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Can we please stop lionizing the "maverick genius." It should be clear to everyone at this point that the Nth brilliant asshole with an untamed superiority comp
by CipherThrowaway 5y ago
Can we please stop lionizing the "maverick genius." It should be clear to everyone at this point that the Nth brilliant asshole with an untamed superiority complex who hates institutions and fixates on sci-fi tail risks is not going to be making the world a better place.
We are facing unprecedented global challenges this century that will benefit from humble and cooperative thinking at institutional scales. Not more myopic nerds motivated by ressentiment and delivering disruption with zero consideration of social impact.
>“To truly understand what I am. If you want to understand what a radio is,” he said, “build it from scratch. If you want to understand what a microprocessor is, build it from scratch. If you want to understand what a human is, build it.”
This sounds like a joke about the things men will do instead of just going to therapy. It's a level of grandiosity that is indistinguishable from satire.
- yeetard 5y ago
- CipherThrowaway 5y agoCritique isn't jealousy. Expect to grow out of that PoV in 5-10 years.
- yeetard 5y agoSee my comment below.
- CipherThrowaway 5y agoSo you feel the tone is too harsh. I'll grant that it is harsh. But I chose it because it's proportional to how misguided the celebration of anti-social tech geniuses really is. The era of uncritically celebrating these personalities is well and truly over for most of us.
- yeetard 5y ago>So you feel the tone is too harsh. No. My objection is that your comment is spiteful and hysterical. This isn't about anyone's personality. Can't you see that?
- morelisp 5y ago"We have big problems and mediocre self-driving cars won't solve them" is insecurity now?
- yeetard 5y agono, but this is: >stop lionizing the maverick genius >nth brilliant asshole >untamed superiority complex >myopic nerd >motivated by ressentiment ---------------------------------- >"We have big problems and mediocre self-driving cars won't solve them" is insecurity now? Nobody even meant to imply that.
- k1ll3r 5y agostay mad, lmao.
- psyc 5y agoI don't know. Can we resist the primitive instinct to knock maverick geniuses down a peg? Probably not.
- tornadofart 5y agoI feel you. The attempt from the article author to frame Hotz' comments as something deeply intellectual made me laugh. I don't dislike Hotz, it's okay to have opinions and to be passionate about what you do. But to put him on such a pedestal as if he was some kind of paradigm-shifting genius is ridiculous. He's a nerd, he likes engineering, AI and crypto, dislikes universities, sees himself as a genius and thinks the unabomber manifesto is deep philosophy. Wow. How original.