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The Nerd Reich – Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy

simonandschuster.com

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Re: The Nerd Reich – Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy

#161

Post by im3w1l »

wolvesechoes wrote: post #111
noduerme wrote: post #20

I know it's fashionable to say that democracy itself leads to these outcomes that destroy democracy. I think Arendt was right about self-colonization and overproduction of elites being the main thing that leads to totalitarianism. There wouldn't even be such a thing as a silicon valley billionaire if the United States wasn't the most wildly successful political entity for the past 2000 years. Power corrupts, but that…

> Power corrupts It doesn't, although they would like you to believe so, so you avoid obtaining it. But it definitely attracts those corrupted.

Whenever I heard that expression I have never perceived people to mean "so don't obtain power". More like, "if you do get power be careful". Or "even if he seems like a nice guy, we should maintain a separation of powers".

Like it's more a force than a destiny. Gravity pulls the moon down every day yet it doesn't fall on our heads.

Re: The Nerd Reich – Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy

#162

Post by delichon »

wolvesechoes wrote: post #111
noduerme wrote: post #20

I know it's fashionable to say that democracy itself leads to these outcomes that destroy democracy. I think Arendt was right about self-colonization and overproduction of elites being the main thing that leads to totalitarianism. There wouldn't even be such a thing as a silicon valley billionaire if the United States wasn't the most wildly successful political entity for the past 2000 years. Power corrupts, but that…

> Power corrupts It doesn't, although they would like you to believe so, so you avoid obtaining it. But it definitely attracts those corrupted.

You don't believe that there are people who honored a principle until temptation became to strong? Only people who pursued the temptation?

Re: The Nerd Reich – Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy

#163

Post by FranzFerdiNaN »

jve wrote: post #49
jamil7 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's cute but are there any actual nerds left in big tech leadership? Of the magnificent seven we basically only have Jensen Huang left as a technical leader and maybe you can count Zuckerberg.

Elon Musk must be one. Seems enough techy to me: Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink - software being used for the hardware in innovative ways. Edit: Oh, wow, mentioning this guy is surely controversial, sorry. However discussing whether he is a nerd, understands engineering on very deep level/gets his hands dirty OR he only manages people - there must be some psychological aspect related, a form of disagreement to discredit or…

Maybe he used to be one, who knows. But I doubt he read a book or seen a movie in the past few decades. He got roasted by Joyce Carol Oates on X recently for being an oaf and he immediately started replying to tweets about acclaimed movies. And nothing insightful that proved he had seen them, just 'this is a great movie' or some other stupid oneliner. It would be hilarious if it wasnt so sad that the richest man on earth is such a pathetic little man.

Re: The Nerd Reich – Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy

#164

Post by ycombigrator »

tim333 wrote: post #137
jamil7 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's cute but are there any actual nerds left in big tech leadership? Of the magnificent seven we basically only have Jensen Huang left as a technical leader and maybe you can count Zuckerberg.

Google has some tendencies - Sundar Pichai was a materials engineer, Brin is back working there who considers himself a computer scientist. Maybe Hassabis - depends how you define it I guess.

Hassabis is absolutely a nerd. Joint honours physics and maths from Oxbridge and a PhD in neuroscience (and a Nobel prize in none of these fields).

His driving interest was always games (master standard in chess at 13, five-time winner of the all-round world board games championship, video game programmer in his teens then his own studio in his 20s).

He's the end game boss of nerdland.

Re: The Nerd Reich – Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy

#165

Post by tim333 »

ycombigrator wrote: post #164
tim333 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has some tendencies - Sundar Pichai was a materials engineer, Brin is back working there who considers himself a computer scientist. Maybe Hassabis - depends how you define it I guess.

Hassabis is absolutely a nerd. Joint honours physics and maths from Oxbridge and a PhD in neuroscience (and a Nobel prize in none of these fields). His driving interest was always games (master standard in chess at 13, five-time winner of the all-round world board games championship, video game programmer in his teens then his own studio in his 20s). He's the end game boss of nerdland.

Yeah but the dictionary has "intellectually passionate but socially awkward, or someone considered unstylish and lacking social skills". I think he might be a bit social.

Re: The Nerd Reich – Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy

#166

Post by mikkupikku »

sidibe wrote: post #124
mikkupikku wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Elon was an enthusiastic reader of books, and had attributed his success in part to having read The Lord of the Rings, the Foundation series, and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.[11][28] At age ten, he developed an interest in computing and video games, teaching himself how to program from the VIC-20 user manual.[29] At age twelve, Elon sold his BASIC-based game Blastar to PC and Office Technology magazine for…

He definitely has talked about a lot of nerdy books. Don't know about his attention span and not sure how to square what he likes with his values. He brings up the Culture all the time but I have my doubts that he's actually read them

I don't know either, I haven't read the Culture books (yet) either so I can't really evaluate that.

I do believe he read a lot of sci-fi in his youth, if only because that would fit the pattern of a young boy who doesn't get along well with their peers and turns towards solitary pursuits like computer programming. He seems exactly the sort to have read lots of Heinlein.

Re: The Nerd Reich – Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy

#167

Post by [deleted] »

GJim wrote: post #31
roenxi wrote: post #9

I would assume by default that billionaires are politically active and causing a problem. However this link doesn't give a lot of hints about how or wherefore. I assume this is a jab at Thiel; but it is a bit light on in the synopsis department. There are a huge number of threats to democracy and the biggest one is probably the total lack of principles and common sense possessed by the median voter. It is a real prob…

> the biggest one is probably the total lack of principles and common sense possessed by the median voter. Hard disagree. The biggest problem is a misinformed electorate. An accurate, honest and truthful press is vital for democracy; how else do people know whom to vote for! The fact this is being dismantled (often supplying deliberate misinformation) is truly worrying. After all, the electorate is entitled to have a…

[deleted]

Re: The Nerd Reich – Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy

#168

Post by [deleted] »

jve wrote: post #49
jamil7 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's cute but are there any actual nerds left in big tech leadership? Of the magnificent seven we basically only have Jensen Huang left as a technical leader and maybe you can count Zuckerberg.

Elon Musk must be one. Seems enough techy to me: Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink - software being used for the hardware in innovative ways. Edit: Oh, wow, mentioning this guy is surely controversial, sorry. However discussing whether he is a nerd, understands engineering on very deep level/gets his hands dirty OR he only manages people - there must be some psychological aspect related, a form of disagreement to discredit or…

[deleted]

Re: The Nerd Reich – Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy

#169

Post by sillyfluke »

ManlyBread wrote: post #86
lapcat wrote: post #25

Is there a HN convention for links to books? This book appears to be available only for preorder now, not yet published. Nobody here has read it, nobody here can read it, and even if they could, this submission will disappear off the front pages before commenters have a chance to order and read the book. Thus the comments section here is going to be useless (or at least more useless than usual).

I don't know what happened to this website but stuff like this keeps hitting the front page more and more often despite having close to zero value. It feels like SEO spam to me.

Yes, the bad link given here doesn't do the content justice, whatever your opinion would be. It would've been better to link to one of the author's articles on the Nerd Reich website (or something more substantive like his newsletter content). I'm assuming you're talking about the link itself as opposed to the content of the book or topic in general.
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