Live data from Hacker News

Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection

joanwestenberg.com

81–90 of 513 posts

Re: Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection

#81
How does Marc Andreessen know that he has no introspection if the doesn't have introspection to evaluate whether he has introspection? How can he discuss his lack of introspection in a whole-ass interview about his lack of introspection if he lacks the introspection to evaluate his lack of introspection?

Re: Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection

#82

Is the 1 percenters getting dumber or acting like it? Like 10 years ago, I felt like Andreesen and Elon were thought leaders. Now they sound like idiots. Did I or did they change? Did I grow up and they changed to a younger audience and what I used to enjoy was just a different kind of stupid?

You realized they were always shitheels. Musk was a complete visible fraud long before 2016.

Elon is a social dumbass with the emotional maturity of an edgy 14 year old boy, but calling him a fraud I'd say is false and unproductive.

Re: Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection

#83

Is the 1 percenters getting dumber or acting like it? Like 10 years ago, I felt like Andreesen and Elon were thought leaders. Now they sound like idiots. Did I or did they change? Did I grow up and they changed to a younger audience and what I used to enjoy was just a different kind of stupid?

A decade ago wasn't Musk talking about Hyperloop? He sounded like an idiot to many people then, too. His companies were good at the time but once he talked about anything else I feel like it was pretty clear who he was.

I don't think this is new though, Henry Ford was famously into anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and even owned a newspaper to spread hateful nonsense (history might not repeat itself but it apparently does rhyme). I'm sure if there was more recordings of robber barons of the past you would see the same dumb nonsense you see now.

Re: Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection

#84
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt that. The only thing social media removed was scruples and shame. People were ashamed to say such dumb things and now they think they have some kind of deeper knowledge. Their thinking didn’t change.

I think they also suddenly had to deal with a bunch of people being mean to them, and telling them they were wrong, which drove them a little mad. Sort of an oppositional defiant thing, filtered through immense wealth and power

This. I remember many a time pmarca getting so upset and just blocking everyone who disagreed with him on Twitter. It was the weirdest thing.

Re: Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection

#85

How does Marc Andreessen know that he has no introspection if the doesn't have introspection to evaluate whether he has introspection? How can he discuss his lack of introspection in a whole-ass interview about his lack of introspection if he lacks the introspection to evaluate his lack of introspection?

You're absolutely right! His sentence about not really needing introspection and the right approach being "Move forward. Go." should be read as the Zen koan it is and carefully introspected on. This is the secret of enlightenment. True enlightenment is no-mind: it's not just zero introspection, it's zero of every dualistic craving. Pure action, without anyone being "there" to act: it's about walking the path, not just sitting and reflecting on it.

Re: Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection

#86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You realized they were always shitheels. Musk was a complete visible fraud long before 2016.

Elon is a social dumbass with the emotional maturity of an edgy 14 year old boy, but calling him a fraud I'd say is false and unproductive.

He is absolutely a fraud. He has been lying about many things for more than a decade to boost his stock. He has more in common with Trevor Milton than anyone else.

Re: Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection

#87

Is the 1 percenters getting dumber or acting like it? Like 10 years ago, I felt like Andreesen and Elon were thought leaders. Now they sound like idiots. Did I or did they change? Did I grow up and they changed to a younger audience and what I used to enjoy was just a different kind of stupid?

[flagged]

Re: Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection

#88

This whole scenario is just the logical conclusion of American anti-intellectualism. The need for intellectuals doesn't really go away, but rather we start assuming that "good at making money" = "has ideas worth listening to, on any topic." Not really surprising that many of these people are also frequent critics of academia and professors.

> as ideas worth listening to, on any topic.

Shoe Button Complex as coined by Buffet and Munger. I see this all the time from even mildly successful people. Suddenly the Early Bitcoin Adopter is now a Macro Economist and a Relationship Guru.

Re: Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection

#89

Is the 1 percenters getting dumber or acting like it? Like 10 years ago, I felt like Andreesen and Elon were thought leaders. Now they sound like idiots. Did I or did they change? Did I grow up and they changed to a younger audience and what I used to enjoy was just a different kind of stupid?

IMO they were always the way that they are now, they just didn't broadcast it in public.

Before social media started running society off the rails people like this would generally hold back their controversial opinions to avoid alienating a chunk of the public.

Now they realize they can say whatever they want and the 40% of people that glaze them for it are worth more to their ego than the downside of alienating everyone else.

Re: Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection

#90

Is the 1 percenters getting dumber or acting like it? Like 10 years ago, I felt like Andreesen and Elon were thought leaders. Now they sound like idiots. Did I or did they change? Did I grow up and they changed to a younger audience and what I used to enjoy was just a different kind of stupid?

There's the whole "billionaire bubble" thing, where they get surrounded by folks who have an economic interest in keeping the billionaire happy... but I'd posit there's another big change -- tech billionaires didn't used to have any cultural or political juice. This meant that even if they had some weird / bad takes, they kept them quiet.

Media consolidation has really helped weird billionaires move the Overton window, so that their weird/bad takes become "acceptable", and then they start admitting them publicly.

Post reply on HN