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Replit founder Amjad Masad isn’t afraid of Silicon Valley

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Re: Replit founder Amjad Masad isn’t afraid of Silicon Valley

#231

Post by stavros »

csallen wrote: post #167
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea is that as money gets so concentrated, so does real political power. And with that concentration of political power comes extreme disregard for the opinions of the masses. I think it's a fair argument that the world has always catered to the will of rich people, but the difference now is that rich people are so unfathomably rich, and so much wealth is concentrated in so few.

> but the difference now is that rich people are so unfathomably rich... Compared to when? How many times in history has wealth been less concentrated? As far as I'm aware, for almost all of history post-agriculture, wealth was highly concentrated while the average person lived in abject poverty (think: kings vs peasants). The mid-20th century was an era of mass prosperity in the US and parts of Europe, but it was an…

> How many times in history has wealth been less concentrated?

Mostly all of them! There have been periods where inequality dropped, but mostly it's been rising since at least the 1300s. I'm on mobile and can't link research, but there are a few papers that investigate this.

> As far as I'm aware, for almost all of history post-agriculture, wealth was highly concentrated while the average person lived in abject poverty (think: kings vs peasants).

And yet it was less unequal than now, an era where we've managed to use technology to concentrate wealth at an unprecedented scale. No longer is the richest person you know the king who collects your taxes next door, now it's a SV trillionaire on the other side of the world.

Re: Replit founder Amjad Masad isn’t afraid of Silicon Valley

#232

Post by DSingularity »

hiyer wrote: post #56
gameboy45 wrote: post #16

interesting hearing his justification for working w Saudi but not Israel: He says he would never work with Israel now. “I think it’s an illegitimate and criminal government,” he told me during our gun safety training. “I mean, [Benjamin] Netanyahu is a war criminal.” When I pointed out that Saudi Arabia has its own abysmal human rights record, Masad drew a contrast. “I just think about how Replit is going to be used.…

Seems like a silly excuse. If his concern is that Israel could use Replit for military purposes, then SA is perfectly capable of doing the same. And SA has - directly or indirectly - killed more people in Yemen than Israel has in Gaza.

Am I in some weird alternative universe where Israel did not just engage in a genocidal campaign against a population of Palestinians that are descendants of refugees from their prior genocidal campaign? Israel just finished killing probably over a hundred thousand civilians. The displaced the majority of Gaza. They destroyed the vast majority of its hospitals and universities and public infrastructure. They killed foreign aid workers even after those foreign aid workers cleared their routes with Israelis. Israeli soldiers raped Palestinians on camera. Then those solders were celebrated on public Israeli television and by the Israeli government. Attempts to prosecute those solders resulted in punishment for the prosecutors.

Is Saudi Arabia a human rights violator? Yeah and so is a bunch of western governments. But no modern government comes close to the abuses of the Israeli government and Israeli military. This is the view of the free people of this world.

Re: Replit founder Amjad Masad isn’t afraid of Silicon Valley

#234

Post by angra_mainyu »

dralley wrote: post #129
ebbi wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well there's Vietnam, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Libya etc which would tally ~300k civilian deaths alone. Given the blatantly false pretences that America invaded Iraq under, and the sectarian violence that significantly flared post-Saddam, I don't see why you'd not want to involve Iraq in the stats?

I accept US responsibility for a great many of the civilian deaths caused in Vietnam. I don't accept US responsibility for Islamists of different varieties blowing up each other's markets and places of worship with weapons provided by Iran and Syria.

Hey, get with the times. Whitewashing jihadis is in vogue these days.

Re: Replit founder Amjad Masad isn’t afraid of Silicon Valley

#236

Post by dspillett »

dralley wrote: post #163
krainboltgreene wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

What is your preferred term for individuals and groups whose stated goal is to create a non-pluralistic religious state advantaging specifically their own religious sect, and whose means involves committing public mass killing of civilians along sectarian religious lines?

Religious zelots. There is nothing specifically Islamic in that description.

Re: Replit founder Amjad Masad isn’t afraid of Silicon Valley

#237

Post by angra_mainyu »

xdennis wrote: post #120
siltcakes wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

How is Arab conquest of Palestine "resistance"? Palestine was at the time controlled by the Byzantine Empire: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Muslim_conquest_of_Jerus...

Yarmuk 636 is one of the most depressing events in history.

Whenever I read about that or the disasters that ensued in the following centuries I always spend a day depressed.

Grim.

Re: Replit founder Amjad Masad isn’t afraid of Silicon Valley

#239

Post by flumpcakes »

internet_points wrote: post #233

well, it's not a high bar – these days anyone who says "I support Palestine Action" or "she was murdered by ICE" is called a terrorist sympathizer

> these days anyone who says "I support Palestine Action"

They have a video of people from this group attacking police with sledgehammers. It is strange how much of this 'direction action' is harming Ukraine support and not Israel. If people wanted to support Palestine they can do it without attacking their own countries' military - which is not operating in Israel at all.

> "she was murdered by ICE"

They have a video of her being shot, pretty much needlessly. I'd say that should be manslaughter at a minimum.

Re: Replit founder Amjad Masad isn’t afraid of Silicon Valley

#240

Post by actionfromafar »

lukan wrote: post #201
csallen wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but the difference now is that rich people are so unfathomably rich... Compared to when? How many times in history has wealth been less concentrated? As far as I'm aware, for almost all of history post-agriculture, wealth was highly concentrated while the average person lived in abject poverty (think: kings vs peasants). The mid-20th century was an era of mass prosperity in the US and parts of Europe, but it was an…

"The mid-20th century was an era of mass prosperity in the US and parts of Europe, but it was an anomalous few decades, not the norm." But to those living and remembering that era - it was the norm that they (we) compare with, so it is the reference that matters.

Thank you
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