5 ms·

It's the tech delusion. I don't know a start-up that doesn't have some grandiose vision of themselves as the future saviors of humanity. Uber, Tesla, Facebook

by zzalpha 10y ago

It's the tech delusion. I don't know a start-up that doesn't have some grandiose vision of themselves as the future saviors of humanity. Uber, Tesla, Facebook, Airbnb, you name it... it's all the same "save the world" rhetoric. The scary thing is, I think a lot of people on the industry actually believe their own BS...

azernik 10y ago
At least Tesla's one thing is inherently important because of the climate change implications.
- oldsj 10y ago
  Yea I have to say Elon's actions seem to really be for the overall benefit of society unlike most other tech / business leaders
  - bamboozled 10y ago
    I like to remain skeptical about Elon's vision, he seems like a great guy, but he is still a business man, maybe he isn't able to see that for himself. Just remember we're not just getting free lithium, aluminum and copper from another dimension to build all those cars, and when we're done with the cars, they're not just going to biodegrade back into forrests and coral reefs. Mining those minerals can have a pretty serious environmental impact. There is some cognitive dissonance going here, we see a solution to climate change, but we don't want to observe the other side of the coin.
    - Arizhel 10y ago
      Oh come on. You do realize "recycling" exists, right? Cars don't just go into a landfill when they reach the end of their useful life. They're salvaged for parts, and once all the useful parts are removed the rest is used for scrap metal. Lead-acid batteries have been recycled for decades now, with extremely high efficiency. Lithium is much more valuable than anything in a lead-acid battery, so of course it's going to be recycled as well. Yes, mining has an environmental impact, but 1 ton of aluminum used in a car does not necessarily mean 1 ton of aluminum was mined for it.
      - bamboozled 10y ago
        Try not to forget it often takes energy to recycle things, and what do we do with a huge surplus of Lithium when its no longer required, we don't exactly have free energy either. But hey, let's not get that get in the way of a great response, right?
        Arizhel 10y ago
        What in the hell are you talking about? The energy needed to recycle almost anything is usually orders of magnitude less than that needed to mine it and refine it in the first place, not to mention not having to transport it halfway across the planet from some remote place in Bolivia or wherever. And why would Lithium no longer be required? In some hypothetical future that doesn't exist? It's needed now, and that's all that's important. Moreover, its great performance in batteries is directly related to fundamental physics and the position of Li on the periodic table, and that's not going to change. >But hey, let's not get that get in the way of a great response, right? Let what get in the way of a great response? Your nonsensical predictions?
  - gukov 10y ago
    But compared to Mark Elon is much more pro-current president, so he gets much less respect.
  - projektir 10y ago
    I think Elon means well somewhere down the line, but he seems to be completely blind to ethical/social effects as opposed to the purely technological ones. I.e., his solution to employment issues caused by automation is to merge with machines as opposed to addressing it on a social, political, economic, etc., level. More and more I find this approach detrimental to society and likely to amplify all existing problems.
nostrademons 10y ago
It's much easier to do hard or risky things (and convince others to do hard things) if you believe that doing so will save the world. Whether it's true or not, it's a useful illusion. People who believe that it's all meaningless tend to sit on message boards and shit on others instead.
- siavosh 10y ago
  I think there's truth in what you're saying, it's just a bit dubious when that illusion is also used to generate billions in personal wealth. It raises the cynic in some observers.
- zzalpha 10y ago
  Instead of what? Buying into the BS? I'd rather take an honest, measured view of these companies. Many have the potential to change our lives, for both good and ill. Buying into the BS is a great way to short circuit healthy skepticism. Selling the BS is a fantastic smokescreen.
  - nostrademons 10y ago
    Who are the ones actually building the products that everybody else (and probably you, too) are using, though, and getting rich off it? They're the delusional folks who buy the BS. This is something I've wrestled with a lot in my personal life: you can have an accurate self-image and never really accomplish anything, or you can have an inflated self-image and achievements that probably don't quite justify it but come a lot closer than the achievements of the people with accurate self-images. Empirically, there doesn't seem to be a middle ground, except for a few rare folks who seemingly have no self-image (they just don't think about it much). That sort of delusional megalomania seems to be a necessary motive force for tackling hard, risky problems. And if you don't have it, then some other delusional megalomaniac will be the one who actually attempts it, and gets resources simply because he's the only one trying.
    - dosgonlogs 10y ago
      I think reality is much much much more complicated (we humans don't even know enough collectively to make such statements with any accuracy), and there certainly is a middle ground. I think people with inflated self worth are more likely to "succeed" because they will run right over others and maybe not even stop to justify the horror they just committed to improve their own lot in life, due to their sense of entitlement complex (which I guess you did allude to a little). Either way, I like your comment, it made me think.
jhvh1134 10y ago
I worked for a company that was basically a hosting service for online advertisements. They too thought they were saving the world somehow.
lend000 10y ago
One of those is not the like others (Facebook). Facebook is the only one that wasn't a huge next step in the progression of an established industry. It was an incremental improvement in a fledgling social network industry, and it's questionable how much value it actually adds to (or detracts from) society. Compare this to Google which is indeed a force of good (not just their main product, but the numerous free technologies they have given to society like Chrome, Golang, QUIC, Tensorflow, etc.) and Uber/Airbnb, which have made people 'freer' in the sense that it is much cheaper to travel and get out now, and then Tesla of course is ushering in an eco-friendly transportation revolution. The grandiose self-vision is annoying PR, but at least some of the companies have a fair amount to back it up with. Facebook is just the next iteration of Microsoft in my opinion -- they took a huge early lead with a superior product in a new industry, but now they're kind of evil and they will ride their market share for many decades.
- rhizome 10y ago
  It was an incremental improvement in a fledgling social network industry And even then, it was only because Friendster was crippled by scaling problems and MySpace was snowed under with self-promotion that Facebook even had a path out of the university populations to which they initially restricted themselves.
  - gaius 10y ago
    I think one thing that FB got right was disallowing any customisation of your own profile. That made MySpace completely unusable.
    - rhizome 10y ago
      Very good point. MySpace had zero consistency of experience.
lazaroclapp 10y ago
Each of those companies has the potential to significantly impact the world. Whether that change is for better or worse depends on your values. But given that they will likely have a big impact on society, I'd rather have them thinking through the ethical implications of what they do even superficially and grandiosely than not at all. A hypocritically preachy Facebook corporation is much better than an absolutely cynical one.
- zzalpha 10y ago
  A hypocritically preachy Facebook corporation is much better than an absolutely cynical one. If you ask me, for a lot of these tech companies, this is a false dichotomy: they're outwardly preachy and inwardly cynical. How better to justify bad behaviour than to dress it up in grandiosity?
  - lazaroclapp 10y ago
    Most of the ones I have been on the inside of (I am not currently inside of any of those) are fairly preachy internally and do discuss the ethics of what they are doing. Sure, that discussion is more "realist" than what their PR pushes out, but it is still not even close to absolute cynicism. They don't always pick the ethical choice when push comes to shove if there is a lot of money on doing the wrong thing, but it depends somewhat on the level of wrong (for the record, I am talking about perfectly legal actions here, just with possible ethical externalities). In as much as they justify things, they justify them to themselves too. You can argue that they are more cynical as you go closer to the center, but I have no evidence for it either way, and the ones actually designing and implementing the features are not in that center. I'd rather deal with someone who has to rationalize their unethical actions and thus at least consider the downsides than someone who just doesn't care. In my experience, S.V. companies are more often full of the former than the later.
cortesoft 10y ago
Parodied perfectly by Silicon Valley in their bit about the Disrupt conference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-GVd_HLlps https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-GVd_HLlps

by zzalpha 10y ago

azernik 10y ago

At least Tesla's one thing is inherently important because of the climate change implications.

oldsj 10y ago
Yea I have to say Elon's actions seem to really be for the overall benefit of society unlike most other tech / business leaders
- bamboozled 10y ago
  I like to remain skeptical about Elon's vision, he seems like a great guy, but he is still a business man, maybe he isn't able to see that for himself. Just remember we're not just getting free lithium, aluminum and copper from another dimension to build all those cars, and when we're done with the cars, they're not just going to biodegrade back into forrests and coral reefs. Mining those minerals can have a pretty serious environmental impact. There is some cognitive dissonance going here, we see a solution to climate change, but we don't want to observe the other side of the coin.
  - Arizhel 10y ago
    Oh come on. You do realize "recycling" exists, right? Cars don't just go into a landfill when they reach the end of their useful life. They're salvaged for parts, and once all the useful parts are removed the rest is used for scrap metal. Lead-acid batteries have been recycled for decades now, with extremely high efficiency. Lithium is much more valuable than anything in a lead-acid battery, so of course it's going to be recycled as well. Yes, mining has an environmental impact, but 1 ton of aluminum used in a car does not necessarily mean 1 ton of aluminum was mined for it.
    - bamboozled 10y ago
      Try not to forget it often takes energy to recycle things, and what do we do with a huge surplus of Lithium when its no longer required, we don't exactly have free energy either. But hey, let's not get that get in the way of a great response, right?
      - Arizhel 10y ago
        What in the hell are you talking about? The energy needed to recycle almost anything is usually orders of magnitude less than that needed to mine it and refine it in the first place, not to mention not having to transport it halfway across the planet from some remote place in Bolivia or wherever. And why would Lithium no longer be required? In some hypothetical future that doesn't exist? It's needed now, and that's all that's important. Moreover, its great performance in batteries is directly related to fundamental physics and the position of Li on the periodic table, and that's not going to change. >But hey, let's not get that get in the way of a great response, right? Let what get in the way of a great response? Your nonsensical predictions?
- gukov 10y ago
  But compared to Mark Elon is much more pro-current president, so he gets much less respect.
- projektir 10y ago
  I think Elon means well somewhere down the line, but he seems to be completely blind to ethical/social effects as opposed to the purely technological ones. I.e., his solution to employment issues caused by automation is to merge with machines as opposed to addressing it on a social, political, economic, etc., level. More and more I find this approach detrimental to society and likely to amplify all existing problems.

nostrademons 10y ago

It's much easier to do hard or risky things (and convince others to do hard things) if you believe that doing so will save the world. Whether it's true or not, it's a useful illusion. People who believe that it's all meaningless tend to sit on message boards and shit on others instead.

siavosh 10y ago
I think there's truth in what you're saying, it's just a bit dubious when that illusion is also used to generate billions in personal wealth. It raises the cynic in some observers.
zzalpha 10y ago
Instead of what? Buying into the BS? I'd rather take an honest, measured view of these companies. Many have the potential to change our lives, for both good and ill. Buying into the BS is a great way to short circuit healthy skepticism. Selling the BS is a fantastic smokescreen.
- nostrademons 10y ago
  Who are the ones actually building the products that everybody else (and probably you, too) are using, though, and getting rich off it? They're the delusional folks who buy the BS. This is something I've wrestled with a lot in my personal life: you can have an accurate self-image and never really accomplish anything, or you can have an inflated self-image and achievements that probably don't quite justify it but come a lot closer than the achievements of the people with accurate self-images. Empirically, there doesn't seem to be a middle ground, except for a few rare folks who seemingly have no self-image (they just don't think about it much). That sort of delusional megalomania seems to be a necessary motive force for tackling hard, risky problems. And if you don't have it, then some other delusional megalomaniac will be the one who actually attempts it, and gets resources simply because he's the only one trying.
  - dosgonlogs 10y ago
    I think reality is much much much more complicated (we humans don't even know enough collectively to make such statements with any accuracy), and there certainly is a middle ground. I think people with inflated self worth are more likely to "succeed" because they will run right over others and maybe not even stop to justify the horror they just committed to improve their own lot in life, due to their sense of entitlement complex (which I guess you did allude to a little). Either way, I like your comment, it made me think.

jhvh1134 10y ago

I worked for a company that was basically a hosting service for online advertisements. They too thought they were saving the world somehow.

lend000 10y ago

One of those is not the like others (Facebook). Facebook is the only one that wasn't a huge next step in the progression of an established industry. It was an incremental improvement in a fledgling social network industry, and it's questionable how much value it actually adds to (or detracts from) society. Compare this to Google which is indeed a force of good (not just their main product, but the numerous free technologies they have given to society like Chrome, Golang, QUIC, Tensorflow, etc.) and Uber/Airbnb, which have made people 'freer' in the sense that it is much cheaper to travel and get out now, and then Tesla of course is ushering in an eco-friendly transportation revolution. The grandiose self-vision is annoying PR, but at least some of the companies have a fair amount to back it up with. Facebook is just the next iteration of Microsoft in my opinion -- they took a huge early lead with a superior product in a new industry, but now they're kind of evil and they will ride their market share for many decades.

rhizome 10y ago
It was an incremental improvement in a fledgling social network industry And even then, it was only because Friendster was crippled by scaling problems and MySpace was snowed under with self-promotion that Facebook even had a path out of the university populations to which they initially restricted themselves.
- gaius 10y ago
  I think one thing that FB got right was disallowing any customisation of your own profile. That made MySpace completely unusable.
  - rhizome 10y ago
    Very good point. MySpace had zero consistency of experience.

lazaroclapp 10y ago

Each of those companies has the potential to significantly impact the world. Whether that change is for better or worse depends on your values. But given that they will likely have a big impact on society, I'd rather have them thinking through the ethical implications of what they do even superficially and grandiosely than not at all. A hypocritically preachy Facebook corporation is much better than an absolutely cynical one.

zzalpha 10y ago
A hypocritically preachy Facebook corporation is much better than an absolutely cynical one. If you ask me, for a lot of these tech companies, this is a false dichotomy: they're outwardly preachy and inwardly cynical. How better to justify bad behaviour than to dress it up in grandiosity?
- lazaroclapp 10y ago
  Most of the ones I have been on the inside of (I am not currently inside of any of those) are fairly preachy internally and do discuss the ethics of what they are doing. Sure, that discussion is more "realist" than what their PR pushes out, but it is still not even close to absolute cynicism. They don't always pick the ethical choice when push comes to shove if there is a lot of money on doing the wrong thing, but it depends somewhat on the level of wrong (for the record, I am talking about perfectly legal actions here, just with possible ethical externalities). In as much as they justify things, they justify them to themselves too. You can argue that they are more cynical as you go closer to the center, but I have no evidence for it either way, and the ones actually designing and implementing the features are not in that center. I'd rather deal with someone who has to rationalize their unethical actions and thus at least consider the downsides than someone who just doesn't care. In my experience, S.V. companies are more often full of the former than the later.

cortesoft 10y ago

Parodied perfectly by Silicon Valley in their bit about the Disrupt conference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-GVd_HLlps https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-GVd_HLlps