise would raise armies and start religions into peacefully productive pursuits.
yeah the idea that everyone wants to be either a murderer, cult leader, or billionaire is ... a totally normal idea that totally normal people have. Beyond being a deeply problematic worldview, the existence of the military-industrial complex challenges the notion that "if if weren't for markets people would do war". Marvelous logic on display here.
> To paraphrase a manifesto of a different time and place: “Beauty exists only in struggle. There is no masterpiece that has not an aggressive character. Technology must be a violent assault on the forces of the unknown, to force them to bow before man.”
he's quoting the Futurist Manifesto here, which ... pretty weird move, my dude. The Futurist Manifesto paved the way for the Fascist Manifesto, and if you're going "that's a reach", the guy that wrote the Futurist Manifesto cowrote the Fascist Manifesto with Mussolini. Yes, THAT Mussolini.
> Techno-Optimism is a material philosophy, not a political philosophy.
brave to make a bunch of sweeping politically-motivated generalizations and then to say it's not a political philosophy. Ok, if you say so!
"if you democratize power, the powerful will hate you for it" and "if you play with powers beyond your ability to control, they may backfire" seem like really different myths to me
> We are told to denounce our birthright – our intelligence, our control over nature, our ability to build a better world.
huh, I don't know that I've ever been told this
> We believe the market economy is a discovery machine, a form of intelligence – an exploratory, evolutionary, adaptive system.
I love how intellectually shallow the power of this reasoning is. Oh, a person who is drowning will pay more for a gulp of air? Wow, what an amazing conclusion, how could we have ever figured that out without the beautiful Divine Glory of The Market?
> Decentralization harnesses complexity for the benefit of everyone; centralization will starve you to death. ... Our enemy is statism, authoritarianism, collectivism, central planning, socialism.
centralization is bad, collectivism is bad, only markets and individuals are good... yeah, this is anarcho-capitalism. Like at no point do they recognize that under this line of thinking, people with a lot of money may be incentivized to cause harm to people without a lot of money, gee I wonder why they might not be so keen to acknowledge that?
> Markets prevent monopolies and cartels.
ah yes that's why the market produced the Sherman act. oh, wait, shoot, that was statist action motivated by collectivist goals.
> We believe there is no conflict between capitalist profits and a social welfare system that protects the vulnerable.
I dunno man, thought experiment here, do you make more money by curing someone of a sickness or by keeping them sick and charging them for treatment forever?
> We believe the ultimate moral defense of markets is that they divert people who otherwise would raise armies and start religions into peacefully productive pursuits.
yeah the idea that everyone wants to be either a murderer, cult leader, or billionaire is ... a totally normal idea that totally normal people have. Beyond being a deeply problematic worldview, the existence of the military-industrial complex challenges the notion that "if if weren't for markets people would do war". Marvelous logic on display here.
> To paraphrase a manifesto of a different time and place: “Beauty exists only in struggle. There is no masterpiece that has not an aggressive character. Technology must be a violent assault on the forces of the unknown, to force them to bow before man.”
he's quoting the Futurist Manifesto here, which ... pretty weird move, my dude. The Futurist Manifesto paved the way for the Fascist Manifesto, and if you're going "that's a reach", the guy that wrote the Futurist Manifesto cowrote the Fascist Manifesto with Mussolini. Yes, THAT Mussolini.
> Techno-Optimism is a material philosophy, not a political philosophy.
brave to make a bunch of sweeping politically-motivated generalizations and then to say it's not a political philosophy. Ok, if you say so!
There is so much fucking wrong with the 'manifesto' but just this made me want to throw up.
> our control over nature
what control.. exactly. Destruction is not control, consumption is not control. Stop any volcanos lately? Prevent any earthquakes? We've been systematically raping nature for hundreds of years and are currently staring down the barrel of extinction because of our inability to control nature.
> our control over nature
what control.. exactly. Destruction is not control, consumption is not control. Stop any volcanos lately? Prevent any earthquakes? We've been systematically raping nature for hundreds of years and are currently staring down the barrel of extinction because of our inability to control nature.
I'm really a bit shocked this was flagged. A blog post (marketed as a manifesto no less!) from the founder of Netscape and one of the biggest VCs in the business about the future of technology. I understand its potential for flame wars, but how could this not be on-topic for HN?
It’s a painfully dumb piece to the point that it’s hard to even nod along with the parts I agree with, because they’re so poorly-argued. There are paragraphs that are at-odds with the one right before, and not, apparently, on purpose.
If it’s not AI written from a much-shorter prompt then I don’t know how this came to be. Writing on a big dose of uppers then not re-reading before posting? It’s an amateurish mess.
I can’t imagine how this bad, obliviously-derivative, name-dropping-while-citing-misunderstood-ideas like a college freshman, bit of writing, could promote productive conversation, unless we want to do a deep-dive critique of it so folks can better learn how not to embarrass themselves with very-public internet posts.
If it’s not AI written from a much-shorter prompt then I don’t know how this came to be. Writing on a big dose of uppers then not re-reading before posting? It’s an amateurish mess.
I can’t imagine how this bad, obliviously-derivative, name-dropping-while-citing-misunderstood-ideas like a college freshman, bit of writing, could promote productive conversation, unless we want to do a deep-dive critique of it so folks can better learn how not to embarrass themselves with very-public internet posts.
Fair enough, but given that it was written by one of the most powerful tech VCs on the planet, I think it's worthy of discussion just to be clear about how powerful tech billionaires think.
I already liked the piece, but the cynicism on display here makes me like it better. It may have struck a nerve, which is usually a positive indicator that a set of ideas is hitting something in the zeitgeist.
The ideas aren't misunderstood. But then again, you didn't give any specifics. :)
The ideas aren't misunderstood. But then again, you didn't give any specifics. :)
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Open question (I don't have an answer and I'm curious):
I have a friend who is an extremely talented musician. They get by, they're not starving or anything, but it's very hand-to-mouth. I have other friends who are massively less talented at other things, but those things are more commercially rewarded (selling, coding, management, etc).
Why does our system (and this manifesto) reward one set of talents and not the other so differently?
Related: are we really, as a society, going to push our most talented musicians/artists/creatives to do other things because of this? If you were born with a gift for music but could also write some software (not badly, but not at the same level) shouldn't we as a society push you to make great music rather than average code?
I have a friend who is an extremely talented musician. They get by, they're not starving or anything, but it's very hand-to-mouth. I have other friends who are massively less talented at other things, but those things are more commercially rewarded (selling, coding, management, etc).
Why does our system (and this manifesto) reward one set of talents and not the other so differently?
Related: are we really, as a society, going to push our most talented musicians/artists/creatives to do other things because of this? If you were born with a gift for music but could also write some software (not badly, but not at the same level) shouldn't we as a society push you to make great music rather than average code?
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Andreessen always argues for "growth" and declares "time to build," but as soon as someone tries to build an apartment in his town of Atherton, he's going to fight it: https://fortune.com/2023/02/23/atherton-steph-curry-marc-and...
Atherton is prime silicon valley real estate that could allow engineers and startup founders to live there at a reasonable price and fuel growth in the tech economy. But if it's going to inconvenience Marc or compromise his nice views, growth is no longer important to him.
Atherton is prime silicon valley real estate that could allow engineers and startup founders to live there at a reasonable price and fuel growth in the tech economy. But if it's going to inconvenience Marc or compromise his nice views, growth is no longer important to him.
I don’t really know Atherton (I’m from outside the U.S. and have only visited the main centers un Silicon Valley) and I have mixed feelings about Andreessen’s rhetoric in recent years, including the tech utopianism expressed in this post.
But this kind of attack is just a classic cheap shot. If the argument was accompanied with evidence that it was feasible and economically optimal to build the infrastructure (transportation, retail, local services) in Atherton that could support a dramatic increase in the number of residents in the area, then sure, you could have a reasoned debate about it. Without that it’s just a sneer, and it does nothing to refute Andreessen’s argument that there should be more development in areas where it is logistically and economically practical.
But this kind of attack is just a classic cheap shot. If the argument was accompanied with evidence that it was feasible and economically optimal to build the infrastructure (transportation, retail, local services) in Atherton that could support a dramatic increase in the number of residents in the area, then sure, you could have a reasoned debate about it. Without that it’s just a sneer, and it does nothing to refute Andreessen’s argument that there should be more development in areas where it is logistically and economically practical.
The only thing stopping development in Atherton is a raging case of NIMBYism.
This is a profession of faith for tech bros so devoid of meaning and humanity in their lives that they have to worship "progress" to justify their existence.
Can you please make your substantive points without snark or name-calling?
Perhaps you don't owe the devoid of meaning and humanity in their lives better, but you owe this community better if you're participating in it.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Perhaps you don't owe the devoid of meaning and humanity in their lives better, but you owe this community better if you're participating in it.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
> We agree with Paul Collier when he says, “Economic growth is not a cure-all, but lack of growth is a kill-all.”
This killed it for me. Humans did just fine in isolation for a very long time...until others forcibly moved them or killed them. Growth, in the terms being described, is religious and juvenile.
This killed it for me. Humans did just fine in isolation for a very long time...until others forcibly moved them or killed them. Growth, in the terms being described, is religious and juvenile.
touche`
> We believe the ultimate moral defense of markets is that they divert people who otherwise would raise armies and start religions into peacefully productive pursuits.
Interestingly, nearly every sentence begins with "we believe," a fundamentally religious statement.
Interestingly, nearly every sentence begins with "we believe," a fundamentally religious statement.
Well, it's a manifesto. That's kind of what a manifesto is - a statement of your positions. If your manifesto is not going to devise those from first principles, then "we believe" isn't a bad way of putting it. (And even if it does devise them from first principles, you still have to justify your first principles.)
That's not a "religion" by normal definitions, but it's perhaps a religious way of stating it. (It could in fact be a secular religion, but the wording of the manifesto isn't enough to show that it is.)
That's not a "religion" by normal definitions, but it's perhaps a religious way of stating it. (It could in fact be a secular religion, but the wording of the manifesto isn't enough to show that it is.)
This guy is telling me that capitalism has denied the world its next Buddha or Christ, and that that's a good thing?
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fassssst(1)
Argument is invalid; r > g.
Why was it flagged?
I truly and thoroughly loved this essay, and am appalled (but not too surprised, unfortunately) by the pearl-clutching comments from a few apparent neoluddites in here.
Man, I'm really sad at the hundreds of depressed, idiotic, whiny rants dominating this comment section.
I knew things were bad, but I didn't know they were THIS bad. People are this upset about anyone being optimistic about anything ever.
The future doesn't have to be a dreary march toward oblivion. Snap out of it, everyone!
I knew things were bad, but I didn't know they were THIS bad. People are this upset about anyone being optimistic about anything ever.
The future doesn't have to be a dreary march toward oblivion. Snap out of it, everyone!
Looks like a lot of people got triggered by the message. I think the manifesto is descriptively correct (by assigning to technology and markets the wealth increase of the last centuries) and prescriptively sound (just keep doing what we know it works).
What makes that post necessary is the sentiment has been largely anonymous so far and there hasn't been any way of connecting people who share these ideas to each other. I admire their enthusiasm. Have fun storming the cathedral!
It has been quite interesting to observe Marc Andreesen's idealogical arc over the past 5 years. An article from a mainstream VC citing Nick Land and Nietzche definitely points to a "vibe shift" occurring, with new ideas gaining hold after a long period of stagnation.
I think one big thing I agree with is that folks are making themselves miserable by adopting this "woe is me" narrative about how life is so hard now and so on and so forth. Life is pretty good. I remember as a child being awed by what I thought then was the rate of progress and now it's even faster: AI, Space, and just appliance tech.
I'm pretty anti-pessimist so many of these things appeal to me. Ultimately, though, it's hard to care that much because I know that Marc Andreessen is just content marketing here.
His efforts to literally stop building homes in his town after publishing a work titled "It's time to build" really tarnishes everything he says and makes it obvious he's a bullshitter.
I'm pretty anti-pessimist so many of these things appeal to me. Ultimately, though, it's hard to care that much because I know that Marc Andreessen is just content marketing here.
His efforts to literally stop building homes in his town after publishing a work titled "It's time to build" really tarnishes everything he says and makes it obvious he's a bullshitter.
> Our enemy is the ivory tower, the know-it-all credentialed expert worldview, indulging in abstract theories, luxury beliefs, social engineering, disconnected from the real world, delusional, unelected, and unaccountable – playing God with everyone else’s lives, with total insulation from the consequences.
Really?
Does an uber-wealthy capital allocator publishing a social manifesto seriously not see that this comment at least justifies a half-assed explanation as to why it doesn’t apply to the author?
Maybe something like, “my personal chef Instacarts my dog’s peanut butter from Whole Foods, just like everyone else, so I am not totally detached from reality!”