Great piece, and a little stomach-turning. How did the idea of fully unregulated business become the norm? I guess we should have seen it coming; Silicon Valley is the new Wall St. The banks became “too big to fail”. The tech companies seem to think innovation is always correct, no matter how unethical or inhumane it might be.
1 — I have the story Andreesen is spreading to explain his switch to the Republicans. It’s patently dumb. I know people who have to deal with him and Lord how I pity them.
2 — Musk is no kind of tech brain. He’s just excrement, morally AND scientifically. He made investments that paid off and the government contracts made him mighty.
The tawdriness of their world is the most unappealing I could ever imagine.
Everyone seems to have forgotten that Trump’s 2016 inaugural committee was found guilty of corruption. His business and the committee had to pay a $750,000 fine.
it strikes me that contempt for government regulation has always been part of the high tech - science fiction mindset. it's easier to understand why, than it is to understand why they're wrong. there has never been a time in my life when i did not resent being told what to do by government or stupid bosses. but after watching other people's resentments over a lifetime, i began to see the point and began to fear the Left as much as the Right. The astute reader will recognize that I have not changed all that much. The current Right is vastly more dangerous than the current Left, but if you listen to them closely you will see that what the Left would do..not what they think they would do...are not all that different from the Right.
Great piece, and a little stomach-turning. How did the idea of fully unregulated business become the norm? I guess we should have seen it coming; Silicon Valley is the new Wall St. The banks became “too big to fail”. The tech companies seem to think innovation is always correct, no matter how unethical or inhumane it might be.
1 — I have the story Andreesen is spreading to explain his switch to the Republicans. It’s patently dumb. I know people who have to deal with him and Lord how I pity them.
2 — Musk is no kind of tech brain. He’s just excrement, morally AND scientifically. He made investments that paid off and the government contracts made him mighty.
The tawdriness of their world is the most unappealing I could ever imagine.
Everyone seems to have forgotten that Trump’s 2016 inaugural committee was found guilty of corruption. His business and the committee had to pay a $750,000 fine.
https://www.npr.org/2022/05/03/1096123493/trump-inauguration-dc-hotel-lawsuit-settlement
Ivanka was directly involved in the scam.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/01/lawsuit-trump-inaugural-committee-corruption-top-ivanka/
Thanks for the reminder - just posted it on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/paulwaldman.bsky.social/post/3lf3gy54vls2f
This should surprise no one--as techbro megalomania has long been brewing:
https://thebaffler.com/latest/mouthbreathing-machiavellis
Sadly, the baffler sounds to me like more of the same. including me. smart people with clever ideas and cleverer words.
ummm...power corrupts. who knew?
it strikes me that contempt for government regulation has always been part of the high tech - science fiction mindset. it's easier to understand why, than it is to understand why they're wrong. there has never been a time in my life when i did not resent being told what to do by government or stupid bosses. but after watching other people's resentments over a lifetime, i began to see the point and began to fear the Left as much as the Right. The astute reader will recognize that I have not changed all that much. The current Right is vastly more dangerous than the current Left, but if you listen to them closely you will see that what the Left would do..not what they think they would do...are not all that different from the Right.
Maybe Peter Thiel and Tim Cook can suck each other off in the Oval Office now.