Silicon Valley Techno-Utopianism

nor is it part of a WORLD WAR THREE scenario

in case anyone is feeling too cheerful about humanity and needs a hate read to bring them down: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/16/powder-mountain-ski-resort-summit-elite-club-rich-millennials

He tells me he’s open to the suggestion that his community is elitist – “these criticisms, there’s a truth to them” – and insists that he strives to make authentic connections with people from all walks of life. For example, he says, earlier in the day he met a worker at the ski resort who was taking guests on a tour. “I literally could have said, ‘All right, have an awesome tour,’ and instead I was like, ‘So, you’re here all year?’ And he goes, ‘No, I’m actually from New Orleans.’ And I’m like, ‘Really?’” Bisnow says he behaves the same way with servers in restaurants. “When you start to engage with these people you realise the humanity in everyone and how unbelievable they are.” Then he explains how he always sits in the front seat of Uber taxis, talking to dozens of drivers a week, hearing “the most remarkable stories”. He ends up hanging out “with a significant number” of his drivers. I ask how many Uber drivers he’s invited to Summit. He doesn’t say, but instead tells me an anecdote about a chef he invited to Summit after meeting him “at this dilapidated castle in England”.

to cook him some food

there's been so much worse news this week than a rich kid trying to listen to people who work for him

heh

YouTube shooting highlights danger of open work spaces, expert says. https://t.co/5n3bFhjuYM pic.twitter.com/5gVt73titH

— ABC News (@ABC) April 5, 2018

finally the best argument for offices with walls: they're necessary to keep you safe when people come to shoot at you

blurgh

#notallcourtyards

YouTube shooting highlights danger of open work spaces, expert says.

oh ffs. has this fucking expert ever noticed the danger of hundreds of millions of easily available guns?

just think of what a huge security risk the outdoors is

that's why I stay inside

Tbh I have no objection to office workers using shootings as a reason to protest open plan offices

Or an excuse, rather.

i'd had this in instapaper since it was published and finally got around to reading it

whoooo boy it has not aged well

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/10/sam-altmans-manifest-destiny

I jumped in on a twitter thread criticizing his trite tweets

for me, throwing out ideas is dumb postulating, but there's the aura of ~ideas~ every time one of these VC/incubator dudes says something. what's their game here, just ruminating about an idea and then crowdsourcing to see if anyone's on it and throwing money at them?

I’m interested in genetically engineering plants to be much more efficient at photosynthesis and grow faster as a potential way to fight climate change. Anyone working on this?

— Sam Altman (@sama) April 1, 2018

if I wanted to know about something like this, I'd.. google it? and maybe go to a few sites that publish academic papers, read up a little (or have my assistants do it, if I am running a business and have them) and then maybe reach out to scientists who are already experts in that realm?

I guess this is why I'm not a VC wonderboy

i don't see how anything could go wrong with this

I realized again last week that I'd love to see more government and academic labs doing things. A national lab that was connected to my college had a segment on public radio for their anniversary and they mentioned this project:
https://www.energy.gov/articles/after-15-years-new-top-earning-patent-ames-lab

The patent's expired now, but it's work that resulted in something that's definitely good for both industry and the environment, and not subject to some VC clown figuring out how to skim the profits.

mh he's not doing research he's soliciting pitches

yeah, fuck that approach

or at least figure out who you should solicit pitches from, other than "random twitter people"

the people who actually know their shit are probably busy doing research, but I guess there's the chance a couple might be hunting around for monetization strategies or funding

That Sam Altman tweet just seems like he's plowing the ground for someone to pull off The Big Con on him.

good afternoon NYC, what fresh hell is this pic.twitter.com/y6gv32emdy

— Tim Maughan (@timmaughan) April 5, 2018

lol @ genetically engineered plansourcing. i suppose he never opened a 3rd grade science textbook

I'm going to "schedule time" and rent jabbbbbrrrrboxes and tell homeless people they can spend the night.

Nice ep of On the Media on the ideology of FB and SV as a whole:

http://www.wnycstudios.org/story/on-the-media-2018-03-23/

(Even mentions Comte)

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/apr/17/get-rich-quick-silicon-valley-startup-billionaire-techie

oh boy

“I worked until 9pm because dinner is free if you work that late ... And they’ll pay for your cab home,” he went on. That became his routine, and he never questioned it. Come to think of it, like a lot of his contemporaries, he never questioned anything.

Corey Pein has been hitting the lefty podcast circuit on his book tour, and this was a fun appearance on the Michael Brooks Show:

http://michaelbrooksshow.libsyn.com/website/37-stomping-fascist-nerds-w-h-bomberguy-corey-pein

Lots of dumping of Elon Musk and the bizarre cult around him online

The chief executive and co-founder of WhatsApp, the Facebook-owned messaging app, is leaving the company over disagreements about privacy and encryption.

Jan Koum will also step down from Facebook’s board of directors, a role he negotiated when WhatsApp was acquired by Facebook for $19bn in 2014, according to the Washington Post.

“It’s been almost a decade since Brian [Acton] and I started WhatsApp, and it’s been an amazing journey with some of the best people. But it is time for me to move on,” wrote Koum on his Facebook profile.

“I’m taking some time off to do things I enjoy outside of technology, such as collecting rare air-cooled Porsches, working on my cars and playing ultimate frisbee. And I’ll still be cheering WhatsApp on – just from the outside.”

i am leaving the company i founded because its current direction conflicts with my high-minded principles

don't worry tho i'm still an asshole

No he feeds the Porsches to his cars.

you don't understand, 'rare air-cooled porsches' is the name of my dog

imagine being a human being and thinking that is an even vaguely acceptable thing to say

Sounds like the kind of shit professional athletes say all the time and nobody bats an eye

But yes who can we drag at Facebook if not the people actually resigning from Facebook? Can’t think of anyone

if i ever listened to anything professional athletes had to say i'm sure i'd feel the same 'ready the guillotines' way i do about this dipshit

Anyway, between this and the other WhatsApp founder putting a bunch of his millions into Open Whisper Systems (the Signal people), I assume WhatsApp’s default encryption is going to be Zuck-read-all sooner rather than later

But yes who can we drag at Facebook if not the people actually resigning from Facebook? Can’t think of anyone

― El Tomboto

the enemy of my enemy is still an insufferable prick

I think a more legitimate criticism of WhatsApp is: what did they think was going to happen to WhatsApp at Facebook? The answer of course is they knew precisely what would happen, but it was worth 19bn to them, and they knew they could resign 4 years after the acquisition with the vested money in the bank, and that would be long enough for them to claim it was a principled privacy stand.

or facebook would have actually succeeded at some point in ousting their messaging platform supremacy -- fat chance on that one for every country that isn't in north america -- and it was take $19bn now or not much of anything much later after fighting facebook for a few grueling years

if this was the late 90s/early 00s and it was microsoft instead of facebook, we'd have been treated to a couple shittier versions of whatsapp before they decided to roll it into a product with a name like Skype International Messenger and then quietly killed it off a few years later

See also Google Hangouts, Google Allo, etc

I think hangouts has a boost from people using android phones but I'm unsure

No that strategy is over. the new Google thing is bullying carriers into implementing a richer SMS successor that is totally transparent to the carrier and not encrypted at all

what could possibly go wrong

I lol'd

https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/aaron-traywick-dead-biohack-ascendance-tank-herpes-12878414.php

that is some Darwin Awards shit

I've got so much morbid curiosity about what the hell actually killed him

injecting weird shit is definitely the obvious answer, but...

assholism

a good summary of why foucault was right and the techno-utopians were wrong:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/05/i-watched-an-entire-flat-earth-convention-for-my-research-heres-what-i-learned/

https://catalystjournal.org/index.php/catalyst/article/view/29638/html

i haven't fully digested this, but i do agree that IDEO extremely sucks