The Religion of Techno-Optimism
disconnect.blog
disconnect.blog
>TRUTH:
> We are being lied to.
> We are told that technology takes our jobs, reduces our wages, increases inequality, threatens our health, ruins the environment, degrades our society, corrupts our children, impairs our humanity, threatens our future, and is ever on the verge of ruining everything.
> We are told to be angry, bitter, and resentful about technology.
> We are told to be pessimistic.
> The myth of Prometheus – in various updated forms like Frankenstein, Oppenheimer, and Terminator – haunts our nightmares.
> We are told to denounce our birthright – our intelligence, our control over nature, our ability to build a better world.
> We are told to be miserable about the future.
Yep, Silicon Valley has become its own cult now.
Maybe even worse, they are still best friends with big finance.
Even still it is impossible to avoid the constant deluge of how bad and dystopian technology is or will be. One of my favorite examples was going to Wired's website and seeing front page an article about how the NASA Dart mission could be negative because of space debris. Here we have humans developing a way to defend ourselves against meteoric extinction and we are looking at the downsides of a small amount of byproduct space debris in the infinite expanse of space.
Go to the technology subreddit and count how many upvoted posts have positive sentiment versus negative sentiment. You don't have to agree with the rest of what Mark says to see the validity in how pessimistic the views presented to us are about technology.
If this demonstrates anything at all, it's that we somehow lost or are in the process of losing all nuance.
Reality is rarely black and white. You can have both sides of the medal at the same time, or at different times, overshooting to one side or to the other.
The only truth here is that nobody gives a click/like for the hard process of working with real reality. It's much easier to fall for the trap of one side vs. the other. But there are no easy solutions.
This is the point in which I closed the article. The end of the first paragraph.
Look at any major technology and you'll have armies of people talking about the downsides. You'll see that a cure for sickle cell is created and then you'll see everyone complaining that it's only for the rich. Ignoring every cost curve in history and the fact that these companies make the most money by being able to sell to the average consumer. Apple is worth a 3 trillion because its products can be afforded by almost anyone in the first world and a large number in developing countries (especially if a few years old).
Another good book in the same vein is Technopoly by Neil Postman: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technopoly.
> There’s ample evidence that neither Andreessen, nor Musk, nor any of the rest of them will be able to realize the futures they promise. Those visions only exist to keep us distracted from the real harms caused by their companies.
I agree that they won't be able to deliver on their promises, and those promises serve as a distraction. However I'm not so sure the distraction is a deliberate deception. I think it's quite possible the "Silicon Valley elite" are delusional ("high on their own supply") and engaging in a lot of self-serving self-deception. It's also possible their promises are knowing lies. The reality is probably some combination of the two.
The Futurists were seen as a “a church of speed and violence,” wrote Eveleth, or we might say of moving fast and breaking things.
P.S., this author doesn't know much about Futurism, as this sentence should make clear.
What I would really like to see is a deeper analysis of how historical American religious trends (the Protestant Work ethic, for example) have shaped attitudes toward wealth, success, and so on in Silicon Valley.
When someone with his power and wealth starts quoting proto-fascists among other far right-wing figures, even ridiculous ones like Ayn Rand, I think we need to start paying attention.
The Italian Futurists were also not "proto-fascists", they were an art movement of which a small proportion of which later became involved with fascism. And hell, if quoting Ayn Rand is cause for concern, then half of American entrepreneurs must be political radicals. The fact that he supposedly quotes Italian "fascists" and Ayn Rand (who are essentially on opposite sides of the political compass) should make it obvious that there is no ideology at work here.
The founder of (Italian) Futurism, Marinetti, who is also the specific person that Andreesen quotes and includes as a saint of Techno-Optimism, was a supporter of Mussolini, directly. As in, he founded a political party and later merged it with Mussolini's fascist party, of which he became one of the first members.
Also, both Ayn Rand and fascism - particularly the Futurist fascists - are very much on the same side of the political compass on most issues. Ayn Rand sees her philosophy as "anarchist", but she very much believes that lesser people should follow the Great Men who are the only ones who actually know what is good for everyone.
As to how much Andreesen's published opinions are sincerely held or incoherent and just for show, I don't know. But fascism is on the rise again and it is still important to criticize those who espouse its virtues, even if only for show.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistory/comments/10to92r/how_did...
> Also, both Ayn Rand and fascism - particularly the Futurist fascists - are very much on the same side of the political compass on most issues.
No, not really, and other than being labeled "right wing," which is itself a useless designation, they really have nothing in common at all on any significant level. A world run by Randians is very different from one run by fascists. This is...a basic fact.
In any case, my overall point was merely that Andreesen et al are mostly just marketers who almost certainly don't understand/know the complex history of the people they're quoting – nor do the people using these quotes to tar them with an oversimplified label.
Also, while I don't think Ayn Rand saw it that way, I think it's pretty clear that her objectivism has the same Great Men ideology as much of fascist thought, and the same disdain for democracy, religion, and the needs of the people. It's true that objectivism is more individualistic while fascism is more collectivist, but they amount to the same observation in the end: the Great Men naturally rule over the unwashed masses.
After complaining about this extremist point of view, the author goes on to compare tech optimism with fascism. Equally droll.
>Silicon Valley has made faith-based appeals for years, if not decades.
I've never been to silicon valley. I hear it's beautiful though. I'm going to respond more toward the manifesto from here. Not so much OP anymore, their negativity isn't useful. Somehow going from an optimistic manifesto to Andreessen is Benito Mussolini and fascist is more a reflection on OP and not anything else. They project their own mental health issues here.
>We are being lied to.
We are, and it's so bad for humanity. People believe completely incorrect things. They are told to distrust their neighbour and never help each other. It's so sad. They are told to turn up their nose to the homeless, step over them or avoid them. So sad.
>Our civilization is built on technology.
Welcome to the tech revolution. We have for the first time ever been able to communicate with each other at scale. We have learnt that the media has been lying to us and pinning us against each other. When in reality everyone in my community is a really good person. Completely unlike we are taught to believe.
>We are told to be miserable about the future.
We are at the precipice of a major food breakthrough which should eliminate world hunger; soon. High quality food might end up at a nominal cost where advertising will cover the cost of a meal. Science/technology is saving humanity. I literally cant fathom a reason to be miserable. I just wish I can contribute to this in some way.
We now know the cure to cancer. We now know the fix to heart disease. We must deal with this reality of eliminating most of the major causes of early death. We must go into an amazing future with far greater life expectancy. Scary, world population about to climb a great deal. We don't know what this future looks like. No doubt this is triggering the malthusians, they do seem to be pushing birth control, abortion, and telling you not to have kids. They are trying to convince you to go against your own nature. Bizarre how successful they have been.
>I am here to bring the good news.
So far I'm loving everything about this manifesto.
>We believe not growing is stagnation, which leads to zero-sum thinking, internal fighting, degradation, collapse, and ultimately death.
I'm like 10% into this manifesto and frankly I feel like I'm 100% aligned. Dare I even just say I'm right there with the rest of it and not go line by line lol? Without even reading it?
Dare I say I'm a techno-optimist without finishing reading this? It has been that correct so far.
>You're posting too fast. Please slow down. Thanks.
Guess I'm not allowed to be supportive of this manifesto? I'm getting shadow banned on HN? I barely even came back... checking my posts I haven't been able to post 2 in hours. What exactly is 'too fast' about posting nothing for 2 hours. Why is HN not allowing discussions?
While I remain shadow banned, I continued to read. I did find something I didn't agree with... took some effort. I really wanted to find something I disagreed with.
>We believe any deceleration of AI will cost lives. Deaths that were preventable by the AI that was prevented from existing is a form of murder.
I think perhaps murder isn't the right word. Unethical? Immoral? Sure. Murder? Probably not. I don't agree with the statement as it stands.
>Patron Saints of Techno-Optimism
I guess it is a religion? There isn't a church near me, but I'm a convert. Am I allowed to open a church? I literally found nothing else to disagree with here. If this is a religion I'm joining.
3 hours, still shadow banned on HN. Let's see if I can post.
These pessimists like the writer are usually committed to an ideology that views humans as evil and wasteful (as if those values hold any value to an inert universe) and that we must fail in order to show us our evil ways. The writer is claiming that technology has failed to produce large productivity gains. He's not clear on the timeframe but yet he's typing on a laptop utilizing micro-processors and the internet to share his message. He's writing on a blog enabling him to reach audiences across the whole world and get paid to do so.
He's sitting in a post-covid world where our economies were saved by advanced telecommunications networks and video-conferencing technologies. Where millions of lives were saved from MRNA vaccines (technology), that were developed in record time. They were developed in record time by sharing the data realtime via the internet (technology), and Moderna even used AI (technology) to develop the vaccine in 2 days within computer space before physical production. Yep, an effective vaccine designed in 2 days certainly isn't a productivity boost /s
People that are pessimistic about human's abilities to solve problems with the application of science (technology) usually do so for moralistic or philosophical reasons, not for anything grounded in reality. If something isn't ruled out by the laws of physics it is possible to do given the right scientific knowledge.
Even taking this at face value, their point still holds that "improving things" is not a positive or even a neutral value in itself. If the something you make easier is stalking or genocide you've made the world worse. You need a viewpoint outside of mere technological improvement to decide which changes are valuable and which are not.
Valuing technology for its own sake absent this viewpoint will have you enabling atrocity. Which is, I think, exactly the "pessimist" position here. Andreesen & co are saying that mere advance is inherently good and they are saying no, it obviously is not.
The pessimist position is that there are some technologies so destructive that by pure chance once we develop them we will extinct ourselves.
The optimist position is that problems inevitably arise in a complex universe but that humans are problem solvers (within the bounds of physics) and that it is possible to address them.
A classic example of pessimists is that you could develop a 3D printing machine allowing the regular person to create bioweapons easily. Yet they don't apply the same logic of if a technology is that powerful, it can be easily used to instantly create the antidote/vaccine to any bioweapon developed using it.
The optimists believe that technological advancement on the whole is good because the good cases take care of themselves and the bad cases can be solved with human ingenuity. The alternative of halting progress or centralizing control of technology is worse. Example: around 40k americans die per year in auto-accidents. Every year that self-driving cars are delayed, 40 thousand americans die. The alternative is the already bad status quo or problems we dont see coming like pandemics or asteroids or solar flares - which we will not have the technology to address without faster progress.
And just because development can't or shouldn't be completely stopped doesn't mean you can throw up your hands and do nothing either. The (so far) success of nuclear deterrance and nonproliferation for example is the result of a massive, coordinated, and preemptive attempt to constrain the technology.
For example, to predict in the 1970's TCP/IP would be used to enable bitcoin would be articulating the invention of bitcoin. Nobody predicted it, it was creatively developed using technologies that the founders invented with no idea it would be used for cryptocurrency.
You can always find a reason to be a doomer about the technology because it's easier to predict negative consequences than to predict the good that will come of it. To argue the negative side, one must only create a hypothetical. To argue the positive, one must practically invent the positive use-case which requires work and creativity.
You can say CRISPR is far too dangerous and allows for designer babies, a moral dilemma. This creates a strong hypothetical argument right off the bat, but for it to be proven a beneficial technology it actually needs the time to develop positive use cases like curing sickle cell disease.
There are a good number of anthropologists I've read and heard speak who through their research have come to believe on the whole pre-agrarian humans were the happiest to ever walk the earth. They "worked" about 15 hours a week.
I think we're flattering ourselves thinking the modern world is really any better for most people.