When was the last time Marc Andreessen talked to a poor person? | Hacker News Reader

When was the last time Marc Andreessen talked to a poor person?

techcrunch.com

195 pointsswyx181 comments

What this article missed and most reactions also did: one name in the "Patron Saints" section. One name that should give you pause and even alarm over this and should give you a new angle to investigate this bullshit from.

That name is Filippo Tommaso Marinetti.

He was quite in the business of writing Manifestos a hundred years ago. The one he co-authored in 1919 became really (in)famous.

Edit: Vice didn't miss it. https://www.vice.com/en/article/93kg5d/major-tech-investor-c...

> Other futurist thinkers and artists exist. To call Marinetti in particular a "saint" is a choice.

Vice seem to be the only ones who took note:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/93kg5d/major-tech-investor-c...

In case it wasn't too obvious here is the wiki page... since I wasn't too familiar with him.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filippo_Tommaso_Marinetti

From wiki:

> He opposed Fascism's later exaltation of existing institutions, terming them "reactionary," and, after walking out of the 1920 Fascist party congress in disgust, withdrew from politics for three years.

The actual manifesto looks better than many countries have today: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascist_Manifesto

You left out the next sentence, which reads

> However, he remained a notable force in developing the party philosophy throughout the regime's existence.

Not to mention his antisemitism.

While not a fan of this guy, I just wanted to point out that you can't really judge the entirety of someone's work by whether they are antisemitic in the time period this guy lived in because almost everyone was antisemitic back then, including much of the USA (i.e. https://www.history.com/news/wwii-jewish-refugee-ship-st-lou...)

Most everyone seems anti-Semitic these days too. Not much of a difference as far as I can tell.

No, only small vocal anti- groups. Most of the US populace don't see a need to gather pro- demonstrations because it's obvious.

Even without accounting for the fascist manifesto, the Marinetti's 1909 manifesto[1] isn't particularly inspiring either:

    9. We will glorify war − the only true hygiene of the world − militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of anarchist, the beautiful Ideas which kill, and the scorn of woman.

Saint patron you said?

[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifesto_of_Futurism#/media...

Really shows where the dude is coming from if he cites such a(n) (in)famous person.

We need to go faster ...

“grow or die”

You're trying to derail that drug-fueled rant to Godwin, while in that list there are much more modern demons of our age: Nick Land, Neven "you don't like conservative arguments but they are right!!1" Sesardic, John Galt, Nordhaus.

Nothing less of what I would expect of a pioneer in XML as main information medium and full-time conman since Ning.

What "Patron Saints" section? Where?

page 18: “Patron Saints of Techno-Optimism”

Actually, given the third paragraph from TFA, both you and the TechCrunch article seem to have Ad Hominem fallacies down pat. They just forgot one that you remembered.

Neither of these seem ad hom? Examining how someone’s wealth biases their worldview is hardly an attack on their person and pointing out that one of the architects and inspirations for Fascism is called a Patron Saint isn’t either. The latter isn’t even ‘guilty by association’ as the author freely makes that association themselves by speaking glowingly of them.

Marc Andreessen having a biased worldview is completely irrelevant to the quality of his arguments or positions, yet the implication in the TC article is exactly that (that maybe you shouldn't take his opinions about economics and technology too seriously because he's a billionaire after all).

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti is more well known as the founder of the Futurist movement, which is presumably what Andreessen is referencing here. Implying (or outright stating) that Marinetti's ideas on Futurism can be safely ignored because he also has less palatable ideas re:Fascism is a textbook example of Ad Hominem.

> Implying (or outright stating) that Marinetti's ideas on Futurism can be safely ignored because he also has less palatable ideas re:Fascism is a textbook example of Ad Hominem.

Except it is not. Or you have no idea of what Ad Hominem arguments are - i.e.: You attack the person instead of the arguments.

In the case of Marinetti, both his positions regarding Futurism and Fascism are intrinsically connected, sharing a noticeable relationship within his world view. To ignore the "less palatable" portion of his worldview to make Futurism more palatable would be faulty reasoning.

Attacking a person's worldview is in fact attacking the person, not the arguments. The arguments being inextricably linked in Marinetti's head does not impact their validity outside his head.

Once again: I have called for investigating the influence of fascist ideas on this manifesto because the manifesto itself names one of the architects of it a saint. It doesn't matter at all who wrote this, we are only looking at the manifesto.

On another hand, trying to paint futurism and fascism as completely separate falls flat because already the Futurist Manifesto contained some ideas from fascism and besides Marinetti, Carlo Carrà and many more also became an ardest supporter of fascism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortunato_Depero notes

> In the 1930s and 40s Depero continued working, although due to futurism being linked with fascism, the movement started to wane

In https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futurism

> Many Italian Futurists supported Fascism [...] The Futurists' association with Fascism after its triumph in 1922 brought them official acceptance in Italy

It's not like I am trying to mash the two together only now, no, they were already together back then.

Absolutely not, when we are discussing the philosophical basis of that worldview.

Those arguments are not simply "linked in Marinetti's head". they are parts of a broader ser of views that would organize the world in a certain manner.

This is brought up due to an apparent endorsement of the author to Marinetti's ideas. Commenters pointing that out is absolutely not an Ad Hominem when those very ideas are being discussed.

I don't remember if there's an informal fallacy of falsely claiming an informal fallacy, but calling this an Ad Hominem is a great example of such.

The ideas are not being discussed. The primary criticism in the OP was "Marinetti was fascist so ignore".

I am happy to repeat myself: "should give you a new angle to investigate this bullshit from".

That's not "ignore this".

To elaborate a little, this thinkpiece will likely influence way more people than it should therefore understanding how it covertly spreads fascist ideas is important. Ignoring it doesn't make it go away.

As others have pointed out, even the futurist manifesto is highly problematic. That's what's outside his head - his arguments. And it's arguments that Andreessen is endorsing. So no, this is not an ad hominem.

Marinetti even tried to have futurism declared the state art of Italy, which would in effect suppress all other art styles.

In this case it seems his views were intertwined, at least in practical application. So it’s relevant to discuss both at the same time.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37926150 and also check the edit of my post https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37925583

Its kinda brilliant that people will just post this shit without prompt.

The only reason I can see why he would post this drivel is because he’s surrounded by yes men and people who agree with him and blocks anyone who doesn’t (eg on twitter).

Another reminder that wealth or past brilliance provides no guarantees on current aptitude.

Most people believe they are in the right. And if they know they aren't they most likely will be able to explain to you why they were forced to do the wrong thing.

The reason why he "writes that shit without prompt" is because he deep down he feels a friction between the current state of the world, his role in said world and his self-image as a good guy. That post is an attempt to tell himself (and the world) a story in which that friction is reduced.

From the outside it is of course completely and utterly ridiculous — I guess even 14 year old me would have been able to figure out that there is no meat on what passes as bones in his story.

> Most people believe they are in the right.

I have found this to be not quite true.

In my experience a ton of people in the wrong know very well they are in the wrong. They don't internalize it, but they know anyway.

They just prefer to stay in the wrong because they prefer other people suffering over having to change their world view, especially if it would make them look bad.

Also ‘I’m wrong but have many friends who are also wrong and I want to keep being friends with them’

I like: "I'm wrong, but living right leads to poverty".

I'd say I see a lot of "my job is basically evil but my kids enjoy a roof, health insurance, and food, so I guess I'll keep doing it". One more reason I've never been interested in the kid thing.

Are those friends around you who know they're in the wrong extremely rich? It seems that to make absurd amounts of money, you need to believe you're always right to the point of hubris.

> In my experience a ton of people in the wrong know very well they are in the wrong. They don't internalize it, but they know anyway.

No I meant what I say. My grandfather was an actual Nazi in the Wehrmacht. Did he know that what the Nazis did was wrong in a moral sense? Sure. But he still believed their wrongdoing was something that had to be done, because "this was war" or because of the superiority of the arian race. So in his mind him sacrificing his moral standards was a heroic act to further the "greater good" he believed in. The Nazis believed they were doing the "lesser races" a favour by destroying them.

I am convinced that if you talked to any political fanatic they would come up with a similar mental gymnastic to explain the actually evil things they are doing.

The point is that everybody does that to explain the suffering in the world. E.g. think about the unspeakable harm capitalism has caused to nature and certain parts of the world. I am pretty sure that 90% of the HN crowd would be able to tell you a story of why it isn't that bad or maybe even good in the grand scheme of things, because if we didn't tell those stories to ourselves we would have to change something. Or we know this is wrong, but then we tell ourselves atories why we cannot change things.

Even that guy who "rolls coal" with his purposefully dirty truck think he is right, because all those liberals are in fact hypocrites and he is just exposing that or something.

Of course you will also have people who are in such existential dires that they will tell themselves they cannot afford the luxury of being a good person, but deep down they will see themselves as a good person in a pickle or as a good person who has been failed by society.

What is interesting in this story that the article misses is not the delusion. Marc's post has copious amounts of dishonesty and while writing, I'm sure he thought of all the ways his vision could harm/destroy society. But right now, he really needs to inject that extra bit of confidence so the markets can rebound and produce just one more Airbnb because he's a bit short on his net worth goals.

I don't think it's completely bullshit. It's pretentious, tone deaf, and he's mostly tilting at windmills. However, most of what he says is correct, though trivial, and of the rest, nearly all the opinions are inoffensive milquetoast ones. The manifesto itself is just a manifesto.

The most damning thing about Marc Andreessen is that he doesn't actually live these ideals, as shown when he complained to his local council about their plan to build affordable housing near him. There's nothing more pathetic and cynical than "statism for me but not for thee".

It’s a long manifesto, so I only quickly skimmed it.

But I didn’t see any mention of negative externalities and how to best mitigate them.

That’s a pretty damning flaw.

Also, drug abuse.

I wish I was joking but then see FTX.

Yep yep. IMHO - balance comes from forces in opposition. If - as you point out - everyone around you is a yesman, you’ve got no opposing forces and cannot be balanced.

The reason I see why he would post this is envy. Envy for Peter Thiel.

Almost feel embarrassed for the guy

I'm convinced that conventional businessmen [1] have trained themselves to look in the mirror and see righteousness. Businessmen like this operate on a high level of abstraction, not particularly close to the work being done nor customers being served and oftentimes wholly out-of-touch with their own actions' secondary/tertiary impact – so they don't really know if they have a net-positive impact, if ABC action is net positive, if XYZ action is ultimately appreciated by the public. They just don't know. But they still need to feel a certain way about their life and behavior, so they've chosen a generous outlook: what they do is righteous, everything they do is righteous. After all, aren't they "leaders"? It's a bit circular, and entirely irrational, but I can imagine it would be hard to be human at such an abstraction level without developing some sort of similar delusion.

This is based on my own exposure: the businessmen I meet genuinely believe that they have the solutions to problems they hardly understand. They assume that their own action is in the right direction, with near-zero evidence supporting that assertion. To me, that's incredible.

[1] – Yes, Marc Andreessen now sits within this category of "conventional businessmen," having himself defined and proliferated many of the current conventions.

> They assume that their own action is in the right direction, with near-zero evidence supporting that assertion

Their success is the evidence. "I was made the right bets and became successful" morphs to "I continue to be materially successful, and therefore I continue to be right" as if they are on a level playing field with the rest of humanity.

As a somewhat successful businessperson that has hit rough patches: yes, the rose-colored glasses of financial success are real, but you also have to account for the bias around these people: society (to say nothing of close friends, family, partners, subordinates, social acquaintances, etc) is biased favorably towards people that a) act, and b) produce results. This is more easily seen when you lose some of that success: it isn't necessarily that people like you less (or kiss your ass less), it's also (mostly) that they take you less seriously.

In a lot of circumstances, action itself (the courage to take it, the risk tolerance to deal with the outcome) is an outlier act. By definition (or selection bias) successful entrepreneurs are more likely to take action and deal with the results. What does it say about a society (or an era) that this is all we have left? that action/initiative itself carries such risks (financial, social) that our heroes (and villains) are quasi-psychopathic risk-taking billionaires because they are the only ones left willing to step up?

> because they are the only ones left willing to step up?

I don't know that it was historically different though. Such folk have been lauded for at least since the industrial revolution, and I can think of places to look for earlier examples.

I think that when we get memorable politicians or union leaders or protestors it's because circumstances came together at the right time for them to effect change. For example, post war democratic socialism happened at the same time in a bunch of countries, even though the politicians that enacted it in each are seen as the ones who stepped up.

These business people are, for the most part, not any kind of visionary. They are capitalist investors, and they control money to make all kinds of bets. When some of those come to fruition they seem to think they were a genius, but I really doubt the person made the difference.

Conversely I feel like it's nearly impossible to reach success at the level of most self made billionaires without having this "skill" of self delusion. How else can you go forward with 110% energy if you aren't 110% convinced you are right?

Self doubt in life is a healthy thing in moderate doses, but in the upper reaches of capitalistic "success" it's a downright hinderance.

Just another systemic flaw in the way we award status in our modern world.

These are the same people who promise a utopian future society where all of society’s problems including poverty will be solved while vehemently opposing the idea of poor people living in their city. [1]

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-05/vc-marc-a...

We can all have good things right now, including climate remediation if there weren't an extreme concentration of wealth.Trickle down is proven bogus. Wealth is hoarded and locked up to a great extent .

Take a comfortable and consumable share, Marc and others. The rest is merely symbolic.

Wealth is poor proxy to real world resources. Especially for most tech billionaires there are very few real world resources hoarded. Owning shares in some highly valued SaaS company pretty much consumes negligible amount of none virtual resources. Even if a tiny fraction of "concentrated wealth" were to be spent for physical assets we'd just see a hyperinflation spiral.

Recently read a statistic that stated if everyone on earth were able to live like an average American, we would require five entire earths in terms of resources to make that happen.

Whats bogus is the strawman of talking about trickle down.

There is no such thing as "fair", people will take what they can according to market forces

>There is no such thing as "fair", people will take what they can according to market forces

By that same logic, there is no such thing as "justice" and the entire legal system is a mirage? :)

Drivel down economics.

It's not just your opinion.

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-bad-is-inequality-trickl...

A huge study of 20 years of global wealth demolishes the myth of 'trickle-down' and shows the rich are taking most of the gains for themselves (2021)

https://money.cnn.com/2015/06/15/news/economy/trickle-down-t...

The 'trickle down theory' is dead wrong (2015)

I agree that trickle-down economics is mostly nonsense.

But how exactly would redistributing Marc Andreessen's wealth fix climate issues? Please be specific.

Well you can obviously convert shares of some SaaS company into extra raw resources thats a very simple physical process without any limitations.

I love this. What a surprise to see VC criticism on TechCrunch.

Agreed. Can someone do Garry Tan next?

Garry actually sounds reasonable (sometimes) compared to some of the classics like pg or sama nowadays

pg is unglued from the real world, not as much as Andreessen but still. Source: Twitter/X

sama is straight up building a cyberpunk dystopia. At least puts his money where his mouth is

American citizens discussing domestic matters. Ladies and gentlemen, it's undeniable that technology has significantly enhanced our quality of life. Nevertheless, it's evident that as a society, we are currently grappling with significant challenges. Meanwhile, in places like Mumbai, Guinea, Argentina, and beyond, the last decade or so has seen substantial improvements in the lives of their inhabitants. Astonishingly, this transformation has occurred without substantial assistance from governmental or organizational bodies, and the specter of corruption looms large.

It's crucial for us, as members of American society, to redirect our focus and gain a broader perspective on the global reality. Despite potential decreases in our own standard of living, the world as a whole has made remarkable progress. It's admittedly challenging to fully grasp this truth, but every time a technology-related job leaves the United States, it represents one more step towards a more equitable world for those individuals who lack meaningful opportunities in their home countries.

It's just annoying because it's a false dichotomy. I think technology is great but that doesn't mean I have to think unregulated markets are good, or that I have to believe that all growth is positive sum.

This is Balaji level hubris.

I didnt talk about unregulation (I believe in regulation), I say that the fight against tech as a whole is wrong and it's the real fight now in the streets.

Oh sorry I was referring to Andressens article. I agree with you

There are so many people that cannot recognize “tweaker shit” on sight

My _exact_ reaction. I have a couple friends who'll send me rants like this (obviously not as thoughtful, but similarly toned and spaced) on Messenger at 3am and then apologize the next day and say they had too much wine and vyvanse. Replace vyvanse with speed, adderall, blow, meth, etc. - enough of any of them will bring you to a similar place (for the inexperienced user, specifically).

One of the biggest tells of stim-brain is the feeling of grandiose and sure mindedness. You feel so, so certain that you've got it _all_ figured out, and you've _finally_ got the words flying off your fingertips explaining it all flawlessly. The writing usually sucks, though, since you don't take the time to edit. Just stream-of-consciousness it all into the doc. Occasionally fun to code with, extremely annoying to have to read or listen to.

Anyway - I know nothing about marca's habits and I won't pretend to. Just a funny observation.

Founders Fund were throwing parties with psychedelics [1] and that there is a culture of harder drug use amongst the San Francisco CEO class.

Makes you wonder if Marc is part of it given most of the people mentioned are close friends.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/silicon-valley-microdosing-keta...

There is a culture of harder drug use in all of SF and tech in general.

There is a culture of drug use in this country in general. Seems like everybody is on something whether prescribed, self medicating, or recreational.

What is Tweaker Shit?

I’m Australian, so not up on US terminolgy :-)

Speed blogging a solution to the worlds problems manifesto between alternating lines of coke and meth.

I'm not sure if that fits the author in this instance, but that's certainly the image I walk away with from the GP comment.

To downvoters - look up tweaking in urban dictionary and imagine something worse before clicking that arrow.

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Tweaking

I would guess tweaker shit is the type of drivel one comes up with whilst tweaking (i.e. being under the influence of amphetamines).

I thought this a little odd, as I know Australia is no stranger to Meth, so I googgled.

Lol, tweaker has a completely different meaning in Oz https://www.smh.com.au/sport/cricket/spin-or-substance-shoul...

https://www.cricket.com.au/news/3314826/kuhnemann-turns-to-v...

In Canada Poppers are mixing tobacco with Cannabis In the US Poppers is Amyl Nitrate and used for relaxing your rectum for anal sex. When I showed Canadians urban dictionary and what Americans call poppers they couldn't believe it

In fairness, I'm Canadian and I have never heard anyone describe mixing tobacco and weed as a "popper".

In Australian terms it's the text you receive from your friend a few minutes after he disappears into a pub toilet accompanied by a guy wearing wraparound sunnies and holding a rolled-up $5 note.

Doesn't methamphetamine suppress the appetite?

Such a surface level understanding of the thinkers he references. Especially Adam Smith who pretty specifically talked about how you need to curb unearned income (economic rent) otherwise you basically are just doing feudalism with extra steps.

Naturally this was in the late 1700s so he only applied it to land .

Marca's words: [https://a16z.com/the-techno-optimist-manifesto/]

I too consider myself a techno-optimist.

But how do you get from "technology solves problems" to:

> We believe free markets are the most effective way to organize a technological economy.

> The market naturally disciplines

> Markets prevent monopolies and cartels.

Some people are just working backwards. They saw how effective a centralized state actor that gave itself emergency powers was, and became cynical of centralized planning solutions as a result.

If 2007-2009 showed how Laissez faire rules doesn't work 2020-2022 showed how centralized planning expert rules doesn't work

> 2020-2022 showed how centralized planning expert rules doesn't work

What do you mean by this?

Likely referring to the massive amounts of free capital handed out by the federal government for specific types of businesses.

That is not central planning. It was largely just corruption.

The central planners got their way with covid lockdown rules. Medical privacy laws were waived because knowing someone's vaccination status was more important than their right to privacy. We saw rehab of various kinds shut down in March of 2020, be it alcoholics anonymous gamblers anonymous and so on because they were non essential, but the sale of marijuana and cigarettes in a lung based pandemic was essential so the addicts could have their fix but rehab was non-essential. We could also mention the failure of remote learning and how we will be able to detect this gap in our children's education for decades if not generations to come.

The cure was worse than the disease when it came to central plannings response

There was literally zero centralized planning of the economy during COVID. The US doesn’t even have that capacity any more.

Guidance given by Dr. Fauci was centralized planning Whether it was saying in March of 2020 “There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask. When you’re in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better and it might even block a droplet, but it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is. And, often, there are unintended consequences — people keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face.” Or when he said you need to wear a mask or when he said 1 mask works great so 2 masks will work better https://youtu.be/9nbKjgS0nPA In March of 2020 we were told we needed to be 6 feet apart to be safe https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/19/health/cdc-physical-distancin... in March of 2021 we were told we needed to be 3 feet apart. Need any more examples of flip flopping, or expert guidance that turned 180 degrees without justification?

None of this is central planning in any dictionary or even colloquial sense of the term. Maybe this will help:

https://www.britannica.com/money/topic/economic-system/Centr...

A manifesto by an idiot for idiots. The guy displays a severe lack of education and just shows what a dangerous and delusional moron he really is.

I struggle with this because while I am with you in tone and spirit, the fact of the matter is that pmarca is incredibly intelligent. Putting his wildly successful investment firm aside, you know that he created the first widely used graphical web browser and co-founded Mozilla, right?

Instead, I propose that he's been breathing different oxygen for so long that he's long since started believing his own legend. Frankly, I just don't believe that he has anyone in his life who would serve as a grounding influence, and I find this really sad.

Anyhow, I jumped into the thread because I find calling someone demonstrably brilliant an "uneducated, delusional moron" might feel good but it distracts from the real discussion.

You can be brilliant in some aspects and a delusional moron in others. The latter often happens when the brilliant feel their brilliance extends beyond their education.

No you can’t, moron is a term for intelligence, not knowledge.

Have you ever heard about Bobby Fischer's opinions on literally anything other than chess? Is he not intelligent?

As the other poster said it's not relevant how smart someone is in one arena because they can have dogshit opinions in others.

https://www.chess.com/blog/Rodgy/the-genius-craze-of-bobby-f...

Well if we want to language lawyer things it actually says delusional moron which could imply an intelligent person under delusions acts moronically. But in reality we're discussing this using colloquial terms so I don't think your complaint carries much water.

I didn't finish high school, and by your logic I shouldn't be able to do much more than flip burgers.

I can believe that pmarca is wrong about many things, but that doesn't make him a moron. pmarca is clearly not a moron. If you have a huge problem with his opinions, writing him off as a moron is intellectually lazy and it won't advance your position.

You need to read what I wrote again because I didn’t call him a moron or say that if you are uneducated you can’t be brilliant.

Not only did I read what you wrote again, I re-read the comment that you replied to... the one that clearly unambiguously calls pmarca a delusional moron.

In other words, we were both replying to a comment that did indeed call him a moron.

So long as we’re clear that I didn’t.

That may or may not be a correct assessment but you will have a hard time convincing anyone, moronic or non-moronic, without any real arguments and counter-examples.

I for one would have loved some more substance to your post...

Have you read the article that is the subject of this thread? You could start with that

So... you too are unable to actually articulate the issues you have with it?

He uncritically cites the author of “The Fascist Manifesto” as a “patron saint.” You can safely disregard anything that does this as idiocy.

He is better known as the author of the Futurist Manifesto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifesto_of_Futurism

He’s pretty famously an author of both that and the Fascist Manifesto that followed a few years later: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascist_Manifesto

I'd never heard of him until today.

I would stand up to defend your right to read and enjoy a good book by a person that you aren't an expert in.

In general, I try to start by extending the benefit of doubt. It seems like nobody here stopped to wonder if pmarca had any idea that the dude wrote the Fascist Manifesto. And if he didn't, does he still deserve to be shamed for enjoying his other work without Googling him first?

What if you found out the author of the last thing you read was a fascist after the fact? Should we be mad at you?

Do you Google the author of everything you read? If so, that sounds exhausting.

If you call one of the fathers of fascist ideology your “patron saint,” in the context of also listing several other right wing thinkers, I think you know what you’re doing and should expect corresponding disdain.

Are there no left-wing thinkers in that rather extensive list?

The irony of calling other people uncritical when using logical fallacies to make your point.

https://owl.excelsior.edu/argument-and-critical-thinking/log...

The irony of not understanding what ad hominem is while accusing others of it.

I know this might not be a good comment by the guidelines, but I rarely have wanted to be able to give ten upvotes like in the case of this comment

> I am here to bring the good news.

> We can advance to a far superior way of living, and of being.

One good first step is to end royalty/billionaires.

How does one end billionaires?

The best civilization came up with is a revolutionary civil war and even that doesn’t work more often than it does

100% surtax on all wealth above 999 million, 999 thousand, 999 dollars?

I can't even tell what kind of response you're looking for.

You do know that they don’t actually have 1 billion in cash, right? So your proposal is just to take away ownership of companies from anyone successful.

That’s not an equality mechanism, that’s a way to drive successful companies into the ground by the government seizing and selling them off.

So seriously think about how a wealth tax would work and come back with a proposal that justifies why a company like SpaceX should be seized by the government.

This is a web forum so no room for nuance, but you're begging the question.

Who exactly is the government "seizing and selling off" Elon's shares to in your scenario?

And why does the answer to that question imply the company will be driven into the ground?

At $150bn market cap, you just need a maximum of 151 shareholders (I'm not going to bother to look up Elon's ownership percentage of SpaceX) worth of dilution to ensure no billionaires.

Again, these 151 individuals would remain grossly wealthy.

And certainly there are large companies today without a single shareholder holding $1 billion.

Again, it's really not hard to imagine a world where no single person owns more than $1 billion of collective capital and equity, and still operates in a capitalist fashion.

Edit: McDonald's (market cap $190bn) is 70% owned by large institutional investors, a meager 0.31% combined by executives in the company, and the rest is the general public with no dominant shareholder.

>Who exactly is the government

A wealth tax implies the government, either federal or state that implements it.

>And why does the answer to that question imply the company will be driven into the ground?

Because companies with long shot visions cannot be run by committee. There is far too much temptation to sell out early. Elon very specifically holds the majority of SpaceX to ensure the vision of going to Mars doesn’t get disrupted by the quest for profit.

>And certainly there are large companies today without a single shareholder holding $1 billion.

Certainly, and they are beholden to the quarterly report and the whims of board politics.

>owned by large institutional investors, a meager 0.31% combined by executives in the company, and the rest is the general public with no dominant shareholder.

And what has McDonald’s done that’s innovative in the last 20 years?

>Again, it's really not hard to imagine a world where no single person owns more than $1 billion of collective capital and equity, and still operates in a capitalist fashion.

Of course it’s not hard to imagine. It’s not any less of a dumb idea though. Forcing a weird ceiling on control of a business when the original goal was a wealth tax is pretty absurd. Is the goal to strip away ability to control the company or is it to just tap into the potential wealth those shares represent?

Taxes

Billionaires pay taxes. Elon Musk paid the largest individual tax bill of all time in 2021 to the tune of $11,000,000,000.

As in... kill them?

Removing the status of royalty or billionaire from a person, not ending the person.

"Sorry, this castle is a tourist attraction, and will also hold a vibrant community center. Your input to the legislature will now take the form of an ordinary citizen's letter to your elected representative. Those vast tracts of land currently used for fox hunting will be great for nature preservation and the outdoor enjoyment of everyone. No worries, you'll be set you up in a nice apartment in a pleasant area, with a livable pension, and a public transit pass. Not sure how how we'll re-stamp all the coinage, but we'll figure it out, and we have more resources now."

Over the years, I've had several conversations with people who were successful entrepreneurs in Arab countries. Past tense, because apparently at some unwritten success milestone, some distant nephew of royalty is increasingly likely to show up and inform you that the thing you built belongs to them, now. And if you'd like a job here, we can figure something out.

If you don't struggle, you'll end up in a nice apartment in a pleasant area, with a livable pension and a public transit pass.

I would say having read the first page - my hot take is:

This is the long form version of Think Different[1] but instead of a mass market "misfit" consumer, the primary target here is a "misfit" consumer that is a ultra high network accredited investor (a.k.a. someone who hasn't talked to a poor person in a while either). Basically a pitch to become a potential A16Z LP and join the "in" club.

[1] Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do. — Steve Jobs, 1997

Note that that is ad copy written by ad execs at TBWA/Chiat/Day, not a quote by Jobs.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/onmarketing/2011/12/14/the-real...

It’s full of BS like "We had a problem of starvation [and] poverty." How can he be so delusional?

Did he talk about crypto or completely glossed over the hustle he and his fund were promoting just now?

I always wonder what history's biggest transfer of wealth from poor to rich is.

Because NFTs, Alt-coins and the sheer volume of rug pulls has to be towards the top of the list.

And Andreessen financed many elements of it.

pretty sure serfdom/slavery have that beat, if only based on sheer scale

Africa getting carved up?

Adam Neumann got $350 million from a16z a year ago - this was after the WeWork debacle. I guess they only care that WeWork made VC money at SoftBanks expense. The manifesto is exactly the sort of "thought-leadership" material to be authored by Marc

I thought they pivoted to Ai.

My point exactly. They had a grift going with crypto and when that went bust they suddenly pivot to AI and pretend it never happened. Which to me says is the same pattern being run over again.

Why was this flagged? There's some comments calling someone a doodoo-head, but other comments about important matters of society and technology.

Because the article is complete garbage that doesn’t engage in good faith. It just assumes conclusions that people with a particular political view agree with.

So it’s a great article if you already believe capitalism is evil and want a clap trap, but it’s trash otherwise.

There are way more trash discussions here on HN every day that don't get flagged. But it does show where the bias in HN lies.

Sigh, yes, I was sympathetic to critiquing the manifesto, and impressed to see those viewpoints on TechCrunch (which I normally expect to be more of a cheerleader for techbros), but the style could've appeared more objective.

I was pondering on this recently. So many "tech" companies these days are about taking away the livelihood of the little people. What used to cost $5 may be $4 now, great, except the profit that used to flow to hundreds of thousands of little people now flows to Andreessen and his handful of goons. In worse cases, what used to cost $5 is still $5, or maybe even $5.5, only with some added convenience, but the little people have to each pay Andreessen and goons a 20% protection fee to stay in the market. This is not a healthy state of affairs.

> We believe the ultimate moral defense of markets is that they divert people who otherwise would raise armies and start religions into peacefully productive pursuits.

It's far too early in the day to be unpicking this nonsense of a statement.

Well done techcrunch.

> What does “solve” even mean in the context of conflicts like the ongoing war in Israel and Gaza — isn’t the true solution an end to conflict?

No conflict if one side is completely annihilated :/

Andreessen seems to embody the final evolution of tech libertarianism as depicted in Adam Curtis's documentary "All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace" [0].

If you haven't seen the work, I urge you to check it out. SV has always been filled with people like Andreessen, and now that they have accumulated so much power they can just say the quiet parts out loud.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Watched_Over_by_Machines...

https://archive.ph/WHLr1

Now the real question is: how do we stop these deranged megalomaniacs from doing more damage?

A functioning regulator would tax their wealth, but there doesn’t seem to be a legal way to do that properly

As a response they move their wealth overseas and renounce their citizenship if necessary. What strategy from the banana republic playbook would you like to see the State employ next?

Renouncing citizenship is a taxable event. If they don't pay up then arrest them. It's literally that simple.

If it’s that simple, do you care to list out all of the countries that do this?

No, I won't do a bunch of work because a stranger on the internet asked me to, but you can Google it yourself if you want.

It’s rhetorical. There are no successful wealth tax schemes.

Ok, then you're just wrong

No, there are no wealth tax schemes beyond property tax. It takes very little time into the implementation of a general wealth tax to realize it involves breaking up successful companies, which kills it in its place.

I disagree, there's plenty of ways of doing that without breaking up companies

Then deny them access to the US market. That will bring them back

It will bring them back to have their wealth arbitrarily expropriated? Yeah I doubt it. Never mind that it's unclear what it means to "deny them access to the US market" when these people are acting via working for / owning corporations. You're going to deny big corporations access to US markets based on the financial profiles of their owners? You're going to expect foreigners in general to surrender all their wealth in order to access US markets? Good luck enforcing that.

Would it make any difference? I'm a UK citizen. If I earned profits from a VC fund in San Francisco what are the chances of me paying only UK tax on that? You can also tax the fund directly and the corporations they invested in. You can tax the transfers of wealth between those entities. Of course you can tax these people if you want. Sure some of them will run to Belize, but the US control the domicile rules, tax them as you wish. Are they going to stay there forever? Tax income earned on US PE funds at source. Do whatever you like.

It is frankley pathetic to suggest you can't tax rich people or they will go abroad.

>If I earned profits from a VC fund in San Francisco what are the chances of me paying only UK tax on that? You can also tax the fund directly and the corporations they invested in. You can tax the transfers of wealth between those entities. Of course you can tax these people if you want. Sure some of them will run to Belize, but the US control the domicile rules, tax them as you wish. Are they going to stay there forever? Tax income earned on US PE funds at source.

Obviously you can tax income and put the mandate of enforcement on companies that are paying individuals. You cannot delegate the taxation of pre-existing wealth to companies though and deputize every firm as an IRS agent.

Further to that, I don't know how it is in the US, but in the UK VC firms are regulated. You can allow foreign investors fine...but this guy is a principal. You can apply whatever fit and proper persons test you like to the principals, such as no outstanding tax issues, and domicile if you want. You just need the political will.

That’s exactly what I had in mind when I said it’s legally impossible

A functioning regulator would know its place and not try to set tax policy. The legal way to do it properly is for congress to pass a bill.

In a wide market context when I say ’regulator’ I mean any and all forms of government, please excuse my imprecision

With ideas floating around about the AI based distortion of society, or with people looking to make examples of how AI will be used as an authoritarian force multiplier, Marc is trying to provide an alternate vision. Since our default view seems to be one of fear, he thinks it should be one of individual power. Clearly he feels the paradigm is wrong. A broke writer who envies the Marc Andreessens of the world is of course going to turn this into an issue of money and class. That's what communists do.

I think we short-circuit the authoritarian uses by having models that anyone can run and utilize any way, any where, for any purpose. At least, I'd rather think about that than worry about whether or not Marc has talked to "poor people," whatever the fuck that means.

> He imagines a Libertarian-esque world where technology solves all of our problems, poverty and climate change are eradicated, and an honest meritocracy reigns supreme.

IMO there's a kind of vague mythical "Humble Libertarian Utopia" idea I've encountered a few times, where it is presented as an attainable unambitious situation of Regular Joe... but when you actually sum up all the features, it represents quite a huge amount of net-worth, more than the median in any country.

The particulars vary, but to paint a picture... For the core a ramshackle old (and therefore humble) homestead which somehow has enough property around it that there are never noise-complaints and where trespassers or would-be thieves are pretty obvious and shoot-able. Income happens from a job of unspecified yearly income and reliability (but somehow still "average.") Next layer on things which are below "disaster prepper" but near to "enough independence to create a bargaining position", like a water well (from a suspiciously reliable aquifer) and a generator (fuel storage and costs not mentioned) and a reserve of guns/ammo.

Then the proprietor either has legal training, or a law-firm on speed-dial to validate or create individualized contracts for interacting with other people, in lieu of various currently-standardized laws. They also have the free-time and resources to go and fight things in court when needed.

It may extend further in various directions depending on the situation being discussed, such as an implied ability to feed oneself from the land for a period of time, without much consideration of the costs of owning farm-equipment or where the human labor comes from.

None of it is actually impossible given enough money, but tallying up each of those "everyone is independent together" features and you get something like post-scarcity economy, no matter how much the protagonist wears denim jeans and flannel shirts! I would not be surprised if the extremely wealthy like Andressen are primed to assume that vision is practical for everyone else.

Vacuous and tldr.

This article is complete garbage filled with rhetorical hyperbole and either deliberate misinterpretations or was just written by someone so blinded by dogma that they can’t engage ideas in good faith.

> The missing link here is how we can use tech to actually take care of people; how to feed them,

Food technology is the only reason we can all survive today and why starvation is essentially unheard of among societies with stable enough governments to get aid.

>clothe them,

Same here. Basic clothing is incredibly cheap and second hand stores are overflowing with clothes.

It’s as if this author doesn’t understand that technology extends beyond smartphones.

>how to make sure the planet doesn’t reach such high temperatures that we all just melt away.

Green energy is one of the huge technology booms we are going through right now. 20 years ago solar and wind were just novelties. They can now generate massive amounts of electricity and we have viable electric cars to run off of the grid.

> What is missing here is that San Francisco is already the tech hub of the world and is one of the most unequal places in the universe, both socially and economically.

That has nothing to do with technology and everything to do with “fuck you” land owners and cripplingly incompetent legislators so dominated by ideology they spend all of their time fighting over how to best destroy the school system while approving essentially no new housing.

Being the “tech hub” has zero to do with where the tech is used. It only takes one ride on the portable toilet and drug den known as BART to know that technology has little place in day to day SF. It doesn’t take breakthroughs in software or AI to stop people from shooting up and making a living stealing. That takes government, which is the one thing technology hasn’t meaningfully changed.

>What is missing here is that the technological revolution made it easier to hail an Uber or order food delivery, but did nothing about how those drivers and delivery people are being exploited, and how some live in their cars to sustain a decent wage.

Technology is the reason that driver can still eat a meal for less than 1/3rd of an hour’s minimum wage in CA. Technology is the reason they can have a car in the first place. Technology is the reason they can keep in touch with family.

That’s just one paragraph and the rest aren’t meaningfully different. This smacks of someone who is so blinded by their political beliefs, they can’t realize all of their complaints are just about the incompetent government around the Bay Area (and wider California to some extent).

This article is inadvertently nearly completely agreeing with Marc Andreessen’s manifesto. All of its complaints are about areas that technology hasn’t disrupted yet.

You seem to think that the article is against technological development. It's not. It's a critique against the libertarian hyper-capitalist model that a16z argues for in his manifesto which arguably brings downsides with it in technological advancement.

You seem to be completely missing what the article is arguing. It's not about technology, it's about responsible technological development - where the value from these developments don't end up in the hands of a centralised few at the cost of the many. Which is pretty much what a16z is arguing for.

> where the value from these developments don't end up in the hands of a centralised few at the cost of the many

Where specifically in the manifesto is this being argued?

That's the point, it's not. But many people (me included) seem to be under the impression that his views will lead to this end-game.

Particularly points like:

> We believe in market discipline. The market naturally disciplines – the seller either learns and changes when the buyer fails to show, or exits the market. When market discipline is absent, there is no limit to how crazy things can get. The motto of every monopoly and cartel, every centralized institution not subject to market discipline: “We don’t care, because we don’t have to.” Markets prevent monopolies and cartels.

Are pillars of his argument while being complete horseshit (the monopoly part in particular). When he thus argues that regulations and market control are bad he does implicitly argue for this.

He isn't arguing for the benefits of the many short term. He's arguing for the benefit of the many through "abundance" at some point in the distant future. But for the moment - he'll get filthy rich off of this flavour of libertarian anarcho-capitalism. And if you're optimistic too maybe you'll get rich in a couple of decades through trickle-down technological development too! wink wink

I agree that point definitely needs fleshing out on his part of he wants it to be taken seriously – I actually made notes while reading this manifesto and that is exactly something I noted myself.

I don't agree that his making a potentially invalid point about monopolies means he made this entire manifesto in support of a future that is only good for the billionaire class.

It’s a screed against technology though. It frequently bemoans technology that “hasn’t helped”, despite all of the existing technologies that developed under the model that a16z is arguing to keep supporting.

The “libertarian hyper-capitalist” model the author is crying about is essentially the model that got us all of the things the author takes for granted. Complaints about Uber and Lyft fall flat when they were developed the same way we got cheap solar power (companies competing to beat each other in a capitalist environment).

Yeah, same thoughts here. The whole thing felt like a hit piece.

That’s unfair. I’m sure he talks at his wage slave manservants every day.

To me it is simple. Andreessen has a clear list of enemies. I now know that Marc Andreessen is my enemy. I will look upon him as such from now on.

I’m sure you could ask the authors of this piece the same question.

[OP Here] for the record i do admire pmarca for a lot of his gamechanging thoughts and achievements. never met him but have a few good friends at a16z and admire their work.

altho i think this article is WAY too aggro (its an excellent clickbait title, but also tech journalists love to hate tech) i submitted anyway purely because this article seems noteworthy and is generating significant online debate on pmarca’s latest.

my personal 2 cents is simply that it’s a lot of words for “it’s time to build”. on that, pmarca was correct.

The writers seem like they are every bit as much in the bubble as Marc Andreessen

> San Francisco is[...] one of the most unequal places in the universe, both socially and economically.

Economically, agreed.

However, to say that SF, one of the most progressive cities on the planet, is one of the most "unequal places in the universe" with regard to social equality is completely ridiculous.

If it were true, I should be able to pick a random city from a random country out of a hat, and much more likely than not say "this city has less social inequality than SF". Under any reasonable definition of social equality, that's not going to happen.

The notion that "talking to a poor person" would somehow illuminate any of the issues that the author is talking about is laughable. Folk economic beliefs are notoriously terrible. Shedding crocodile tears about how poverty will still exist in the techno-utopian future is a way of attacking a strawman. Focusing on the plight of San Francisco in particular is backwards thinking, since Andreessen is undoubtedly more concerned about global metrics than parochial, highly-localized ones. No one should care that much if tech is driving up the Gini coefficient in SF if it's driving down global Gini.

Yeah, sure! Especially if you don't live in the affected area, right?

If someone builds a company and becomes crazy rich - is that a good thing or a bad thing for society?

One interesting paradox I always think about when it comes to this debate is that every dollar owned by a rich person is worth nothing to them until they give it to another person. You can't eat money.

So one man's wealth is another man's income.

A problem only arises when the rich person spends that money on luxury. Like when he builds and maintains a huge house for himself. With lots of butlers and gardeners etc. All that work could have been spent on building a factory, a park or a museum for everybody instead.

But if the rich person uses their money to hire people and build another company - that is a good thing. Even if they become twice as rich in the process.

So the problem is not how rich some people are.

But how much energy society spends on luxury.

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