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Comment by yanderekko | Hacker News Reader

>Andreessen’s newly espoused ideology did not spring up in a vacuum. Instead, it’s part of a broader movement that seeks to take all the guardrails off of technological development and push forward with “progress,” whatever the cost may be.

Pretty clear strawman starting at the third paragraph. I'm sure we could dig up many more.

This article is just a snarky rant. Embarassing.

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How is that a strawman?

> a broader movement that seeks to take all the guardrails off of technological development and push forward with “progress,” whatever the cost may be.

The manifesto starts with this as a defining motif. Growth is life, no-growth is death. Homeostasis be damned!

Do you seriously think that Andreesen would advocate for technological progress regardless of an arbitrarily high cost to human welfare?

When he's one of the biggest backers of the surveillance state and is advocating for even more of that.. yep. I do.

I'll raise a strawman of my own: pretty indicative to see one of the co-authors of the Fascist Manifesto listed in Andreessen's list of "patron saints".

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

Yes? I think that's pretty clearly what he's advocating in his manifesto that we're discussing.

Thanks for the assist, amigo

The quote given isn't a strawman though, it's a perfectly valid summary of just a few points from the actual manifesto:

    Techno-Optimists believe that societies, like sharks, grow or die.

    We believe growth is progress – leading to vitality, expansion of life, increasing knowledge, higher well being.

    We agree with Paul Collier when he says, “Economic growth is not a cure-all, but lack of growth is a kill-all.”

    ...

    Our enemy is corruption, regulatory capture, monopolies, cartels.

https://a16z.com/the-techno-optimist-manifesto/

It's all in for unlimited growth, unlimited consumption, unlimited population, zero regulation, magic free market will fix things.

You can argue for or against that vision, but you can't claim that the above is not his manifesto.

It's very clearly a distortion and not a valid summary of the manifest. Monopolies and captured regulators are not the same thing as "guardrails" in the authors summary.

You may benefit from reading about what straw man arguments are before commenting further.

That's quite the attitude you have there.

You also might benefit from further education.

I'd strongly suggest you start with reading the full manifesto and not rely on technical point scoring on the basis of short quotes.

I did read the manifesto, and while we can all benefit from more education, you, specifically, would benefit from learning what a straw man is.

Hint: All I have to do to prove the rebuttal relies on a straw man is to show that it mischaracterized or meaningfully distorts the ideas in the manifesto. I have done that.

And as we all know, sharks grow indefinitely and never die. That's why ancient sharks are still alive and outmass the planet itself.

That's definitely the model we should be aiming for.

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