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The Gang Has a Mid-Life Crisis

chris-martin.org

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Re: The Gang Has a Mid-Life Crisis

#201

Post by wing-_-nuts »

m_dupont wrote: post #192

The link between DEI and the rest of the content of the article is not well-articulated at all. Leaving aside whether one agrees with the premise, his argumentation is disjointed at best. He is attributing various symptoms of these tech leaders behaviour to them clinging to a bygone world, however he hasn't really articulated any of these symptoms beyond them thinking that "DEI" is the cause of all their problems. He…

>The link between DEI and the rest of the content of the article is not well-articulated at all.

It felt like a lazy generic swipe at 'tech bros'.

Re: The Gang Has a Mid-Life Crisis

#202

Post by Johanx64 »

jlos wrote: post #103

Why is James Damore listed alongside Andreesen and Zuckerberg? Andreesen and Zuckerberg have hundreds of billions at their disposal and Damore was an employee fired for giving feedback on a company diversity program. I mean I know why, but the antipathy underlying the article undermines an otherwise interesting point.

Because the author can't help himself. Obviously. These guys always let their convictions screech out.

The opening statement makes it sound like it's only the wealthy "tech-bros" that are rubbed the wrong way by DEI.

(in my recollection of it, the wealthy techbros were the first ones on the uptake of the whole DEI swindle. It's just that it's not the direction the wind blows these days)

Re: The Gang Has a Mid-Life Crisis

#203

Post by ryandrake »

munificent wrote: post #191
pmichaud wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think in conversations like these most people on the successful side underestimate how valuable the starting advantages were, and most people not on the successful side overestimate how valuable the starting advantages were. Meanwhile almost everyone misunderstands what the advantages really are. People will talk about the $300k loan Bezos started with and think "boy golly, with 300 THOUSAND dollars, I could do any…

> He thought that so very much that never even had to think it consciously. This is such a huge part of it. Our upbringing gives us our culture and the set of ideas and expectations that form our "default mode" thinking. If your default mode assumption is that you are capable and have agency, that investing in a long-term project will reliably produce long-term value, and that risks are often worth taking, you are se…

Plus, this isn't just a mindset that people have in their heads, some chip on their shoulder from their upbringing holding them back: It's their actual reality.

Some people do have agency to act, and the assurance that their actions will produce value, and they are in fact not in catastrophic danger. And some people really do not have agency, they are pawns largely under the control of others, and live on a knife's edge where everything they have might be swept away by things entirely outside of their control. These realities shape whether it is even possible to take the risks that are necessary to reach success.

Re: The Gang Has a Mid-Life Crisis

#204

Post by layer8 »

eej71 wrote: post #97
jglamine wrote: post #52

This essay is weird. The author lumps James Damore, rank-and-file software engineer, in with Marc Andreessen and Mark Zuckerberg. Damore hasn't updated his LinedIn since 2018 - he might not even work in tech anymore? It closes saying they need to stop reliving their glory days and be good fathers and not the town drunk. Those are serious accusations - being a bad father and a drunk. The author doesn't give any eviden…

The Free Press recently did an interview with him. https://www.thefp.com/p/google-memo-james-damore-vindication... Basically he has kept a very low profile.

Paywalled, unfortunately.

Re: The Gang Has a Mid-Life Crisis

#205

Post by munificent »

memhole wrote: post #78
dsign wrote: post #38

Without any hard data about anything, this is just a speculative rant. Go and read my books if you want one of those. But I do agree on one thing: we are lacking a new frontier, a meaningful one. My hope for the years I have left is to see one.

This is part of what I feel keeps driving AI/LLMs. The hope that there’s a new frontier to cash in on.

And before that, crypto.

Re: The Gang Has a Mid-Life Crisis

#206

Post by arduanika »

g_sch wrote: post #124
jglamine wrote: post #52

This essay is weird. The author lumps James Damore, rank-and-file software engineer, in with Marc Andreessen and Mark Zuckerberg. Damore hasn't updated his LinedIn since 2018 - he might not even work in tech anymore? It closes saying they need to stop reliving their glory days and be good fathers and not the town drunk. Those are serious accusations - being a bad father and a drunk. The author doesn't give any eviden…

The author is pretty upfront that the conclusion was meant as a reference to a character in the movie "Hoosiers", not that any of the personalities named were literally drunks or bad fathers.

Maybe the author just forgot which three interchangeable white guys he named at the top of the article, up there with the DEI topic that he broached but then never came back to. Maybe he thought he had written "Elon Musk", about whom the bad father parallel is a little easier to insinuate from the public record.

Or maybe whenever he reads a headline about a billionaire, he just files it under one golem in his head called Zuckermuskezosdriessen. A golem which also includes James Damore (???).

After all, we're dealing with someone who writes sentences like, "the vast majority of your fellow students were men, and they were more or less all the same person as you." This is not an author who sees two people of the same demographic as separate individuals whose sins need to be litigated individually. If Musk is a bad father, what should it matter that Zuck seems to be a fine one?

Sloppy thinking, sloppy writing.

Re: The Gang Has a Mid-Life Crisis

#207

Post by ryandrake »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #156
dgfitz wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point is, most people don't even flip the coin, you're making a false equivalence.

Realistically most people don't get many opportunities to flip the coin Then many who do get that chance choose not to, they choose a less risky path It is very few people who even can attempt to flip the coin ten times And "the 1%" can flip it as many times as they want until it lands on heads 10 times in a row

Instead of coin flipping, I look at it like a baseball game:

Most people are never even given an at-bat. They're born without money/opportunity (on the bench), and they will have to stay on the bench for life.

Some working / middle class people get one or two at-bats. They swing and maybe hit the home run, but maybe instead have a safe base hit or they strike out. That was their chance. Afterwards they're out of money/opportunity.

The top 0.1% or so get as many at-bats as they want. Their parents own the team and the ballpark so they just keep swinging until they get their home run, and then spend the rest of the game talking about how life is a meritocracy, and you succeed by being the best.

Re: The Gang Has a Mid-Life Crisis

#208

Post by pmichaud »

ryandrake wrote: post #203
munificent wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He thought that so very much that never even had to think it consciously. This is such a huge part of it. Our upbringing gives us our culture and the set of ideas and expectations that form our "default mode" thinking. If your default mode assumption is that you are capable and have agency, that investing in a long-term project will reliably produce long-term value, and that risks are often worth taking, you are se…

Plus, this isn't just a mindset that people have in their heads, some chip on their shoulder from their upbringing holding them back: It's their actual reality. Some people do have agency to act, and the assurance that their actions will produce value, and they are in fact not in catastrophic danger. And some people really do not have agency, they are pawns largely under the control of others, and live on a knife's e…

I agree, although in a way that mirrors my opening statement from OP: I think people who don't have this disadvantage tend to underestimate how real it is, and those who have it tend to overestimate how real it is.

Re: The Gang Has a Mid-Life Crisis

#209

Post by layer8 »

memhole wrote: post #78
dsign wrote: post #38

Without any hard data about anything, this is just a speculative rant. Go and read my books if you want one of those. But I do agree on one thing: we are lacking a new frontier, a meaningful one. My hope for the years I have left is to see one.

This is part of what I feel keeps driving AI/LLMs. The hope that there’s a new frontier to cash in on.

If cashing in on is the primary motivation, then it’s all meaningless anyway.

Re: The Gang Has a Mid-Life Crisis

#210

Post by GoatInGrey »

layer8 wrote: post #196
dzink wrote: post #91

Some potential causes of the scarcity of breakthroughs in the last 10 years: 1. "What got you here won't get you there." The problems that need solved today might require a different mindset/level of experience and that may not be in people with enough time or circumstances to build, or enough likeness to the old model be funded by VCs. 2. Distractions galore - Social media and trillions poured into the distraction e…

Good points, but what happened to 5 and 6?

#2 happened!
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