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A16Z blogs are just glorified marketing

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Re: A16Z blogs are just glorified marketing

#81

Post by TaylorAlexander »

bkirkby wrote: post #65
dools wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never heard of it, but I just had a quick skim through and IMHO the bad parts are the parts that have anything to do with economics, because it exposes him as a totalitarian neofeudalist (although he might not think of himself that way ... most totalitarian neofeudalists don't, they just don't understand their own economics well enough to see where it leads).

how totalitarian? you have free markets (which the manifesto supports) or planned economies and planned economies are where totalitarianism works.

> you have free markets ... or planned economies

Believe it or not, humanity's economic markets cannot be fully described by two simple categories.

Re: A16Z blogs are just glorified marketing

#82

Post by margalabargala »

dools wrote: post #41
vundercind wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh wow, I forgot about that! What a wild read. It was such a mess. I loved it. Something about a famous rich person putting that much effort into something so amateurish and clumsy, while apparently being so confident , in an eager-college-freshman sort of way… I dunno, call it endearing, maybe. I mean it’s either that or it’s horrifying. I choose to pretend it’s endearing because there’s too much horrifying already.

It's horrifying because it's not an isolated wild rich man seizure, it's the same shit that Musk, Dorsey et al believe. The whole effective altruism movement is infected with this bizarre space feudalism.

> The whole effective altruism movement is infected with this bizarre space feudalism.

This is basically what "longtermism" is. It's "we will amass huge amounts of capital to rule you now, because we know best, and we promise that as a result your (great-great-...)grandkids will have it better than if we hadn't".

It's just getting rich and playing with toys but with an ethical justification for it.

It reminds me of how back in the day there was all sorts of Creative Bible scholarship around it being "easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter heaven". Like they were all "actually the 'eye of the needle's is the name of this big gate in Jerusalem. It's super easy to get a camel through it!"

EA has done some neat stuff in the here and now in terms of looking at charities et al. But anything claiming to benefit the unborn trillions of the far, far future is just someone making excuses for themselves.

Re: A16Z blogs are just glorified marketing

#83

Post by TaylorAlexander »

bkirkby wrote: post #80
defrost wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the US as it operates today a free market (how free?) or a weighted control economy where the larger players have a greater weight of control of media and the political landscape via owned outlets and subsidised senators? Do small players in the US economy have equal access to the market, or are they overshadowed by near oligarchies? Are you always so bicameral?

the "control" of a "weighted control economy" is usually enforced through government (including those politicians you reference). so when we bring in more government then it's less free market. how close we are getting to a free market depends on who is in power and calling for reduced government intervention/regulations for businesses. as far as control of media, traditional media is becoming increasingly irrelevant…

> the "control" of a "weighted control economy" is usually enforced through government

It is extremely common for large private firms to have weighted control in an economy. Sometimes their control is bolstered by government and sometimes it is hindered by it. But in a completely unregulated market it would be common for monopolies to pop up which could then control large sections of the economy. There simply is no simple linear relationship between "free markets" and government intervention.

> when free speech is allowed on social media the economy becomes more free

Sadly the loudest "free speech proponents" who run social media firms are actually just interested in allowing the speech they want. They will still do everything they can to limit the speech of those they disagree with.

Re: A16Z blogs are just glorified marketing

#84

Post by dools »

bkirkby wrote: post #65
dools wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never heard of it, but I just had a quick skim through and IMHO the bad parts are the parts that have anything to do with economics, because it exposes him as a totalitarian neofeudalist (although he might not think of himself that way ... most totalitarian neofeudalists don't, they just don't understand their own economics well enough to see where it leads).

how totalitarian? you have free markets (which the manifesto supports) or planned economies and planned economies are where totalitarianism works.

If one could have a "free market" in the sense that there were no state to begin with (which one can't) then you wind up with anarcho capitalism, in which a single entity wins because returns to capital accelerate. This single entity can then do whatever it likes.

In reality, you start with a state and then have increasing regulatory capture by large private entities who turn the state into a system that exists purely to enforce their property rights. As they do so they eliminate public purpose.

Whether you have planned totalitarianism or anarcho capitalist totalitarianism the result is the same. If you have 100% returns to either labour or capital, or you try to eliminate either public or private purpose, then you must have totalitarianism.

The Techno-Optimist Manifesto imagines that you can have no state AND no regulatory capture, it's garbage. There are only 2 things in the economy: labour and capital. You have public purpose and private purpose. You balance those things, you have social democracy and innovation. You let it slip to any extreme and you're gonna have a bad time.

Re: A16Z blogs are just glorified marketing

#87

Post by vehementi »

jrflowers wrote: post #70
margalabargala wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering that "manifesto" just means "essay describing an opinion", I don't think your repetition of the word is the indictment you intended.

Exactly. Writing and publishing manifestos is a normal thing. Surely if you cannot link to your manifesto it is simply because you’ve yet to finish proofreading it

I too am intensely distrustful of anyone expressing an opinion in more than a few paragraphs

Re: A16Z blogs are just glorified marketing

#88

Post by gryn »

bkirkby wrote: post #80
defrost wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the US as it operates today a free market (how free?) or a weighted control economy where the larger players have a greater weight of control of media and the political landscape via owned outlets and subsidised senators? Do small players in the US economy have equal access to the market, or are they overshadowed by near oligarchies? Are you always so bicameral?

the "control" of a "weighted control economy" is usually enforced through government (including those politicians you reference). so when we bring in more government then it's less free market. how close we are getting to a free market depends on who is in power and calling for reduced government intervention/regulations for businesses. as far as control of media, traditional media is becoming increasingly irrelevant…

> when we bring in more government then it's less free market.

Let's go to the extreme with your logic. If you completely remove the government you end up with the mafia textbook. The easier way to win at the game is taking out the competition with lethal force. Once that's done there's no one to compete with you, no "free market", congratulations you won.

Why compete in bringing value when you can just use your money to takeout the competition.

Re: A16Z blogs are just glorified marketing

#89

Post by defrost »

bkirkby wrote: post #80
defrost wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the US as it operates today a free market (how free?) or a weighted control economy where the larger players have a greater weight of control of media and the political landscape via owned outlets and subsidised senators? Do small players in the US economy have equal access to the market, or are they overshadowed by near oligarchies? Are you always so bicameral?

the "control" of a "weighted control economy" is usually enforced through government (including those politicians you reference). so when we bring in more government then it's less free market. how close we are getting to a free market depends on who is in power and calling for reduced government intervention/regulations for businesses. as far as control of media, traditional media is becoming increasingly irrelevant…

Bicameral was used by Jaynes in the sense of distinct seperate chambers of the mind, rather than political chambers; I can't say I agreed with his thesis but I always enjoyed his argument and the apropriation of the word.

> i usually don't respond to distracting personal questions

These were specific questions to tease out why you're presenting free market OR planned economies as the only choices- it smacked of certain type of central north american libertarianism that uses Heinlein's early teen reader simplifications.

OpenAi being described as a small player is laughable, small players don't appear with one billion US pledged in backing and sheperded by core established technocrats.

BTW, the question was: "Is the US as it operates today a free market?"

Do you have a clear answer there?

Re: A16Z blogs are just glorified marketing

#90

Post by pokepim »

bkirkby wrote: post #80
defrost wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the US as it operates today a free market (how free?) or a weighted control economy where the larger players have a greater weight of control of media and the political landscape via owned outlets and subsidised senators? Do small players in the US economy have equal access to the market, or are they overshadowed by near oligarchies? Are you always so bicameral?

the "control" of a "weighted control economy" is usually enforced through government (including those politicians you reference). so when we bring in more government then it's less free market. how close we are getting to a free market depends on who is in power and calling for reduced government intervention/regulations for businesses. as far as control of media, traditional media is becoming increasingly irrelevant…

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