Marc Andreessen's dangerously unexamined life
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Marc Andreessen's dangerously unexamined life
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Re: Marc Andreessen's dangerously unexamined life
#2Adreessen seems like he's working from a definition of "introspection" that is something like: "negative thoughts and feelings towards the self; unproductive self-criticism, regret"
In other words, a mental doom-loop. But that's not really what introspection means at all.
Healthy introspection is simply attention, curiosity and reasoning applied to the self. It doesn't have to be the kind of mental self-flagellation he suggests.
It is of course, incredibly valuable - I think its basically the opposable thumb of the mind.
Re: Marc Andreessen's dangerously unexamined life
#3I think Marvin Minsky was the first person that I saw take a stand against "knowing yourself" Minsky himself struggled with Freud, wanted to reject Freud, yet found he couldn't do so entirely. With a little more insight than Andreesen he traced "pathological self-knowing" to Eastern roots including meditation practice.
What everybody gets wrong about Andreesen is that Andreesen's origin story of being radicalized through business falls flat: his business partner is the son of notorious conservative pugilist David Horowitz
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Horowitz
and I find it impossible to believe that he didn't get a big dose of ideology from that source.
Re: Marc Andreessen's dangerously unexamined life
#4Adreessen seems like he's working from a definition of "introspection" that is something like: "negative thoughts and feelings towards the self; unproductive self-criticism, regret" In other words, a mental doom-loop. But that's not really what introspection means at all. Healthy introspection is simply attention, curiosity and reasoning applied to the self. It doesn't have to be the kind of mental self-flagellation…
Yeah, it feels like the real lede here may not be "Andressen is a soulless weirdo" but "It's very clear that a lot of our tech 'leaders' are soulless weirdos, which is why this feels like a good explanation of what he's saying."
Re: Marc Andreessen's dangerously unexamined life
#5I think Marvin Minsky was the first person that I saw take a stand against "knowing yourself" Minsky himself struggled with Freud, wanted to reject Freud, yet found he couldn't do so entirely. With a little more insight than Andreesen he traced "pathological self-knowing" to Eastern roots including meditation practice. What everybody gets wrong about Andreesen is that Andreesen's origin story of being radicalized thr…
Fitting that he was such a good friend of Epstein.
Re: Marc Andreessen's dangerously unexamined life
#6I think Marvin Minsky was the first person that I saw take a stand against "knowing yourself" Minsky himself struggled with Freud, wanted to reject Freud, yet found he couldn't do so entirely. With a little more insight than Andreesen he traced "pathological self-knowing" to Eastern roots including meditation practice. What everybody gets wrong about Andreesen is that Andreesen's origin story of being radicalized thr…
Minsky, the noted Epstein associate, accused of sex with minors according to court documents, didn’t really care for self examination? Yeah that tracks.
Re: Marc Andreessen's dangerously unexamined life
#7I've always been a bit embarrassed by the extent of my self-conciousness, but recently I'm starting to think of it as more of a virtue than a hindrance.
Re: Marc Andreessen's dangerously unexamined life
#8[dead]
Re: Marc Andreessen's dangerously unexamined life
#9> If you go back, like, 400 years ago, it never would have occurred to anybody to be introspective
Dunno, Shakespeare died 410 years ago and soliloquies on internal moral dilemmas and emotional states in Macbeth, Othello and Hamlet are a cornerstone of those plays.
Re: Marc Andreessen's dangerously unexamined life
#10"Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves..."
~2 Corinthians 13:5~ Freud