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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

#221

Post by vithlani »

guyraput wrote: post #89
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

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.

Source? And are you sure these are reliable, given we are talking about things that happened a 100 or more years ago?

> India's healthcare worsened during colonialism because all the resources were exported to Europe for cheap and in abundance

Indian healthcare????? Are you serious?? So.. what... things like hospitals? Doctors? Medical welfare? They had all those before whitey rolled in? Nobody told my great-grandfather who constantly suffered from hip related problems due to horse riding accident. He found no care whatsoever and had to take opium to manage the pain.

>India's literacy was worsened during colonialism and was just close to 10% during Independence.

So you are saying that before colonialism, Indian people could read and write better? The existing rulers, nobility, upper class, Brahmans were actually interested in a literate population?

>British Divide and Rule policy still affects India today.

There is a Divide and Rule policy for sure, but it is one instigated and maintained by the current set of Indian politicians who rule in the name of religion, caste and personality cults.

Please explain why more than 75% of the Indian population lives in border line poverty 60 years after the colonials left.

I will tell you why: they are in that state because that was their default state before the colonials came along. The new leaders have no gain whatsoever in changing this and so it stays that way.

You cannot keep on blaming other people for your troubles 60 years after the fact. They left, India had problem and those problems have only gotten worse or stayed the same.

I do not support colonialism in any way and regard it as an evil period. That doesn't mean I am blind to what went before it. And what is happening now.

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

#222

Post by intended »

JetSetWilly wrote: post #165
intended wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes? The geographic borders would be different, that's about it. Let's not forget that British trade policy was designed to extract raw material cheap from India, and then dump finished goods at low rates, and remove indigenous industries. The sub continent is like Europe. If allowed to be on its own, people would have modernized and gotten on with the business of making money. So why is that hard to imagine?

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…

I think it would not played out like that at all.

Firstly, the victory of the Brits has more to do with effective political strategy than much else - Indian kingdoms and empires were aware of military tech and made efforts to upgrade themselves (dependent on level of wealth and vision)

Indian industry and industrialists weren't incompetent either - they would pick up new tech and use it.

You don't need to be the source of the revolution - you just need to keep up and compete.

Can you can suggest a reason why A significant portion of the subcontinent wouldn't willingly choose to industrialize?

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

#223

Post by xiaoma »

manish_gill wrote: post #158
xiaoma wrote: post #83

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. This comment itself is further argument that more people here could stand to read it. You've literally ignored the ideas within and just made an ad hominem argument based on the author instead.

He's questioned the judgment of the person writing the document based on his position which can introduce the bias similar to what we see in Andreessen. Not using the ideas described by said document would be the first step when discussing/critiquing it. Otherwise it would circular, no?

No.

If for example you wanted to discuss The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins, the first step would not be to "not use the ideas described within (e.g. genetics and biology research)". Ignoring the topics within and attacking the author for what he later wrote about Atheism or how he behaved in interviews would a mindblowingly terrible way to critique his book about biology.

When discussing or critiquing an essay, the first step is to actually address the ideas inside of it. Attacking the character of its author or other things they may have said about unrelated topics is not a rational substitute.

In this case, geofft's comment is flawed on multiple levels. Aside from making a purely ad hominem argument against the 2008 essay How to Disagree, its specific attack was the author's twitter usage that occurred more than five years later.

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

#224

Post by xiaoma »

metaphorm wrote: post #171
geomark wrote: post #15

I think this thread might need a refresher on how to disagree [1]. Already a few DH0 offenses. [1] http://paulgraham.com/disagree.html

why should anyone be required to agree to the terms set by Paul Graham or anyone else? how terribly condescending.

Is there anything in the actual essay you disagreed with?

To answer your question, first of all name calling and attacking the people instead of the ideas makes for a nasty and unproductive conversation—basically like youtube comment discussion.

Secondly you're on the site he built. The guidelines clearly say, "When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names." If you dislike the guidelines or feel that they are "terribly condescending", then maybe this isn't the ideal site for what you want.

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

#225

Post by geofft »

xiaoma wrote: post #223
manish_gill wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's questioned the judgment of the person writing the document based on his position which can introduce the bias similar to what we see in Andreessen. Not using the ideas described by said document would be the first step when discussing/critiquing it. Otherwise it would circular, no?

No. If for example you wanted to discuss The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins, the first step would not be to "not use the ideas described within (e.g. genetics and biology research)". Ignoring the topics within and attacking the author for what he later wrote about Atheism or how he behaved in interviews would a mindblowingly terrible way to critique his book about biology. When discussing or critiquing an essay, the…

Did you read the remainder of my comment past the first sentence, or did you get distracted by the ad hominem? I admit that there is one, but it wasn't actually presented as an argument. The rest of it refutes the central point of the claim at hand, namely geomark's claim that people in this thread are violating DH0. They're not, and in fact I go on to agree with pg's framing of the hierarchy of disagreement in order for me to argue that the thread is at DH6.

If you think that anything I say is invalidated because I put ad hominems at the top of my comments, well, uh... I'm not sure how to explain this to you, but....

(Oh, and if you think this is about Twitter usage alone, I'd like to amend my personal attack to remove the words "on Twitter", and then direct your attention at http://www.idlewords.com/2005/04/dabblers_and_blowhards.htm .)

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

#226

Post by metaphorm »

xiaoma wrote: post #224
metaphorm wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why should anyone be required to agree to the terms set by Paul Graham or anyone else? how terribly condescending.

Is there anything in the actual essay you disagreed with? To answer your question, first of all name calling and attacking the people instead of the ideas makes for a nasty and unproductive conversation—basically like youtube comment discussion. Secondly you're on the site he built. The guidelines clearly say, "When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names." If you dislike the guidelines or…

standards of discourse in a community are the product of that community. we don't take direction from "dear leader" Paul Graham or anyone else.

is there anything in my comments that you think is out of line? did I attack anyone ad hominem or use weasel words or other forms of deceptive rhetoric?

judge for yourself. my standards of conversation are perfectly fine though, in my opinion. in fact, nearly ALL of the conversation in this thread has been perfectly fine.

my question for you is: why are you so sensitive about the tone of the conversation? is it that you're unhappy that so many people are deeply offended by Marc Andreesen's comments and it makes you uncomfortable to confront that disagreement?

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

#227

Post by xiaoma »

geofft wrote: post #225
xiaoma wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. If for example you wanted to discuss The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins, the first step would not be to "not use the ideas described within (e.g. genetics and biology research)". Ignoring the topics within and attacking the author for what he later wrote about Atheism or how he behaved in interviews would a mindblowingly terrible way to critique his book about biology. When discussing or critiquing an essay, the…

Did you read the remainder of my comment past the first sentence, or did you get distracted by the ad hominem? I admit that there is one, but it wasn't actually presented as an argument. The rest of it refutes the central point of the claim at hand, namely geomark's claim that people in this thread are violating DH0. They're not, and in fact I go on to agree with pg's framing of the hierarchy of disagreement in order…

I read your comment in its entirety and didn't see any defense of the How to Disagree essay. The only mention I saw you make of it was the first paragraph with the ad hominem attack.

To answer your question, no I don't think your usage of ad hominems invalidates everything you say. It does detract from the quality of the discussion and the pleasantness of the site, though. It also detracts from your ability to communicate effectively.

I completely agree with geomark's comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11072755). There are a lot of comments on this article that are little more than name calling, personal attacks or uncharitable assumptions.

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

#228

Post by la6470 »

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-10/marc-andre...

Looks like he apologized

Now what he said is bad but my grandfather who was a freedom fighter kind of said the same thing in his last years because he could not get his award money of Tamra Patra from the hands of the politicians and bureaucrats.

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

#229

Post by xiaoma »

metaphorm wrote: post #226
xiaoma wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there anything in the actual essay you disagreed with? To answer your question, first of all name calling and attacking the people instead of the ideas makes for a nasty and unproductive conversation—basically like youtube comment discussion. Secondly you're on the site he built. The guidelines clearly say, "When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names." If you dislike the guidelines or…

standards of discourse in a community are the product of that community. we don't take direction from "dear leader" Paul Graham or anyone else. is there anything in my comments that you think is out of line? did I attack anyone ad hominem or use weasel words or other forms of deceptive rhetoric? judge for yourself. my standards of conversation are perfectly fine though, in my opinion. in fact, nearly ALL of the conve…

You didn't answer my question, but instead asked me several.

I do not appreciate your insinuation about my own opinions. It's way off base and uncalled for. Referring to pg by the title used for N. Korea's dictator is also obnoxious.

I care about the civility of discussions because without it, they get both less pleasant and less constructive. This entire thread has been an exhibit of that.

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

#230

Post by dang »

JetSetWilly wrote: post #159

So if India hadn't been colonised it would have industrialised in the 1840s, remained competitive in world trade, and never have had any internal political troubles and never ever jail opponents of the mughal empire? Somehow I doubt that.

This kind of flamewar, crossing into personal rudeness, has no place on HN. Please don't do this again.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11072999 and marked it off-topic.

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