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Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection

joanwestenberg.com

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Re: Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection

#461

Post by rexpop »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #434
bigyabai wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Bingo! You can't expect capital to regulate itself.

Although, hell, at least some bureaucrats and Democrats actually think doing the right thing will secure their privileges.

Re: Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection

#462

Post by leptons »

asdff wrote: post #432
leptons wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 r…

It seems like you think you have it all figured out, but you don't.

>So many of the "best" minds in various fields started working in that field at like 16,

Name them. Also, child prodigies exist but that doesn't mean the rest of us are dummies. You'd also be hard-pressed to find a child prodigy or someone like that as you suggest that is "at the top of their field" that doesn't think someone else is better than they are. There is no real "at the top of their field" in anything.

The only thing that I can detect that has diminished in my old age is my patience for pointless internet interactions like this one. I have better things to do. Goodbye.

Re: Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection

#464

Post by bigyabai »

rexpop wrote: post #460
bigyabai wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Mushy gushy feelings Capitalist realism is the most mushy gushy, vibes-based ideological cowardice at large, today. Sure, oppressive power structures are not a static monolith, and they constantly morph and reinvent themselves to survive. However, the conclusion that change must therefore come strictly from the "top" via "black-and-white" regulation (or that that bottom-up revolution relies on "mushy-gushy feelings…

> They relocate to regions with cheaper labor and fewer regulations [...] and they automate or restructure the workplace to disempower workers.

That's a total, unqualified victory. If your regulation is intended to stop people exploiting your customers or labor base, the best possible outcome is that exploitative fuckbags pack up their stuff and leave. This is what we're seeing in California, where every single Fortune 500 company is writing about how awful their taxes are, without acknowledging the damage that private capital did.

Regulatory capture is always going to be a matter of perspective, but that doesn't stop me from advocating for it. This is a zero-sum argument and you wouldn't need to reach for it if revolution was a successful premise.

> Capital will simply shift to a new product cycle or a new geography to escape the new laws.

It's a free country, let them. Someone has to water-test reality, and I'm fine letting private capital waste money on terrible ideas that they can be fined for in the long run. I don't weep for the world we might live in if Microsoft was allowed to bully Netscape and Java. They made the terrible idea, and they earn their just desert.

> By systematically withdrawing labor, obedience, and technical skills, [...] it cuts off the very sources of the ruler's power, paralyzing the system.

You haven't cited a single instance of this working. I have cited four distinct counterexamples, now.

I'm glad that you're engaging with theory, but it's not my job to simulate the myriad reasons why this hasn't worked. We have 30 years of postmodern software capitalism to examine, and at the end it says "Palantir" in extra-bold typeface. Conscientious objection didn't seem to do much in WWII, didn't change after the Snowden revalations, and today we are deeper-entrenched in anti-human software than ever.

Appealing to workers isn't enough. You have to convince the top, and revolution is how you hand them consent to exercise their monopoly on violence.

Re: Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection

#465

Post by [deleted] »

pasquinelli wrote: post #145
bayarearefugee wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Organizing years ago would have been huge for software developers but unfortunately I do think it is too late now, given the onset of AI (weakens the collective by improving individual productivity since not every developer will be onboard) and just the current political landscape. The NLRB has been gutted.

> The NLRB has been gutted. there was a before the nlrb and there were unions then. would you expect union organizers for a tech workers union to be assassinated? would you expect members of a tech workers union to be gunned down en masse? if no, then the political landscape has been so much worse than now, and unions have managed to form.

[deleted]

Re: Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection

#466

Post by AndrewKemendo »

mayneack wrote: post #456
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re just the most ruthless If you look at the entire entirety of understood history of biology: The most ruthless always wins That is to say if I go into a village and kill all the adults and teenagers and steal all the kids who are scared to be killed by me, then I will win in the probably two successive generations that I’ve been able to successfully brainwashing into thinking I’m some kind of God. That is unti…

I promise there are thousands to millions of people just as ruthless. Most of them just end up as petty criminals.

No doubt

Placement almost perfectly dictates whether high level psychopaths wind up in jail or the boardroom

Re: Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection

#467

Post by kergonath »

piker wrote: post #284
j2kun wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elon was always problematic. His increasing social media use removed the natural filters that prevented people from seeing it.

I'm not defending Musk, but "problematic" used in this type of context is one of those words that says more about the speaker than it does the subject.

He was always a nutcase. So unhinged he got booted out of PayPal. Then the shenanigans and retconing of him as a Tesla founder. His unrealistic promises he never realised over the years at Tesla. The pedo guy thing. The HyperLoop bullshit. It was not as obvious because he still had some filters but it was already visible if you were paying attention. Problematic is a good description of what he was.

Re: Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection

#468

Post by text0404 »

simianwords wrote: post #390
rhines wrote: 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).

EXACTLY, thank you! I run an international human trafficking and drug smuggling operation. I know that what I'm doing is good for society:

- It makes me and my partners extremely rich

- It creates jobs for at-risk youth

- It provides products and services that people want

It benefits society! I am a benefit to society! Why can't anyone see this?

Re: Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection

#469

Post by mananaysiempre »

gwerbin wrote: post #448
ryandrake wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Problematic" is just vague. It's not that much more writing to specify the actual problems.

It's a rhetorical device that dates back to the ancient Greeks (meiosis). It's absolutely a lot more writing to enumerate the ways in which Elon Musk is problematic.

In a sane world it would read that way. Unfortunately, we live in a world where such nondescript descriptors (“problematic”, “objectionable”, “unprofessional”, “toxic”, “extremist”, “far-$SIDE”, a few others depending on usage) have been used, and overused, to accuse or smear people without taking on much of a burden of proof or making any statements specific enough to be falsifiable.

They now provoke instinctive revulsion when used in culture-war-adjacent contexts even when, as here, their usage is entirely legitimate (you presuppose a vague but mutually understood allegation rather than nebulously introducing a fresh one). I think only “controversial” has escaped this fate, but it might be too weak for your purposes.

(To be clear, I am only trying to explain why your phrasing might cause your interlocutor to momentarily recoil even when—as in my case—they don’t actually have any problem with the contents of your statement. What you do with this explanation is up to you: I don’t believe these terms are short-term salvageable at this point, but neither will I begrudge others their choice of hopeless cause; I certainly have my own fair share of those.)

Re: Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection

#470

Post by rhines »

simianwords wrote: post #390
rhines wrote: 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).

Yeah sorry I was thinking about value as more about quality of life and society. If you define it as shareholder value and producing stuff, then by definition corporations and their executives are of course contributing the most.
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