Silicon Valley Techno-Utopianism

*Hearing my reedy, wheezy 75-year-old voice reading an article about the Sino occupation of Peru*

GREAT-GRANDKIDS: "And he use to work on the 'radio'?"

lol about a year ago I told my mom that she should do something like this and have it integrated into the GPS on my dad's car, so that even if she is no longer there, she can still give my dad driving directions so he doesn't get lost.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdfeXipkBt4

Years ago, an older relative bought one of the kids a teddy bear that when squeezed, played a very loving greeting from the older relative.

The older relative is still with us, but I still have thoughts that I've kept to myself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xg29TuWo0Yo

this was the premise of the pretty good Battlestar Galactica spinoff Caprica which was unceremoniously cancelled.

Has Michelle Tandler been kicked in the head by a mule or something pic.twitter.com/D9SwXHShEH

— Elai (@elaifresh) April 10, 2023

lmao

Saw the Black Mirror episode everyone is suggesting. I get it now. It’s very personal issue and I sincerely apologize for hurting anyone’s feeling. 😔

— Pratik Desai (@chheplo) April 10, 2023

"I'm not a ghoul"

that guy got a hell of a lot of attention for that tweet when he's just some rando

he should do some more black mirror episodes

otm

out there building the utopia

MBS and friends.

How many techfluencers do you recognize in this photo?

(Hi, Sam Altman!) pic.twitter.com/LjTRgskXik

— Jonathan Guyer (@mideastXmidwest) April 11, 2023

normal

other weird shit from a16z's investment portfolio: newnew, a project described by the BBC as "the app that lets you pay to control another person's life"

indeed, the app invites you to "sign up to become a creator and have people pay to vote and bid on your life decisions!" pic.twitter.com/XWzMrVezwe

— Molly White (@molly0xFFF) April 11, 2023

I think there was an Orville episode abt that

wow THAT is super Black Mirror

The techno utopia is still apparently a sausage fest.

As for one of its notably non-sausage fest types:

Disgraced Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes has been rebuffed in her attempt to stay out of federal prison while she appeals her conviction for the fraud she committed while overseeing a blood-testing scam that exposed Silicon Valley’s dark side.

In an 11-page ruling issued late Monday, U.S. District Judge Edward Davila concluded there wasn't compelling enough evidence to allow Holmes to remain free on bail while her lawyers try to persuade an appeals court that alleged misconduct during her four-month trial led to an unjust verdict.

The judge’s decision means Holmes, 39, will have to surrender to authorities April 27 to start the more than 11-year prison sentence that Davila imposed in November....

Holmes could still file another appeal of Davila's latest ruling, a maneuver her co-conspirator at Theranos — Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani — successfully used to delay his scheduled March 16 date to begin a nearly 13-year prison sentence. But the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals last week rejected that appeal, and Balwani is now scheduled to report to a Southern California prison on April 20.

Davila has recommended Holmes serve her sentence in a Bryan, Texas, prison. It hasn’t yet been publicly confirmed if that will be the facility where she reports.

I can't imagine how she's paying her lawyers.

I don't know a whole bunch about this case, but 11 years seems a little long... but she may only serve three or four of those

I mean, it was a massive fraud, which yeah, usually gets you three or four years.

xxp it’s unclear whether they married but she’s been with a hotel heir, engaged since early 2019, two kids

while going through a16z's massive list of portfolio companies i found that they invested in what appears to be some sort of rent-an-egirl service pic.twitter.com/WcuVtUyqnN

— Molly White (@molly0xFFF) April 11, 2023

oh yeah sure

https://www.ktvu.com/news/emeryville-man-arrested-in-connection-with-stabbing-death-of-cash-app-exec-bob-lee

hmm so the crime that was supposed to be an example of SF lawlessness and crime actually might have been an inside job?

yeah, looks like it was techbro-on-techbro violence, at least initially

tbh it completely makes sense that the tech to class would be afraid of itself

this is the most predictable thing violent crime tends not to be random, which is something all tough on crime hysterics refuse to learn since it undercuts their whole thing of not wanting to see the homeless people that the system they benefit from creates

some weird resonance tho that the app he built is used a lot for crime

the gossip I heard at a kid's bday party (!) last weekend was...

Bob--who may or may not be married (ie separated/estranged)--was having an affair with his colleague/killer's wife/partner/girlfriend and the colleague put an end to that. Also that the Millenium Tower was somehow involved as a scene but that was 2 blocks away from the stabbing incident. this is all gossip so treat as such 🤫

Is Michelle Tandler gathering a posse for the tech bro?

honestly the people who thought this was a random act of violence suck at watching and learned from all the crime shows (that they probably also watch, I am sure as educated white people we watch similar content) ... were there any signs of robbery? Attempted robbery? ... No. ... If it had been a random thing ... stabbing a well-dressed white dude ... the motive would have been money. Why else kill a guy like that? Not obviously a robbery ... then it was most likely an acquaintance. They really need to pay more attention to the Nordic Noir, etc.

Details emerging... it's even more pedestrian than earlier expected:

https://www.ktvu.com/news/alleged-bob-lee-killer-drove-victim-to-secluded-area-stabbed-him-with-kitchen-knife

Salute to redditor DonaldRudolpho for turning the r/spacex subreddit into a roiling mass of cope and seethe with these basic factual observations pic.twitter.com/C9PGQ5Cydl

— E.W. Niedermeyer (@Tweetermeyer) April 22, 2023

CEO of Quora, I discovered, after initially assuming it was some random blue tick teenager coming up with this drivel

AI is going to enable the creation and enforcement of laws 1000x as complex as we have today. This is mostly a good thing.

— Adam D'Angelo (@adamdangelo) April 22, 2023

Hear me out. What if the legislation was a blockchain?

haha

I hate to be ageist or whatever but when did that guy last update his profile pic because he’s 38

also I need to update my profile pics

ok I looked it up and that’s a better shot

if I were a SV entrepreneur I’d perhaps spend a pittance for a barber and stylist to floof me before my widely-disseminated pics. I am not so I regularly look like crap

Let’s check in on how dating is going in the tech community pic.twitter.com/4o6V8M3FDw

— BuccoCapital Guy (@buccocapital) April 24, 2023

Finally, a practical use for ai; making laws 1000x more complex...

Funnel diagrams are so badly named; the entire point of a funnel is to ENSURE that everything you put in on top also makes it to the bottom.

really wish the quora ceo thread had dropped in time for last week’s read max post

we should shut down the postal service & reallocate the budget & real estate for mental health services and facilities that are free for all Americans

— @jason (@Jason) May 8, 2023

That guy has a fetish for getting yelled at for his stupid takes I think.

I saw that one in the context of someone’s QT calling him a dumb motherfucker and otm

who is this guy and why do people engage with him?

minor figure who made some money in the blog rush by selling off a completely inconsequential set of websites, then got in on a private Uber offering and made a bunch of money

he and another dude have some obnoxious SV/VC podcast. Elon had both of them sitting around at the twitter offices coming up with ideas, which makes no sense as he's not an ideas guy

also, all the other people from blog media back in the day (movabletype/sixapart/etc) peeps love to dunk on him for being a dumbass

per my quick research, "weblogs inc" was basically trying to be a network like gawker media but was really just a package of a bunch of sites, only a couple of which got any traffic, that was then bounced between AOL, Yahoo, etc.

A lot of what's wrong with everything in this thread can be chalked up to the fact that silicon valley is disproportionately dominated by 20-somethings, 20-somethings are already fucking idiots, and these particular 20-somethings are arrogant idiots because they went to Stanford and/or built some dumb app that made them easy money.

It's also a lot of why I'm not sanguine about AI development