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Andreessen Horowitz is investing billions into a bleak future

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Re: Andreessen Horowitz is investing billions into a bleak future

#271

Post by tavavex »

rglover wrote: post #127
AJMaxwell wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, we really should hate the players. They are keeping the game from changing.

No sarcasm: play a different game. If you play their game, of course you'll suffer. But if you play a game they're repulsed by, you can win a life they'll never have access to: one filled with people who love and respect you and an environment where your best self and life can emerge.

You can, of course, distance yourself from their world and work on things they would never see as valuable. However, you can't check out of the most grand game we're playing, the game of life and existence. Those people desperately want to toy with things that could eventually prevent you from being able to live a life where you still have food, water and shelter. You can ignore it while they're still not all-powerful, but as their wealth and influence grows, you will eventually have to confront it.

Re: Andreessen Horowitz is investing billions into a bleak future

#272

Post by munksbeer »

akudha wrote: post #129
pulkitsh1234 wrote: post #81

"A man who wishes to make a profession of goodness in everything must necessarily come to grief among so many who are not good. Therefore, it is necessary for a prince, who wishes to maintain himself, to learn how not to be good, and to use this knowledge and not use it, according to the necessity of the case" -- Niccolo Machiavelli It's a self fulfilling prophecy... while us commoners, or so called "activists" or et…

Setting ethical and moral questions aside for a second: Never pay a human again Every time I see stuff like this (along with other more serious shenanigans like wage theft, union busting etc) I only ask myself the same question again and again - what is the end game here? If much of the population is too poor to buy anything, too sick to consume much etc - who is left to buy anything at all? If all their power comes…

I think you're arguing against something that is made up by doomers. They truly believe (evidence by the comments below yours) that the billionaire class are all a of one mind and want to eradicate other humans, live in cloud cities, and have robots cater to their every need.

I don't even really know how to start refuting this. It seems to absurd to even start.

Re: Andreessen Horowitz is investing billions into a bleak future

#273

Post by spacechild1 »

chaseadam17 wrote: post #253

On one hand, VCs that fund thousands of early-stage startups are inevitably going to fund some bad stuff, even if they try hard to avoid it. On the other, the older I get the more I worry about the decline of spirituality in the West. Especially in tech, I sometimes feel like I’m living in a hyper rational snowglobe of people optimizing a local maxima, not even considering (and often looking down on) the possibility…

> even if they try hard to avoid it.

The thing is: a16z isn't even trying to avoid it, they are intentionally looking for questionable startups and cultivate a controversial reputation. They seem to have no moral filter whatsoever.

https://www.businessinsider.com/marc-andreessen-controversia...

Re: Andreessen Horowitz is investing billions into a bleak future

#274

Post by mlsu »

akudha wrote: post #129
pulkitsh1234 wrote: post #81

"A man who wishes to make a profession of goodness in everything must necessarily come to grief among so many who are not good. Therefore, it is necessary for a prince, who wishes to maintain himself, to learn how not to be good, and to use this knowledge and not use it, according to the necessity of the case" -- Niccolo Machiavelli It's a self fulfilling prophecy... while us commoners, or so called "activists" or et…

Setting ethical and moral questions aside for a second: Never pay a human again Every time I see stuff like this (along with other more serious shenanigans like wage theft, union busting etc) I only ask myself the same question again and again - what is the end game here? If much of the population is too poor to buy anything, too sick to consume much etc - who is left to buy anything at all? If all their power comes…

Look at how they fantasize about humanoid robots and you will understand.

Why the humanoid form, with all of its engineering inefficiencies and difficulties? Because it is a thing which can be dominated.

The whole purpose is domination. Ever seen Apocalypse now or read Heart of Darkness? They are little colonel Kurtzes. The will to dominate for these people goes to the depths of their soul.

Re: Andreessen Horowitz is investing billions into a bleak future

#275

Post by [deleted] »

eutropia wrote: post #222

All the parasitic grifters founding these companies seem to be characterized by a uniform lack of human decency. if the best idea you can come up with for a company is is some variation exploiting humanity, you're not a visionary or an entrepreneur. You're just an asshole.

[deleted]

Re: Andreessen Horowitz is investing billions into a bleak future

#276

Post by cguess »

guywithahat wrote: post #228
bambax wrote: post #34

Marc Andreessen is an evil man with the behavior (and appearance!) of a Bond villain.

[flagged]

Stock options are wage theft for the vast majority of employees taking it, it's gambling and the vast majority of bets don't pay off. It is genius, convincing people to work for less or free.

Re: Andreessen Horowitz is investing billions into a bleak future

#277

Post by cindyllm »

munksbeer wrote: post #272
akudha wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Setting ethical and moral questions aside for a second: Never pay a human again Every time I see stuff like this (along with other more serious shenanigans like wage theft, union busting etc) I only ask myself the same question again and again - what is the end game here? If much of the population is too poor to buy anything, too sick to consume much etc - who is left to buy anything at all? If all their power comes…

I think you're arguing against something that is made up by doomers. They truly believe (evidence by the comments below yours) that the billionaire class are all a of one mind and want to eradicate other humans, live in cloud cities, and have robots cater to their every need. I don't even really know how to start refuting this. It seems to absurd to even start.

[dead]

Re: Andreessen Horowitz is investing billions into a bleak future

#278

Post by tavavex »

ryandrake wrote: post #240
vintermann wrote: post #33

> Lee's stated goal was to “desensitize everyone to the phrase ‘cheating.’” If you say it enough, he argues, “cheat begins to lose its meaning.” A16z praised Lee's approach as “rooted in deliberate strategy and intentionality.” Investors: but surely they won't cheat me !

Y Combinator's application still asks: "Please tell us about the time you most successfully hacked some (non-computer) system to your advantage." They don't actually use the word "cheat" but that's what they're asking for: Are you willing to cheat if it gives you an advantage?

Is that really a surprising trait to expect from a venture capitalist persona? As we go on, especially as most of the simple problems get solved, the system everyone blindly trusted has turned to uphold generally positive trends has turned to lies, manipulation, exploitative practices, loophole engineering and abuse. What I would expect from a successful VC applicant today isn't savvy business sense and actual good ideas, but an unrelenting willingness to do anything short of putting your life on the line for profit. There's no such thing as going low for these people, they are rewarded for using every trick in the book to earn an extra cent.

Re: Andreessen Horowitz is investing billions into a bleak future

#279

Post by hackable_sand »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #130
rglover wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No sarcasm: play a different game. If you play their game, of course you'll suffer. But if you play a game they're repulsed by, you can win a life they'll never have access to: one filled with people who love and respect you and an environment where your best self and life can emerge.

The parent comments are talking about how the game is negatively impacting society. Your suggestion is to check out and leave society to them. One of the many problems with that suggestion is that it's hard for your best self/life to emerge in a bleak future.

> Your suggestion is to check out and leave society to them

Absolutely not. Their suggestion is to play a different game. You don't even have to play a game with win conditions. You can just play to play.

Re: Andreessen Horowitz is investing billions into a bleak future

#280

Post by ModernMech »

stackbutterflow wrote: post #227
ModernMech wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The end game is that we're all dead, and they live off their robot slave army in a world of abundance, no poors, and no governments to tell them no. I wish that were hyperbole, but it's what they want more than anything if you really pay close attention to what thy're doing, which as you say doesn't make sense given an end game where you and I are part of the system. When then say "everyone in the future will be rich…

I still can't wrap my head around it. So we're all dead, robots take care of the infrastructure and healthcare, and there's maybe 50-100 billionaires left on the planet. Then what? They drive their sports car, do bungee jumping, sip cocktails and watch ai made movies. They don't have children? The human race dies with them? Or they have children, somehow avoid the trap of inbreeding and their children in turn have ch…

You have to put yourself in the mindset of a virus, then it makes perfect sense. The point is to consume and exhaust without thinking (introspection), not to sustain and thrive.

btw none of this will be possible because it's a dumb plan and would never work, but it's their utopia.

> they can already enjoy everything

What I love Elon Musk for is teaching me that even if you have everything in the world, you can still be an empty miserable shell of a human, unhappy, unliked, and satisfied with nothing. His example makes me far less driven to acquire more and rather just be happy with what I have. But we should be aware these people could own everything on Earth, the Moon, and Mars and it wouldn't be enough to satisfy them. They're fundamentally empty and insatiable people, it's such a shame so many aspire to be like them or join their ranks.

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