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Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection

joanwestenberg.com

431–440 of 513 posts

Re: Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection

#431
I think the nuance is between reflection and introspection (which I interpret as rumination)

Rumination is not specifically in effort to solve, but rather to continue to analyze, which can lead to the definition of insanity; doing the same thing but expecting a different result

That distinction empowers problem solving instead of spiraling. But this is my perpsective of Andreeson's statement

Re: Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection

#432
post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people get dumber as they age. I feel like I'm probably dumber than me 10 years ago. No one wants to admit it, but I sense it in myself and I think I can see it in other people. I feel like peak brain is probably like 22 years old if we are being honest. Yeah you might still be doing dumb kid stuff but you are at the age where you just have this energizer bunny inside. You can just go to the library and churn…

So you don't think wisdom is a thing that people acquire as they age? I can tell you from experience that 22 year old people are generally lacking in wisdom. A few of them have a little bit, but overall 22 year olds are just as stupid as teenagers. Most people don't have much wisdom by age 22. They do have plenty of hubris though. If we're speaking about mental capabilities, there's nothing that I could do at 22 that…

I think wisdom is pretty unevenly learned and its not a guarantee 32 or 42 year olds or 82 year olds have it either. See our well aged POTUS. Either way you don't need wisdom to start working. So many of the "best" minds in various fields started working in that field at like 16, maybe dropped out of college and dug right in. Their initial intellect or specific circumstances allowed them to skip the normal path but really I think a lot of people would have a lot more success if more were allowed to start on real work earlier, and weren't being held back by process like this.

Again, just kind of sucks that you finally hit your stride in your career right as you feel your body and faculties declining with age. I don't think we get senile as soon as people notice you are definitely senile. I think it is a constant slide.

Re: Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection

#433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is made even more interesting by the fact that musk was caught misrepresenting himself playing the computer game Diablo in the not-so-distant past. IIRC he was either buying accounts or paying someone else to stream on his behalf. [0] [0] https://fortune.com/2025/01/20/elon-musk-video-games-scandal...

Also in sort of stark contrast to the "here's my elden ring build", which was pretty incoherent, and so was believed to be actually his.

As a complete aside, I beat that game along with the DLC, lvl 170 (scadu 19), all by myself, and it was by far the biggest gaming accomplishment of my life.

People who lie about things like that make me sad. It's actually a hard thing to do. Waste of time? Absolutely.

Re: Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection

#434
post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your belief that "power structures can't be fixed" perfectly illustrates what educator Paulo Freire described as the oppressed having a "diffuse, magical belief in the invulnerability and power of the oppressor". Anthropologist David Graeber noted that modern capitalism has constructed a vast bureaucratic apparatus "designed, first and foremost, to destroy any sense of possible alternative futures" and to ensure that…

Oppressors are not a monoculture. Sometimes they are extremely entrenched, sometimes they are fragile like a teacup. Sometimes they seek decelerationist and traditionalist narratives, while others seek accelerationist and neoliberal ideals. Outlining "oppression" as a dialectical certainty is why revolutionary politics die in the cradle while capitalism has Billions Served written under the sign. Reality is convolute…

The law is captured and always so by the most powerful

So your solution is to trust the powerful to do the right thing?

Re: Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection

#435

Mark Andreessen is the manifstation of "fooled by randomness". An idiot that got lucky, now thinks he is a god.

Every time I hear his name I have to think of "America needs to build more" but just not in my backyard.

> “I am writing this letter to communicate our IMMENSE objection to the creation of multifamily overlay zones in Atherton,” the two wrote in their email, signed by both, as reported by The Atlantic’s Jerusalem Demsas. “Please IMMEDIATELY REMOVE all multifamily overlay zoning projects from the Housing Element which will be submitted to the state in July. They will MASSIVELY decrease our home values, the quality of life of ourselves and our neighbors and IMMENSELY increase the noise pollution and traffic.” [0]

Pointing out hypocrisy is easy and not necessarily damning. But looking at all the -100 for everyone but +2 for me fabric of society abusing startups he funds I can't help but think he is a pretty whack person. Let's stop listening to him.

[0] https://fortune.com/2022/08/06/marc-andreessen-billionaire-n...

Re: Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection

#436
post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's a stretch: andreessen got wealthy because he worked for the UIUC group in a project which turned out super popular, super funded by Jim Clark, and got massive explosion in worth. there's no sociopathy involved from him back then. Musk made a company that jumpstarted some wealth and invested in other things which exploded. Toto Wolff is a gazillionaire because he too made some pretty incredibly timed investment…

You might get incredibly lucky and bexome a billionaire without being a sociopath. There's no way to stay a billionaire without being one, as long as there's abject poverty and suffering.

Yeah, that's the thing; once you have a billion dollars, you are set for many lifetimes of extremely comfortable living. Allowing a single person to suffer while you have more wealth than you can spend in a dozen (or more) lifetimes is pretty cruel. I mean, I don't really see how it is significantly different than hoarding.

I've never had billions of dollars and realistically I probably won't ever have billions of dollars, but I would certainly like to think that I'd keep enough for myself to keep myself thoroughly entertained, and then give the rest away somehow.

Of course, I've never been tested with this. Maybe if I was gifted billions of dollars I'd be as evil as the rest of the billionaires.

Re: Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection

#437
post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it true? Even on a small scale, when I taught kids how to swim for $20k/year I believe I did more for society than when I built systems to help a large streaming service deliver ads for $100k/year. There are certainly exceptions, but in general money comes from extracting value from others, while jobs that provide to society are not extractive and this pay less.

This is fundamentally wrong. If Elon created Tesla and made ~$100B of wealth from it, he also made all the other shareholders richer by way more. Not only that - the world now has Teslas it otherwise wouldn't. Everyone wins and there is no extraction of values (old Marxist jargon that needs to go away).

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Re: Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection

#438
post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it true? Even on a small scale, when I taught kids how to swim for $20k/year I believe I did more for society than when I built systems to help a large streaming service deliver ads for $100k/year. There are certainly exceptions, but in general money comes from extracting value from others, while jobs that provide to society are not extractive and this pay less.

This is fundamentally wrong. If Elon created Tesla and made ~$100B of wealth from it, he also made all the other shareholders richer by way more. Not only that - the world now has Teslas it otherwise wouldn't. Everyone wins and there is no extraction of values (old Marxist jargon that needs to go away).

That's all good if you assume people can't be tricked (tricked into paying more, tricked into buying something they don't want, tricked into working harder). The tricked person ends up with less and Elon ends up with more.

Re: Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection

#439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is fundamentally wrong. If Elon created Tesla and made ~$100B of wealth from it, he also made all the other shareholders richer by way more. Not only that - the world now has Teslas it otherwise wouldn't. Everyone wins and there is no extraction of values (old Marxist jargon that needs to go away).

That's all good if you assume people can't be tricked (tricked into paying more, tricked into buying something they don't want, tricked into working harder). The tricked person ends up with less and Elon ends up with more.

yeah man i'm sorry i don't believe people were "tricked" into buying teslas or whatever
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