4 ms·

The hacker spirit of the early Internet has been replaced by corporate shenanigans and capitalist greed. Just like "hacker" in "hacker news".

bawana 6y ago
+1. I just watched Eric Weinstein on Lex Fridman's podcast. He is angry about how students have been emasculated by the establishment. That the death of Aaron Schwartz was a tragedy and the students should 'rise up and take back' MIT. Yet he himself has a net worth over 100mill and is doing nothing about it.He promises betterment through revolution like Batista and Castro, yet he himself is busy amassing wealth. Why does he think youth will waste itself on anything else except the pursuit of the dream that made him successful? Internet has just become another tool for control because that's just what humans do - make tools out of anything including their fellow humans.
- keiferski 6y ago
  Talk is cheap. It's easier, more lucrative, and less costly to build a media personality as a counter-cultural revolutionary than to actually be one.
  - achillesheels 6y ago
    Precisely. Courage requires actual conquering of fear, which doubtlessly involves confrontation with the status quo rather than a few microphone jibber jabbers. Who in the Western World has a contempt for convenience?
- pjc50 6y ago
  This guy? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Weinstein https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Weinstein I can't understand why anyone would even begin to take calls for revolution from someone like that seriously, when he's so obviously a grifter.
  - germinalphrase 6y ago
    Why so obviously a grifter?
- ilikehurdles 6y ago
  Those seem unrelated to the parent's point. Weinstein is co-opting the death of Aaron Schwartz to push his own far-right ideology. The target of his form of `rise up and take back` is neither "corporate shenanigans" nor "capitalist greed", but those who challenge it from the center and the left. He's clearly very popular with the Breitbart crowd, and about as anti-establishment as any billionaire politician with the backing of a media arm and an attitude of suing everyone who challenges his views. School of Thiel and all.
  - uk_programmer 6y ago
    Weinstein isn't far right. You have no idea what far right is if you think he is. He is centre-right maybe centre. His brother and his sister-in-law are both lefties. There is nothing far right about Weinstein or his family. > He's clearly very popular with the Breitbart crowd, and about as anti-establishment as any billionaire politician with the backing of a media arm and an attitude of suing everyone who challenges his views. School of Thiel and all. Actually I do talk to the people you are talking about, and again most of them aren't far right. The actual far-right don't like Weinstein or his brother (they tend to not like Jewish people on the far right).
    - ilikehurdles 6y ago
      This is quite a dishonest attempt at rewriting history with no respect for the truth. You can pretend to see your gaslighting remark as truth, but I've looked into every one of your claims about these people and I cannot come close to the same conclusion as you. I do not, however, call his brother far-right. Perhaps you could be excused for believing someone isn't far right when the overton window among english-speaking countries has narrowed so far to the right of center.
      - uk_programmer 6y ago
        The UK Gov actually has an overview for you to inform yourself as to what they consider far right: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/overview-of-the-far-right https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/overview-of-the-f... (The report itself doesn't do a particular good job either as they use some dubious sources and I don't agree with half of it, but their definitions of the groups are close enough). I've listened to a lot of Weinstein on various shows he has appeared as a guest on and I haven't heard anything that can be considered far right. One of the first times I seen Weinstein was when he appeared on Dave Rubin who is a gay liberal/libertarian (the last time I watched his show it seemed to change every other week) that lives in California. > Perhaps you could be excused for believing someone isn't far right when the overton window among english-speaking countries has narrowed so far to the right of center. This is a complete nonsense. The Anglo-sphere for the most part is pretty much centre, centre-left. Many conservatives and paleo-conservatives complain their conservative parties aren't really conservative (which isn't far-right either btw). The term far-right in itself is a poor description. A better term is a "reactionary right". But that is a whole other discussion between the "reactionary right" and the "traditional right". Right and Left are really poor descriptions of political positions and that is why many tests online now are multi-dimensional.

bawana 6y ago

+1. I just watched Eric Weinstein on Lex Fridman's podcast. He is angry about how students have been emasculated by the establishment. That the death of Aaron Schwartz was a tragedy and the students should 'rise up and take back' MIT. Yet he himself has a net worth over 100mill and is doing nothing about it.He promises betterment through revolution like Batista and Castro, yet he himself is busy amassing wealth. Why does he think youth will waste itself on anything else except the pursuit of the dream that made him successful? Internet has just become another tool for control because that's just what humans do - make tools out of anything including their fellow humans.

keiferski 6y ago
Talk is cheap. It's easier, more lucrative, and less costly to build a media personality as a counter-cultural revolutionary than to actually be one.
- achillesheels 6y ago
  Precisely. Courage requires actual conquering of fear, which doubtlessly involves confrontation with the status quo rather than a few microphone jibber jabbers. Who in the Western World has a contempt for convenience?
pjc50 6y ago
This guy? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Weinstein https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Weinstein I can't understand why anyone would even begin to take calls for revolution from someone like that seriously, when he's so obviously a grifter.
- germinalphrase 6y ago
  Why so obviously a grifter?
ilikehurdles 6y ago
Those seem unrelated to the parent's point. Weinstein is co-opting the death of Aaron Schwartz to push his own far-right ideology. The target of his form of `rise up and take back` is neither "corporate shenanigans" nor "capitalist greed", but those who challenge it from the center and the left. He's clearly very popular with the Breitbart crowd, and about as anti-establishment as any billionaire politician with the backing of a media arm and an attitude of suing everyone who challenges his views. School of Thiel and all.
- uk_programmer 6y ago
  Weinstein isn't far right. You have no idea what far right is if you think he is. He is centre-right maybe centre. His brother and his sister-in-law are both lefties. There is nothing far right about Weinstein or his family. > He's clearly very popular with the Breitbart crowd, and about as anti-establishment as any billionaire politician with the backing of a media arm and an attitude of suing everyone who challenges his views. School of Thiel and all. Actually I do talk to the people you are talking about, and again most of them aren't far right. The actual far-right don't like Weinstein or his brother (they tend to not like Jewish people on the far right).
  - ilikehurdles 6y ago
    This is quite a dishonest attempt at rewriting history with no respect for the truth. You can pretend to see your gaslighting remark as truth, but I've looked into every one of your claims about these people and I cannot come close to the same conclusion as you. I do not, however, call his brother far-right. Perhaps you could be excused for believing someone isn't far right when the overton window among english-speaking countries has narrowed so far to the right of center.
    - uk_programmer 6y ago
      The UK Gov actually has an overview for you to inform yourself as to what they consider far right: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/overview-of-the-far-right https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/overview-of-the-f... (The report itself doesn't do a particular good job either as they use some dubious sources and I don't agree with half of it, but their definitions of the groups are close enough). I've listened to a lot of Weinstein on various shows he has appeared as a guest on and I haven't heard anything that can be considered far right. One of the first times I seen Weinstein was when he appeared on Dave Rubin who is a gay liberal/libertarian (the last time I watched his show it seemed to change every other week) that lives in California. > Perhaps you could be excused for believing someone isn't far right when the overton window among english-speaking countries has narrowed so far to the right of center. This is a complete nonsense. The Anglo-sphere for the most part is pretty much centre, centre-left. Many conservatives and paleo-conservatives complain their conservative parties aren't really conservative (which isn't far-right either btw). The term far-right in itself is a poor description. A better term is a "reactionary right". But that is a whole other discussion between the "reactionary right" and the "traditional right". Right and Left are really poor descriptions of political positions and that is why many tests online now are multi-dimensional.