231–240 of 414 posts
This is a good critique:
https://www.threads.net/@alex.stamos/post/CyeBy06PZGw
Also, wasn't Andressen's VC fund the one that sank all that money into crypto?
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.
He didn't go to Harvard, he went to Illinois. He built his own tech firm when taking that path wasn't even a thing for people to do, he did not inherit banking interests.
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 (transp…
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You can't buy a crappy house for less than 1mil in SV. The hackers are all on corporate payrolls.
You sure it isn’t because they just grew up, like the hippies?
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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 to be honest I think approvingly quoting the author of "The Fascist Manifesto" probably well exceeds the cutoff for "dogwhistle." At this point the only thing left is for a16z to start a youth brigade and invade Ethiopia.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/richard-hanania-white-suprema...
> We believe energy should be in an upward spiral. Energy is the foundational engine of our civilization. The more energy we have, the more people we can have, and the better everyone’s lives can be. We should raise everyone to the energy consumption level we have, then increase our energy 1,000x, then raise everyone else’s energy 1,000x as well. Let's not do that on Earth please. If you want to build a planet-sized…
Say we cut our energy consumption and carbon emissions by 50%. This would disproportionately affect the poor and kill millions (deaths due to cold/heat), and we still have the same climate problem in double the time.
The choice is accelerate innovation OR decelerate emissions. Which has the better track record for humanity?
More like a Techno-Capitalist Fantasy. This part had me laughing out loud: > Markets prevent monopolies and cartels. No, markets naturally culminate into monopolies and cartels. That's just human nature. History has shown over and over again that monopolies and cartels are naturally occurring and that the only successful way to deal with them is to break them up via government intervention. Sure, some monopolies may…
There is no "natural" culmination into monopoly, monopoly is THE ANTITHETICAL END of the market. Where monopoly exists there is no longer a competitive market floating prices. The state itself in then in control of all production or in affiliation with a stagnant racket that controls all production. There is no market anymore, because the state (a monopoly of its own) has ceased to enforce a market. It is a choice for the state to make. The contrast between the choice between a market and monopoly is as stark as the contrast between South Korea vs North Korea, or Norway vs Venezuela.
> Markets prevent monopolies and cartels. A lot of the optimism seems to rely on this statement and...I'm not convinced? But I also admit I'm not well informed on the topic. Does anyone have suggested reading on 'market discipline', as they're calling it? I mean, the first person on their "Patron Saints of Techno-Optimism" is Jeff Bezos, who is actively dealing with an antitrust lawsuit from the FTC regarding Amazon'…
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You don't understand market making and it's not ok to pretend you do.
I don't know if you have been on the other side of what market makers do, but its not exactly a day at the beach. Once you gain enough insight to see whats going on the charts you just see it as a graveyard of traders positions, stop losses and their capital. This happens every minute the market is open at every timeframe. Have you ever wonder why the markets appear so irrational? Great economic data and the worse dr…
You're ignoring my objection to this stuff, which has nothing to do with immorality and everything to do with with the waste and misdirection of resources. Why do people participate in this stuff? Because someone might get rich. From my POV, that's a waste and misdirection of resources. People getting rich is not the right motivation for pareto or utilitarian optimal allocations.
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’…
(b) engage in social engineering
(c) disconnect from the real world
(d) delude themselves
(e) appoint themselves
(f) play God with anyone else's life with total insulation from the consequences.
That seems to describe developers, and this VC was one, Silicon Valley VC and/or SBF-types. Who the heck even comes close to (f) except Big Tech.
With respect to (e), "unelected", does anyone know when the next ICANN, ARIN, or ISOC "elections" will be held. Even assuming hypothetically the web is not controlled by private companies, and "non-profits" are actually governing it, the internet is not and has never been a democracy.
It's a truly hilarious quote, even if taken out of context. It's like he is describing himself and his portfolio companies. Who is the enemy. Look in the mirror.
But maybe SillyCon Valley VC knows the best way to communicate with developers who will potentially work like dogs to make him money is to speak their language. Maybe he is a meme maker.