Tech oligarchs have turned against the system that made them
liberalcurrents.com
liberalcurrents.com
There's a weird idea among those on the right in the US where they see business people as somehow having some good insights as far business overall (the market) for the country. But really many of those who gain power are very much not interested in competing / open markets / competition, quite the opposite. They got theirs and for many the inclination is to close the door (market) behind them.
Once merit no longer becomes an effective moat individuals, organizations and entities turn to violence. In the modern world this means cozying up to government who has the monopoly on violence and getting competition regulated away if not in full then at least fractionally with barriers to entry.
I would be unsurprised if over the next 40yr the software industry does the same thing by adopting professional organizations that get themselves written into law the way various other professions have.
And I mean that in the context of running my own company, which meant I could make very unethical decisions if I wanted to. (financial services -- the easiest niche to bend the rules just a little bit)
The temptation was strong, at least in my case.
It took me some time to turn around, understand when enough is enough, and what is actually important in life. Therapy helped.
I think that the old saying, albeit banal, rings true: "all power corrupts. and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
'We are the people that rule the world' - Empire of the Sun https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rm0gwqCR_0
This is just an extension of the H1B or immigration debate. Bringing smart people to America may be nice for society, but it's tough for the natives who must compete against them. Moreover, many of the nativeborn don't have the same opportunities overseas. Many other countries are locked up very tightly.
My dad threw me out at 18. Spent my whole childhood bragging about how he couldn't wait for that day. Why? Because he was a hippie boomer and that's what he did at 18 (though his version of 'independence' came with parents who helped him buy multiple houses). He cut his own parents out of our lives, called it freedom, making it so I couldn't turn to them for help like he had. Not for money. Not even for emotional support.
Maybe kicking your kids out at 18 and making them do it all alone is a bad cultural habit. Or maybe the immigrant families who stick together/support each other are the problem.
I don't think xhkkffbf understands the problem well enough but gaslighting him with tearful stories isn't the proper approach here.
On the topic - businesses don't like to compete but they like to have people compete for their jobs. Immigration is just one of the ways to skew the labor market in that direction. Monopolization is another - and growing rapidly.
Remote work is yet another skew factor, without a systemic overhaul, less visas will result in more remote work offshore.
xhkkffbf > Moreover, many of the nativeborn don't have the same opportunities overseas. Many other countries are locked up very tightly.
A heartbreaking talking point but actually irrelevant, foreign regulations play a minuscule role here - the difference in standards of living and local prices make it impossible for Americans to earn enough abroad, remotely or not. Again, it's a systemic issue, entirely local to the US.
Wasn't meant to be gaslighting but instead my observation from growing up in the bay area and seeing mine and my friends trajectories. We anglos has a lot handed to us, a lot. But the lack of support lead to a lot of setbacks/starting over that others more quickly overcame because of family/support networks, allowing them to ultimately rise higher. Fun fact, if you restart mid race, you oftentimes lose the race. That's not a sob story, just how it goes.
I think the USA is one of, if not the most meritocratic major societies in the world and throughout history (massive immigration despite relatively weak welfare state seems to indicate many with experience of other countries agree).
The unsaid implication is that non immigrant American poor is one of the most meritless major demographics to have ever existed. I mean look at some pictures from a Trump rally (or a left wing equivalent). Are these people prevented by immigrant competition from getting tech jobs? I am surprised they manage to keep breathing in and out without detailed instructions and constant supervision.
USG should save money by paying other countries to take these guys instead.
When you're worth billions, it's easy to see how correct you were about business (or just assume you were correct, whether it was luck, inheritance, or whatever). And weirdly, the people in your life tend to agree with you about everything else outside of business (because they want access to that billionaire lifestyle, or are also so disconnected from average life that they naturally share your views already). You never hear a dissenting opinion, unless it's from some weirdo on the internet who is plainly just jealous of your wealth.
Jesters need to be a thing again. Somebody that follows around the wealthy and powerful and just absolutely blasts their bullshit every chance they get. Someone to say 'no' when all of the hangers-on say nothing but 'yes'.
Ask yourself honestly if you are still as optimistic about technology and the intellectual freedom (and chaos, "unfettered conversations") as you may have been in the past. I have asked many friends this and the answer is "no".
What is "technological progress"? And how does right-leaning politics support it?
What do you mean by "unfettered conversations"?
its so fulfilling to know someone as rich and powerful as Andreessen has acknowledged my hard work :)
Andreessen wrote:
>"The combination of DEI and immigration is politically lethal. When these two forms of discrimination combine, as they have for the last 60 years and on hyperdrive for the last decade, they systematically cut most of the children of the Trump voter base out of any realistic prospect of access to higher education and corporate America."
I am not necessarily accepting the premise, but this statement doesn't seem racist in itself, to me.
At the point when we've got an overtly fascist administration that is ineffective at doing anything but making a show of putting some powerless brown people in concentration camps, yet is still being cheered by a large number of people? I'm coming around to the idea that the underlying hidden variable is really just racism. So I'm done engaging with the dog whistles as rational points, at least until the pendulum starts swinging back. I'm certainly not going to be a useful idiot enabling this shit.
(I'm even left wondering if the reactionaries' constant refrain of "California [delenda est]" isn't just a straight up invitation to enter the racism closet. I spent time in LA. The place is a nuthouse. But when I respond to the "California..." narrative with actual sympathetic criticism it's still just crickets like I'm not understanding something)
When racist Trumpist white nationalist rhetoric gets distilled into desired policy, what else is there besides changes to race-based preferences in admissions & changes to immigration?
It seems like Andreessen supports Trump's entire racial platform, just not the rhetoric that Trump's MAGA base uses.
Also, you're ignoring that Andreessen opposes immigration in addition to race-conscious admissions[0].
0: https://www.thebulwark.com/p/marc-andreesen-and-the-billiona...
tl;dr -- DEI is actually about meritocracy.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/12/professor-...
https://www.mindingthecampus.org/2024/02/15/carole-hooven-wh...
As someone who supported EOE policies, university DEI went way too far in some places. Unfortunately it took someone like Trump to end that. Dems didn’t seem to be aware or were afraid to rock the boat.
This is a classic playbook of taking egregious missteps on handling policy and blaming the policy itself instead of the administrative failure.
For example, we want "drug free" schools, right? So the "easiest" thing to do is establish zero tolerance rules that lead to situations like this:
https://www.aclu.org/news/smart-justice/strip-search-13-year...
Does that mean we no longer want "drug free" schools?
You vastly downplay what happened in those instances as “mishandling.” They read straight out of a dystopian novel.
If real people can’t be trusted to administer policy of promoting bias without becoming biased, then the policy must be abolished. (Not surprisingly.)
The policies themselves should be the focal point of discussion, i.e., if there's merit to be had and how to deliver on that without making things worse.
Would you also call the strip-search incident I cited as dystopian? I would. I am stridently against The War on Drugs, but I also think keeping drugs out of schools is a good thing.
Using your approach the answer would be to not have any school policies about drugs on campus.
You know where you can find literal pledges of alliance these days? The Federal government, where they're doing loyalty checks to The King. Dystopian enough?
One of the things I check for in job postings is they include age in their non-discrimination list. Since it will apply to everyone sooner or later.
I'm wondering if the "old silicon valley" was also just about power and never about making the world a better place. Was it all just a bunch of narcissists with domination fantasies or did anyone actually care at all?
PS: doesn't help that the opposition is a bunch of cat girl avatars with funny pronouns.
Marc's descriptions in the link are validated even just by the comments here. It's incredible.
I think you are confusing skeptics of currently fashionable development roadmaps for popular technology with luddites.
As an example, I am a strong proponent of efforts to establish a multi-planetary society and at the same time believe that the future of humanity should have as many humans 'in the loop' as possible. This makes the technology underlying self-driving vehicles beneficial but the push to automate everyday human transport anathema. Other examples are collaborative robotics versus black-box manufacturing technology or global/system wide communications networks. Collaborative robotics allow for advanced manufacturing but can allow humans to retain their mastery of a craft and keep a hand in the process, enhancing rather than replacing. Communication networks, indispensable as they are, need not be a vehicle for exploiting weaknesses in the human psyche to hijack the human experience.
Perhaps I speak only for myself but I think there are quite a few members of this forum who hold similar opinions despite having deep knowledge of the subject matter and appreciating the technology at the core of the 'cutting edge'.
We're at the "White nationalists have some good points" stage of discourse.
Would it be that some are, and some aren't?
This article has aged well: https://paulgraham.com/say.html
What a racist idiot he is. The main problem is the cost of college not “DEI”. He’s not even using the term correctly.
The comedian Bill Burr made some jokes about the Mangione situation and people on Twitter said it was because of his DEI wife.
For at least half of America, "DEI" means "giving preferential treatment to some individuals based on their race, sexuality or gender".
That might be a good thing (at a societal level it balances historical racism, or it counteracts unconscious bias or other contemporary inequalities) or that might be a bad thing (it's unfair to the individuals, it harms trust in the system and undermines meritocracy, visible attributes are a weak proxy to actual privilege) but that doesn't mean using the term the same way as hundreds of millions of other speakers is incorrect.
There are people who made roughly the same argument you're making here- since this individual became rich and famous within the current system, they shouldn't criticize the flaws in the system that have victimized others who they empathize with.
Furthermore, reform and wholesale destruction are very different things and anybody still supporting Trump on some notion that any of this is actually about fixing DEI/immigration/budget/regulation needs to get their head screwed on straight, and quick.
They parrot QAnon conspiracy theories and known Russian propaganda originated on RT, call consumer protections fascism (!!!), and allude to actual ideas from fascism as being "interesting."
Just listen to that interview to see how morally corrupt they've become.
Treating crypto as a risky and destabilizing security (like subprime mortgages) is a valid reaction to what happened during the SVB and FTX implosions. Accusing Elizabeth Warren and the Biden administration of being actual fascists over it is absolutely wild.
Similarly, saying "everyone knows" Biden was not the actual president, USAID was a terrorist funding organization, and that we can't keep track of money without blockchain....these all originate in QAnon circles or Russian state media.
To quote CS Lewis' novel, "That Hideous Strength", on why this is so dangerous:
> “Why you fool, it's the educated reader who CAN be gulled. All our difficulty comes with the others. When did you meet a workman who believes the papers? He takes it for granted that they're all propaganda and skips the leading articles. He buys his paper for the football results and the little paragraphs about girls falling out of windows and corpses found in Mayfair flats. He is our problem. We have to recondition him. But the educated public, the people who read the high-brow weeklies, don't need reconditioning. They're all right already. They'll believe anything.”
And to add, I would say what you're doing is basically trying to forbid thought and discussion about what USAID has done or the Biden situation by tying it to something so reprehensible no one will want to associate with it. I don't like that. I want to be able to question USAID and what my president is doing. Stick to rebutting the actual ideas, it's a much healthier way to engage.
Edit-- I agree fascist label is wild, but can we admit there might be some hmm, fairly recent precedence for wild and often offensive use of terms like fascist and Nazi?
That's actually not true. The SEC & FDIC have broad authority to issue recommendations regarding risk. There are clear laws on the books dating back to the 1930s. The only people claiming it's "extralegal" have financial interests in crypto. Here: https://www.fdic.gov/news/inactive-financial-institution-let... . They issue the same kinds of advisories for foreign currencies, subprime assets, penny stocks, etc.
That authority is no different than the authority granted to the FDA, FTC, etc. and it's got decades of case law behind it.
> I don't like that. I want to be able to question USAID and what my president is doing.
What they're doing is actually the opposite of what you say. If you listen to what Horowitz is saying, he's stating these "theories" as if they're well-known facts, preemptively shutting down questioning about his motives or the veracity of his sources.
Saying things like "Everybody now knows Biden was not actually the president" is not questioning, it's a classic propaganda tactic called "Card Stacking", where someone trusted or with authority presents speculation or half truths as fact, ignoring contradictory evidence or uncertainty to manipulate public opinion.
The USAID statements are another example: USAID supplies & money may have been used by terrorists, against the anti-terrorism provisions written into its charter. The mission of USAID, however, was to stop terrorism from springing up in the first place by reducing food insecurity in unstable places. You know what else directly funds terrorism? Cryptocurrency (https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-disrupts-h...). But you don't hear Horowitz say we should ban Crypto over it. He's using half truths to promote his financial interests and legitimize his support for those in power who promote these interests.
Yet another example is how he promotes blockchain for USG spending, as if the USG doesn't have extremely detailed records of how money moves and is spent. Here's an article about the "lost" $400B: https://apnews.com/article/pandemic-fraud-waste-billions-sma...
Key points: Much of the waste is fraud by organizations requesting relief money. The gov't knows who got the money and is prosecuting over 1000 people over it. The waste happened because of lax oversight by the first Trump administration during campaign season, not during the Biden administration as implied by Horowitz. Finally, it was probably not due to nefarious intentions (despite campaign season), but due to the extraordinary circumstances of the pandemic.
"Privilege," whether through one's birth, skin color, past achievements and so on, when it turns to exceptionalism, is the ruination of society here and in the world.
Truly good people use their gifts and achievements to lift others up.
Empty shells seek to cut others down.
"Libertarianism" seems nowadays to mean complete freedom for me, and not for you.
graphic (postimages.org)
https://i.postimg.cc/YqFrtzXg/Four-Libertarian-Freedoms-1.jp...
You should be able to work through that shit. Especially if it was just that Dad didn't hug you enough. It's 2025; the tools are available. If you're a shitty adult, that's on you. If you're unable to process your own actions to see how attention seeking and desperate for validation you are, that's on you.
Source: I got the ever-loving hell kicked out of me as a kid, and sought help as an adult so that this nonsense could stop with me. If I can do it, with my lack of willpower and attention span, literally anyone can. Especially if they have access to the time and money required for that process.
Just look at how the free speech warriors from a couple years ago have changed their tune.
While I don't agree with much of what Andreesen has said in recent years, I will say that given his central complaint is that Democrat elites have gone nuts, writing an article like this really doesn't help.
From the hyperbolic tech oligarchs slur, as if any of them have anything close to the power of an actual historical oligarch (a member of the Thirty Tyrants was the law, judge, jury and executioner) or even that of Russian "oligarchs" when the term was first applied to them, to the charge of treason, a crime that carries a penalty of death, and the promise of revenge - this whole article reads as unhinged.
Unlike Andreesen though, I can't pretend that Republicans haven't gone well past nuts.