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The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

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Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#142

Post by miguelazo »

renewiltord wrote: post #36
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…

I think that's wholesale falsehood. The wins in the last 200 years are so dramatic for the average person, especially in the West. Infant mortality rate and the chance of survival to adulthood alone are such glorious victories against Death that I would gladly vote for any system that would give us those wins and create a trillionaire. All that wondrous science has come from this system. No. Evidence is evidence. Thi…

>This thing works, and works dramatically well

Really? It has produced a climate destabilization that may well destroy civilization within the next decade or two.

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#145

Post by winphone1974 »

nickpp wrote: post #103
jaybrendansmith wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really want to love this manifesto. This is my one sticking point. Regulatory capture, monopolies, and cartels are the fatal flaw in this techno-optimism, and they break everything. Let's say I subscribe to this wonderful story Marc tells. Please tell me the purpose of government if it is not to destroy cartels and monopolies. They are every bit as bad as the government, which is a type of monopoly itself.

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.

Any capital intensive project can become a resistant monopoly for the first mover, who then manipulates pricing to prevent competition.

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#146

Post by beloch »

I used to have a similar worldview. I read about the consequences of technological advance in the past always with the present firmly in mind. Who cares if there were initially some unintended consequences and collateral damage? Things got better. Advances in technology have usually increased the size of the pie. It's easy to ignore the bumps in a trendline that's steadly headed skyward. However, when you look more closely, it's not just technological advances that keep things headed in the right direction. Social advances, critically those that help divide the pie more equally, are also responsible for the bounty we enjoy today.

e.g. The industrial revolution is typically credited with a great leap forward in quality of life for the average citizen, but it actually did the opposite at first. Workers crowded into dirty, unhealthy cities and started to live shorter, nastier, more brutish lives. Initially, many English workers were legally barred from seeking employment elsewhere. If you didn't like the wages you were getting at one job and tried to take another, you could be sent to jail. It's hard to ask for a raise or even safety equipment when the alternative is jail! It was the concentration of workers in cities that allowed labor movements to form and demand changes that granted more people a fairer share of the pie, such as the right to change jobs.

Technological advance is generally a good thing, but it's social advances that harness it for all. Be wary of philosophies that ignore part of the equation. If we want to avoid bumpy periods where life gets worse for the majority of us before getting better again, we can make conscious choices about how to use new technologies.

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#147

Post by zetazzed »

Andreessen always argues for "growth" and declares "time to build," but as soon as someone tries to build an apartment in his town of Atherton, he's going to fight it: https://fortune.com/2023/02/23/atherton-steph-curry-marc-and...

Atherton is prime silicon valley real estate that could allow engineers and startup founders to live there at a reasonable price and fuel growth in the tech economy. But if it's going to inconvenience Marc or compromise his nice views, growth is no longer important to him.

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#148

Post by lmm »

nickpp wrote: post #103
jaybrendansmith wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really want to love this manifesto. This is my one sticking point. Regulatory capture, monopolies, and cartels are the fatal flaw in this techno-optimism, and they break everything. Let's say I subscribe to this wonderful story Marc tells. Please tell me the purpose of government if it is not to destroy cartels and monopolies. They are every bit as bad as the government, which is a type of monopoly itself.

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.

> Free markets are naturally resistant through free competition

That's circular logic. Free markets are defined as those in which competition happens. Unregulated markets often tend towards cartelization and monopoly.

> and, you know, laws.

Which need to be enforced by governments.

> Point me to a resistant monopoly or cartel and I will show you a government granted/supported one.

The whole robber baron era is a counterexample - the likes of Standard Oil getting broken up by the goverment. Market competition is powerful but it only works when the government is actively enforcing a competitive market, which there is sadly little enthusiasm for lately.

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