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The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

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Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#401

Post by helboi4 »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #351
helboi4 wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for debunking this. Even with my basic knowledge of history I was pretty sure this guy was far off mark.

You're being juvenile. If you're going to cheer for a historical faction that you feel reflects your values and jeer their opponents , it's probably best to not have a "basic knowledge of history". Historical groups aren't sports teams.

I read about history constantly bro. I probably have more knowledge than most I just was being humble because I felt like the person above me knew more than I did on this particular topic. I was not saying I was cheering or jeering anyone. I meant I knew some things about this topic that lead me to believe that what the other person was saying was historically inaccurate. But it is not something I had looked into in a while, so I would have needed to check my vague memories of the facts. This person did that for me and provided sources. Great! That's all I was saying. Why the hell do you feel the need to ridicule a stranger for your massive assumption of their values.

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#402

Post by helboi4 »

renewiltord wrote: post #376
helboi4 wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As many have pointed out, technological advancement is pointless without social advancement. We have learnt how to treat diseases 10 times over at this point, and yet people still live with them. That is a failure at engineering our social system. Social change is the decisive factor. Technological change without social change is just giving the rich new ways to subjugate or ignore the poor.

This is total bullshit. Rich or poor, infant mortality rate and maternal mortality rate have plunged. The rich do better than the poor, but you're not losing your firstborn to cholera and shit. We have antibiotics and post-natal care. Shit is good now. Forget 200 years ago like the OP said. Try just 1900: 9 out of every 1000 live births resulted in mum dying. Today? In the bottom quartile in my state of California? 1…

No it's not bullshit. Obviously over time all our conditions improve, partially because eventually it just becomes so cheap to do this stuff that even the peasants can get it, or because there was actual TANGIBLE SOCIAL CHANGE. It's usually both. In the UK the NHS was created after ww2, by golly isn't it a feat of technology that less poor people die here. In fact our life expectancy for the poorest is several years higher than in the US, and some countries in Europe have a life expectancy for the poorest people that is 10 years higher than the US. God, I thought the US had some of the most advanced technology on earth? How can this be the case? Surely it can't be beacause of social policy?????? heavy /s

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#403

Post by thrillgore »

Barrin92 wrote: post #92

Okay one thing I had to laugh out loud about in this piece is the "Techno Capital Machine" section: "Combine technology and markets and you get what Nick Land has termed the techno-capital machine[...] We believe the techno-capital machine is not anti-human – in fact, it may be the most pro-human thing there is. It serves us. The techno-capital machine works for us. All the machines work for us" Mark might find it fa…

Not to mention that Nick Land is an avowed Néo-nazi.

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#404

Post by thrillgore »

Wow. So that was a bunch of navel gazing from the man who brought us Netscape. Are we sure he didn't just get lucky? I don't think I've ever seen anything discredit Marc in such a big way since the last time I remember him saying or doing something that discredited him in such a big way, like investing in crypto or claiming India was better under Empire colonization.

Also, citing Nick Land (neo-nazi), Filippo Marinetti (co-author of the Fascist Manifesto), Milton Friedman and John Galt (A LITERALLY MADE UP CHARACTER) is a bad read. Yikes.

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#405

Post by suoduandao2 »

mentalpiracy wrote: post #276
suoduandao2 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

skin in the game. They paid for the product, and if the company's still in business, didn't sue it or convince everyone else not to. A good review costs a restaurant critic nothing.

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#406

Post by spiralx »

kevinmchugh wrote: post #80
leotravis10 wrote: post #59

Keep in mind that they changed the header in this, so thankfully Erin Kissane shared the original header for the record: https://mas.to/@kissane/111245487051384089 Talk about a falling off the rails type of piece, this is it.

Can't believe they didn't put a ring on the leftmost hand.

I'm sure the author considers himself a giver :)

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#407

Post by gojomo »

ethanbond wrote: post #391
gojomo wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're citing biased samples, like how on HN itself: - A disproportionate number of direct-replies to almost any opiniated submission are negative. (If you agree, an upvote is often enough! It's the objectors/nitpickers who are loudest in the comments – even if unrepresentative.) - Often, also, it's sullen/underemployed people who have the most time to comment. I disagree that the "mainstream reporting" represents "t…

Kagi results are biased? I mean... I guess. You got it pal, hope all those people are feeling rah-rah!

No search engine's results will be an accurate census of reader reactions.

Such results will especially undersample Andreesen's intended audience of potential builders, which isn't the snarky cliquish media scene to which you've apprently outsourced your sensibilities.

And again: to repeatedly appeal to "most people agree with me (as far as I can see, according to my idiosyncratic media diet)" isn't the win you seem to think it is. It's more a confession that you're not bringing much of your own reasoning/logic/experience to a discussion, and defer to (often-faked) social proof for validation. If I cared what Kagi's crawl/ranking thinks, I'd search Kagi. (I don't.)

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#408

Post by Def_Os »

woodruffw wrote: post #166

This was deeply depressing to read, and indicates that the trend of disengagement between VCs (and SV tech culture, more generally) and our larger society is continuing apace. Rather than doing anything else, a man worth approximately $1.8B[1] is posting screeds wherein he churlishly tells the rest of us to read Internet-poisoned reactionaries. No sane culture would be optimistic about any system or scheme that produ…

Hear, hear. I was especially appalled by seeing aforementioned reactionaries listed alongside thinkers that likely would've pulled this manifested to shreds (e.g. Bertrand Russell).

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#409

Post by ethanbond »

gojomo wrote: post #407
ethanbond wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kagi results are biased? I mean... I guess. You got it pal, hope all those people are feeling rah-rah!

No search engine's results will be an accurate census of reader reactions. Such results will especially undersample Andreesen's intended audience of potential builders, which isn't the snarky cliquish media scene to which you've apprently outsourced your sensibilities. And again: to repeatedly appeal to "most people agree with me (as far as I can see, according to my idiosyncratic media diet)" isn't the win you seem…

Very interesting how the goal here needn’t be to build a broad coalition or broad consensus in order to shape the future.

It’s almost as if technologists believe they can (and actually have a moral imperative to!) shape the world without being elected and without being accountable to the people whose world they’re shaping…

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#410

Post by volkandkaya »

rgmerk wrote: post #201
elihu wrote: post #154

> 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…

The idea of increasing per-capita energy consumption to 1,000x current American levels is so ludicrous Andreesen should immediately be laughed out of town without any further consideration. I did some back of the envelope calculations (and obviously made a few assumptions about what he meant), but, roughly, 1,000x current US per capita energy consumption is about enough to keep you airborne in a (fully occupied) corp…

For all that work you did you could have used some imagination and thought about projects like Starlink + space mining.
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