Man, I didn't survive reading that entire Techno-optimist screed, but part of me likes it... kind of? I mean, I can see why people laugh at it: that kind of direct earnestness is deeply gauche, as is advocating for growth, as is quoting Nietzche.
Then again... "progressive" people right now tend to be the most pessimistic, snarky, self-defeating group you can find. How is this helping anyone exactly? What are we gaining by creating a class of ascetics that hate themselves and everything more than anyone, but don't do much about it? Maybe the techno-pessismists of today are the same weirdos that wrote articles about computers never catching on, or radio corrupting or youth's morals, etc.
It's funny, I played the The Talos Principle II the other day. It's a kind of techno optimist screed in video game form, written by an avowed leftist that thinks degrowth is just bunk. God does that game talk to much for nothing, but I credit it for not just being the usual gloom and doom.
I will say that Andereessen and "progressives" are both reacting to the general crisis convulsing the post Cold War liberal order. All of them see problems in the present and possibly even worse troubles on the horizon, and are trying to position themselves on higher ground if it's a flood that's coming, and underground if it's a fire. They're all profoundly cynical and self-interested.
Techno-pessimism doesn't necessarily entail wholesale rejection of technological progress. It primarily to do with the fact that the stuff that comes to us is designed to advance the interests of the firms that develop and sell it. A company like Meta (of which Andreesseen is a board member) is committed to growth at all costs. End of story. At the end of the day, any good Facebook actually does for society is totally incidental to its primary purpose, which is to multiply the fortunes of sociopaths who've abnegated any sense of social responsibility.
We could say something similar about the "woke" set. If you find them distasteful, it doesn't follow that you want to shove every gay person back into the closet, drag women back into the kitchen by their hair, or put actual white supremacy laws on the books. It could mean that you recognize the protagonists of the "movement" are sleazy, unscrupulous careerists whose ideology amounts to a lucrative personal brand, or at least a useful instrument for bumping off rivals jockeying for a secure slot in the shrinking middle class.
"The reaction to the attempt to install NFTs as The Next Big Thing suggests that we’ve internalized the lesson that all it takes for some noxious and/or oppressive new technology to warp our lives and give psychopaths like Andreessen, Musk, Bezos, Bankman-Fried, Zuckerberg, et al. even more wealth and control is for just enough investors, businesses, and rubes to buy into it, after which the rest of us must be dragged along with them."
I had to read that runon sentence 3 times to figure out the thesis. Which is: NFTs bad, but if we don't kill them before they take hold they will win. We've seen it happen before, to the benefit of the name dropped psychopaths.
Bitcoin existed for over a decade, I imagine it waited to take over the news until the news was slow, as there was no way such a nothing product could compete with something. I suppose that relates to the techno-pessimism in that the easiest thing to believe technology is good for is propaganda. Marc Andreessen can write about how technology is great, but I doubt he wants to walk in front of a self driving taxi. In the parlance of his people, his beliefs don't pay rent, they're applause lights.
NFTs is just an example. A better one might be self-driving cars. There are people who aren't comfortable with them for any number of reasons. Safety concerns. Fears about the possibility of hopping in their self-driving car and getting carted off to the police station or somewhere else against their will. Those who make their living driving cars or trucks don't want to be tossed into the throng of the surplus population. And so on.
The development, rollout, and adoption of these things by society (possibly to the point where they've no choice but to opt in) is something the skeptical masses have no control of whatsoever. Whether they like it or not, firms with resources and clout most of us can scarcely imagine are determined to foist these things upon the world and rake in a gigantic return on their investment. If you don't like it, there's nothing you can do but delude yourself that writing a letter to your congressman or senator will have any impact of their decisions whatsoever, or hope that the enterprise somehow fails before it reaches you.
Andreessen is a nihilist. If he got his billion dollars from investing in and developing products for tobacco companies instead of big tech, he'd be writing a manifesto about vape pens. Self-interest is at the core of the ideology he espouses.
Man, I didn't survive reading that entire Techno-optimist screed, but part of me likes it... kind of? I mean, I can see why people laugh at it: that kind of direct earnestness is deeply gauche, as is advocating for growth, as is quoting Nietzche.
Then again... "progressive" people right now tend to be the most pessimistic, snarky, self-defeating group you can find. How is this helping anyone exactly? What are we gaining by creating a class of ascetics that hate themselves and everything more than anyone, but don't do much about it? Maybe the techno-pessismists of today are the same weirdos that wrote articles about computers never catching on, or radio corrupting or youth's morals, etc.
It's funny, I played the The Talos Principle II the other day. It's a kind of techno optimist screed in video game form, written by an avowed leftist that thinks degrowth is just bunk. God does that game talk to much for nothing, but I credit it for not just being the usual gloom and doom.
I will say that Andereessen and "progressives" are both reacting to the general crisis convulsing the post Cold War liberal order. All of them see problems in the present and possibly even worse troubles on the horizon, and are trying to position themselves on higher ground if it's a flood that's coming, and underground if it's a fire. They're all profoundly cynical and self-interested.
Techno-pessimism doesn't necessarily entail wholesale rejection of technological progress. It primarily to do with the fact that the stuff that comes to us is designed to advance the interests of the firms that develop and sell it. A company like Meta (of which Andreesseen is a board member) is committed to growth at all costs. End of story. At the end of the day, any good Facebook actually does for society is totally incidental to its primary purpose, which is to multiply the fortunes of sociopaths who've abnegated any sense of social responsibility.
We could say something similar about the "woke" set. If you find them distasteful, it doesn't follow that you want to shove every gay person back into the closet, drag women back into the kitchen by their hair, or put actual white supremacy laws on the books. It could mean that you recognize the protagonists of the "movement" are sleazy, unscrupulous careerists whose ideology amounts to a lucrative personal brand, or at least a useful instrument for bumping off rivals jockeying for a secure slot in the shrinking middle class.
"The reaction to the attempt to install NFTs as The Next Big Thing suggests that we’ve internalized the lesson that all it takes for some noxious and/or oppressive new technology to warp our lives and give psychopaths like Andreessen, Musk, Bezos, Bankman-Fried, Zuckerberg, et al. even more wealth and control is for just enough investors, businesses, and rubes to buy into it, after which the rest of us must be dragged along with them."
I had to read that runon sentence 3 times to figure out the thesis. Which is: NFTs bad, but if we don't kill them before they take hold they will win. We've seen it happen before, to the benefit of the name dropped psychopaths.
Bitcoin existed for over a decade, I imagine it waited to take over the news until the news was slow, as there was no way such a nothing product could compete with something. I suppose that relates to the techno-pessimism in that the easiest thing to believe technology is good for is propaganda. Marc Andreessen can write about how technology is great, but I doubt he wants to walk in front of a self driving taxi. In the parlance of his people, his beliefs don't pay rent, they're applause lights.
Netscape was cool though.
NFTs is just an example. A better one might be self-driving cars. There are people who aren't comfortable with them for any number of reasons. Safety concerns. Fears about the possibility of hopping in their self-driving car and getting carted off to the police station or somewhere else against their will. Those who make their living driving cars or trucks don't want to be tossed into the throng of the surplus population. And so on.
The development, rollout, and adoption of these things by society (possibly to the point where they've no choice but to opt in) is something the skeptical masses have no control of whatsoever. Whether they like it or not, firms with resources and clout most of us can scarcely imagine are determined to foist these things upon the world and rake in a gigantic return on their investment. If you don't like it, there's nothing you can do but delude yourself that writing a letter to your congressman or senator will have any impact of their decisions whatsoever, or hope that the enterprise somehow fails before it reaches you.
Andreessen is a nihilist. If he got his billion dollars from investing in and developing products for tobacco companies instead of big tech, he'd be writing a manifesto about vape pens. Self-interest is at the core of the ideology he espouses.