Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy • Hacker News Board

Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#191

Post by dinfinity » Sun, Aug 09, 2026, 9:36 PM UTC

JuniperMesos wrote: post #188

dinfinity wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more about making a fair assessment of whether servicing a market via private or public enterprises is more or less efficient. What you mention is a comparison between different markets, not a fair comparison of the same market run either publicly or privately. Health care insurance companies definitely "tax" you for their inefficiencies (through higher costs) and they are definitely something you "need to do bu…

Health insurance is so regulated and so intertwined with public policy aims, that ostensibly private health care companies are themselves essentially an arm of the government. Indeed, the fact that I "have to do business with" them is itself a consequence of particularly-complicated government regulation. The American health insurance system is one of the most unpleasant (sets of) bureaucracies I personally have to d…

> Indeed, the fact that I "have to do business with" them is itself a consequence of particularly-complicated government regulation.

No, it isn't. Life without health insurance (in some form) is awful.

> I suspect that a better system would look a lot more like removing the insurance component of it in more contexts, and having more medical procedures paid for out of pocket at point of use by ordinary people - which is something I try to do right now anyway when I can.

Getting cancer is like winning the shit lottery and you're effectively saying that people should just "save for if that happens or die of they don't". The fucked up health insurance system in the US makes medical bankruptcies a thing. Your idea here turbocharges that.

More importantly, you ignored the main point in my reply. Please respond to this:

"It's more about making a fair assessment of whether servicing a market via private or public enterprises is more or less efficient. What you mention is a comparison between different markets, not a fair comparison of the same market run either publicly or privately.

[...]

The classic "government can't do anything right"-trope is quite strong and influences voting and policy making. My hypothesis is that the reality is closer to "cooperating with many many people in big organisations is very very hard to do efficiently"."

Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#192

Post by WalterBright » Sun, Aug 09, 2026, 9:38 PM UTC

notahacker wrote: post #113

WalterBright wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It has pro-far-right censorship which is something different. Just what is he censoring? I've seen plenty of far-out posts from both the left and right on X.

I saw plenty of far out posts under the previous owners too... But X banned accounts for non-spam content violations at a much higher rate than Twitter and approved content censorship requests from authoritarian states at a higher rate

Twitter banned the President, and also throttled Scott Adams.

In any case, what social media platform do you assert censors less?

Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#193

Post by triceratops » Sun, Aug 09, 2026, 9:49 PM UTC

ETH_start wrote: post #114

The government has expanded by any objective measure: From 20% of GDP to 40% of GDP today From a 34 regulatory agencies/offices to 77 today. From 5 percent of occupations needing a license in 1950 to 23 percent today From zero federal environmental review in 1950 to 26 months today for major projects. From almost zero collective bargaining agreements in the public sector in 1950 to approximately 36 percent of public…

> From 5 percent of occupations needing a license in 1950 to 23 percent today

Most of these are state-level though?

> From zero federal environmental review in 1950 to 26 months today for major projects

That's because they didn't give a shit about the environment in the 50s. They just yeeted nukes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevada_Test_Site) and people watched them from the Las Vegas strip. One river caught on fire 14 times holy mackerel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuyahoga_River.

> From 9,700 pages in the Code of Federal Regulations in 1950 to 200,000 pages today.

That doesn't tell us anything. There's just more stuff today that simply didn't exist in 1950.

It's possible the regulation dial has been turned too far the other way. But arguing for going back to 0 regulations is also insanity.

Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#194

Post by mancerayder » Sun, Aug 09, 2026, 9:51 PM UTC

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 really like this comment. Yes, it's the worst of both worlds: the right says that government is inefficient, I told you so; the left says it's the only solution to solve many social issues. Unfortunately they're both right and wrong.

I'm very familiar with New York politics, and I watch in slow motion while enormous amounts of money disappear into government salaries and pensions, programs that go nowhere, and corruption where no one is held accountable. I can give examples of any of these but the school system is one - it's the highest per-pupil cost almost anywhere in the U.S. but has some of the lowest standardized scores. The last two mayors were corrupt, one with his wife who received almost 2B on a program that went unaccounted for (look up ThriveNYC), had a friend in the ferry system that he funneled money to; the mayor after that was a borderline banana republic leader in terms of corruption.

On the other hand, look at construction costs. We know that despite the supposed high costs of doing business in Europe, and the high costs of places like Japan, that building subway/metro infrastructure costs 3-4 times in New York what it costs in Tokyo, London or Paris. Why is that?

So I have two theories to explain what's overall going on here:

1. Local government. I think local government was a great idea in 17th century philosophy; in practice look at how efficient countries like Japan and France are at providing healthcare and excellent infrastructure. And how much cheaper they do it. Those are strong, central governments without layers to worry about. In the U.S., you have NIMBY community councils, cities, counties, states and the federal government, all with a say in it. Then you have lawsuits, organizations that span states, etc. And those people are elected officials who have no interest in what happens to US in 10 or 20 years. They care about their election cycle and terms. In my opinion, local government is evil as a result of what I see here compared to overseas.

2. Others have said it - the influence of big business. What is illegal in those other countries as bribery or undue influence in electoral process, is legal, a 1st Amendment right and called "lobbying" in the U.S. This is why the Democrats will talk a big talk about identity politics to get elected, but they can't talk about a Medicare for All to get elected, because their sponsors block it (unless you're a fringe politician like what just happened in Michigan).

Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#195

Post by Nasrudith » Sun, Aug 09, 2026, 9:54 PM UTC

Trasmatta wrote: post #36

I think some of them intentionally model themselves after the evil characters in fiction. I remember seeing Musk talk one time about how he loves the game Deus Ex. And there's an almost uncanny resemblance between his actions and Bob Page's. The other canonical example of this is the naming of Palantir, of course. In many cases I think it's less that they misread the fiction, and more that they intentionally model th…

Play devils advocate for a bit: of course they should model themselves after the villains! Villains get shit done and change the world, and use it to the fullest potential.

'Heroes' are the schmucks who get roped around and fail to make things better until the very end at best, and even then leave massive amounts of preventable harm.

If one sets out to change the world don't be a hero, be a villain. It is horrifying, sure but it is the logical conclusion.

Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#196

Post by kraussvonespy » Sun, Aug 09, 2026, 10:00 PM UTC

techblueberry wrote: post #117

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 listened to a few Marc Andreesen interviews and occasioned some Thiel talks, and one thing I realized is the difference between philosophy as obligation or compass and philosophy as tool. I realized that when Marc Andreesen said things - specifically he was talking about the political realignment after the 2024 election. He wasn’t making an observation. He was manifesting - to borrow a new age term. It wasn’t propa…

Well said. Your last stanza is Orwellian.

Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#197

Post by dinfinity » Sun, Aug 09, 2026, 10:10 PM UTC

GMoromisato wrote: post #189

dinfinity wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there were a lot of ideas packed into it One could equally say that it is all over the place. > This was a fascinating interview Can you give us one or two new insights you gained from it?

I very sure that she would disagree with my attempt at summarizing her ideas, nevertheless, I think her key insight is that technology is corroding democracy because: 1. Technology companies are subsuming services traditionally supplied by the state. 2. Technology promises enhanced democracy (Twitter as a town square, or the Mac as a fight against Big Brother) but ends up degrading it instead (wealthy/powerful voices…

> 1. Technology companies are subsuming services traditionally supplied by the state.

Hardly any proof is given for this. It's just "Twitter is now the town square", but it's not as if the town square was ever a state service created specifically to provide a place to discuss politics. That happened in many, many places, including things like (privately owned) inns. A pertinent question is: What services are now not supplied by the state that were before and to what extent is that mediated by 'artificial' technology?

The actual relevant insight here imho is "privatization and anti-government sentiment has pushed society towards positions where it is beholden to megacorporations".

"Artificial state" is a red herring there, papering over the exaltation of private industry and capitalism in general.

> 2. Technology promises enhanced democracy (Twitter as a town square, or the Mac as a fight against Big Brother) but ends up degrading it instead (wealthy/powerful voices drown out others in a global arena).

This is a very old insight (and quite a debatable one at that).

> 3. Tech entrepreneurs are inspired by the grand society-changing concepts of sci-fi, but are either picking the wrong (harmful) parts or misunderstanding the true consequences.

This is just conjecture on her part, no proof is provided. I can't classify this as an insight. A hypothesis at best.

> I find it fascinating because it raises good points.

I think only well-founded points are 'good' points. In this case I would argue that it is very much a bandwagon set of views with some fancy sounding unsubstantiated labels like "artificial state" slapped on to it.

Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#198

Post by chermi » Sun, Aug 09, 2026, 10:25 PM UTC

preg_match wrote: post #149

chermi wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the government is in control, it's a sanctioned monopoly. You seem to be opposed to monopoly?

I really don't like this type of arguing where people try to play stupid. You know it's different, because you used the word "sanctioned". And this was really the whole point of my comment. We live in a representative democracy. We all have a choice in who we vote for, what polices we support. In addition, we have checks and balances in place to prevent the consolidation of power. The government is not "one thing", i…

You seem to be putting a lot of viewpoints on me I never proclaimed.

That is not the only arm we control corporations with, corporations even die sometimes for doing the wrong thing. And voting internally is not the only way to change a corporations behavior. I think talking about them being a dictatorship is confusing the aspects we're talking about.

I don't know when I said the government and corporations were the same thing when monopolies, but I still hold one is much more destructible than the other when they are properly separated (they aren't).

I don't think markets and capitalism solve everything. I would say when democracy and capitalism are both working well (not right now) their combo is awesome.

I don't think placing all blame on corporations is productive because it's a misdiagnosis. I am more afraid of the ratchet effect than I am of Google, but they both scare the shit out of me.

Edit- I admit my original comment wasn't very good, I apologize.

Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#199

Post by blitzar » Sun, Aug 09, 2026, 10:52 PM UTC

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.

That's a super philosophy lisper

Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#200

Post by preg_match » Sun, Aug 09, 2026, 11:21 PM UTC

chermi wrote: post #198

preg_match wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't like this type of arguing where people try to play stupid. You know it's different, because you used the word "sanctioned". And this was really the whole point of my comment. We live in a representative democracy. We all have a choice in who we vote for, what polices we support. In addition, we have checks and balances in place to prevent the consolidation of power. The government is not "one thing", i…

You seem to be putting a lot of viewpoints on me I never proclaimed. That is not the only arm we control corporations with, corporations even die sometimes for doing the wrong thing. And voting internally is not the only way to change a corporations behavior. I think talking about them being a dictatorship is confusing the aspects we're talking about. I don't know when I said the government and corporations were the…

I will agree one benefit of corporations is that they're more destructible, but the flip side of that is there are less guarantees. The constitution is pretty indestructible, and I consider that largely good, because it guarantees some baselines for us. I also agree they need to be properly separated, which they are not currently and haven't been for a while.

I think, though, when we see many (all?) corporations exhibiting the same bad behavior, and said bad behavior materially negatively affects the population, that's a sign we have a gap in legislation. We shouldn't, and really can't, play wack-a-mole with corporations individually with individual actions. We should fix it upstream.