The Techno-Optimist Manifesto • Hacker News Board

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#61

Post by LindeBuzoGray » Mon, Oct 16, 2023, 4:09 PM UTC

Balladeer wrote: post #19

> Markets prevent monopolies and cartels. A lot of the optimism seems to rely on this statement and...I'm not convinced? But I also admit I'm not well informed on the topic. Does anyone have suggested reading on 'market discipline', as they're calling it? I mean, the first person on their "Patron Saints of Techno-Optimism" is Jeff Bezos, who is actively dealing with an antitrust lawsuit from the FTC regarding Amazon'…

Right. Land and air telecommunications are almost totally controlled by Verizon and AT&T. They are also some of the largest cable companies, although Comcast is a competitor. Although Comcast owns NBCUniversal, and we can start getting into the media monopoly.

We can go through business by business and see the rise of monopolies and oligopolies. Universal owns half of the US music market - Universal, Sony and Warner own over 80% of the US music market. Accounting is done by the Big Four, advertising by its own Big Four.

Just down the line - consolidation, oligopoly, monopoly. That is what markets produce. Standard Oil reversed its breakup into ExxonMobil, as did the Baby Bells into Verizon and AT&T. Even the government intervention into the monopolies gets reversed.

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#62

Post by zzzzzzzza » Mon, Oct 16, 2023, 4:09 PM UTC

api wrote: post #10

antisthenes wrote: post #8

I guess some people have an inherent inability to adopt some kind of middle ground stance. It's either exponential growth forever and colonizing Mars or "why do you want to drag us back to the caves". Having a conversation for the 1000th time with such people who don't recognize nuance is very tiresome and not worth it.

Social media does not promote middle ground because that doesn't maximize engagement. Everything must be maximally divisive, maximally triggering, and compressible into <200 characters.

maybe politics is a support vector machine and the division is the hyperplane XD

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#63

Post by bilsbie » Mon, Oct 16, 2023, 4:30 PM UTC

Why was it flagged?

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#64

Post by onion2k » Mon, Oct 16, 2023, 4:43 PM UTC

renewiltord wrote: post #36

onion2k wrote: post #25

For hundreds of years, we properly glorified this – until recently. We really didn't. At least, not at the time, and certainly not everyone. Plenty of people throughout history have been adamantly against the rapid progress of technology. The Luddites are the most famous group but there have been lots more. Even if you ignore those people for being frankly a bit weird, the driving force behind technology for the firs…

I think that's wholesale falsehood. The wins in the last 200 years are so dramatic for the average person, especially in the West. Infant mortality rate and the chance of survival to adulthood alone are such glorious victories against Death that I would gladly vote for any system that would give us those wins and create a trillionaire. All that wondrous science has come from this system. No. Evidence is evidence. Thi…

We live like Gods compared to people of the 1800s.

Some of us do. If you're at the poorer end of society things are still pretty damn bleak. People live with long term treatable illness. People don't have basic necessities like shelter or food or water. People live with very little prospect of escaping a life of drudgery. Sure, those of us who can afford them have lots of shiny gadgets that save us from a bit of manual labor, but that's not really worth much if stepping outside of your front door means you're scared of being mugged.

I'm not saying I'd give any of it up. Hell no. I'm saying that a few less rockets and a few more homeless shelters might go some way to helping balance things out a little.

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#65

Post by new-poster-453 » Mon, Oct 16, 2023, 5:10 PM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #56

I'm really a bit shocked this was flagged. A blog post (marketed as a manifesto no less!) from the founder of Netscape and one of the biggest VCs in the business about the future of technology. I understand its potential for flame wars, but how could this not be on-topic for HN?

[flagged]

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#66

Post by greenie_beans » Mon, Oct 16, 2023, 5:22 PM UTC

PaulRobinson wrote: post #43

My main bugbear with this is that - similar to many American screeds on free markets - it conflates "free markets" with "capitalism". You can have one without the other (employee co-operatives, partnerships), and vice versa (monopolies, cartels). Free markets are about letting the market set the price. That requires multiple providers who are not allowed to engage in extreme anti-competitive behavior that prevents ne…

preach!

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#67

Post by greenie_beans » Mon, Oct 16, 2023, 5:23 PM UTC

hemloc_io wrote: post #5

Really more of an e/acc manifesto. Interesting to see a twitter thing slowly leak into the mainstream one step at a time.

it's ironic, because wouldn't marx be considered the OG accelerationist?

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#68

Post by greenie_beans » Mon, Oct 16, 2023, 5:28 PM UTC

new-poster-453 wrote: post #65

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #56

I'm really a bit shocked this was flagged. A blog post (marketed as a manifesto no less!) from the founder of Netscape and one of the biggest VCs in the business about the future of technology. I understand its potential for flame wars, but how could this not be on-topic for HN?

[flagged]

it seems that your peers flagged this and not the platform.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28456793

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#69

Post by FooBarBizBazz » Mon, Oct 16, 2023, 5:31 PM UTC

michaelleland wrote: post #34

> We believe the ultimate moral defense of markets is that they divert people who otherwise would raise armies and start religions into peacefully productive pursuits. Interestingly, nearly every sentence begins with "we believe," a fundamentally religious statement.

This guy is telling me that capitalism has denied the world its next Buddha or Christ, and that that's a good thing?

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#70

Post by jaybrendansmith » Mon, Oct 16, 2023, 5:33 PM UTC

Balladeer wrote: post #19

> Markets prevent monopolies and cartels. A lot of the optimism seems to rely on this statement and...I'm not convinced? But I also admit I'm not well informed on the topic. Does anyone have suggested reading on 'market discipline', as they're calling it? I mean, the first person on their "Patron Saints of Techno-Optimism" is Jeff Bezos, who is actively dealing with an antitrust lawsuit from the FTC regarding Amazon'…

I really want to love this manifesto. This is my one sticking point. Regulatory capture, monopolies, and cartels are the fatal flaw in this techno-optimism, and they break everything. Let's say I subscribe to this wonderful story Marc tells. Please tell me the purpose of government if it is not to destroy cartels and monopolies. They are every bit as bad as the government, which is a type of monopoly itself.