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Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection

joanwestenberg.com

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Re: Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection

#51
post #40

Counterpoint -- Yes he's wrong and obviously so. But is some rich dude saying something stupid worthy of platforming? It almost feels to me like acting as though a famous person being gasp wrong about something is implicitly suggesting that this is somehow surprising? We should be surprised and write essays when the smartest people we know say something silly. Just because somebody's bank account has some zeroes in i…

> But is some rich dude saying something stupid worthy of platforming?

The rich dude saying the stupid thing was platformed. This is defense.

Re: Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection

#52

We all know he’s wrong. The problem isn’t that he is wrong, it’s that we have elevated the wealthy into a status where they can be wrong, have no correction, and make decisions whole clothe which negatively affect the rest of us. All while being insulated from their negative world view.

The reason he and Musk are anti-introspection is that when they do it, it hurts. Because they are terrible people.

Better to just not think about it.

Re: Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection

#53

We all know he’s wrong. The problem isn’t that he is wrong, it’s that we have elevated the wealthy into a status where they can be wrong, have no correction, and make decisions whole clothe which negatively affect the rest of us. All while being insulated from their negative world view.

The penultimate sentence of this fantastic 1997 interview with Trump has stayed with me since I read it: "Trump, who had aspired to and achieved the ultimate luxury, an existence unmolested by the rumbling of a soul."

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1997/05/19/trump-solo

Re: Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection

#54

Is the 1 percenters getting dumber or acting like it? Like 10 years ago, I felt like Andreesen and Elon were thought leaders. Now they sound like idiots. Did I or did they change? Did I grow up and they changed to a younger audience and what I used to enjoy was just a different kind of stupid?

They've just become hype-men for their own investments.

Re: Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection

#55

He’s right in that business success is largely correlated with sociopathy, it helps you focus on the goal of maximizing your own wealth without worrying about the messy details of how other human beings are affected. Going back four hundred years, it would have never occurred to anyone that humans shouldn’t be slaves or that the environment will be irrecoverably destroyed if everyone pillages it for their own busines…

Well a lot of Eastern religions do talk about sustainability 1000s of years back. Just because it was never part of Abrahamic faiths and their offshoot cultures which took over the world, does not mean that humans did not think this way

Re: Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection

#56

We all know he’s wrong. The problem isn’t that he is wrong, it’s that we have elevated the wealthy into a status where they can be wrong, have no correction, and make decisions whole clothe which negatively affect the rest of us. All while being insulated from their negative world view.

I really like the way you put it: “It’s okay to be wrong. We’re all wrong from time to time. What’s not okay is not having a way to be corrected by the outside world for a specific reason: being at the top of the political pyramid, being ultra-wealthy and surrounded by flattery, etc"

Re: Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection

#57

Is the 1 percenters getting dumber or acting like it? Like 10 years ago, I felt like Andreesen and Elon were thought leaders. Now they sound like idiots. Did I or did they change? Did I grow up and they changed to a younger audience and what I used to enjoy was just a different kind of stupid?

You realized they were always shitheels. Musk was a complete visible fraud long before 2016.

Re: Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection

#58

Is the 1 percenters getting dumber or acting like it? Like 10 years ago, I felt like Andreesen and Elon were thought leaders. Now they sound like idiots. Did I or did they change? Did I grow up and they changed to a younger audience and what I used to enjoy was just a different kind of stupid?

Money can buy greater latitude with mistakes. Mistakes that would have been career ending for low level employee, is an amusing anecdote to be remembered at a gathering or in a book.

There are definitely some idiots with more money than sense, but reality tended to correct that fast. Now, it seems, they get rescued ( vide not that old case of Summers running to safe VC bank ).

Re: Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection

#59

Is the 1 percenters getting dumber or acting like it? Like 10 years ago, I felt like Andreesen and Elon were thought leaders. Now they sound like idiots. Did I or did they change? Did I grow up and they changed to a younger audience and what I used to enjoy was just a different kind of stupid?

> Did I or did they change?

I’d say both.

They ran out of novel things to say which is expected of anyone because there’s only so many non trivial things one could say. But then unlike normal people they didn’t stop talking because being rich they are bored and they want to be in the limelight all the time. So they end up talking nonsense.

You also changed, you are now wiser and have developed BS detector.

Re: Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection

#60

Is the 1 percenters getting dumber or acting like it? Like 10 years ago, I felt like Andreesen and Elon were thought leaders. Now they sound like idiots. Did I or did they change? Did I grow up and they changed to a younger audience and what I used to enjoy was just a different kind of stupid?

They have always been dumb. Richistan describes the pure unalloyed depravity the rich live in really well:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/512029.Richistan

People are just finally able to see how dumb they are

I’ve seen this in action and in person multiple times and it’s absolutely fucking horrifying watching how ignorant, useless and totally out of touch with reality the Rich are , yet still can crush people via the police state whenever they want

Chris Hedges did a good video on this recently: https://youtu.be/EJ-OSJ7J64w

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