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The Nerd Reich – Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy

simonandschuster.com

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Re: The Nerd Reich – Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy

#261

Post by brazukadev »

hagbard_c wrote: post #208
pjmlp wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anything that is a millimeter to the left in US politics, which happens to still be considered right in the rest of the world, gets immediately coined as left wing activists.

This may have been true in the 80's but it is no longer the case. Left wing politics and whatever nutty ideas this faction produces is now more extreme than its counterpart in Europe. It is as if US lefties have taken the 'everything is bigger in the USA' mantra and applied it to their utopian ideologies. State-run grocery stores? The whole 'DEI/DIE' bureaucra[c/z]y? The aggressive way in which gender ideology is bei…

Gender ideology has nothing to do with left wing (outside of the US). The gender pay gap has tho

Re: The Nerd Reich – Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy

#262

Post by sigwinch »

dialup_sounds wrote: post #229
zrn900 wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The uncomfortable reality is that there does exist an 'us vs them' situation in every other aspect of society today, and those who ignore it end up on the losing side.

A statement so vague and ominous it could have been uttered at any point in human history by persons of any ideology without loss of meaning.

Yet you have to admit that 4 days lecturing about the Antichrist is an order if specificity greater than the tangle of European alliances before WWI.

Re: The Nerd Reich – Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy

#263

Post by Starman_Jones »

ben_w wrote: post #178
delichon wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree. The current limitations of Tesla self driving are not around difficulties in judging distances that lidar solves. They're around inference deficiencies with accurate geometry.

If the AI was good enough, vision-only self-driving would be at least as good as the best human. The AI isn't good enough. I'm starting to suspect that current ML learning rates can't be good enough in reasonable wall-clock timeframes due to how long it takes between relevant examples for them to learn from. It's fine to lean on other sensory modalities (including LIDAR, radar, ultrasound, whatever else you fancy) un…

No reason we can't rely on other sensory modalities after the AI "gets good enough," either. Humans don't have LIDAR, but that doesn't mean that LIDAR is a "cheat" for self-driving cars, or something we should try to move past.

Re: The Nerd Reich – Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy

#264

Post by ben_w »

Starman_Jones wrote: post #263
ben_w wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the AI was good enough, vision-only self-driving would be at least as good as the best human. The AI isn't good enough. I'm starting to suspect that current ML learning rates can't be good enough in reasonable wall-clock timeframes due to how long it takes between relevant examples for them to learn from. It's fine to lean on other sensory modalities (including LIDAR, radar, ultrasound, whatever else you fancy) un…

No reason we can't rely on other sensory modalities after the AI "gets good enough," either. Humans don't have LIDAR, but that doesn't mean that LIDAR is a "cheat" for self-driving cars, or something we should try to move past.

In principle, I agree; but remember that people like to save money, and that includes by not spending on excessive sensors when the minimum set will do.

What I think went wrong with Musk/Tesla/FSD is that he tried to cut costs here to save money before it would actually save money.

Re: The Nerd Reich – Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy

#265

Post by wtcactus »

bigyabai wrote: post #181
grigio wrote: post #170

It seems nicer than the Woke Reich

It's been 10 years, and I have still yet to hear any two people define "woke" the same.

It’s been 10 years and I have still yet to ear anyone on the far left defining what is a woman without using the very word “woman”.

Meaning: if you think the majority of people will be coerced to normalize this all insanity being pushed by a bunch of mindless Marxists living under the prosperity of capitalism, you will be sorely disappointed.

The USA just elected 2 communists for mayors (they don’t even hide it anymore) but here people are trying to tell us the real issue with present society is fascism.

I’ve seen how that game plays out: and it’s not pretty.

Re: The Nerd Reich – Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy

#266

Post by jmye »

konart wrote: post #98
mc32 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can argue the same for the capital that goes in. It’s used for what it’s used. By itself it’s neutral.

Yes, but I think that questions like 1. How come people are able to accumulate so much capital? 2. How come people are able to use the capital to influence life of other people in all ways possible to their liking? are more interesting and worth asking. Yes code and capital are both "tools". But you can't just write some code and install cameras at every corner. You need some political influence to do so. And capital…

And yet you can “just write some code” and weapons a generation of young men, and cause an incredible increase in depression in a generation of young women.

Pretending code has no direct and obvious impact is rank naivety.

Re: The Nerd Reich – Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy

#267

Post by spopejoy »

leobg wrote: post #246
sgnelson wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See: banality of evil

Seems like Arendt got it wrong. She let herself be fooled by Eichmann. He wasn’t banal at all. Bettina Stangneth, “Eichmann Before Jerusalem” (2014) https://newcriterion.com/article/the-profundity-of-evil/

Stangneth seems like an important thinker, but wow that article hasn't aged well. Talking about the "profundity" of Hamas evil with nary a mention of Israeli genocide. You can say September 2024 was too soon to tell ... but it wasn't actually. Pure islamophobic propaganda.

Re: The Nerd Reich – Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy

#268

Post by lunar-whitey »

keernan wrote: post #213

I'm no historian, but has there ever been a society in world history that wasn't dominated by a 'privileged few'? Weren't the 'rules' of the United States of America written by wealthy white males who excluded women, non-whites, and the non-wealthy (eg non-land owning) from participating in the new nation? As much as the worldwide turn to fascism worries me, I don't see the lives of most people in the world changing…

The United States from 1945 to about 1970 made a fair amount of noise about broadening the scope of the franchise. This certainly was not the norm historically, but contemporary ambivalence about that project is what leads us to this article today.

Re: The Nerd Reich – Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy

#269

Post by e40 »

tim333 wrote: post #186
rolandog wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps the nuance is in the eye of the beholder? I don't think it's sustainable to go about our lives wearing blinders and averting our gaze from the misuse of technology because one might be afraid of unhappy feelings creeping in. One must not be so cowardly as to deny that materials and technology can be misused or deny that their purpose is of oppression for fear of being attacked by group-thinkers. "The unexamin…

>deny that their purpose is of oppression... A lot of the uber-nerds are just regular nerds who got lucky, not part of some evil genius cabal. By all means keep an eye on them but I think for the most part they are regular people.

I completely disagree with this thesis. In my years as a founder (>40), it was very clear when I saw many forks in the road. One would lead to me getting more wealthy and one would lead to me being able to sleep at night. I chose the latter. Clearly the tech titans have chosen the other path.

I also witnessed many other founders doing really terrible things. It’s a meme around here that technical founders mostly get screwed by the time IPO or M&A proceeds are divvied up. I saw that time and again. Yes, there are exceptions, bit they are rare.

EDIT: was on mobile, wanted to add more:

IMO, the system we have sorts for sociopaths. The people with the power (politicians, CEOs, etc) are far more likely to be sociopaths than in the regular population because the rewards are so great. Look at the Paypal "mafia" (as they are called by many), and their exploits after Paypal.

Here's the way I look at whether someone got lucky or not: were they a 1-hit wonder or did they serially create companies with vast wealth? The former are people that got lucky. I've known some. The latter are mostly sociopaths. I've met many. They are predators. Some of them actually triggered my flight/flight response, and until that happened the first time, I had never in my life (in a business setting) experienced that. I now know what it means, when I feel that feeling. What is interesting is that my body sometimes knows it before my brain.

Re: The Nerd Reich – Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy

#270

Post by kgwxd »

skrebbel wrote: post #2

I'm not a big sucker for this kind of un-nuanced "us vs them" rhetoric, but I gotta admit, the title is a stroke of genius.

Not really, the "nerds" aren't in control any more. It's just typical assholes, cosplaying as "nerds", ruing everything.
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