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Technocracy 2.0

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Re: Technocracy 2.0

#31

Post by irishcoffee »

servo_sausage wrote: post #23
leggerss wrote: post #12

Something that strikes me every time I encounter SV Rationalism presented this way is the self-annihilation of it: tastes and preferences are to be optimized out as cognitive biases, grey uniforms mandated in lieu of individual expression (fashion). The god they're sacrificed to? “Technological progress" I lived in SF for a few years and found the tech community's disinterest in art to border on allergy. It was as if…

Libertarianism doesn't mesh well with reality; the government doing less is part of it, but it also requires a way for people to efficiently protect their property. So you get to a point where mass surveillance is justified by the anti-crime angle; there is no contradiction, libertarianism logic where you can live and let live requires no crime...

> Libertarianism doesn't mesh well with reality; the government doing less is part of it, but it also requires a way for people to efficiently protect their property. > So you get to a point where mass surveillance is justified by the anti-crime angle; there is no contradiction, libertarianism logic where you can live and let live requires no crime...

Whatever technical definition of Libertarianism you're using is very narrow. Nobody is under the delusion that Libertarianism requires no crime.

Re: Technocracy 2.0

#32

Post by irishcoffee »

like_any_other wrote: post #24
leggerss wrote: post #12

Something that strikes me every time I encounter SV Rationalism presented this way is the self-annihilation of it: tastes and preferences are to be optimized out as cognitive biases, grey uniforms mandated in lieu of individual expression (fashion). The god they're sacrificed to? “Technological progress" I lived in SF for a few years and found the tech community's disinterest in art to border on allergy. It was as if…

> I ask myself every time I hear that Thiel is a "libertarian" _while also_ being the founder of the biggest surveillance dragnet ever created: what about surveillance is libertarian? Surveillance does not directly violate the non-aggression principle, and a myopic adherence to minimal principles without any consideration to where they lead is the central feature of libertarianism.

> a myopic adherence to minimal principles without any consideration to where they lead is the central feature of libertarianism.

Your definition, maybe. Redefining that idea and assuming it is accepted as fact is a touch arrogant.

Re: Technocracy 2.0

#33

Post by direwolf20 »

irishcoffee wrote: post #31
servo_sausage wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Libertarianism doesn't mesh well with reality; the government doing less is part of it, but it also requires a way for people to efficiently protect their property. So you get to a point where mass surveillance is justified by the anti-crime angle; there is no contradiction, libertarianism logic where you can live and let live requires no crime...

> Libertarianism doesn't mesh well with reality; the government doing less is part of it, but it also requires a way for people to efficiently protect their property. > So you get to a point where mass surveillance is justified by the anti-crime angle; there is no contradiction, libertarianism logic where you can live and let live requires no crime... Whatever technical definition of Libertarianism you're using is ve…

It does if you don't want a worse privately owned government. Either the government will stop crime, or Palantir and the Pinkertons will stop anything they seem to be crime, or there never was any crime.

Re: Technocracy 2.0

#34

Post by mullingitover »

direwolf20 wrote: post #30
throwway120385 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think this new version is the latter case, a bad rehearsal used as a veil of the ascent of fascism in the States. I've found over time that one man's utopia is another's hellish nightmare. This is true of every utopia and should be a pretty strong argument against implementing them at all.

I see this in some cities. They are very clean looking, no litter, no graffiti, very shiny windows. Then you think about how the people must be treated to make this be true.

> Then you think about how the people must be treated to make this be true.

People who have all their needs met (food and safety, social, etc) tend to want to make the world around them better. I would wager the nice looking places are more likely to have well-treated people.

Places that look like dumps are the ones more likely to be populated by people who are treated poorly.

Re: Technocracy 2.0

#35

Post by acuozzo »

leggerss wrote: post #12

Something that strikes me every time I encounter SV Rationalism presented this way is the self-annihilation of it: tastes and preferences are to be optimized out as cognitive biases, grey uniforms mandated in lieu of individual expression (fashion). The god they're sacrificed to? “Technological progress" I lived in SF for a few years and found the tech community's disinterest in art to border on allergy. It was as if…

> The god they're sacrificed to? “Technological progress"

They're wannabe-Morlocks.

Re: Technocracy 2.0

#36

Post by like_any_other »

irishcoffee wrote: post #32
like_any_other wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I ask myself every time I hear that Thiel is a "libertarian" _while also_ being the founder of the biggest surveillance dragnet ever created: what about surveillance is libertarian? Surveillance does not directly violate the non-aggression principle, and a myopic adherence to minimal principles without any consideration to where they lead is the central feature of libertarianism.

> a myopic adherence to minimal principles without any consideration to where they lead is the central feature of libertarianism. Your definition, maybe. Redefining that idea and assuming it is accepted as fact is a touch arrogant.

I'm not assuming or defining anything, just summarizing my observations of how self-proclaimed libertarians behave.

Re: Technocracy 2.0

#37

Post by lawrenceyan »

This piece totally misreads the temperament of actual builders imo. The author confuses a malicious will to power with a genuine, if sometimes naive, optimism that code/crypto can solve human coordination problems.

Re: Technocracy 2.0

#38

Post by fragmede »

leggerss wrote: post #12

Something that strikes me every time I encounter SV Rationalism presented this way is the self-annihilation of it: tastes and preferences are to be optimized out as cognitive biases, grey uniforms mandated in lieu of individual expression (fashion). The god they're sacrificed to? “Technological progress" I lived in SF for a few years and found the tech community's disinterest in art to border on allergy. It was as if…

> I lived in SF for a few years and found the tech community's disinterest in art to border on allergy.

That has to do with the crowd you ran into. Burning Man is many things, but among those, it does have a lot of art. Did you go to SF Museum of Modern Art? or any of the art anything's? Same with sports. There are a ton of nerds that call it sportsball and think they're clever, but at the same time, the Superbowl is this weekend and there's a lot of sport-related things happening around the Bay Area that you wouldn't know about if you didn't look for it. So I'd be wary of drawing conclusions from such a limited sample set.

Re: Technocracy 2.0

#39

Post by cyberax »

like_any_other wrote: post #24
leggerss wrote: post #12

Something that strikes me every time I encounter SV Rationalism presented this way is the self-annihilation of it: tastes and preferences are to be optimized out as cognitive biases, grey uniforms mandated in lieu of individual expression (fashion). The god they're sacrificed to? “Technological progress" I lived in SF for a few years and found the tech community's disinterest in art to border on allergy. It was as if…

> I ask myself every time I hear that Thiel is a "libertarian" _while also_ being the founder of the biggest surveillance dragnet ever created: what about surveillance is libertarian? Surveillance does not directly violate the non-aggression principle, and a myopic adherence to minimal principles without any consideration to where they lead is the central feature of libertarianism.

Surveilance means stealing intellectual property of surveiled people. If you're a TRUE libertarian, then you need to make sure that you arrange some kind of a contract with the people you surveil.

Re: Technocracy 2.0

#40

Post by sublinear »

seydor wrote: post #11

The rich men of SV belong to a narrow generation cohort, genX and early millenials. They were overgrown kids in 2006 and had no political ambitions. In 2016 they still didn't so they voted against the grain. in 2026 they are over 40 and willing to bend to whatever makes the rest of their life easier. In reality it's a bunch of children that were "socialists in their teens , conservatives as adults" (but because socia…

It seems like a bold assumption these guys will still be in the same roles at 65.
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