Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

a16z.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 414 posts

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#121

Post by nerpderp82 »

noneeeed wrote: post #97

This isn't a techno-optimist manifesto. This is a libertarian, anarcho-capitalist manifesto with a sprinkling of 1960 tech boosterism so that they can point at people who disagree and call them luddites. I'm a massive techno-optimist. I think science and technology has self-evidently bought vast improvements to the human experience. I think it's an absolutely essential part of solving many of the problems that plague…

I think a TO would be how can we make the whole world more democratic, more self sufficient, more distributed with the lowest possible impact on the environment. And to do that, we would need to educate the world's population to never before seen levels. Technology is a byproduct of an educated population. 1/10th of everyone who has been alive is right now. This is a huge resource we are wasting with the subjugation of the classes.

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#122

Post by jrm4 »

Can't recall too many pieces of writing that fail this hard at what they're intended to do? I mean, if you've never read any other technology-related writing ever, there's some stuff in here I suppose.

I think though, it best highlights what's missing from a lot of visible technological aspirations -- which is a sense of fun?

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#123

Post by aa1234556 »

akprasad wrote: post #40
onion2k wrote: post #25

For hundreds of years, we properly glorified this – until recently. We really didn't. At least, not at the time, and certainly not everyone. Plenty of people throughout history have been adamantly against the rapid progress of technology. The Luddites are the most famous group but there have been lots more. Even if you ignore those people for being frankly a bit weird, the driving force behind technology for the firs…

The Luddites were not anti-technology per se . Rather, they were against an unequal distribution of that technology because it was destroying their community and livelihood, precisely because that technology concentrated power in the hands of the capital class [1]. Given the rest of your comment, it seems the Luddites are your natural allies. Related HN discussion on [1] from 3 weeks ago: [2] [1]: https://archive.ph/…

[dead]

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#124

Post by marcosdumay »

greenie_beans wrote: post #67
hemloc_io wrote: post #5

Really more of an e/acc manifesto. Interesting to see a twitter thing slowly leak into the mainstream one step at a time.

it's ironic, because wouldn't marx be considered the OG accelerationist?

One of the OG ones, maybe. It was a quite widespread idea.

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#125

Post by numpad0 »

sph wrote: post #7
hemloc_io wrote: post #5

Really more of an e/acc manifesto. Interesting to see a twitter thing slowly leak into the mainstream one step at a time.

WTF is e/acc for people that don't live on Twitter?

First Google result was a small air conditioning reseller, the second was []1. I'm going with the former.

1: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/cultures/eacc-effective-accel...

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#126

Post by hackermatic »

leotravis10 wrote: post #59

Keep in mind that they changed the header in this, so thankfully Erin Kissane shared the original header for the record: https://mas.to/@kissane/111245487051384089 Talk about a falling off the rails type of piece, this is it.

A fitting rebuttal to Andreesen's manifesto is Erin Kissane's recent series about how Meta enabled a genocide in Myanmar. "Trust and safety" as enemies, indeed. https://erinkissane.com/meta-in-myanmar-full-series

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#127

Post by zemo »

jhp123 wrote: post #120

It's alarming to see this particular blend of ideas without any historical acknowledgment. The mix of Nietzsche's ideas about the superman, a messianic belief in the transformative power of industry, and a paranoid fear and hatred of "wreckers" who would deny and destroy greatness all have an awfully dark history.

yeah he quotes the Futurist Manifesto further down the page, also with no historical context, which ... I dunno, that's gotta be a dog whistle, right?

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#128

Post by nickpp »

james4k wrote: post #115
nickpp wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Point me to a resistant monopoly or cartel and I will show you a government granted/supported one. Free markets are naturally resistant through free competition (startups!) and, you know, laws.

And how do you think a government reinforcing a monopoly comes to be?

Countless ways. From sheer governmental incompetence like when regulating the competition out of markets. To simply not understanding second order effects when “helping markets” with patents and humongous copyright terms. To not understanding supply and demand when pressed to fulfill voter promises like when attempting to control and fix prices. To being captive to interest groups that end up controlling a huge chunk of economy like in heath care.

But most of all through sheer, pure corruption. Because why else would someone become a politician - a relatively low paid position - if not to be in a position to transform all that power and influence into money, for the highest bidder?

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#129

Post by slibhb »

LindeBuzoGray wrote: post #53

> Markets > We believe central economic planning elevates the worst of us and drags everyone down; markets exploit the best of us to benefit all of us > We believe central planning is a doom loop; markets are an upward spiral There's many things off with this. The USSR from the 1920s to early 1950s had enormous economic growth - particularly in the 1930s when so-called free markets in the West had collapsed, by the 1…

Man, what is with HN and weirdly detailed posts explaining how awesome the Soviet economy was?

For my money, the Soviet economy failed while the NATO countries succeeded for reasons described by Hayek, summarized reasonably well in Marc Andreessen's weird diatribe. At best your post is splitting hairs, at worst it's Zizek-like nonesense "20th century communists established the real free markets!"

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#130

Post by llamaimperative »

I agree with the overall thrust of this, or should be easy to convince, but boy does this lack of self-awareness just shout “distance yourself and run, don’t walk!”

> Our enemy is the ivory tower, the know-it-all credentialed expert worldview, indulging in abstract theories, luxury beliefs, social engineering, disconnected from the real world, delusional, unelected, and unaccountable – playing God with everyone else’s lives, with total insulation from the consequences.

Really?

Does an uber-wealthy capital allocator publishing a social manifesto seriously not see that this comment at least justifies a half-assed explanation as to why it doesn’t apply to the author?

Maybe something like, “my personal chef Instacarts my dog’s peanut butter from Whole Foods, just like everyone else, so I am not totally detached from reality!”

Post reply on HN