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The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

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Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#271

Post by tsunamifury »

nradov wrote: post #217
survirtual wrote: post #169

In a world where abundance reigns, the old structures and the leaders who champion them fade into obsolescence. The energy that once went into seeking more begins to flow into sharing, nurturing, and sustaining. In this transformed landscape, resource hoarding and centralized control are not just out of place; they become barriers to the collective human journey toward wisdom and spiritual fulfillment. When everyone'…

The things which people really want will never be abundant. Social status is a zero-sum game.

Status driven monkeys fighting over tree position

That’s why we got Facebook over jet packs. That’s what we are. We need to accept it

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#272

Post by nl »

m-ee wrote: post #268
nl wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is very troubling, because Hanania is a genuine white supremacist. But it turns out he hid it well, and that HuffPost expose only came out two years after the Andreessen podcast, so it's reasonable to think he didn't know. And on the podcast Andreessen makes a pretty strong criticism of the Right (as well as the left): > And the main principle of the right is that it hates the left. This is the old Buckley thing…

In what way did he hide it well? I’d best describe the story as “racist has a secret life where he’s even more racist” https://twitter.com/RichardHanania/status/165754101074508185...

> In what way did he hide it well?

I don't know - I'm just going off the HuffPost article you posted where they exposed it ("Unmasking Richard Hoste").

> https://twitter.com/RichardHanania/status/165754101074508185...

Again, this was after the HuffPost article came out, and after the Andreessen interview.

I'd note that Hanania also interviewed Steven Pinker who I don't think anyone has accused of being a racist even by association.

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#273

Post by throwaway9274 »

survirtual wrote: post #169

In a world where abundance reigns, the old structures and the leaders who champion them fade into obsolescence. The energy that once went into seeking more begins to flow into sharing, nurturing, and sustaining. In this transformed landscape, resource hoarding and centralized control are not just out of place; they become barriers to the collective human journey toward wisdom and spiritual fulfillment. When everyone'…

We do not live in a post-scarcity world.

Every day people get up, enforce the laws, execute the national defense, bury themselves up to their elbows in humans’ abdomens to heal their broken bodies, and pick your turnips.

The world is not self-executing.

Market mechanisms coordinate that activity by transmitting information through the price signal. In their absence, the material abundance you mistake for post-scarcity would quickly collapse.

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#274

Post by throwaway9274 »

The problem with Marc’s exposition is that it mixes up techno-optimist ideas with personal right wing ideologies.

More fission reactors? Yes. Massively accelerate technological progress, and reduce the barriers to doing so? Yes. Is AI “extinction risk” overblown to the extent of being an obstacle to progress? Yes.

But markets aren’t self-balancing and do not prevent monopolies or cartels on their own. “Experts” generally know a lot, even though there’s gate keeping and credentialism. The ESG paragraph probably should just focus on the fact that making policy through finance is anti-democratic.

Beff Jezos, who Marc is cribbing here (and who is partially cribbing Nick Land) is pretty openly to the right.

In a document that’s being framed as capturing all of techno-optimism, these arguments are out of place. Without addressing the validity of the arguments themselves, they should have sanded off the explicitly political edges to maximize effectiveness.

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#275

Post by m-ee »

nl wrote: post #272
m-ee wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what way did he hide it well? I’d best describe the story as “racist has a secret life where he’s even more racist” https://twitter.com/RichardHanania/status/165754101074508185...

> In what way did he hide it well? I don't know - I'm just going off the HuffPost article you posted where they exposed it ("Unmasking Richard Hoste"). > https://twitter.com/RichardHanania/status/165754101074508185... Again, this was after the HuffPost article came out, and after the Andreessen interview. I'd note that Hanania also interviewed Steven Pinker who I don't think anyone has accused of being a racist even…

Pinker associated with known racist Steve Sailer and there’s plenty of articles calling his views on IQ race science.

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#276

Post by mentalpiracy »

suoduandao2 wrote: post #182
rainsford wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also a little hard to square that enemy with the earlier enemy of "...anti-merit, anti-ambition, anti-striving, anti-achievement, anti-greatness." So we're opposed to credentialed experts in favor of "the real world" but also opposed to those who don't care about merit or achievement? Are credentials and expertise not a reasonable measure of merit and achievement and aren't excessive appeals to the wisdom of the…

I actually agree with the idea that we should judge people based on their popularity with customers rather than their peers. Credential are very often indicative of the former

genuinely curious what truth-distilling insight you think the average customer has that somehow can’t be manipulated artificially.

people get duped by deceptive marketing every day, man.

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#277

Post by mempko »

We are not pessimistic about technology, just the few who own and control it. Markets? Literally everything was developed in the public sector. The two leading drivers of technological development in the 20th century was the US government and soviet union, none of it relying on market forces. If anything markets are local optimizations with the wrong loss function.

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#278

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #240
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’…

(a) indulge in abstract theories (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…

Forgot one.

(g) exhibit uncredentialed university dropout know-it-all worldview

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#279

Post by danjac »

For anyone trying to engage with this nonsense seriously: this is just a man with a fragile ego who is annoyed that the public no longer take his brand seriously after the collapse of crypto and other SV-adjacent grifts and wants to keep his latest AI grift going on as long as possible.

Honestly reads like an essay written by a 15 year old who has just got introduced to Robert Heinlein and Ayn Rand.

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#280

Post by m463 »

I used to be completely optimistic about technology.

A Personal computer! what a wonderful concept. It was mine, and enhanced my abilities.

But there was a change when businesses connected and became anti-customer. They learned to manipulate, surveil and control their customers and products. sigh.

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