Silicon Valley Techno-Utopianism

xp how bout you watch this dick suck itself instead, OH!

so part of me is like -- yeah, start up bro, you should do this, but you should also be required to have a % allocated for low-income people who have access to the same dope wi-fi and snacks as yr techpals

this is good

https://pycnocline.substack.com/p/tech-brain

Desperately searching for guidance, on TWITTER, is where this guy went wrong. Everything in that article is about Twitter.

There seems to be a whole ecosystem of journalism around how shitty the discourse is on Twitter. Cancel culture, decontextualizing, dunking, phony aphorisms and vapid bits of received wisdom. Then don't read Twitter, Stephanie, like the other 78% of Americans who don't use it. I'm pretty sure you'll feel better, even if you miss out on some hilarious dunks.

it's by a woman.

Figured that out by my second post 😜

ime it's definitely too twitter-focused but I think she is decribing a real thing

In the 17th century version of twitter (c'est-à-dire, Les pensées), Pascal put it like this:

The difference between the mathematical mind [esprit de géométrie] and the perceptive mind [esprit de finesse]: the reason that mathematicians are not perceptive is that they do not see what is before them, and that, accustomed to the exact and plain principles of mathematics, and not reasoning till they have well inspected and arranged their principles, they are lost in matters of perception where the principles do not allow for such arrangement.... These principles are so fine and so numerous that a very delicate and very clear sense is needed to perceive them, and to judge rightly and justly when they are perceived, without for the most part being able to demonstrate them in order as in mathematics; because the principles are not known to us in the same way, and because it would be an endless matter to undertake it. We must see the matter at once, at one glance, and not by a process of reasoning, at least to a certain degree.... Mathematicians wish to treat matters of perception mathematically, and make themselves ridiculous...the mind...does it tacitly, naturally, and without technical rules.

hueg if treu/booming post. Pascal OTMFM

ha. it really is Pascal, I was gonna write Bob Marley but I don't feel like fucking around with this

she's right tho i remember that tweet and it's irritating af

That specific tweet reminds me more of Willy Loman than anything else.

The worst thing about that tweet, and the reason she’s right to talk about two things, one of which is more benign and facile, is that the author is actually one of the smarter and more interesting Silicon Valley billionaires. He’s a major character in uncanny valley. But that flattening broetry voice is so contagious.

idk if this is exactly the right thread but

sincerely the worst thing ive ever seen pic.twitter.com/O1HRvfVFSK

— jack wagner (@jackdwagner) September 6, 2020

Yeah to be honest that's the kind of stuff that makes me despair for humanity the most.

adult tiktok house

'adult' tiktok house

Tbh the mindfulness coach stuff. Like Sharon, if you knew so much about mindfulness, you wouldn't be living in a TikTok house

it makes me want to look up planning/zoning code regulations and see if they are in violation of any. ... there was one place similar to this in San Francisco that got in trouble because they were living in a single family home, and they did not qualify as a family according to SF code.

Elizabeth Holmes may attempt to claim 'mental disease' in Theranos criminal case

this is the true story *TRUUUUUUEE STOOOORAY* (xp)

Tbh the mindfulness coach stuff. Like Sharon, if you knew so much about mindfulness, you wouldn't be living in a TikTok house

― healthy cocaine off perfect butts (the table is the table), Sunday, September 6, 2020 11:53 PM (five days ago) bookmarkflaglink

this made me lol more i would have expected

We watched The Social Dilemma tonight, wasn’t half bad. Didn’t necessarily tell me anything I didn’t already know.

https://t.co/bRLZAQcXU8 pic.twitter.com/WAwaVtRlbB

— Quantian (@quantian1) October 15, 2020

IDK if this is the most apt thread, but funny
https://twitter.com/i/events/1319027700753784832

Quibi founders confirm app’s shutdown just six months after launch
The entertainment startup, which created short-form, mobile-based streaming content, is shutting down just six months after launching, founders Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman confirmed. In an open letter, they said: “Our failure was not for lack of trying; we’ve considered and exhausted every option available to us.” Quibi famously raised over $1.75 billion (USD) in capital ahead of its launch.

Meg Whitman is perhaps the ultimate example of Dunning-Kruger.

Have you heard of Adam Gase?

lmao

SV has a lot to answer for but Quibi was mostly dumb money and was def not operated according to any startup playbook

idk what 'expensify' is but they do realize the Lord of the Flies was a rotting pig's head on a stick, right?

― five memes that i can hardly stand to view (Doctor Casino), Friday, July 15, 2016 12:07 AM (four years ago) bookmarkflaglink

oddly enough, so is the ceo of expensify

― mh, Friday, July 15, 2016 9:44 AM (four years ago) bookmarkflaglink

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/expensify-david-barrett-emails-customers-vote-biden/

anyone else get this email? lol

pointless and also probably quite expensive for his business!

.@venverloh responded via email to parents that were discussed by his wife’s (@mehridith) comments

“They’re private comments”, he said. To which I say, the comments were posted on Twitter, a public platform. I don’t want my kids being influenced by hate speech at @LLElemDist https://t.co/bd9YU4RTeP pic.twitter.com/ofHTLP5ebH

— Antonio Altamirano (@antonio) November 8, 2020

I just love the use of the word "platform"

Beyond Meat shares turn sharply higher after spokesperson for the company says “Beyond Meat and McDonalds co-created the plant-based patty which will be available as part of their McPlant platform."https://t.co/RqHoNhOrlt pic.twitter.com/cVkE7m5hAf

— CNBC Now (@CNBCnow) November 9, 2020

sandwich platforms heavily discussed in the innovations in chain restaurants thread, rip burger business

a burger is literally and figuratively a platform

the sharp drop in that stock earlier in the day is the mcdonald's announcment. the jump up is them clarifying that it's a collaboration with beyond meat. would read the levine column about those four hours.

This article really never gets old imo

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/nov/24/how-the-sandwich-consumed-britain

Whiteside immersed himself in questions of “carriers” (bread), “barriers” (butter, mayonnaise), “inclusions” (things within the bread), “proteins” (tuna, chicken, bacon) until they bordered on the philosophical.

In the trade, the small gaps that can occur within the curves of iceberg lettuce leaves – creating air pockets – are sometimes known as “goblin caves”. The unfortunate phenomenon of a filling slumping toward the bottom of a sandwich box, known as a skillet, is “the drop”.

Tbh kind of love this language

all these nouns are beside the point if there are no activations

https://techcrunch.com/2020/11/06/netflix-tests-a-programmed-linear-tv-and-movie-channel-in-france/

motherfuckers reinvented TNT

went on hackernews for the first time in ages, was quickly pissed off by the prominence of paul graham's latest essay there. it's so stupid and glib: http://paulgraham.com/ace.html

why are techbros all so pathetically fucking lacking of basic notions of social class and surplus value/labor?

One of my wife’s family is a pretty successful Bay Area programmer who has worked for a few tech giants. Totally good guy, btw. But once we were talking about some social policy question and he said something that stuck out in my head: “It depends what you want to optimize for.” I think that aside from the fact that Americans in general aren’t taught to develop class consciousness (in fact they are taught not to), a lot of tech guys just tend to conceive of everything in the same sort of problem solving mode that they use in coding.

fair enough. i'd be lying if i said i didn't know at least one techbro who is a dedicated volunteer/activist for democratic socialist causes. you're right that US educational culture is the prevalent influence.

engineer's disease is a really shameful part of tech culture, but that's another rant.

i just needed to vent a little because that essay is vile and ignorance of basic facts about how the world works is no excuse for it. fuck paul graham.

Programmers are the dumbest fuckin people

yea... information/computer sciences are incredible fields of study but their professional culture is godawful on so, so many levels

i dread going back to it. maybe i'll get to stay unemployed forever, fingers crossed

Suggest working for a university or municipality or something. Less money but more human people

yea. maybe i'll work in IT in another industry or go back to teaching :)