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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

#71

Post by blitzar »

swiftcoder wrote: post #46
steveBK123 wrote: post #3

I don’t even think most of it is deeply philosophical. They just got uberrich and now worry more about the concerns of the uberrich than the concerns they had when they were normies. Rule of law, functioning government providing services, functioning public commons, free press, freedom of speech for all, any social safety net, etc don’t matter when they are so far removed from the public they can just go buy yourself…

> 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

He's gonna be convinced of that 'til next month when he get to James Lemon, and then he's gonna be talkin' about how the economies of Virginia and Pennsylvania were entrepreneurial and capitalist way back in 1740. That's gonna last until next year -- he's gonna be in here regurgitating Gordon Wood, talkin' about, you know, the Pre-revolutionary utopia and the capital-forming effects of military mobilization.

Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#72

Post by amberjack »

psunavy03 wrote: post #43
amberjack wrote: post #35

I don't know about the disruptive innovation history thing which seems interesting, but the stuff about science fiction, its role as knowledge especially related to politics, reading/misreading and so on just seems confused. Science fiction is primarily fiction and should be treated as such. Why exactly should I agree with the implied (or not) politics of a fictional world if I like the work? Why is it even necessary…

If the author was trying to make a point (as many sci-fi authors were), it's totally reasonable to call out someone who misses the point. Like the people calling Starship Troopers fascist. Or even funnier, the people calling Heinlein a fascist for writing Starship Troopers, which just proves they haven't read any of the rest of his work.

It depends on how good the point is, doesn't it? I am more aiming at the "Torment Nexus" type of argument which essentially assumes that writers know technology better than technologists and the mere existence of scifi dystopia that somebody thought up is a good reason ipso facto to not do something.

Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#73

Post by yoyohello13 »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #60
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.

I don’t really understand this perspective? I’m not a small government guy, I think the government ought to play an important role in providing a good regulatory framework and a strong social net. But if someone’s going to have direct power over my life, I’d much prefer a business owner or boss I can freely choose in principle rather than a government official who may not view me as part of their winning coalition.

We seem to be quickly approaching, if we are not already there, a point where you can no longer choose to simply not associate with the billionaires anymore. They have such extreme access to resources and power they essentially control the direction of society whether we want them to or not.

Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#74

Post by rightbyte »

fallinghawks wrote: post #16
rightbyte wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They take warnings in popular culture as instructions or inspiration.

Heck, we're living Idiocracy right now.

Except the strange dysgenics reason for the downfall of high civilization in Idiocracy it is a interesting movie. It should have talked more about cultural enshittification.

Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#75

Post by philipwhiuk »

GMoromisato wrote: post #42

This was a fascinating interview, and there were a lot of ideas packed into it. Honestly, it makes me want to read her book. That said, I disagree with a lot of her conclusions. Contra her assertions, I believe that technological change is the principal cause of historical change. Lawrence Lessig wrote Code is Law, which highlights how specific software system decisions constrained the available legal regimes that co…

> the invention of containerized shipping plus the internet led to globalization

Did it? Or did the globalisation invent the need for containerisation?

Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#76

Post by hinkley »

swiftcoder wrote: post #52
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.

> Like Zuckerberg‘s shift to VR that looks like he came out of the theater of Ready Player one. They took most of us employees to see Ready Player One in the cinema when it came out (sometime after the Oculus acquisition, but before "the metaverse")

What did you all think of the, "without triggering seizures" scene?

Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#77

Post by aleph_minus_one »

lenerdenator wrote: post #29
steveBK123 wrote: post #3

I don’t even think most of it is deeply philosophical. They just got uberrich and now worry more about the concerns of the uberrich than the concerns they had when they were normies. Rule of law, functioning government providing services, functioning public commons, free press, freedom of speech for all, any social safety net, etc don’t matter when they are so far removed from the public they can just go buy yourself…

This is what happens when you have VCs putting on hackathons at NorCal universities and scooping people off the campuses before they ever get their degrees. If you take a guy under the age of 25, give him millions of dollars, and tell him he's a genius, he's going to develop a personality disorder.

> This is what happens when you have VCs putting on hackathons at NorCal universities and scooping people off the campuses before they ever get their degrees.

> If you take a guy under the age of 25, give him millions of dollars, and tell him he's a genius, he's going to develop a personality disorder.

I think it is a little bit more complicated:

I think there exists some very specific personality trait (my guess is either narcissism or at least some predisposition for narcissism; for the rest of this post, let's assume that this is the personality trait) which makes some people prone to this phenomenon.

So, at these hackathons, VCs look for students with two properties:

1. smart (e.g. achieving a good place in the hackathon)

2. has a predisposition for narcissism

It should be obvious why VC have very limited use for people who are not smart. On the other hand, students who don't have a predisposition for narcissism will be much harder to control via the mechanism that you mentioned. So, even if such a student initially get the attention of some VC, he will sooner or later get "dropped" by the VC.

Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#78

Post by WalterBright »

newspaper1 wrote: post #57
WalterBright wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It has pro-far-right censorship which is something different. Just what is he censoring? I've seen plenty of far-out posts from both the left and right on X.

Here's one example: https://x.com/PushDemsLeft/status/2085803160342241367

And there it is, posted on X.

BTW, if I owned X, I would also not allow pictures of mutilated people or sexual content. The previous incarnation of Twitter did not allow that either, but did censor right wing content and anything that disagreed with Fauci covid policy.

Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#79

Post by hunterpayne »

swiftcoder wrote: post #58
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…

Did you also get hold of a billion dollars at some point? For some reason, those of us who work for a living seem less inclined to such psychosis

The historian in the article I don't think has a billion dollars either. She still seems pretty inclined to that type of thinking. Lots of cherry-picking and very little data. I think its a lack of consequences for bad decisions and ideas that is what is in common here. When that happens, people go off the rails and fall for this type of magical thinking.

Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#80

Post by hunterpayne »

strken wrote: post #70
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.

Think about it from the POV of psychology and it will make more sense. She thinks she deserves more status than she has. Other people have more status than her. She doesn't like this, so she smears their reputation to reduce that gap.

Look at the arguments. They are all over the place, and almost schizophrenic. There is a lot of reaching and pulling of narratives from individual quotes. When someone is selling you something, its probably best to ignore any sort of deeper meaning in what they are saying. They are selling you something, full stop. Anything else you are reading into what they are saying is pure projection. They will say whatever they think will get you to buy. There is no deeper meaning. People with actual life experience know this. Somehow, she doesn't. The executives will say whatever they have to to get you to buy.

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