On Tech Billionaires: "I Don't Think They Like People" New Yorker Radio Hour | Hacker News Reader

On Tech Billionaires: "I Don't Think They Like People" New Yorker Radio Hour

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David Remnick, Host: "A lot of these guys, you meet with them and they don't just know what they know, they know everything." [Using Andreessen as an example.]

Kara Swisher, Guest: "That's correct."

Remnick: "And everybody else is stupid."

Swisher: "Mm-hmm."

Remnick graduated from Princeton, summa cum laude.

Andreessen: U. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

It's like, "The more money I have, the smarter I become."

Not quite.

Swisher: "They have such a cynical view of people. And ultimately, I don't think they like people."

The point about Musk changing his opinion on disagreements after collecting vast wealth might be relevant.

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize."

Do you know who else does not like people? Most people. "Most people" suck, hence why people spend so much money and such a premium trying to isolate from other people, like gated neighborhoods, private colleges and schools, flying business/private, stadium box seating, etc. People engineer their lives around the avoidance of other, less desirable people. It's hardly only a billionaire problem .

At my previous workplace, there's a guy who retired and went to live alone in the north pole, isolated from any other human. That's someone who doesn't like people.

People don't decide to live in a city because they hate people.

I like people.

But I am just one person, and not most people. I have not met most people.

Paul, people do a lot of things.

I feel concluding most people are XYZ is likely one of these https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies#Faulty_gener...

Cheers.

Always remember: half of all people are below average

Unsure how I feel about this

If you really think that most people don't like other people, you've been isolated away from a representative sample of people for too long. SOME people are like that, for example I'm like that, but I can see that's not the norm. One of the hardest things about the early days of COVID for many people was the social isolation, the inability to 'hang out' on the weekends or go to events full of other people.

We're social animals, that's really all there is too it.

I like people. People are the best thing about being alive.

Maybe you're hanging with the wrong crowd.

Isaac Newton said "If I have seen further than others, it is because I stand on the shoulders of giants."

Despite what Ayn Rand would have you believe in her works of fiction, no one got here on their own.

The story goes this was a nasty remark of Newton. The giant in question was a rival who was rather short.

In general, Newton seems not a likable person.

You could be right, I don't actually know the details.

I should stick to saying Ayn Rand's bit about real men don't need other people is absolute garbage.

Attitudes like Musk's where they are the only important person, and they are some sort of god like figure are dangerous to himself and others.

> I like people. People are the best thing about being alive.

You should meet me, you'd change your mind pretty quickly.

I never said I like all people, or even that I like the people I like, all the time. The world isn't black and white.

i honestly don't see the point of life without other people

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