The Techno-Optimist Manifesto • Hacker News Board

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#131

Post by stevenhuang » Mon, Oct 16, 2023, 10:31 PM UTC

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #91

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I mean, the first person on their "Patron Saints of Techno-Optimism" is Jeff Bezos No, it's an anonymous Twitter account, you read the name wrong, "Beff Jezos" (sic), not "Jeff Bezos". Also if you look at the purest form of markets, which is probably high frequency trading, there are no monopolies and no cartels. It's an intensely competitive industry with relatively small profits given their transaction volume.

If that's "the purest form" of something, give me the dirty version any day. An utterly useless human activity, that does nothing for actual humanity but simply serves as a wealth redistribution technique shared among a tiny number of highly-self-interested individuals ... it might be "pure" but it's not "pure" in any way.

You don't understand market making and it's not ok to pretend you do.

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#132

Post by hotnfresh » Mon, Oct 16, 2023, 10:32 PM UTC

zemo wrote: post #127

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?

The part that gets me is the insistence on technology-as-purely-good-and-beneficial and an obsession with population growth (if you’ve not read to the end: yes, the population-growth stuff drops off a little in the middle, but by the end “obsession” is definitely a fair characterization) without ever addressing that technology is the reason population growth is leveling off.

I disagree with basically all of what he was getting at with those things, but the pointed failure to even note the tension there was downright funny by the end. Putting aside my material disagreements with the whole thrust of that argument, it’s just comically inept on its own terms.

“Technology is one of three ways to increase production, and another is population growth… uh, actually, I just noticed, as the alert reader may have, that that whole bit was dumb, it’s just technology… also population growth especially is very good… what do you mean, ‘and why is population growth declining’?”

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#133

Post by chrisco255 » Mon, Oct 16, 2023, 10:32 PM UTC

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…

If you design a system that can only really last for a single generation or two it's not really an appropriate model for a civilization is it?

The USSR had 3 decades of solid growth? That's cute. The U.S. has been booming for hundreds of years at this point.

The US economy is not centrally planned. Government expenditure is 37 percent of GDP, not even a majority. Even much of the government expenditures that do occur are not planned (ie a social security recipient is not dictated how they must spend it).

The USSR from the 20s to 60s made decisions based on what was good for the leaders of the USSR and what would hold power. Stalin ran the Gulag from 1929 through 1953. This was not just a form of modern slavery. People died by the millions. Up to 7 million people died in a Soviet famine from 1932-1933. The U.S. may have had bread lines at the time, but people weren't dying of mass starvation. There were a number of political purges in the 30s that cost a million or so Soviets their lives. Another famine cost 1 to 1.5 million Soviets their life in 1948. Millions more were force relocated.

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#134

Post by tech_ken » Mon, Oct 16, 2023, 10:32 PM UTC

I think this needs a close reading by a historian or something. I'm certainly not qualified to do it but still there are so many lines that even to my layman's understanding seem like just obvious, fortune cookie horseshit (ironic, given how aggressively the author is touting "truth-seeking"). The Nietzsche stuff reads like something a stoner freshman engineer would post on /r/atheism.

> 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.

Coming from the mouth of Andreeson-Horowitz this is...beyond rich. Didn't they just hand Adam Neumann a massive stack of cash (and to do nothing but extract rent from urban economies, no less)? Their entire milieu does nothing but play god and dick around with abstract theories. How is The Precautionary Principal delusional but cryptocurrency not "a luxury belief"?

This whole post smacks of a god-complex masquerading as a commitment to rationality. Clearly Marc Andreeson knew what he was doing at some point, but if this is representative of the current thought leadership in Big Tech I think we're heading towards some dark years. Victory has defeated us.

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#135

Post by james4k » Mon, Oct 16, 2023, 10:33 PM UTC

nickpp wrote: post #128

james4k wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

And who are the highest bidders?

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#136

Post by slibhb » Mon, Oct 16, 2023, 10:34 PM UTC

What if technology has worked out as well as it has because of techno-pessimism? I.e. what if it's because we're suspicious of change that most change has been positive? Maybe filter out the bad ideas through a slow but necessary process.

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#137

Post by enraged_camel » Mon, Oct 16, 2023, 10:35 PM UTC

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…

This is a pretty crazy post full of misunderstandings and misinformation.

For example, the existence of government spending does not mean the country's economy is centrally planned. Central planning refers to a very specific type of system where the central government plans the minutiae of the economy, such as how many widgets will be produced per year and how much they will be sold for. In Western economies, those decisions are made by market participants.

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#138

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Oct 16, 2023, 10:37 PM UTC

hotnfresh wrote: post #83

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #56

I'm really a bit shocked this was flagged. A blog post (marketed as a manifesto no less!) from the founder of Netscape and one of the biggest VCs in the business about the future of technology. I understand its potential for flame wars, but how could this not be on-topic for HN?

It’s a painfully dumb piece to the point that it’s hard to even nod along with the parts I agree with, because they’re so poorly-argued. There are paragraphs that are at-odds with the one right before, and not, apparently, on purpose. If it’s not AI written from a much-shorter prompt then I don’t know how this came to be. Writing on a big dose of uppers then not re-reading before posting? It’s an amateurish mess. I c…

[deleted]

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#139

Post by hotnfresh » Mon, Oct 16, 2023, 10:44 PM UTC

llamaimperative wrote: post #130

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’…

Also: a leader and beneficiary of various enormous centrally-planned economic units that only made him rich by carefully and deliberately avoiding competitive market forces (this is practically the only way to get rich—hypothetical perfect markets drive profits toward zero, you make the big bucks by ensuring you experience as little competitive pressure as possible) claims without qualification that central planning can’t beat market signals.

It’d sure be interesting if he took his own idea seriously and tried to apply it to the companies he has a major stake in. If his stated hard-line position is correct, it should make his companies do much better. If he actually believes it, he’ll surely try. Right?

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#140

Post by Supermancho » Mon, Oct 16, 2023, 10:46 PM UTC

the_snooze wrote: post #33

This is a profession of faith for tech bros so devoid of meaning and humanity in their lives that they have to worship "progress" to justify their existence.

> We agree with Paul Collier when he says, “Economic growth is not a cure-all, but lack of growth is a kill-all.”

This killed it for me. Humans did just fine in isolation for a very long time...until others forcibly moved them or killed them. Growth, in the terms being described, is religious and juvenile.