51–60 of 96 posts
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How he rails against billionaires with a straight face is a mystery.
There is no discernible difference in behavior between the rightmost capitalist and the loudest American socialist.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's no such thing as "the state" except as a societal arrangement. When you argue that "the state" should decide on who gets what, what you're really saying is that this should be the decision of a few power-crazed career bureaucrats, with no accountability whatsoever or any "skin in the game". At least the plutocrat is paying for the aid out of pocket: he will care somewhat that the money is not outright misused…
There's no such thing as "society" except for societal arrangement. And societies of any decent size for the past several thousand years have arranged for governments who decide all sorts of things. Why would state aid be decided by a few "power-crazed" career bureaucrats in representative democracies? This sounds like a libertarian screed against the state doing anything but the minimal.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you're massively overselling "Moldbug"'s influence. Most on the right today dismiss him for being jewish. Older right-leaning people are mostly stuck on the Facebook/Fox News reservation and don't read essays or blogs, ever, and probably aren't even literate enough to understand Yarvin let alone get talking into monarchism by him. I will grant that he has influence, but definitely not "massive". Maybe he has…
Having influence over tech billionaires running some of the most influential companies in the world seems like a lot of influence.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's the risk of it becoming a tag and movement associated with a particular group of people. Millions of people donate to charity in different ways, effectively or not and they're not part of a movement. When it becomes uppercase Effective Altruism with very prominent yet very similar in profile advocates (tech millionaires) it becomes something different and will attract scrutiny. People can and will continue to…
Most people donate $0. Do you agree it might be good and useful to have a, ummm, let's call it a movement, to change that?
But what does that have to do with EA? The EA movement is associated with tech millionaires arrogantly telling the world they are better at knowing what people need, at the same time some of these people have proven to have a dubious moral compass. So do I want these people as leaders of such a movement, absolutely not. Ultimately why do we need to tribalise the topic? You want to donate to charity in a particular way, then go ahead and encourage people to do so, that's amazing. Maybe we don't agree on the specifics but I think our opinions are actually not that far apart :)
A few decades ago, tech, science and liberalism were bedfellows in the Bay Area. Apple was famous for its anti-authoritarian "1984" ad, directed by Ridley Scott. Google proclaimed "Don't be evil".
I'm not sure quite what to make of the current trend of the dominant "technocrats", and their employees, from being liberal to supporting division within society.
But it does not seem conducive to a perpetuation of what made the Bay Area such a productive environment, from scientific, cultural and business perspectives.
Here’s an idea. What if instead of left/right wing, you’d sort ideas into useful and useless buckets, given that the context of these labels will change depending on your use case. X is useful for Y, but useless for Z. Ideally, you are tooling around with pro-social ideas for your governance or societal organization frameworks, which is a necessity if you’re optimizing for freedom, morality or ethics. Sadly, in lieu…
This reflects an interesting development in Bay Area politics, which has global impact through tech companies. A few decades ago, tech, science and liberalism were bedfellows in the Bay Area. Apple was famous for its anti-authoritarian "1984" ad, directed by Ridley Scott. Google proclaimed "Don't be evil". I'm not sure quite what to make of the current trend of the dominant "technocrats", and their employees, from be…
Perhaps, but Apple’s corporate culture is (and has always been?) pretty command-and-control.
> A few decades ago, tech, science and liberalism were bedfellows in the Bay Area.
Digital Technology is a powerful tool to create uniformity (scale), force authority (control, predictability, sentiment shaping). Of course it can be used to fight against these, but digital tech leans very much in the direction of centralization and control if you ask me.
This reflects an interesting development in Bay Area politics, which has global impact through tech companies. A few decades ago, tech, science and liberalism were bedfellows in the Bay Area. Apple was famous for its anti-authoritarian "1984" ad, directed by Ridley Scott. Google proclaimed "Don't be evil". I'm not sure quite what to make of the current trend of the dominant "technocrats", and their employees, from be…
> Apple was famous for its anti-authoritarian "1984" ad Perhaps, but Apple’s corporate culture is (and has always been?) pretty command-and-control. > A few decades ago, tech, science and liberalism were bedfellows in the Bay Area. Digital Technology is a powerful tool to create uniformity (scale), force authority (control, predictability, sentiment shaping). Of course it can be used to fight against these, but digit…
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Exactly. My moment of epiphany came when I heard Bernie has three houses, one of which is a beach house. How he rails against billionaires with a straight face is a mystery. There is no discernible difference in behavior between the rightmost capitalist and the loudest American socialist.
Not really a mystery. He wants power. The power to assert his will on others, the power to tell others what they may and may not do.
Here’s an idea. What if instead of left/right wing, you’d sort ideas into useful and useless buckets, given that the context of these labels will change depending on your use case. X is useful for Y, but useless for Z. Ideally, you are tooling around with pro-social ideas for your governance or societal organization frameworks, which is a necessity if you’re optimizing for freedom, morality or ethics. Sadly, in lieu…
I usually think of policies as “who gets what, who loses what”, and form my opinion around those outcomes.