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The New Right-Wing Tech Intelligentsia

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Re: The New Right-Wing Tech Intelligentsia

#61

Post by andsoitis »

zozbot234 wrote: post #58
andsoitis wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

The "1984" ad is from... well duh, 1984. Apple was a small startup in a niche industry back then - fighting against centralization and control by building "a bicycle for the mind" that would push useful computation to the "edge" where it can be controlled by the user.

> The "1984" ad is from... well duh, 1984. Apple was a small startup

Small startup in 1984? Apple IPOd in 1980 and had a market cap in 1984 of $1.6 billion, which is just under $5 billion in today’s dollars.

Re: The New Right-Wing Tech Intelligentsia

#62

Post by pcrh »

andsoitis wrote: post #57
pcrh wrote: post #55

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…

In the 1990's to 2010's digital tech was perceived as liberating the masses from government and "business" control of information.

It's quite contrary to the present information environment.

Re: The New Right-Wing Tech Intelligentsia

#63

Post by andsoitis »

belter wrote: post #19

Silicon Valley was never liberal. It was always pro libertarian, wrapped in some kind of social progress branding. What changed is that the mask slipped... The same people, who preached openness and democracy, now pivot overnight to nationalism and strong state fantasies when regulation or taxes appear, like for example Marc Andreessen recent disgusting ideological flip-flops. Calling this an intelligentsia is too ki…

> nationalism

Nationalism isn’t inherently immoral. Nationalism is the belief that people with a shared history, culture, language, or identity, ought to have political self-determination and a special loyalty to their own nation.

Where nationalism can go wrong is when it becomes exclusionary (eg defines nation as ethnic, racial, or religious), when it claims moral superiority, suppresses internal dissent, escalates into zero-sum thinking (success defined in terms of other nations losing).

Re: The New Right-Wing Tech Intelligentsia

#64

Post by ajuc »

zozbot234 wrote: post #34
Iridescent_ wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who deserves to receive help (and, by contrast, who is undeserving of even basic decency) should never, ever be the decision of a few ploutocrats. The state should decide on such matters, and be the upholder of equality. Else, misery becomes a contest for who can be the most compelling, most attractive miserable to the elites.

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…

> power-crazed career bureaucrats

Choosen by elected officials. Consistently underpaid.

As opposed to famously power-awerse and accountable middle management in corporations :)

> Why should a random government bureaucrat be trusted to make good decisions?

Think of state like a corporation in which every worker is in the board and has voting rights. Maybe then you'll get it.

Re: The New Right-Wing Tech Intelligentsia

#65

Post by stryan »

RickJWagner wrote: post #51
barfoure wrote: post #46

[flagged]

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.

Ah yes, his house on the famous Vermont beach-side.

Even ignoring the fact that owning three houses doesn't make one a billionaire (though I suppose in this market he'd have to at least be a millionaire, but it would depend on how he got the second Vermont house), I'm not sure why you would expect socialists to not welcome a class-traitor from the bourgeoisie? Famously Engels was a nobleman after all.

Re: The New Right-Wing Tech Intelligentsia

#66

Post by UncleMeat »

zozbot234 wrote: post #36
UncleMeat wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EA forums that I'm aware of have spun off towards longtermism and other bizarre reframings. GiveWell and CharityNavigator still exist. Charities like GiveDirectly still exist. But, at least where I've seen it, conversation online about these things by people who'd consider themselves part of a community has shifted.

Longtermism is sexy and gets a lot of attention, but the bulk of EA donations by a huge proportion still goes to run-of-the-mill poverty relief. The most controversial EA cause that still moves significant amounts of money turns out to be animal welfare.

My question is "what is the EA movement?"

If somebody gives to a charity rated highly on GiveWell but doesn't talk about it as EA, is that a part of the EA movement?

Re: The New Right-Wing Tech Intelligentsia

#67

Post by igor47 »

ajuc wrote: post #40
igor47 wrote: post #10

> For the untainted, effective altruism (EA) is a very online social movement popular in tech circles, which was originally concerned with how to get rich philanthropists to donate to the most “effective” charities Man this really makes me mad. Why do people love to hate on EA so much? Why is effectiveness a bad things? Is the author really advocating giving money to random charities? Or do they prefer no giving at a…

My main problem with EA is that it's used as a pseudo-alternative to proper public services and redistribution under the pretense that if we let rich people do what they want to - they will be "more effective" at it than the evil inefficient government. What actually happens is they cut random shit, pocket the billions they save on taxes, spend a few millions here and there to feel good about themselves, and leave th…

I don't know of any public EAs who endorsed Elon's crusade against American institutions -- can you name some?

Re: pseudo-alternative to proper public service -- 80,000 hours is product of the EA movement, which aims to steer people to be effective with their career. It was transformative for me at the right moment, and helped me choice between going deeper into FAANG vs devoting my career to causes that matter (though, checking the website now, almost 10 years later, I do wish they were less AI-risk focused).

Re: redistribution -- I think this is an orthogonal concern to EA, and it's unfair to expect a movement focused on altruism and philosophy to also focus on redistribution. FWIW, I am in favor of both EA and redistribution, I don't believe there's any tension between these.

I think the crux of your criticism is, "some people who are bad or whom I don't like endorse EA, or perhaps use EA to justify thair baditude". I think this is a bad argument. For every position you hold, I could find a bad person who endorses it. For instance, you seem to be in favor of redistribution. You know who else was in favor of redistribution? Stalin! And he killed millions of people. This way of thinking is good for one thing and one thing only -- shutting down thought.

Re: The New Right-Wing Tech Intelligentsia

#68

Post by analog31 »

nis0s wrote: post #44

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…

Are racism, misogyny, and superstition useful or useless? Now one could argue that those things are not right or left wing. There is no epistemology for what any given ideology -- political or religious -- consists of. An apologist can simply deny that "negative" things are part of their ideology.

Re: The New Right-Wing Tech Intelligentsia

#69

Post by igor47 »

lentil_soup wrote: post #54
igor47 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Using your time and money to help people is amazing, everyone should be encouraged to do it, of course. 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…

But again, it's only associated with tech millionaires because reporters make the association to helpfully enable their readers to hate stuff! Engaging negative emotions -- you know, the thing modern media does best!

In my mind, EA is associated with Peter Singer and William MacAskill, some of the most powerful voices in contemporary philosophy, people whose work inspired me to think morally about my own choices, and who beyond being academics safe in their ivory towers founded a practical movement which has saved hundreds of thousands of lives.

I am doggedly pursing this thread because it encapsulates everything that's wrong with our modern times. We must regain the ability to organize into movements, otherwise those tech bosses we both dislike will rule us each separately. We must uplift moral courage, standing by convictions, and doing doing good in the world, otherwise the forces of nihilism (such as Trumpism) will destroy all that we hold dear, including the ability to hold things dear. We must make common cause, and not get torn apart by the narcissism of small differences. We must popularize doing good, and I don't see anyone else doing as, ahem, effective a job as EA.

I'm not the one tribalizing the topic! I'm not even a member of any EA club or group! I just want to end the casual hate, like what's exhibited in TFA. Why is it so hard to acknowledge that the movement on the whole has done more good than harm, even if some questionable individuals have used the movement as a cover for bad choices?

Re: The New Right-Wing Tech Intelligentsia

#70

Post by nis0s »

jjj123 wrote: post #60
nis0s wrote: post #44

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…

Not sure about usefulness as the metric. How do you account for populations that will be harmed by a policy? “Not useful” doesn’t really capture it. I usually think of policies as “who gets what, who loses what”, and form my opinion around those outcomes.

I don’t think we need zero-sum framing for a lot of the things we talk about, and the fact that we do is the result of politics, not the policies per se.
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