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2025 Letter

danwang.co

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Re: 2025 Letter

#151

Post by andrepd »

pityJuke wrote: post #4

As someone unfamiliar with the author, I had a deep amount of cynicism for the length of this piece... but damn, it's good, top to bottom.

Hard disagree. How many paragraphs of fawning over the unique culture of the Bay Area must I endure before he arrives at the point?

Such gems as

> I like SF house parties, where people take off their shoes at the entrance and enter a space in which speech can be heard over music, which feels so much more civilized than descending into a loud bar in New York. It’s easy to fall into a nerdy conversation almost immediately with someone young and earnest.

Re: 2025 Letter

#152

Post by alexashka »

apples_oranges wrote: post #16
152334H wrote: post #5

> Beijing has been preparing for Cold War without eagerness for waging it, while the US wants to wage a Cold War without preparing for it. great line

It's not clear what the US plan even is. Move all manufacturing back home and compete with China ASAP?

It all falls into place if you contemplate the possibility that there is no US.

There's stock market bros, kill people bros, government welfare bros and some mega business bros.

None of them want to know anything beyond my kids go to private school, get nepo baby job.

This is what humans are capable of - not just in USA, as a species. USA's 'plan' or rather inevitability is to fall apart. China will be the next power and it'll also fall apart, like USSR fell apart and USA is falling apart for the world to see.

Maybe in another few thousand years it'll be different, I doubt it. Read Plato's Republic you're above 140 IQ - it spells it all out so nicely that one you grok it, you need not know much of anything else regarding politics.

Re: 2025 Letter

#153

Post by jemmyw »

hereonout2 wrote: post #137
jemmyw wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> while in the US you see automated car washes, in the uk most car washes are Albanians n other immigrants etc Er what? I moved away from the UK in 2007 but even then the only place I or my parents washed a car was the ubiquitous petrol station automated car wash.

Is it that unimaginable things might have changed in the almost two decades since you left?

Yes, it is unimaginable that the UK has replaced most of their automated car washes with immigrants washing cars manually. I've been back there and I've still family there, it's not that different "on the ground" as it were, despite the big political changes.

Re: 2025 Letter

#154

Post by mopsi »

dpark wrote: post #82
mjmsmith wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only problem with Silicon Valley is they just have no taste.

I think most people in general have no taste. But taste is also so subjective that it’s hard to meaningfully discuss. Everyone probably thinks they have great taste. Part of the Silicon Valley ethos (and techie ethos in general) is the rejection of fashion. Comfort over style. Casual over classy. Even the “stealth wealth” thing that trended for a while seemed to be an expression of this. Casual wear, but really expen…

Rejection of fashion has always seemed like a fear of failure to me. Trying to dress well means exposing yourself to evaluation, comparison and the possibility of getting it wrong. The traditions and standards of fashion have accumulated over centuries and are fairly resistant to being redefined (especially by rookies), which makes success depend on external criteria and not on personal rules. Rejecting fashion altogether removes the risk of failure.

I think this is reflected in how techies are drawn to the safety of techwear, where fit and color matter less and clothing can be chosen and justified through objective criteria like weather resistance parameters.

Re: 2025 Letter

#155

Post by robkop »

Cyph0n wrote: post #135
financetechbro wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dubai is absolutely economically broken lol. The city was built on cheap foreign slave labor. And the luxurious amenities of the city are only for the wealthy royal and foreigners. Their main export besides oil is the illusion of a thriving metropolis

The example I like to use to demonstrate how broken labor vs. service costs are in the UAE is to compare the price of a Big Mac meal to the price of a standard manual car wash (closer to detailing tbh). In the UAE, a Big Mac meal costs approximately 35 AED ($10). On the other hand, a manual car wash - approx. 1-2 hours of labor - can cost you around 20 AED. In other words, you could get almost two manual car washes f…

Can you elaborate? I would have thought the main driver for the price of a service is the labor?

Re: 2025 Letter

#156

Post by fragmede »

cycrutchfield wrote: post #144
amelius wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why allow e.g. Chinese investors to buy property in SF if they aren't even going to live there?

Do they pay property taxes?

In California? With prop 13? Hardly.

We invented money as a way of distributing scares resources. When there is housing going empty while people live on the streets in tents with no running water, no electricity, no sewage, one has to realize that something's gone wrong.

Re: 2025 Letter

#157

Post by decimalenough »

dpark wrote: post #20
ossa-ma wrote: post #12

The beginning perfectly embodies the culture in Silicon Valley and touches on a crucial part that I notice when I visit: the complete lack of self expression or as I would put it ZERO drip. Remove the tech, what does SF contribute to the world wrt culture? Especially when compared to other metropolitan cities: NY, London, LA, Tokyo.

Maybe I’m missing some nuance but are you just saying that folks in Silicon Valley aren’t cool?

How many musicians, artists, fashion designers from the Valley can you name? Even SF seems to be punching below its weight now that gentrification has forced out the producers, and (as noted in the article) the tech elite seems aggressively uninterested in patronizing art of any kind, be it opera or nightclubs.

Re: 2025 Letter

#158

Post by MangoToupe »

nradov wrote: post #71
nullorempty wrote: post #35

>Lack of action due to the expectation of long timelines is one of the sins of the lawyerly society. >But American problems seem more fixable to me than Chinese problems. China has stayed on trajectory of improving life of its society for a long time. USA has been in decline all that time and decent accelerated after Cold War with Russia ended. All of China's growth comes from its internal resource. Growth in the USA…

China has very limited internal natural resources. Much of their growth has been enabled by massive imports of raw materials including soybeans, fertilizer, fossil fuels, iron ore, copper ore, etc. Their prosperity and even their survival is heavily dependent on the post-WWII global free trade system. Ironically, China's expansionist foreign policy is one of several factors now causing that system to fray. In another…

> In the USA at least cancel culture seems to be dying out and people no longer feel as obligated to be politically correct or self-censor

Americans have always been assholes and proud pedophiles. What are you referring to?

Re: 2025 Letter

#159

Post by ford »

jimnotgym wrote: post #138
allturtles wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Carefully consider the lifestyle of someone living several decades ago. Would you honestly want to live such a lifestyle yourself? Sure, I lived it, and it was very pleasant at the time and in many ways better than now in retrospect. e.g. always-on access to infinite content engines like YouTube, TikTok, X, Facebook, etc. is probably a net negative, both for individuals and society. I wouldn't want to go back a cen…

I agree, 30 years ago a working man doing 40 hours a week in a factory could still support a family on one income and expect to own a house. We hit a peak 30-40 years ago.

I hear this often, but I think this discounts the fact that this was mostly true for the US/Western Europe at a time where they enjoyed unilateral super-powerism as a result of winning WWII. I'm not sure that kind of prosperity is normal (though I hope it could be).

I'm worried the harsh reality for most humans is that life is often not that easy. And if it is, it won't be for long

Re: 2025 Letter

#160

Post by NooneAtAll3 »

> For tragedies too widely experienced in modern times to be censored — the Cultural Revolution, the one-child policy, Zero Covid ...

this part has me confused

can someone explain to me why Zero Covid - the most successful program that minimized Covid deaths - is a tragedy?

imo it was better than whatever clusterfuck was happening pretty much everywhere else

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