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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

#381

Post by ozozozd »

CM30 wrote: post #371
ceejayoz wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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? No one. That's the idea. A low-population paradise. Venice without its pesky people to mess with Bezos's wedding. Bora Bora without the peasants.

But why wouldn't the rest of society kick them out before that point? Like at some point, there's going to be a lot of political pressure to fix things, especially if the majority of the population is going hungry or struggling to find work. Feels like at some point, some 'rogue' political figure will win election by saying the elites need to be overthrown, and the latter's influence will burn to the ground. If even…

I keep questioning this as well.

Also, what protects their wealth is the justice system and the enforcement mechanisms, which are run by ordinary people.

There is no invisible force that will prevent the “peasants” from attacking the wealthy if the police also loses belief in the system and just starts looking the other way. Or just suddenly becomes _less competent_.

Re: Andreessen Horowitz is investing billions into a bleak future

#382

Post by Valakas_ »

Gareth321 wrote: post #63
Valakas_ wrote: post #59

For me it's insane, how in this day and age, we don't conduct DSM-V / ICD tests (interviews) that screen for Cluster B personality disorders on everyone , and bar, at least those with anti-social PD, psychopathy, or extreme forms of narcissism, to work in positions of influence or power over others.

People don't like to entertain the idea that determinism could exist. Specifically, the idea that some people are just born bad, mean, or unintelligent. When people commit crimes there is endless hand-wringing about how "society" failed them. They blame it on poverty, or abuse, or inequality, or racism, or anything which absolves the individual of their agency. For the record, I am determinist-light. It's clear that…

AFAIK only psychopathy is purely genetic. The rest i believe are susceptible (although very resistant) to treatment as they are only partially genetic, and partially environmental (suffered abuse, neglect).

Some people are commenting people would fake/dupe the testers. Sure, some would be able to. But many (i'd wager the vast majority) wouldn't. People don't realise how difficult it actually is to fake being normal. The only reason people with cluster B seem to dupe so many is because we live in a day and age where they are able to jump from relationship to relationship and cut ties with the people they've mistreated or "found them out".

Re: Andreessen Horowitz is investing billions into a bleak future

#383

Post by Gravityloss »

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…

Sure, there are effects like that power corrupts. But there are differences between powerful people.

Re: Andreessen Horowitz is investing billions into a bleak future

#384

Post by mawadev »

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…

"Who is left buying it all?"

Nobody cares about that at the top. At some point they will have robots doing their bidding and the people at the bottom are economically squeezed to build and "train" their replacement.

Once that is done, there is no "need" for people to exist. This is how they think about people, disposable and replacable "resources" providing "value" over "time". This logic has shaped corporations for decades at this point. "Value" has been redefined and those who still cling to "common sense" are exploited.

We have been observing the cracks of this philosophy of anti human design for a while now and yet there are still people believing they are doing something that brings humanity forward or at least they believe they will have a spot in that future.

If you truly believe in a utopian outcome, you probably have never been on the receiving end of cold calculation, in terms of layoffs or work and/or starve to see how this can backfire, regardless of what you do and what common sense tells you.

Just challenge the micro agreements you had to make while growing up into becoming an adult to justify doing the things you do and the way you are forced to treat other people while doing business.

I see cold judgements on a daily basis, when someone is instrumentalized to do or say objectively immoral things, despite them just wanting to pay bills. It is ordinary men all the way down until reality arrives. Fear of certain consequences is the biggest lever that is being pulled every time, no matter what direction you look at.

Despite that I'm still optimistic and believe people will pull back and change direction.

Happy to read your thoughts on this

Re: Andreessen Horowitz is investing billions into a bleak future

#385

Post by Arodex »

pibaker wrote: post #352
Arodex wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Millions decided to reward a liar and cheater with the highest office in the country. Twice! At one point, socially attuned people are going to go that way. And even if you try to educate your children well, they see in their formative years what society rewards.

I don't understand why you think one single president is responsible for a class of behavior that is likely as old as human civilization. Should we blame Elizabeth Holmes on him too? What about Enron?

Did Enron had access to nuclear codes? Did Holmes have complete immunity due to her function given by the Supreme Court? Did they try to overthrow the presidential election results ? Were they elected by millions after trying to putsch the government?

It is incredible that you think that Trump being president is normal. I didn't say he was responsible for this behavior; I am saying that him and his supporters are responsible for normalizing immoral, unethical, unacceptable behavior.

Re: Andreessen Horowitz is investing billions into a bleak future

#386

Post by reasonableklout »

zipy124 wrote: post #11

I mean a lot of successful new tech companies were about side-stepping legislation. Some that are missing here are airbnb which effectively side-stepped fairly strict hotel legislation (Though there is a case to be made that it simply improved short-term lodging), and uber which side-stepped strong taxi/private-hire legislation. This is one of the primary reasons that tech startups flourish in America but not in Euro…

Sure, abstractly tech startups in the past have been successful while side-stepping legislation. Do you think they were all good for the world?

And concretely, for the startups listed in the article - such as Doublespeed, which sells access to “phone farms” with thousands of fake social media accounts and ultimately aims to replace human content creators - do you think they will improve society by succeeding?

Re: Andreessen Horowitz is investing billions into a bleak future

#387

Post by bodge5000 »

tavavex wrote: post #282
bodge5000 wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's been plenty of good sci-fi written about this, but surely they know that any any display of power is meaningless without someone to have power over? The wedding in Venice only means anything because people live in Venice and you're still able to "take over". Any "paradise" built like this will never be paradise, it'll be just chasing the next extreme until there's nowhere left to go

> There's been plenty of good sci-fi written about this Can you recommend me some? I feel like my brain still can't fully internalize the world these people are pushing for.

Others have listed some great examples, but to be honest I was actually thinking of something somewhat more contemporary, specifically the eldar (or dark eldar perhaps) in Warhammer 40,000.

The long story short is that the Eldar once had paradise, and spent their time seeking greater and greater excess and pleasure, which eventually gave birth to an immensely powerful demon of excess. For the current-setting followers of this demon, their lives are spent in a desperate hunger for excess that can never be satiated, every greater excess they experience quickly becoming too dull to bare. As for the Eldar, their paradise is gone and their race is doomed, all they can do now is fight off the inevitable.

Obviously I don't think the rich have much to fear in terms of giving birth to a demon, but you get the point

Re: Andreessen Horowitz is investing billions into a bleak future

#388

Post by nobody9999 »

pixl97 wrote: post #325
Miner49er wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Someone has to buy for the system to work, no? Well yeah, but not human consumers. Businesses can buy from other businesses and that can be the only surviving part of the economy. Even further, maybe those businesses are fully autonomous. There's no reason this wouldn't work, as far as I can tell. The economy would be much more focused. It would be mostly energy, materials, and tech.

Exactly, it seems many if not most people are trapped in an 1800s ideal of how an economy works. "You do work, you get money, you spend money, you do work" In fact the entire "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it." statement is in full force here. It's impossible for most people to envision an economy without them even though there are economic syst…

>It's impossible for most people to envision an economy without them

It's possible that's the case because (at least in the US) 68% of GDP is consumer spending[0]. As such, 2/3 of the economy is "them."

[0] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DPCERE1Q156NBEA/

Re: Andreessen Horowitz is investing billions into a bleak future

#389

Post by bodge5000 »

ytoawwhra92 wrote: post #369
bodge5000 wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's been plenty of good sci-fi written about this, but surely they know that any any display of power is meaningless without someone to have power over? The wedding in Venice only means anything because people live in Venice and you're still able to "take over". Any "paradise" built like this will never be paradise, it'll be just chasing the next extreme until there's nowhere left to go

You don't have to look at sci-fi, go look at the history of the Republic of Venice. It was ruled by a tiny group of ultra-wealthy people while the vast majority of the population owned nothing and had zero influence.

Absolutely not, sci-fi is just often a good vehicle for these kind of ideas (plus it gives me an excuse to talk about warhammer), but your right, theres plenty of real world examples to look at too.

Re: Andreessen Horowitz is investing billions into a bleak future

#390

Post by wolvesechoes »

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…

Where this demand for the "end game" comes from? Why do you people assign some long-term vision to a bunch of sociopaths with money and influence that came from being born in a proper family and having lot of luck, whilst ditching any moral integrity along the way?

The is no plan, there is no endgame. There is greed and complete lack of morals, and a completely inhumane system so often praised here - capitalism. It has a single logic, logic of accumulation. Everything else is a mean to that end. System doesn't question its purpose, as its purpose defines its essence.

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