Everything Looks Like a Nail
wheresyoured.at
wheresyoured.at
It's an unfocused rant pretending to be a refutation.
His thesis is wrong because it does not match with his actions and betrays a total ignorance of many things, all of which I laid out in the piece. It feels weird to judge me for making bold and direct statements about a piece where someone listed literal enemies!
Your focus seems to primarily be on highlighting supposed hypocrisies between the man and the ideas he espouses, and using the former in an attempt to discredit the latter. Criticizing an idea by criticizing the person who holds the idea isn't criticizing the idea at all, it's ad hominem. It's fallacious at best, and malicious at worst, and you spend the first four paragraphs of the article painting Andreessen in the ugliest light possible before touching on the content of his thoughts (which are still punctuated with bitter assertions of his being fundamentally flawed as a person, to put it politely).
Whether he speaks from 'privilege' or not is irrelevant to his ideas holding water or not; if the richest, most-obnoxious caricature of man on Earth were to say "drink plenty of water, get at least light exercise in every day, avoid toxic environments and be sure to get enough sleep to lead a healthier life," would it make it any less valid than if a homeless man said it? The former could just as easily be dismissed as speaking from a place of privilege, being in a position to be able to satisfy all of those things without worry of being stuck in a toxic work environment, living in a noisy apartment complex that prevents a healthy sleep cycle, or not having access to clean water, but that's entirely irrelevant to whether they are healthy habits to adopt or not.
Perspective is also an arbitrary qualifier to an idea's validity. If one man throws a rock at another's head, and he screams and clutches his head, both immediately become acutely aware that getting hit in the head with a rock hurts a lot. The act of not personally receiving a terrible blow to the head does not prevent that understanding. Likewise, whether or not someone is rich enough to have no worldly concerns is irrelevant to an idea being substantiated by empirical evidence and philosophical validity.
Another commenter mentioned that they'd like to see Andreessen's brain picked further on the matters he listed to see if he actually possesses a nuanced understanding of what he's saying and can rationally defend them, or if he's just chosen arguments that support pre-existing notions based on a topical understanding of them. I feel that that's what it would take to accurately assess his personal connection to the ideas as it relates to his status, if that's your aim. If critiquing the ideas themselves are your goal, it would take an evaluation of the value hierarchy of the ideas themselves for contradictions or inconsistency, probably starting by reading some of his cited authors.
Ideas are instrumental, they're advanced to achieve a specific purpose and their truth and falsity is important to the extent that they affect the instrumentality. You simply cannot separate out an idea from the person advancing the idea because the important question is not one idea in isolation, but of all the universe of ideas, why are we paying attention to this one, right now, towards what ends?
You're absolutely right, we live in an objective reality where the basis of an idea can be analyzed and tested against said reality, and not invalidated because we don't like the person who said them.
> Ideas are instrumental, they're advanced to achieve a specific purpose and their truth and falsity is important to the extent that they affect the instrumentality. > ...why are we paying attention to this one, right now, towards what ends?
Absolutely, and Andreessen makes it clear he thinks his set of ideas would benefit the conditions of humanity as a whole, there's no ambiguity there.
> You simply cannot separate out an idea from the person advancing the idea...
You absolutely can, and it would be of enormous benefit to assess an idea independently of inflammatory rhetoric surrounding the speaker.
You as well as the author seem to be of the mind that Andreessen's holding of these ideas are wrong based solely on the fact that he himself is wildly successful, not because of any thoughtful critique of the ideas themselves. Intellectual default isn't a virtue; either address the claims themselves, or stop pretending that conspiratorial meta-analysis is an honest addressment.
I also feel like we as a society have a lot of hard work that needs doing, but everyone is too busy yelling at each other. There's a lot of water in the bilge, and I'd really love it if I saw someone holding a bucket.
There's a large segment of the population—with decent representation right here on HN—that genuinely believes that if you're rich, then you must have gotten there by being smarter, or in some other way inherently superior, to the rest of us who aren't.
Here's the depressing reality: there are a lot of people in the bilge with buckets, quietly bailing like mad so they don't drown. I'm not just talking IT personnel here, there are legions of under-appreciated, underpayed essential workers (more than just healthcare professionals) that keep our civilization afloat. You don't hear from them, because they are a) too busy getting shit done, and b) disenfranchised (this includes not getting time off work to vote).
The irony is you are distracted by the peacocks strutting about on deck debating whether we should even admit the bilge is filling up.
His answer would show if he has an appropriately nuanced view of the world or is lulled into cliched thought patterns.
Plenty of those authors – especially the formal economists – have written extensively on what the state does well & poorly.
But really, why insist on a x-ray of the author – "is he nuanced enough in all things?!?" – rather than directly assessing the 5200 words he chose to offer?
I think I covered this in both previous comments but I’ll try to clarify further.
It’s because his 5200 words don’t appear (to me, at least) to portray a nuanced worldview. It comes across as an overly simplistic mental model of “technology, economic growth, and free markets are inherently good. Just see this list of very smart people who agree.” I would like him to elaborate further because, IMO, their real world is far too complex for a simplistic model and I’d like his insight on where he thinks that model hits limitations. Otherwise, his manifesto reads as a bunch of simple platitudes rather than a well thought out philosophy.
To circle back to just one example previously mentioned, in his manifesto, he quotes Smith in terms of the advantages of self-interest. Andreesen espouses the virtues of self-interest, but seemingly makes no mention of the "sympathies" Smith admits are necessary to temper the downsides of selfish behavior where behavior should be "judged that the interest of the great society of mankind would be best promoted". That feels like a very different takeaway than the way Andreessen quotes Smith in the manifesto. Andreessen actually makes the opposite point, namely that selfish behavior need not address shared humanity. So, when he mentions Adam Smith in his list of "Techno-Optimist" references, am I to assume he only condones the former, more limited (but popular) view of Smith? That would be a seemingly constrained viewpoint of a much more nuanced position. Maybe he has good reason to throw out that more nuanced perspective; only he can say. But a cynic might say he's cherry-picking to conform to his preconceived notions. I.e., one might conclude he's trying to make the facts fit his conclusion rather than the other way around. "Digging deeper" doesn't clarify his own principles; it just muddles them. That's why I'd prefer to hear it from him to elaborate beyond mere platitudes.
It's at the very least starting with VCs/certain founders. Will be interesting to see how this trickles down to the company culture level.
It isn't anything surprising to read from Andressen, rich capitalist wants "the market" to regulate everything and claims we're being lied to (note - without any data), and we should trust him and people like him to guide society to a better place since we're here thanks to him and his predecessors in the first place. The planet is burning, wealth distribution has been on the decline for years, there's the opioid crisis, the subprime crisis, and all these things, but we should keep our faith in the market because it obviously works so well, and we're the ones who don't see the light of truth for the beauty it is.
I used to have some respect for him, mostly because of "hard things", but I guess this kind of point of view comes with the job and wealth
I am very much convinced that a big downside to being rich is it allows your opinions to ossify. No matter where you started, how hard you worked, or how world-changing (debatable) someone's contributions were, once they get power (in any form, but especially money), it insulates one against having to change. I'm not advocating for austerity all the time, but it's painfully obvious from pretty much every "self-made man" that made it big that they are living in a bubble, full of yes-men because they fired all the people who had the temerity to say "hey, perhaps that's not quite right."
Even though I'm slightly above average in a number of markers and I've taken pains to expand my horizons and take on differing POVs, I'm still surprised (quite often!) by things I just had not thought of. And I'm not even rich, albeit I'm privileged enough to take long breaks from paying work.
A midlife crisis will do that to you.
But even then, people can and do alter their opinions as they learn and experience things. It just takes more for that to happen. That's as true of a 60 year old as a 30 year old.
I think it's a natural, explicable, and even good thing.
I've been with them on the phone and in waiting rooms, seeing firsthand how they have to navigate systems (both public and private) that are set up to fail -- public benefits systems that randomly corrupt their information and require them to prove they aren't defrauding the government, mental health hospitalizations that leave them more traumatized than when they entered, abusive bosses who take advantage of their precarity, systems that would leave me as an able-bodied/able-minded person absolutely exhausted and demoralized. And most of the time, all I can do is hug them, and send them money when things break down worse than usual.
It keeps me humble, and angry, and with a real sense of survivor's guilt.
That tendency has always been there, and the notion has always been ridiculous. It's up to the rest of us to make sure that we don't buy into that delusion as well.
"Light" characters are those that do no go gently into that good night. They are often passionate and naive.
"Dark" characters are those who understand the inevitability of entropy and also how it is a necessary power in the world (as it creates the arrow of time and thus all Stories)
Dark characters want to reduce the pain in the world by euthanizing it in some way, bringing about the inevitable instead of the vain struggle.
Light characters "win" by converting everyone they see into an ally and friend from going down the dark path by showing that the struggle itself is meaningful. This is the "anime friends unite and defeat God" trope.
Light: Naruto, Goku, Luffy, etc... Dark: Madara, Amelie (Death Stranding),etc.. Light struggling w Dark: Aang (last airbender) Dark struggling to be light: Kratos
Techno-optimists are a sort of interesting hybrid. They are often intellectually sophisticated enough to understand and bias towards a dark character but also occupy positions in society where you are obligated to be a light character that supports society.
This can feel cloying and fake and self duplicitous or it can feel manipulative and sociopathic. "Accelerate the production of entropy, for we will find a way to reverse it!"
So they are a dark character struggling to be light but not willing to give up the god-powers that come from tapping into the dark dimension.
So... basically the Ancient One from the marvel movies...
This explains the popularity of tech-spirituality. Because pure rationalism inevitably leads to the entropy-worship so there needs to be something more woo to counteract that inevitable conclusion.
You lost me before you even got started. Try something from the adult world.
Unclear who Sasuke is in this case but I will think about it
For something to be an actual example of ad hominem fallacy, the critic must use personal attacks on the author as a means of outright avoiding to engage with the author's arguments on their own merits. "XYZ is a domestic abuser, therefore we should not listen to XYZ on climate change." I don't see that happening here. The critic is attacking Andreessen's character and his arguments, and explaining how the two are linked.
Deflecting these sorts of arguments, which by definition necessarily involve attacks on another person's character, as "ad hominem fallacies" are themselves a different type of fallacy.
Those are applause-lines for those who already agree with Zitron. This is the bad & lazy & pandering kind of ad hominem.
What would that work look like? Let's just take the paragraph that starts with:
> Andreessen’s thinking is equal parts outdated and childish, ....
These are fair points to make, but you could have done a better job of tying these specific adjectives to the supporting content found in the rest of the essay. Okay, his thinking is outdated -- why? You go on later to describe how his manifesto is actually emblematic of a reactionary, versus a visionary, mindset. That gives you a solid argument for him inhabiting an outdated worldview. You just need to tie that argument to its thesis a bit more tightly. As it is, the thesis ("his thinking is outdated") is left dangling for a while without explicit anchors to your supporting arguments for it, while you go on to list other problems within that paragraph.
Likewise with "childish". Why is his thinking childish? There's probably a whole separate essay to be made about this point specifically. A reductive desire for simplicity in a complex world. Atlas Shrugged being a staple favorite of young, inexperienced men, and why that is. And so on. Again, you touch on these points, but your arguments are all spread out and overlaid on top of each other in a way that makes it easier for someone to perceive it as just a general airing of grievances.
Instead of these tightly-focused corroborated arguments, the first sentence of your paragraph concludes by saying: "...hinging heavily on the idea that the world needs more technology, and the way that we get more technology is through removing any barriers that might stop the tech industry and venture capitalists from monetizing every aspect of the modern world."
Well, okay -- but how is that childish? How is it outdated? One could argue that this sort of regulatory dismanting is actually not outdated at all. Immoral and anti-social, yes, but very much a product of our times. This is what I mean when I say that you're not linking your adjectives to your arguments. The second part of that sentence is almost orthogonal to the first part, unless we're just lumping everything together into the bucket of "things that make Marc Andreessen a shitty person".
Perhaps a more tightly focused structure would be:
"Andreessen may think that his worldview is forward-looking, but it's actually very typically reactionary. Here's what I mean. <arguments showing his similarity to other reactionary thinkers>"
Then, somewhat further, you could have a separate paragraph:
"Andreessen's manifesto often betrays an immature understanding of the true meaning behind the works that he cites. <examples>"
Which again, is effectively what you're doing, albeit in a gaussian-blurred, emotional appeal sort of way. I don't particularly mind that approach, but then again I'm not really in the audience that needs to be convinced that Marc Andreessen is a piece of shit. I'm in the choir.
For people who aren't, I think that lumping multiple negative statements together, and then only indirectly substantiating those at various places throughout the rest of the essay, isn't going to do much to convince them. I'm not saying that you should see it as your job to win those hearts and minds, but it will hold you back from doing so.
That being said, this piece is terrible.
Personally, it's because I see strong historical evidence that diversity is good and a diverse population is more fair, stronger and more resilient in the long term.
The first tell is that it links to 2 pages about Andreesen's wealth before the essay it purports to address. Always gotta wind up that prejudicial framing before discussing anything substantive!
The next tell is that (again before mentioning the essay) it alleges another unsympathetic claim – that Andreesen "wants you to believe he’s a victim" – that isn't actually in the text.
In the 'manifesto', Andreesen never says 'I', nor refers to personal biography, nor claims individual harms/injustices, nor requests personal relief. He's speaking from a perspective larger than just him personally, and advancing a viewpoint that rejects the 'victim' role.
And so Zitron is really confessing more about himself & his particular pissy clique of agenda-driven journalists, and how he's trapped in a overpowering frame of class resentments and hierarchical-claims-of-victimization, than he's refuting Andreesen's text.
Zitron can't even see Andreesen's text, over all the extra ideological baggage & projections he's bringing.
But upon starting to speak of the label teased in the title, 'Techno-Optimists', he shifts to using 'we' to describe that group, via progressive definition with each successive "we".
The shift from "potentially everybody" to "those defined by this creed" invites the reader to consider: "am I part of this 'we'?"
What other possibilities for what 'we' means do you see in the text?