Silicon Valley Techno-Utopianism

its pretty funny that most of these things are just corporate pr bs that not only pose no risk to tech companies but were in fact invented by them in order to give cover for whatever nasty stuff they were up to

“Our enemies are not bad people—but rather bad ideas,” he wrote in a post published on a16z’s website. “Our present society has been subjected to a mass demoralization campaign for six decades—against technology and against life—under varying names like ‘existential risk’, ‘sustainability’, ‘ESG’, ‘Sustainable Development Goals’, ‘social responsibility’, ‘stakeholder capitalism’, ‘Precautionary Principle’, ‘trust and safety’, ‘tech ethics’, ‘risk management”, ‘de-growth’, ‘the limits of growth’.”

"morals" "scruples" "democracy"

We believe the techno-capital machine of markets and innovation never ends, but instead spirals continuously upward.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqjhHVUzl8o

whoda thunk a billionaire would have a life philosophy that puts him at the center of the universe? anyway, tax these people to oblivion and send them to the salt mines.

Read between the lines: https://bengrosser.com/files/Techno-Optimist-Manifesto-Andreessen-redacted-by-Grosser.pdf [PDF link]

seeing more people with e/acc in bios on the few times I click on xitter and I know most of what that is based on prior knowledge but don’t want to know more

there has to be some way to clown these people in a targeted way that they specifically hate, right?

have we discussed "e/acc" yet? it's like EA + fascism. you're going to love it.

https://effectiveaccelerationism.substack.com/p/repost-effective-accelerationism

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Wednesday, October 11, 2023 8:57 AM (six days ago) bookmarkflaglink

i'd just like to note that i have been otm in this thread

yes please let me know how to destroy them without having to read about them. can I just send $20 to a guy? I am very tired

I never read much into that because the link reads like it’s a manifesto for the cause and not negative?

effective accelerationism thats good stuff, rises above the typical hack dystpoia we usually get these days, almost pynchonian

Yeah sorry that link is the actual manifesto

“xitter” is pronounced like “shitter” right

correct

yes please let me know how to destroy them without having to read about them. can I just send $20 to a guy? I am very tired

against technology and against life:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/63/ESG_-_ESG_cover.jpg

We believe the techno-capital machine of markets and innovation never ends, but instead spirals continuously upward.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qvckVPKx-aI/TlR8hjbWdvI/AAAAAAAAAGc/yx1JiWk2rLA/s1600/dialectic+helix.jpg

I'd love to see Ted Kaczynski's take on this manifesto, but alas - it's too late

ah very interesting

In the summer of 2021, Insider has learned, Thiel began providing information as a "confidential human source," or CHS, to Johnathan Buma, a Los Angeles-based FBI agent who specializes in investigating political corruption and foreign-influence campaigns.

https://www.businessinsider.com/peter-thiel-fbi-informant-charles-johnson-johnathan-buma-chs-genius-2023-10

i havent heard that name in a long time

Charles Johnson, a longtime associate of Thiel's and a notorious figure in the far-right movement that Thiel has subsidized for a decade, told Insider in a statement that he helped recruit the billionaire as an informant by introducing him to Buma.

Thiel was probably pissed that foreign investors were getting the deals he wanted to make and was going to try to rat them out

yeah hope we get more details re who exactly he was informing on

it will undoubtedly be something incredibly self-serving

re: https://www.businessinsider.com/peter-thiel-fbi-informant-charles-johnson-johnathan-buma-chs-genius-2023-10

Peter thiel: I’ve sent you two excel spreadsheet of power rankings of boys’ blood by both efficacy and terroir, race of course plays a large part in this but so of course does their upbringing

FBI handler: (distracted) okay, you sent me this last week

Thiel: this is updated

— Alex Degen (2023) (@atothe_d) October 19, 2023

lol

🧛

max otm

https://maxread.substack.com/p/techno-optimism-is-a-sign-of-vc-crisis

Meantime on the good ol' fashioned 'take the old guy for a ride' front

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidjeans/2023/10/23/eric-schmidt-michelle-ritter-steel-perlot

SBF about to take the stand!

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/10/26/business/sam-bankman-fried-ftx-trial

Whoops, or not:

And in a twist, there will be no testimony from Bankman-Fried after all today. The jury is being sent home so the lawyers and the judge can hold a hearing as to what Bankman-Fried will be allowed to testify on.

Well, soon enough.

if he makes this work i’m ready to buy in on crypto for i will have seen evidence of brilliance i cannot understand

hopefully he can explain just the what the hell blockchain actually is

considering its built-in requirement for ever-increasing computing power and energy use, blockchain is a scheme to perpetually expand the profits of the chip industry and utilities

Ohhhhhh what a read this is:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/26/23934195/sam-bankman-fried-self-testimony-deleted-signal

https://i.imgur.com/XoNePWx.jpg

clearly SBF never watched Petty Mason

“I really enjoyed [Lewis’s] book, by the way! Though the reporting in Going Infinite suggests that Bankman-Fried is an unrestrained sociopath, Lewis’s general attitude toward Bankman-Fried may be best summed up as “I love my gamer son.”

All the LOLs:

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/11/02/business/sam-bankman-fried-trial

Guilty on all counts.

well well what will Michael Lewis have to say about this

Would be cool if he could be cellies with Elizabeth Holmes in the Tech Grifter cellblock

ha!

A brutal read, a necessary one

https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/2/23944485/sam-bankman-fried-guilty-verdict-parents

getting a lot more schadenfreude from seeing this guy's parents suffer than i could ever get from him tbh. feel strongly that i'm owed for how many articles i read telling me to take this guy seriously because his dad was a "philosopher" (?), and i'm definitely owed for how many times i read the phrase "their work in legal ethics" adduced as evidence against their having raised a con man. would like to take my payment in the form of images of them just standing there frozen like jimmy stewart looking down from the bell tower

ha yeah i weirdly look at him and go “what a deluded self-absorbed fool doing illegal shit,” and look at them and think “what a pair of evil assholes who raised a fool, assisted him in swindling millions, were actors in the swindle to their own benefit, and with all of their alleged expertise and judgment, failed to advise him to his benefit! Fuck them and ruin them!”

the tousle-haired mogul

what a scamp

You talk about day
I'm talking 'bout night time
When the monsters call out
The names of men
Bob Dylan knows
And I bet Bankman-Fried did
There are things in night
That are better not to behold

I appreciate this deep cut

how did this happen so quickly when theranos/various trump cases take years on end? was it just that his crimes were so blatant/uncomplicated?

It certainly seems to have been a straightforward case for the prosecution to make

for holmes the delay was covid + pregnancy