Silicon Valley Techno-Utopianism

the wheel

the toilet

the smallpox vaccine

For real though instead of NFTs can't we just docusign stuff?

the toilet

xp - seriously, why isn't Grimes headlining the Docusign conference?

pic.twitter.com/mmdI3ioIOf

— Nitasha Tiku (@nitashatiku) March 12, 2021

I'm howling

is this intentional or unintentional comedy?

The North Sentinelese in the Andaman Islands don't have wheels or smallpox vaccines. They may have toilets and/or bowls, nobody knows.

The part about watching Jackson do design work live on twitch is the clincher.

why does she speak like TTS software?

This is extremely good and fascinating. Still not done with it:

https://www.thedigradio.com/podcast/counterculture-to-cyberculture-with-fred-turner/

Anyone gonna watch this? I don't know.. the founder guy looks kinda like the Night Stalker

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVAESeO7dgc

Mind Capitalism: Braindreessen Horowitz pic.twitter.com/2OxuHn8r0s

— Ed Zitron (@edzitron) May 4, 2021

What?

Okay at first I thought it was inexplicable, then I thought it was some kind of sinister prank the universe was playing on me, but now I'm just really enjoying how dumb this tweet is. Man just had a thought and tweeted it without any of the wiser parts of the brain stepping in, they were just as transfixed as the rest of us.

this whole basecamp thing has been amazing

It's been a case study in how to set your company on fire

I’m learning some leadership lessons certainly, like “don’t call in to the very sensitive all-hands from bed”

my grad school adviser was a huge basecamp stan so I've been following it a bit, the whole thing to me really smacks of all the white tech guys I've encountered in undergrad/grad education at tech schools—the reactionary way of dealing with these conversations is basically an across-the-board thing, especially the general "I just want to build cool shit, why do we have to talk about things that are so ambiguous and divisive? also I have not experienced white supremacy or done it so it doesn't exist."

wait, what is this thing?

https://www.platformer.news/p/-how-basecamp-blew-up

if you're outside tech then they're obviously awful people just based on this story, but there's a huge amount of schadenfreude inside tech too because they've written a bunch of very strident "here's how to run a company" books.

Picked this book authored by the Basecamp co-founders off of the shelf and opened it to a section I had highlighted when I first read it. 🙄 pic.twitter.com/aJHptrC8XK

— JT (@thejoshtorres) May 4, 2021

Picked this book authored by the Basecamp co-founders off of the shelf and opened it to a section I had highlighted when I first read it. 🙄 pic.twitter.com/aJHptrC8XK

— JT (@thejoshtorres) May 4, 2021

more coverage: https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/3/22418208/basecamp-all-hands-meeting-employee-resignations-buyouts-implosion

I’m learning some leadership lessons certainly, like “don’t call in to the very sensitive all-hands from bed”

I thought this had to be a joke

dan m, I think that Verge piece is exactly the same as what mookieproof posted?

weird, I assumed since it was a separate URL that it would have been different, my bad

So this kerfufle was triggered by employees posting to ilx's "Abysmal Real Names" thread?

Feels good to not know what Basecamp does.

^^

dan m, I think that Verge piece is exactly the same as what mookieproof posted?

― 80's hair metal , and good praise music ! (DJP), Tuesday, May 4, 2021 1:59 PM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

i think the author has a deal where he's allowed to post his stuff to his own site (which he sells subscriptions for) and the verge pays him to syndicate it.

the basecamp thing is definitely one of those “we’re the good guys” scenarios where leadership was even “doing the work” by telling the employees about the books they were reading, only for the employees to say “hey, maybe we’re doing some things wrong” only for the boss to point at the “we’re the good guys” sign on the wall

Ha otm.

I read their book about remote work when I went remote and it’s no better than any airport business book but it’s written in that y combinator style that simulates clear thinking.

Ironically for ilx I am reading this right now https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3828902 (who was into this idea and posted about it in re: Arsenal? I can’t remember). I kind of thought it was a cult 70s thing like the whole earth catalog and chaos theory etc. bit I saw it recommended a bunch and it is at least very short so I’m giving it a shot.

I was going to post "The Limits to Growth was a huge deal" but my supervisor is writing a book about the history of models, so I may have a pretty skewed perspective on this

Re not knowing what they do. This talk of "building cool shit" is much funnier when you do. What a bizarre economy.

the line between the Whole Earth Catalog and Q running through silicon valley, the free software foundation, and gamergate is a very bright and straight one

someone on twitter reminded me that the guy who was canned from Google for “just asking questions” originally had @Fired4Truth as his twitter handle

this will never not be funny

I'm asking what you think. You say it's a bad idea to hire people who say things for shock value. Presumably you mean to include Antonio, or you wouldn't have mentioned this. So are you saying that in a world of properly run companies, he should never work again?

— Paul Graham (@paulg) May 13, 2021

I ain’t clicking through on that

I think you can get the point without clicking. PG just being obtuse and acting like “don’t hire jerks” means that all of our best thought leaders will be unemployed

Ex-Facebook VR exec says he'll turn U.S. troops into 'invincible technomancers,' just raised $450 million https://t.co/xufDyzkh0n

— CNBC (@CNBC) June 17, 2021

"ex-facebook vr exec" doesn't really capture that guy's bio tbf

Is that the worst beard in the world?

Indeed. I don't usually notice facial hair but that's outstandingly bad

an acquaintance launched the public sale of his startup's crypto token, yesterday. it aims to eliminate global poverty by creating "a regenerative, bottom-up universal basic income (UBI) that can elevate all participants above the global poverty line."

"if the Torus can return $2/day to its participants (as Anatha Token), it can make poverty a disease we’ve cured"... so, peak silicon-valley optimism. it would be cool to see crypto/distributed finance eliminate poverty at any scale.

https://anatha.io/blog/token-sale
https://www.morningstar.com/news/globe-newswire/8255815/anatha-announces-its-accessible-equitable-public-token-sale-accepting-fiat-and-crypto

xpost that Facebook guy is Parker Luckey, who I interviewed once and might have been the most awkward conversation I've ever had, absolute basement boy