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Marc Andreessen Pro-Colonialism Tweet Riles India Tech World

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Re: Marc Andreessen Pro-Colonialism Tweet Riles India Tech World

#111

Post by JackFr »

rayiner wrote: post #92
factorialboy wrote: post #4

Extremely stupid tweet by Andreessen. He probably doesn't even realize that, like most ignorant people. FYI it was socialism that held back the Indian economy during the 70s and 80s. And it was colonialism that drained the country's wealth for over two hundred years. Here, Mr. Andreessen, educate yourself: https://www.google.com/search?q=bengal+famine

One thing I never see mentioned in this debate is the fact that America was a British colony as well, and colonial status definitely drained American wealth for centuries (though obviously, the occupation of India was far more brutal). But I think it's highly unlikely that America ever would've become a superpower without the benefit of British culture, institutions, and law.

> though obviously, the occupation of India was far more brutal

The 'Americans' were the occupiers. Native Americans have quite a tale to tell about brutality.

Re: Marc Andreessen Pro-Colonialism Tweet Riles India Tech World

#112

Post by dharmach »

tosseraccount wrote: post #13
factorialboy wrote: post #4

Extremely stupid tweet by Andreessen. He probably doesn't even realize that, like most ignorant people. FYI it was socialism that held back the Indian economy during the 70s and 80s. And it was colonialism that drained the country's wealth for over two hundred years. Here, Mr. Andreessen, educate yourself: https://www.google.com/search?q=bengal+famine

Mughal Empire , sectarianism and caste system crippled India, not Britain.

Islamic invasion, caste system and colonialism all crippled India.

Re: Marc Andreessen Pro-Colonialism Tweet Riles India Tech World

#113

Post by geofft »

cookiecaper wrote: post #84
geofft wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, that document was written by another VC who likes to run his mouth on Twitter. So there's a legitimate discussion to be had about whether that document is poisoning the well of criticism. Marc Andreessen is an extraordinarily influential person in tech, and that influence is based on his reputation. If a nobody like me tweeted something dumb, everyone would just ignore me. Nobody ignores Andreessen, though…

>Marc Andreessen is an extraordinarily influential person in tech, and that influence is based on his reputation. And that reputation is based on his position as an early luminary that made direct and real contributions to the progress of the field, and his continued ability to make great picks for VC. Andreessen, like Paul Graham, is one of the few VCs who actually understands the technical underpinnings of what's g…

Depends on what "matter" means. For the goals of the individual VCs making themselves more money, sure, agreed. And perhaps also for the goal of making as many (financially) successful tech companies as possible, without regard to what those companies do.

But for the goal of improving society by this investment, instead of worsening it? A successful neo-Nazi VC would be terrifying.

Re: Marc Andreessen Pro-Colonialism Tweet Riles India Tech World

#114

Post by chvid »

I guess you need to pick your words with care; and not to be too direct if you want to say:

1. The "ruling" really is just protecting existing telcos' businesses.

2. Something about India being held back by corruption and bad politics.

(Not that I agree with the above.)

What would happen in USA if a big Chinese company set up free over mobile network access to select websites?

Re: Marc Andreessen Pro-Colonialism Tweet Riles India Tech World

#115

Post by protomyth »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #102
rayiner wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing I never see mentioned in this debate is the fact that America was a British colony as well, and colonial status definitely drained American wealth for centuries (though obviously, the occupation of India was far more brutal). But I think it's highly unlikely that America ever would've become a superpower without the benefit of British culture, institutions, and law.

How about German culture, institutions and law? How about Bohemian? Austrian? Italian? Czech? Polish? America was last a British colony, but it was far from a uniform culture of expat British. And it reinvented itself violently upon rebellion. Into something quite new in the world. Or at least not seen in a long time. And definitely not British.

Well, that's not exactly true. American is another child of the Magna Carta and we definitely (at the North's insistence) adopted the British economic system (Capitalism). Originally, Americans fought for their rights as British subjects, and later turned towards independence when that was not going to happen.

Yes, the American government was a new thing, but it was built on a foundation already understood by the founding fathers.

I often wonder about the world in the British had given seats in the House of Commons to its bigger colonies. Distance and communications speeds were problems as well as the government's attitude toward the colonies. It probably would have been cheaper than the world spanning war they ended up fighting with France during the American Revolution.

Re: Marc Andreessen Pro-Colonialism Tweet Riles India Tech World

#117

Post by sangnoir »

jccc wrote: post #98
temp wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>jumping reflexively to the most uncharitable interpretation of what the person said. There isn't a charitable interpretation to what he said. There's only a "damage control" interpretation. And that one doesn't really fit well with the fact that he blocked people who retweetted (and hence gave more prominence) to his original tweet.

Which interpretation is at least as uncharitable as the one that thinks he said India should have remained a colony of Britain? Any other (more sane) interpretation might be a really, really profoundly stupid statement, as well. I don't care and am not qualified to argue those. The point is that we can't have meaningful conversations when so many people jump immediately on the misinterpretation of a statement that is…

> Any other (more sane) interpretation might be a really, really profoundly stupid statement, as well

Agreed.

The exercise in measuring charitability is merely academic in this instance. The bottom line is a VC has said a really stupid thing which goes against his earlier pronouncements on NN, because he literally has money on the line as an FB investor. Which ever way you look at it, he sounds like an out-of-touch corporatist.

Re: Marc Andreessen Pro-Colonialism Tweet Riles India Tech World

#118

Post by nileshtrivedi »

mc32 wrote: post #103
factorialboy wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Net neutrality is not anti-West.

You have to take politics into account. In this case due to historical factors and reactionary attitudes it very well can be a reaction to "the west"

Facebook was not the center of this debate at all. The debate and the regulation are about differential pricing. The movement started in opposition of Airtel (an Indian company) and people en-masse downvoted Flipkart (an Indian company) for participating. People have praised Google (a western company)'s Project Loon for respecting Net Neutrality and installing free wi-fi in railway stations.

The criticism of FreeBasics would have gone to Reliance (an Indian company) if Facebook hadn't started this high-decibel campaign with two full pages of ads with heading "What Net Neutrality activists are not telling you". FB wanted the attention so they got it.

Re: Marc Andreessen Pro-Colonialism Tweet Riles India Tech World

#119

Post by cookiecaper »

mikeash wrote: post #64
geofft wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Marc Andreessen has a well-documented record of blocking people liberally for very little reason: https://medium.com/@aminatou/to-marc-andressen-6d09239f0065 https://twitter.com/triketora/status/677597576183480320 http://money.cnn.com/2015/12/23/technology/marc-andreessen-b... https://blogdotitrendcorporationdotcom.wordpress.com/2014/05... And, confusingly enough, doesn't really respect other people's blocks: https:/…

I don't see what's wrong with this, specifically. It's his account, he can block whoever he wants. People take this stuff way too personally. I've blocked a few people simply because I don't like their stuff in my feed. One of them bugged me for months afterwards to unblock him, even though it's completely inconsequential and I don't say much interesting anyway. IMO this is a flaw with twitter. Blocks are two-way: I…

>IMO this is a flaw with twitter. Blocks are two-way: I don't see their stuff, and they don't see my stuff. But whenever I'm blocking someone, it's just because I don't want to see their stuff. There's no reason to tie those together.

Twitter tried to fix this and it was a PR disaster for them. http://archive.is/YMJCg

Re: Marc Andreessen Pro-Colonialism Tweet Riles India Tech World

#120

Post by reitanqild »

rayiner wrote: post #92
factorialboy wrote: post #4

Extremely stupid tweet by Andreessen. He probably doesn't even realize that, like most ignorant people. FYI it was socialism that held back the Indian economy during the 70s and 80s. And it was colonialism that drained the country's wealth for over two hundred years. Here, Mr. Andreessen, educate yourself: https://www.google.com/search?q=bengal+famine

One thing I never see mentioned in this debate is the fact that America was a British colony as well, and colonial status definitely drained American wealth for centuries (though obviously, the occupation of India was far more brutal). But I think it's highly unlikely that America ever would've become a superpower without the benefit of British culture, institutions, and law.

+1 Interesting, we have all got a lot from Great Britain,

-that said lets not sweep the brutality against native Americans under the rug.

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