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Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

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Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#61

Post by jfengel »

epgui wrote: post #47
swiftcoder wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t even think most of it is deeply philosophical. Part of the problem is that a lot of it is shallowly philosophical. I used to attend Zuckerberg town halls, and as smart as the guy may be, it's pretty evident that he dropped out of Harvard after 1st-year philosophy

A lot of “shallow philosophy” seems more like “pseudo-philosophy”. I feel like a lot of people just take “thoughts” and label that philosophy.

People really don't get how poorly freshman philosophy presents the field. It's not even a survey of an introduction to a prologue.

So every passing thought feels like "philosophy".

Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#62

Post by jmyeet »

Silicon Valley has been heavily influenced by a different author. It just happens to be Ayn Rand. Ayn Rand sold this idea that selfishness is a virtue. Taken further, you see a strong thread between objectivism and transhumanism.

In the early days of Silicon Valley, tech companies were disrupted. But we shouldn't forget that the true origins of Silicon Valley were in defense contracting. Modern tech companeis have become so large that they have become almost indistinguishable from the state (ironically, in a way that people accuse Chinese companies of doing). Google, Microsoft, Meta and Amazon are now in the same category as Lockheed Martin, RTX, Northrop Grumman and Boeing.

Put another way, tech companies haven't sought a utopia, they've simply amplified the current system, which is one of increasing inequality.

Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#64

Post by hosh »

rightbyte wrote: post #7
croes wrote: post #4

With Musks ideas I often think I saw that movie/read that book. For his Mars plans I see the Mars colony from Total Recall, the Schwarzenegger film Like Zuckerberg‘s shift to VR that looks like he came out of the theater of Ready Player one.

They take warnings in popular culture as instructions or inspiration.

Maybe they got sucked into the cool tech?

I remember my first pass reading of Stephenson’s Snow Crash and Diamond Age, I was bedazzled by some of the tech … it was later readings that the comments like “biomass” (the recent echo in AI “meat proxy”), or how the Primer was ultimately a failure sank in later readings.

Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#65

Post by hunterpayne »

NamlchakKhandro wrote: post #19
croes wrote: post #4

With Musks ideas I often think I saw that movie/read that book. For his Mars plans I see the Mars colony from Total Recall, the Schwarzenegger film Like Zuckerberg‘s shift to VR that looks like he came out of the theater of Ready Player one.

Zuckerberg style the idea from snow crash

I'm going to assume you mean stole...

Correct...and that is why the type of analysis in this interview is useless. The word cherry-picked was invented for this type of thinking. And its really similar to a lot of those executive talks too. Its like that spiderman meme where everyone points to everyone else. Its psychological projection at scale. Neither side really has any idea what they are talking about. Its just creating and framing debates for their own purposes.

Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#66

Post by hunterpayne »

JohnFen wrote: post #27
ang_cire wrote: post #14

Being and especially growing up rich tends to shield you from seeing the consequences of bad decisions, and I think that results in a lot of these rich tech bros being unable to properly analyze not just risk, but any negative externalities. Every child starts out thinking, "if I was in charge, I could fix this. It's so simple!" Then you actually see that when you make bad choices, you or others get hurt, and you rea…

I think you're talking about a specific form of the larger problem. The very wealthy only know the world of the very wealthy. They know nothing, let alone care, about people who aren't "in the club". Every worse, they -- like pretty much all of us -- tend to think that most people are just like them, so they think not only that they understand normal people, but that they are normal people. And the ones that don't ei…

I think that's true for one specific kind of wealthy person. Specifically those born into it. Its absolutely not true for the self-made. I do have a solution to this.

If you haven't paid your own bills with money you earned (no jobs from family) for the last 10 years, you can't run for office. Literally the mayor of Seattle has never paid her own bills and her husband has never worked either. There is no universe where someone with that life experience makes a good leader.

Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#67

Post by sharts »

Avicebron wrote: post #33
yoyohello13 wrote: post #25

In the US at least, we've been brainwashed to think that government, by definition, must be bloated, corrupt and inefficient. Believing this axiom, people vote to hand over every possible service to private enterprise. Now we are in a situation where a handful of unelected business men have more power over our lives than the elected government.

We've let the government get bloated, inefficient and corrupt by allowing private enterprise to have an outsized effect on it. Private enterprise can hire people to live next to DC and spend every waking minute pushing their agenda on politicians. Private enterprise can funnel huge amounts of money into campaigns for their preferred candidates. It only benefits the corporations when we have ancient, technically illit…

To some degree CIA also infiltrates private orgs to manipulate from inside out. It’s like a private-public partnership /s

Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#68

Post by swiftcoder »

ygjb wrote: post #54
swiftcoder wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> or those with the resources to buy might This feels a bit like those rich survivalists who think they are going to fix bomb-collars to their bodyguards to ensure loyalty in the apocalypse... stock certificates aren't worth a whole lot in a world where the rule of law has broken down

I said resources not money. Charisma, religion and promoting hate have empowered just as many psychopaths in history as wealth.

Well, right, but I'm not sure the tech elites actually own much in the way of resources in that sense. Is the Apple fandom strong enough to get Tim Cook his own private army of zealots when society breaks down?

Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#69

Post by steveBK123 »

jltsiren wrote: post #55
yks wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In societies like that, Silicon Valley’s rich nerds might discover that they’re not the ones with the real might, see Putin’s Russia, which many of them adore. Money is but one of the facets of power.

Russia is a country with a strong centralized government capable of enforcing laws whenever it wants. In the absence of effective laws, one of the biggest threats to rich people would be their own hired thugs. If the thugs decide that they don't respect you and they would make better rich assholes, they will kill you and take your property. Historically, societies like that were often ruled by the biggest and the mos…

It’s no accident that the schmoozer media/real estate/car dealer/mining/energy guys in US wield more power than their wealth relative to SV VC bros would seem to merit.

Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#70

Post by strken »

ilamont wrote: post #22

I think it’s true that when Musk or Altman is just unambiguously being like, “Yes, this story is a template for what I should do with my company,” that’s bonkers. But there is [also] this technocratic libertarian thread in science fiction that they are picking up on. Is there some evidence for this claim? Lepore in her reply says "I guess Bezos is a big Robert Heinlein fan" and then there is a lot of talk about Asimo…

I'm baffled by the claim that tech oligarchs are bad readers, as opposed to getting the point but disagreeing.

Some authors seem to think that readers may only read Heinlein if they are prepared to join the army the next day or renounce their citizenship.

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