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Marc Andreessen Pro-Colonialism Tweet Riles India Tech World

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191–200 of 237 posts

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

#191
post #184
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.

The wealth stayed in America. Also don't forget the prior free labour.

Not true. The British did the same thing here that they did in India--prevent the development of local industry so that raw materials from the colonies would be shipped back to England for manufacturing and sold back to the Americas.

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

#192
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought net neutrality was about protecting consumers from selective high prices set by regional monopolies. Here it "protects" them from a free product that anyone is AFAIK free to compete with. Do I miss something or did things go wrong with the net neutrality idea?

That's not what neutrality means. That means the ISP doesn't take anyone side - either by making certain services faster at the expense of others being slower, or by setting preferential pricing. If facebook really cared about access to internet, they could negotiated 1 free GB of traffic / month for everyone, not just access to facebook and a few other websites that they picked.

What harm is done by giving something away without restricting anyone's options? How is it similar to a regional monopoly giving preferential treatment to some content? What are the reasons to oppose this that do not apply to giving away anything imaginable?

(I understand it's a self-serving move by FB but on those grounds alone one can be opposed to anything.)

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

#193
post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please [don't] disagree with my point that he really didn't say take India back to British colonialism. He didn't literally "say" that, but it's (nearly) irrelevant to point that out. The bigger point is that what he indisputably did say was, by itself, utterly idiotic and offensive.

I am not making the point that he didn't literally say what people are choosing to assume he meant. I am making the point that the assumption people are making about what he meant is wildly unfounded, and is mainly useful for justifying their already-held opinions about him. And I am making the point that employing this misinterpretation to criticize him undermines the important, substantive reasons to criticize him.…

I am making the point that the assumption people are making about what he meant is wildly unfounded, and is mainly useful for justifying their already-held opinions about him.

But (if you mean this idea that he specifically wants to bring back British colonialism) I don't anyone thinks that he meant that. So it seems like a weird charge to defend him against.

If that's not what you meant (by "the assumption people are making"), please clarify.

(It is somewhat ironic that you make your point by rewriting my words in a way that significantly changes their tone, and likely changes how readers would interpret them.)

Sorry, I was just trying to simplify your text to make it easier to respond to that what seemed to be the core import of what you were saying.

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

#194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is hard to imagine because the industrial revolution required a huge number of pre-requisites most of which don't seem to be present in the India of the 18th century, but which were present in Britain. In fact it is the very absence of these pre-requisites that meant Britain was in a position where it was even able to colonise India. To blithely state that if Britain hadn't colonised India that India would have in…

> In fact if Britain hadn't colonised India, some other European nation would have instead. Are you really saying that two centuries of brutal and destructive rule by the British is totally fine because somebody would have done it regardless? I hope I'm just misunderstanding this....

No no you're absolutely right. Great justification isn't it?

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

#195

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

It was just pure ignorance. Some of the larger impacts of colonialism: Indian share of world economy went from 23-24% before colonialism to less than 4% under colonialism. India's share of World Trade went from 27% to 2% under colonialism. India's healthcare worsened during colonialism because all the resources were exported to Europe for cheap and in abundance India's literacy was worsened during colonialism and was…

>Indian share of world economy went from 23-24% before colonialism to less than 4% under colonialism. India's share of World Trade went from 27% to 2% under colonialism.

Please cite this very interesting piece of information.

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

#196
post #174

The idiotic spectacle of otherwise intelligent people attempting to pursue a complex argument in 140-character fortune cookies is so abhorrent to me. More than anything he has actually said, Marc Andreesen's move to Twitter as the vehicle for his pronouncements has made me lose a lot of the respect I had for him. How can anyone think Twitter is appropriate for this?

How can anyone think Twitter is appropriate for this? Marc chose to do us a favor, and show us his true colors last night. And Twitter was the perfect vehicle for that.

That's actually kinda the wonderful thing about Twitter. It's a really quick and easy way to let everybody know what you're really thinking (i.e., it's a really quick and easy way to show your ass to the entire world).

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

#197
post #154
post #114

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?

Good question. Interested to see if there is any answer.

I mean, I think we can make a decent guess. If Tencent came over to the US and offered free wifi, but it was limited to Baidu, WeChat, and QQ services, every tech celebrity in this country would flip their shit and the government would declare it illegal.

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

#198
post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not making the point that he didn't literally say what people are choosing to assume he meant. I am making the point that the assumption people are making about what he meant is wildly unfounded, and is mainly useful for justifying their already-held opinions about him. And I am making the point that employing this misinterpretation to criticize him undermines the important, substantive reasons to criticize him.…

I am making the point that the assumption people are making about what he meant is wildly unfounded, and is mainly useful for justifying their already-held opinions about him. But (if you mean this idea that he specifically wants to bring back British colonialism) I don't anyone thinks that he meant that. So it seems like a weird charge to defend him against. If that's not what you meant (by "the assumption people ar…

I don't think anyone thinks that he meant that.

The Internet hate machine on this issue has been driven almost entirely by that very thought. Andreessen's even been forced to say, "To be clear, I am 100% opposed to colonialism, and 100% in favor of independence and freedom, in any country, including India."

https://twitter.com/pmarca/status/697488911350652928

Why would anyone have to make such an absurd clarification if that wasn't exactly what has become a widespread interpretation?

The original title of the Bloomberg article (which has since been rewritten, and is the submitted article for this HN thread) was "Marc Andreessen Pro-Colonialism Tweet Riles India Tech World," with subheds to the same effect.

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

#199
post #44

A casual glance at your social media feeds would have told you at least two things: 1. In India, the public rejected a massive PR campaign designed to create support for Free Basics, and went in the opposite direction; 2. That nobody from India in the US tech business thought Free Basics was a good idea. In light of that, how Marc Andreesen thought it was a good idea to wrap his defense of Free Basics in a defense of…

The interesting thing about the luminaries of tech is that they are willing to publicly display their prejudices and ignorance. You don't see leaders in finance or airlines doing this with similar regularity.

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

#200

Finally he gets caught out for saying stupid shit. Every thing this man says is self serving (which is fine) but he tries to disguise it as profound knowledge. Ben Evans is 10x worse however, he is one idiotic twat.

> idiotic twat

Ouch. Please stop posting uncivil comments to HN. Even assuming you're right, putting it this way encourages the worst from others.

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