As someone that now classifies themselves as an optimistic techno realist, because Silicon Valley techbros like Marc Andreesen have propagated a society eating metastic cancer version of it over the 21st century, I found Mike Masnick's year end essay spot on.
"It’s one thing to be a techno optimist. I still very much consider myself to be one. I said years ago that the reason Techdirt exists is to try to advocate against those seeking to hold back innovation, because I believe the advantages of innovation are tremendous. That sounds similar to Marc’s manifesto, but the big difference is that I recognize that part of seeing through to that kind of future, where innovation comes faster and more widely distributed than it would otherwise be, is to not fuck it up in the process...Andreessen’s version is that we should just ignore the bad and the good will magically wipe out all the bad. That’s not just simplistic, it’s ahistorical..."
#SiliconValley#TechnoOptimism#BigTech: "Despite their promise of economic miracles, the tech industry has not fueled a productivity explosion as their language would often suggest. They promised AI and robots would wipe out an unprecedented number of jobs through the 2010s, but that didn’t ultimately happen. Instead digital technologies were weaponized by bosses against workers at companies like Amazon and Uber before rolling out across the economy, while productivity grew at its lowest rate in decades. Don’t even get me started on the distraction caused by social media and our smartphones, filled with apps designed to capture our attention with constant minor dopamine hits.
But none of these facts really matter when you look at the deeper message of the manifesto. Andreessen is not making a pitch grounded in reality. He’s not laying out facts and figures to show you why you should trust him because the truth doesn’t matter. It’s more about vibes. He’s asking techno-optimists, e/acc adherents, and the wider public to place their faith in the barons of the tech industry to solve the problems that politicians and other powerful figures can’t seem to properly address, while making up false reasons that justify granting them further power."
I'm going to make everything worse now by pointing out that the #TechnoOptimism#manifesto can be shortened to TOM so technically you could refer to #Andreessen as “Uncle Tom”.
“We [a16z] believe Artificial Intelligence is our alchemy, our Philosopher’s Stone—we are literally making sand think”
I dunno bro, maybe sand just wants to be sand? Maybe, if we make sand think, all it will want is for everything everywhere to be sand.
We’ll all return to being sand eventually, but I’d rather not expedite the process only for a small entourage of “supermen” to blast off into space in search of other planet-minds to enlighten with sand-consciousness.
If you want to destroy your brain with frothy SV technocapitalist rhetoric as well as the news this week, this would be a fantastic starting point. I’ve been staring at it for awhile and I’m just going to have to come back to it later.
@kissane I've been using #TechnoOptimism as an Evernote tag for 15 yrs & this is a great exemplar of what you'd find under it.
"Techno-Optimists believe that societies, like sharks, grow or die." Yeh but what happens when you can't grow anymore? Or when the way you're growing is going to kill you?
"The world they are invoking is one where (1) neoliberalism spread everywhere, and works great, (2) its benefits are widely distributed, (3) scientific and technological breakthroughs become easier and faster with time, and (4) on balance, none of those scientific or technological breakthroughs are used for harm.