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Technology Saves the World

future.a16z.com

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Re: Technology Saves the World

#31

Post by qq4 »

notdarkyet wrote: post #25
notdarkyet wrote: post #21

"Moderna, a product of the American venture capital system, created the first mRNA COVID vaccine within two days of receiving the genetic code for COVID by email." I love how the lab leak theory is now mainstream but everytime I brought that up along with where the sequencing came from I looked like a crackpot. That email and sequence came directly from China. Look at the Jan 11 note here: https://www.modernatx.com/m…

Please explain why anything said above is not factual rather than downvote?

I believe you're being down voted because you haven't said anything of substance. You mentioned an anecdote and how the sequence reached Moderna. If you're implying something, maybe say that instead of baiting people to guess your position.

Re: Technology Saves the World

#32

Post by tigerBL00D »

In reality humans have a complicated relationship with technology. As much as it promises to save the world, technology is also what is increasingly over the last couple centuries threatening to destroy the world and our species. So technology may be saving the world, but largely from itself.

Re: Technology Saves the World

#33

Post by streamofdigits »

a man's got to do what a man's got to do. talk up his book. cheerlead the workforce towards the next big thing etc.

the fact is an idiotic strand of rna has defeated us all. our collective intelligence crumbled. toilet papers and flour disappeared from shelves and that was just the start.

the billions of "supercomputers in our pockets": defanged, untrusted, unusable as a tool in the fight against the most simplistic of spreading algorithms

the billions of "platform" users: amplifiers of deep and justified distrust, preventing even the miracle of quick vaccines (which was by no means a given) to reach the masses

to be sure the systemic failure we witnessed is by far not just a "tech" or even V/C failure. you can try put lipstick on a pig. but "tech" was measured and came up short.

for any thinking techie out there (and there are many) a time to reflect, then act

Re: Technology Saves the World

#34

Post by admissionsguy »

blackoil wrote: post #19

Andreessen's posts are strongly biased towards what is beneficial for his position. I have read a lot of his posts since 2008 and before. They are intelligent and insightful, but in hindsight lot of them were not best advice for founders/readers but best for the VC.

Same goes for pg. And most other people, I suppose. It’s hard to forgo self-interest.

Re: Technology Saves the World

#35

Post by klik99 »

blackoil wrote: post #19

Andreessen's posts are strongly biased towards what is beneficial for his position. I have read a lot of his posts since 2008 and before. They are intelligent and insightful, but in hindsight lot of them were not best advice for founders/readers but best for the VC.

The same is true for any VC blog, it’s marketing - to both investors and founders. But you can be both biased and insightful! I found this essay very inspirational, we truly are living during exceptional times

If you don’t take into account bias and agendas when you read anything, you probably won’t be a great founder.

Re: Technology Saves the World

#36

Post by wangii »

blackoil wrote: post #19

Andreessen's posts are strongly biased towards what is beneficial for his position. I have read a lot of his posts since 2008 and before. They are intelligent and insightful, but in hindsight lot of them were not best advice for founders/readers but best for the VC.

indeed. I feel it's a lot more difficult to agree with the `SV elites` (az, pg, etc.) recently, wondering if I'm too old or they live in their own rdf.

Re: Technology Saves the World

#37

Post by bttrfl »

semiconduction wrote: post #14

Humanity has starved, struggled and regularly died in mass for millenia. Now the population is 100 times larger than it was a few centuries ago, and more and more people are living in a post-scarcity society. And yes, thanks to all the pioneers, entrepeneurs and geniuses that took an idea or insight into a mass market product. They are who truly deserve the credit.

What if all this is because we took a giant environmental credit that we won't be able to pay back? It's hard to argue that child mortality dropped, literacy increased and so on, but at the same time we are facing existential threats due to warming, lack of water, loss of biodiversity and so on.

We are also enjoying a relatively peaceful period (despite what's happening in Syria and tens of other places) on a global scale, but history shows that every single global conflict gets more deadly. Will we survive WW3?

Let's not prise the day too early.

Re: Technology Saves the World

#38

Post by arvinsim »

julbaxter wrote: post #11

"Technology has become the idol of our society, but technological progress is—more often than not—aimed at solving problems caused by earlier technical inventions." "Interesting possibilities arise when you combine old technology with new knowledge and new materials, or when you apply old concepts and traditional knowledge to modern technology." Quotes from https://www.lowtechmagazine.com

You could say tech fosters a dependency on itself by people to sustain itself.

Re: Technology Saves the World

#39

Post by shoto_io »

blackoil wrote: post #19

Andreessen's posts are strongly biased towards what is beneficial for his position. I have read a lot of his posts since 2008 and before. They are intelligent and insightful, but in hindsight lot of them were not best advice for founders/readers but best for the VC.

Of course. That’s because they’re a VC!

In fact the first large VC who realized that having an own media outlet would benefit their startups immensely.

https://fortune.com/2021/01/20/tech-and-crypto-funder-andree...

Re: Technology Saves the World

#40

Post by semiconduction »

bttrfl wrote: post #37
semiconduction wrote: post #14

Humanity has starved, struggled and regularly died in mass for millenia. Now the population is 100 times larger than it was a few centuries ago, and more and more people are living in a post-scarcity society. And yes, thanks to all the pioneers, entrepeneurs and geniuses that took an idea or insight into a mass market product. They are who truly deserve the credit.

What if all this is because we took a giant environmental credit that we won't be able to pay back? It's hard to argue that child mortality dropped, literacy increased and so on, but at the same time we are facing existential threats due to warming, lack of water, loss of biodiversity and so on. We are also enjoying a relatively peaceful period (despite what's happening in Syria and tens of other places) on a global…

I don't fall for environmental sensationalism

The world is in it's most "livable" state ever

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