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Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

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Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#151

Post by AnthonyMouse »

jltsiren wrote: post #55
yks wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In societies like that, Silicon Valley’s rich nerds might discover that they’re not the ones with the real might, see Putin’s Russia, which many of them adore. Money is but one of the facets of power.

Russia is a country with a strong centralized government capable of enforcing laws whenever it wants. In the absence of effective laws, one of the biggest threats to rich people would be their own hired thugs. If the thugs decide that they don't respect you and they would make better rich assholes, they will kill you and take your property. Historically, societies like that were often ruled by the biggest and the mos…

> Russia is a country with a strong centralized government capable of enforcing laws whenever it wants.

Russia is 15 slots lower than Nigeria on government corruption. Putin can easily have someone killed but the idea that if he needed money for the war he could get it by e.g. enforcing the law against taking kickbacks for misallocating public funds is so ridiculous that even attempting to do it might be one of the few things that could cause him to be removed from power.

And for a similar reason he can't enforce laws that require any form of localized information, because everybody is just fabricating the numbers.

The trouble with running a kleptocracy is that there's no honor among thieves.

Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#152

Post by hibikir »

ygjb wrote: post #17
jurgenburgen wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Rule of law, functioning government providing services Jokes on them, without rule of law and functioning government to enforce it there is no ownership.

Jokes on you. When there isn't a functional system of government there is nothing to stop rich psychopaths from paying poor psychopaths killing those who get in there way and declaring themselves dictators. In the absence of effective laws to align people in the direction of the society they want, and constant effort to realign in response to pressure, we will fall back to tribalism and all of the attendant forms of…

At which point, GDP growth sinks like a rock, and those rich people become poorer in absolute terms. It's the typical outcome in the vast majority of autocracies. It's all over development economics literature, based on purely empirical studies. There's little reason to believe that the US is somehow an outlier. Weaken trust in the system, go from a system of laws to a system of deals, and watch growth go away, with all the unrest that brings.

A pity that so many people in SV only read what flatters them.

Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#153

Post by MarkusQ »

bawolff wrote: post #112
ang_cire wrote: post #14

Being and especially growing up rich tends to shield you from seeing the consequences of bad decisions, and I think that results in a lot of these rich tech bros being unable to properly analyze not just risk, but any negative externalities. Every child starts out thinking, "if I was in charge, I could fix this. It's so simple!" Then you actually see that when you make bad choices, you or others get hurt, and you rea…

> Being and especially growing up rich tends to shield you from seeing the consequences of bad decisions, and I think that results in a lot of these rich tech bros being unable to properly analyze not just risk, but any negative externalities other than musk, were the tech bros rich? most seem to have grown up middle class. that said, the fact they are still rich suggests that they do know how to analyze risk. You do…

Musk didn't inherit his wealth, nor did he receive above average family support.

https://thetechleaders.com/was-elon-musk-born-rich-exploring...

Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#154

Post by originalvichy »

GMoromisato wrote: post #42

This was a fascinating interview, and there were a lot of ideas packed into it. Honestly, it makes me want to read her book. That said, I disagree with a lot of her conclusions. Contra her assertions, I believe that technological change is the principal cause of historical change. Lawrence Lessig wrote Code is Law, which highlights how specific software system decisions constrained the available legal regimes that co…

I don't know Lessig's work, but that chain of thought sounds like a more narrowed down version of Langdon Winner's "Do Artifacts Have Politics?" (1) The way in which technology shapes our world varies greatly, and I like his writing concerning how nuclear technology shapes politics towards centralization of power.

There's probably nothing powerful in society than the wealthy elite. They have the power to slow down or stop technological change if it threatens their sources of continued wealth.

(1): https://www.jstor.org/stable/20024652?seq=1

Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#155

Post by lordgrenville »

swiftcoder wrote: post #46
steveBK123 wrote: post #3

I don’t even think most of it is deeply philosophical. They just got uberrich and now worry more about the concerns of the uberrich than the concerns they had when they were normies. Rule of law, functioning government providing services, functioning public commons, free press, freedom of speech for all, any social safety net, etc don’t matter when they are so far removed from the public they can just go buy yourself…

> I don’t even think most of it is deeply philosophical. Part of the problem is that a lot of it is shallowly philosophical. I used to attend Zuckerberg town halls, and as smart as the guy may be, it's pretty evident that he dropped out of Harvard after 1st-year philosophy

Lucky we have the counterexample of a tech company run by a guy who did a humanities PhD under Jürgen Habermas...Palantir.

Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#156

Post by notahacker »

strken wrote: post #70
ilamont wrote: post #22

I think it’s true that when Musk or Altman is just unambiguously being like, “Yes, this story is a template for what I should do with my company,” that’s bonkers. But there is [also] this technocratic libertarian thread in science fiction that they are picking up on. Is there some evidence for this claim? Lepore in her reply says "I guess Bezos is a big Robert Heinlein fan" and then there is a lot of talk about Asimo…

I'm baffled by the claim that tech oligarchs are bad readers, as opposed to getting the point but disagreeing. Some authors seem to think that readers may only read Heinlein if they are prepared to join the army the next day or renounce their citizenship.

> I'm baffled by the claim that tech oligarchs are bad readers, as opposed to getting the point but disagreeing.

> Some authors seem to think that readers may only read Heinlein if they are prepared to join the army the next day or renounce their citizenship.

I've read a lot of books whose messages I partly or wholly disagree with, but wouldn't cite them as inspirations, quote from them or name my startup or its products after them.

Actually, come to think of it Starship Troopers would be a much better source for military industrial complex startup nomenclature than LOTR or the Culture series...

Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#157

Post by [deleted] »

lisper wrote: post #110
jfengel wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People really don't get how poorly freshman philosophy presents the field. It's not even a survey of an introduction to a prologue. So every passing thought feels like "philosophy".

It doesn’t help that a lot of philosophy is actually bullshit.

[deleted]

Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#159

Post by yoyohello13 »

wdr1 wrote: post #139
yoyohello13 wrote: post #25

In the US at least, we've been brainwashed to think that government, by definition, must be bloated, corrupt and inefficient. Believing this axiom, people vote to hand over every possible service to private enterprise. Now we are in a situation where a handful of unelected business men have more power over our lives than the elected government.

> In the US at least, we've been brainwashed to think that government, by definition, must be bloated, corrupt and inefficient. I don't know that I've been brainwashed, but living most of my life in Chicago & Los Angeles, I've seen a lot of bloat, corruption, & massive inefficiency. Many of friends lost their homes in the Palisades & Altadena fires. If it weren't tragic, it would be laughable the challenges they've f…

I never said government should be in charge of everything or claimed our current government to be perfect. I’m pointing out the prevailing ideology (especially among HN and the rich) that government is incapable of being efficient so we don’t even try. Then we hand over critical services to private enterprise with no checks and balances.

Our current ideology is so skewed toward “gov bad” that the first step toward moderation is acknowledging that it’s possible for government to do things well in the first place.

Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#160

Post by yoyohello13 »

slopinthebag wrote: post #123
yoyohello13 wrote: post #25

In the US at least, we've been brainwashed to think that government, by definition, must be bloated, corrupt and inefficient. Believing this axiom, people vote to hand over every possible service to private enterprise. Now we are in a situation where a handful of unelected business men have more power over our lives than the elected government.

We believe it because it’s true. I think it’s actually way more common for people to have your opinion that governments are not bloated or inefficient as a general rule. And you always criticize the private industry and not the government when it’s the government who has this power in the first place. That’s like over feeding your cat and then blaming the cat.

Honestly, at this point both the government and private enterprise are fucking me so vigorously I don’t know who to hate more.
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