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The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

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Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#171

Post by adrianovaroli »

renewiltord wrote: post #54
acjohnson55 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the scale of 200 years, you have some absolutely staggering human atrocities, fueled by technology. Colonialism, modern warfare, carpet bombing/nukes, industrialized genocide, truly ghastly urban factory life. We can maybe look at the past few decades as the point at which most of the world finally began to enjoy the effects of the industrial revolution. Although the cost may be the collapse of the carrying capaci…

It is possible, in this world, for you to move to a less civilized part of the world and emulate the life of 200 years ago. We can have both if we so desire. But your children will almost all die before they see 5 winters. Behave in line with your convictions if you so desire.

You do understand that the countries "stuck in the life of 200 years ago" aren't stuck there just because they don't want to go on, right? Right? Colonization and resource extraction were a thing.

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#172

Post by ethanbond »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #165
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’…

> but boy does this lack of self-awareness just shout “distance yourself and run, don’t walk!” This feels a bit of an extreme reaction to me, I don't try and read into gotchas in writing and use them to "run away". Instead it makes me: 1. View the writing with skepticism 2. Try to understand what Andreessen thinks makes him not one of those ivory tower figures, because I certainly think of him as one. 2 seems the mor…

The “wanting to distance oneself” is an extremely pragmatic reaction: if you believe similar arguments need to be made, you have a legitimate interest in putting forth good versions of those arguments. He has a big platform and this will be portrayed as “the case” for techno-optimism, not to mention the attitude and tone.

I’m not really sure what the purpose of publishing something like this is. It doesn’t really seem intended to convince anyone of anything? Is the controversy the point? Galvanizing some “base?”

Most plausibly, it’s for attracting other ultra-wealthy/ultra-powerful (and yes, unelected!) LPs, which would make the tone rather ominous in my opinion.

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#173

Post by [deleted] »

gorwell wrote: post #170
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’…

He's perfectly self aware that he has rejected his own class. It's weird that people think that's impossible or something and insist that he must be one in the same.

[deleted]

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#174

Post by tomhoward »

zetazzed wrote: post #147

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 i…

I don’t really know Atherton (I’m from outside the U.S. and have only visited the main centers un Silicon Valley) and I have mixed feelings about Andreessen’s rhetoric in recent years, including the tech utopianism expressed in this post.

But this kind of attack is just a classic cheap shot. If the argument was accompanied with evidence that it was feasible and economically optimal to build the infrastructure (transportation, retail, local services) in Atherton that could support a dramatic increase in the number of residents in the area, then sure, you could have a reasoned debate about it. Without that it’s just a sneer, and it does nothing to refute Andreessen’s argument that there should be more development in areas where it is logistically and economically practical.

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#175

Post by TheDong »

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.

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

Microsoft famously made deals with laptop vendors to prevent Dell, HP, and so on from selling computers with any operating system other than Windows: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundling_of_Microsoft_Windows

Similarly, Intel stifled AMD by providing financial incentives to vendors who offered no AMD-based products: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Micro_Devices,_Inc._v....

Were those government supported monopolistic behaviors? Does the "free market" mean that a competitor could have simply made one company that produced an entire laptop, OS, and CPU from scratch to provide the consumer a cheaper choice?

Why would the "free market" lead to vibrant competition, rather than monopolistic hoarding of power?

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#176

Post by uoaei »

cratermoon wrote: post #152
zemo wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Yeah and he quotes neo-reactionary Nick Land

Not just neo-reactionary, actively accelerationist who seems to believe that heat death just can't come quick enough.

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#177

Post by TaylorAlexander »

hotnfresh wrote: post #132
zemo wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

What's funny about this is that another way to increase production is to improve conditions for working class people - free college, free medical care, protections against speculation on housing to allow for affordable housing, better transit options and urban design... these political choices would dramatically improve our operational abilities as a country, but wealthy people like Andreessen tend to oppose measures like this in favor of laissez faire policies. This ultimately limits his ability to serve as the visionary he clearly would like to be.

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#178

Post by uoaei »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #27

Honestly, I felt this post just shows how delusional the people are who made out with billions during the tech boom of the past 25 years. I was a huge techno-optimist in the late 90s and early 00s. If anything, my opinion has totally switched over the past 10-15 years as I increasingly see technology ripping societies apart, and benefits only accruing to those at the very top. So excuse me if I gag a bit from a post…

> we have to forget all the optimistic stories we tell ourselves about tech, and instead just look at the incentives

I like how people keep coming up with dialectical materialism independently. Just don't drop the M-word and no one will get triggered.

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#179

Post by uoaei »

zzzzzzzza wrote: post #62
api wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social media does not promote middle ground because that doesn't maximize engagement. Everything must be maximally divisive, maximally triggering, and compressible into <200 characters.

maybe politics is a support vector machine and the division is the hyperplane XD

Kind of, yes. All politics is arbitrary line-drawing. There's a bit more to it in that the lines are contextually dependent on what exactly is being politicked about and usually not static.

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#180

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

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…

Fair enough, but given that it was written by one of the most powerful tech VCs on the planet, I think it's worthy of discussion just to be clear about how powerful tech billionaires think.
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