Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 295 posts

Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#201

Post by lovich »

hibikir wrote: post #152
ygjb wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> At which point, GDP growth sinks like a rock, and those rich people become poorer in absolute terms.

While I think these guys have an addiction to wealth, I also think they are even more addicted to having more than anyone else.

I’m like 80/20 on if these guys would take living in the medieval era but we’re the king or emperor vs being a regular citizen in a Star Trek level of technology and post scarcity society.

Rather rules over ashes and all that.

Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#202

Post by stefantalpalaru »

lordgrenville wrote: post #155
swiftcoder wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

[dead]

Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#203

Post by phil21 »

quantified wrote: post #120
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t really understand this perspective? I’m not a small government guy, I think the government ought to play an important role in providing a good regulatory framework and a strong social net. But if someone’s going to have direct power over my life, I’d much prefer a business owner or boss I can freely choose in principle rather than a government official who may not view me as part of their winning coalition.

How do you ever choose your boss at work? Never. Oh, by quitting that job and getting another? That's called "moving" when applied to politics. Which is super unattractive in much of regular life, unless you don't need people.

> Which is super unattractive in much of regular life

Which is, imo, one of the primary reasons of the stagnation of US society over the past 50 years.

We are at all time lows for internal migration. This reduces dynamism drastically. People used to chase economic and social opportunity. Sometimes multiple times through a well lived life.

The whole point of states was you could relatively trivially pull up stakes and move for better opportunity. Once people decided that was impossible (and historically speaking, it's actually less risky than ever before) things really went to shit.

Overall and in generally speaking terms: US citizens have chosen comfort over every other metric when it comes to every single daily decision they make in aggregate.

Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#204

Post by oliculipolicula »

Lerc wrote: post #180
taurath wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In his case, it could be called opposition research

And thus you have demonstrated the irrelevance of academic background as a meaningful data point for explaining motivations at the individual level.

Karp had to complete his PhD under another guy BC Habermas declined

Doesn't seem like they had any deep interactions tbh

Otoh Thiel probably anticipated this outcome when he encouraged his lefty friend to seek Yoda lol (Never meet your heroes etc)

Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#205

Post by mncharity »

AngryData wrote: post #164
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 is true for multiple topics too, like economics. It is almost worse off for people to take these 100 level classes without then taking 200 and 300 level continuations. They think they have extra knowledge in the subject because of the classes but it was really just a primer later to tell them why all that stuff sounds good at first but is completely wrong and useless.

A kindergarten science education person suggested their kids have a human right to understand their world then, rather than a lifetime (for them) later. So atoms, etc.

I think that far far harder than they thought - "adapt later material for a younger audience" vs "wield lots and lots of research community domain expertise to craft largely novel content".

But I've found it an interesting probe question: How would you teach some domain differently, if you primarily cared about... what to call it... non-deferred epistemic agency and calibrated/unfiltered sense-making? No learning linear systems without learning how to do linear approximation of systems in a mostly non-linear world. Ideal Gas Law chapter questions still have numbers for solid argon, but the intended learning outcome is "nope!" not mindless "PV=nRT!". No "this course will leave you with lots of new misconceptions about the world, but we'll clean those up in later years for those who stay with us".

Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#206

Post by ETH_start »

owisd wrote: post #177
ETH_start wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not making a normative claim. I'm saying that the narrative in the article — that the private sector has taken over functions of the government and the government has been in retreat — is exactly the opposite of what the statistics show.

The article is claiming it's happened in the last 20-25 years but you seem to have used 1950 as your starting point, so you're not excluding the possibility it's been in reverse since 2000 but not yet fallen to 1950 levels.

It's up since 20 years ago:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1CFpQ

Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#207

Post by jhbadger »

slopinthebag wrote: post #125
quantified wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you ever choose your boss at work? Never. Oh, by quitting that job and getting another? That's called "moving" when applied to politics. Which is super unattractive in much of regular life, unless you don't need people.

Getting a new job is completely different from denouncing your citizenship and moving to a different country. Oh also there are no territories without government so you can’t even do that.

You certainly don't need to "denounce your citizenship" to move to another country and work there - I strongly recommend that everybody live at least for a few years in another country for school or a job. Even if you end up settling back in your home country as I did, the experience is incredibly valuable as it teaches you how arbitrary so many of the customs you grew up with are.

Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#208

Post by ygjb »

SoftTalker wrote: post #50
ygjb wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The problem for them is that in the US, "those who get in the way" are armed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOSqCjMRXWA Granted, the wealthy may not have the resources of the US military, but I am willing to bet that push comes to shove, the corporate security forces of companies like palantir and anduril, let alone actual mainstream military hardware providers would be a far greater threat than armed civilians in a fully deregulated or collapsed American state.

I don't care much about the 2nd amendment absolutists, and the myth of the American heroes who will stand up to tyranny, because so far the only thing they appear to have stood up for in the last hundred years are gun rights, religious fundamentalism, and in 2020, a demagogue.

American exceptionalism and gun culture are important to Americans, but are pretty much viewed as narcissism and with skepticism outside of the US. YMMV, but like another comment I made recently, this isn't an anti-American sentiment, it's just a perspective from one of your neighbours to the north who has lots of Canadian and American friends and family living in the US.

Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#209

Post by andsoitis »

danans wrote: post #97
swiftcoder wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, right, but I'm not sure the tech elites actually own much in the way of resources in that sense. Is the Apple fandom strong enough to get Tim Cook his own private army of zealots when society breaks down?

> Is the Apple fandom strong enough to get Tim Cook his own private army of zealots when society breaks down? Society won't break down (in the chaos sense) and resources will still be allocated. Power abhors a vacuum as they say. It's just that resources and power will controlled and distributed in an openly feudal way. Technology's egalitarian objectives will be replaced by overtly oligarchic ones. Tech fandom will…

> access to real resources owned and controlled by the few.

What’s an example of such a real resource?

Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#210

Post by yesbabyyes »

kergonath wrote: post #181
ReptileMan wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of the 5 users of the Palantirs that we know of 2 are good, 2 are evil, and one is tragic.

There is quite a bit of literature about the Palantir and the related philosophy, whether thy were allegories, etc. AFAICT the consensus is that they are a very catholic concept and an illustration of what could happen when you use the weapon of your enemy and in general don’t understand the means you use to your end and how even strong people deceive themselves willingly when they think they act for the greater good…

I'm not familiar with the literature and consensus on them being a Catholic concept, but I am sure they are not about using the enemy's weapon, at least in the sense that you're arguing.

They were created by the high elves and given to the kings of Númenor. The only rightful uses of them in LoTR is by Denethor and Aragorn.

I suppose it could be argued that the illegitimate use of them by Sauron and arguably also Saruman eventually factors in their downfall, and as such it is their use of the enemy's weapons which is fraught--in Saruman's case, that he gets corrupted (but I interpret him already vain and arrogant, and thus on a downward path even before).

In Sauron's case I think lies a nugget of what wisdom Tolkien hoped to confer, especially in his interaction with Pippin. The palantír invites speculation, in that it lets you see things but not all things. Sauron knows a little (the ring is with a Hobbit), is shown a little (here is a Hobbit in Saruman's stone) and in speculating draws wrong conclusions (this is the Hobbit I've been looking for!, etc).

His seeing Aragorn in the stone is different in that Aragorn is the rightful heir, has authority over the stones, and shows truth with intent, which scares Sauron, sends him in a panic and drives him to make foolish decisions.

So, while we are told about the danger of using the enemy's weapon, I'd argue it's from the opposite perspective, and also not quite whatever moral or other lesson Tolkien hoped to confer, rather I believe the moral of the story is to avoid speculation about what happens in another place, or time, and instead trust in yourself, follow your heart and do what is good.

Post reply on HN