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In this case in particular, it's because we all know that Silicon Valley is filled with Cryptocoin Bros and Libertarians. Who all of a sudden, in less than 24

In this case in particular, it's because we all know that Silicon Valley is filled with Cryptocoin Bros and Libertarians. Who all of a sudden, in less than 24 hours into a crisis, came crying to FDIC for a bailout on bank deposits of size $100+ Million. You know, after telling millions of artists that AI is here to replace them and that government regulation is dumb. (Disruption of Taxis and Hotels through Uber and AirBnB, etc. Etc) ------- I'm not really an AI Luddite (I think ChatGPT is overrated and think that StableDiffusion is cool). But I understand that the Silicon Valley response to the public's concerns over AI, invasion of privacy, over-the-top Libertarian / antigovernment rants (see Cryptocoin Bros)... It is a delicious irony that it's this group begging for money. Anyway, I agree with some of the political discussion points of the stereotypical Silicon Valley techbro, and I disagree with others. But I think everyone can agree that what happened this past weekend was completely against those political discussion points we've heard for the past decade.

CatWChainsaw 4y ago
"In sum: This is not a culture that respects either its workers or its neighbors, and they should not be surprised when workers and neighbors don’t respect it in turn." It is a culture that loathes human dignity in general. to them, people are biological robots, stochastic parrots, attention algorithms to be gamed for profit, and resources to be exploited until they are used up and replaced with something superior. They moved fast. They broke their bank. And now, since it hurts them instead of everyone else, they're sad. Well to them I say stop being ungrateful brats and delight in the chaos and carnage like you always do. :)
- mindslight 4y ago
  The problem isn't libertarianism per se, but rather that by the time it's been chopped up by surveillance companies and sold to the public, it's ultimately just marketing used to carry weight for digital authoritarianism - essentially freedom for me but not for thee. The exact same dynamic occurs in the two mainstream political parties, where the grassroots start from decent places which then get transmuted into supporting corporate authoritarianism. Society is more used to the pathologies of mainstream parties, and I suspect the hypocrisy is more jarring when claiming an attitude of fierce individualism while actually creating something that "loathes human dignity". Libertarianism is ultimately rooted in individualism, which I think is a great basis for political understanding. The ability to "exit" and go one's own way is a powerful dynamic, even though it is impractical for most people to do so and impractical for anyone to do so for most things. Personally I can't understand how one can even determine what's right and wrong in this world without the starting point of individualism (eg human rights). But from that starting point, it's critically necessary to go in a positive direction - viewing things from others' perspective and extending them the same freedoms you expect, rather than the domination and hierarchy of short-sighted self interest. But yes, back to the larger Surveillance Valley culture? My thoughts are summarized right there in that name. Web 2.0 is just today's version of proprietary software, with the "innovations" of telemetry and centralized control. So is every corporate operating system / platform / etc, not wanting to be left out of owning a piece of the dystopia. So is most every product that gets thoroughly marketed to consumers, if not right out of the gate then definitely down the road after some pivots and acquisitions. Digital technology can provide a lot of freedom, but Surveillance Valley has done fuck all to actually get that unrestricted freedom into end users' hands, as there's no profit in doing so. Ultimately the only thing "libertarian" about Surveillance Valley is that same hypocritical dynamic of freedom for me but not for thee. It remains to be seen if anything worthwhile for non-techies comes out of web 3.0. Cryptocurrency is itself a bust, having been thoroughly colonized by finance douchebags even quicker than web 2.0. Perhaps fungible currencies have long term futures or perhaps not (non-fungible Bitcoin et al certainly do not). Or perhaps there are enough newly minted millionaires that some will actually continue to build solid human-empowered technology and reject the VC playbook of business disruption masquerading as "tech" in name only. Only time will tell.
  - CatWChainsaw 4y ago
    I'm working through both The Loop and Your Computer Is On Fire which discuss the authoritarian tendencies of computing as it exists today. Everyone's been saying for years that democracy's at a breaking point, capitalism's at a breaking point, now technology is at a breaking point. Unless we stop flirting with fractures and actually hit that breaking point and survive, this paradigm will only continue to squeeze. Precious little time to find a future that isn't annihilation or incredibly bleak. I would wish best of luck to the techbros that anointed themselves our enlightened leaders and refer to everyone outside of tech as "normies" and "lemmings", but I've also read Survival of the Richest.
Spooky23 4y ago
Absolutely. For some reason Twitter is pushing the rantings of David Sacks at me. The stream of hysterical crying and whining coming out of that guy is hilarious. Suddenly when shit gets hard we abandon the principles of libertarian thought and start making appeals to think about the poor founders and their families. (And presumably the poor investors) If it were an evolution in thought it would be one thing, but I’m sure the normal programming of smartass techbro tough talk and whining about big media persecution will resume in a week or two.
WWLink 4y ago
And if you go look at /r/wallstreetsilver you'll see those same assholes are shitting all over the hand that fed them.
nebula8804 4y ago
At least the exposure happened at the beginning of the AI adoption curve. Thats a first compared to previous fads. Recall it took a long time for society to wise up to Uber/Airbnb relatively speaking(as an example). It will be interesting to see how society reacts given that the scam was exposed early this time.
2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
As Warren Buffett basically says- they need America a lot more than America needs them. They are able to be wildly successful due to American dynamism, law and order, safety nets, educated workforce, etc.

CatWChainsaw 4y ago

"In sum: This is not a culture that respects either its workers or its neighbors, and they should not be surprised when workers and neighbors don’t respect it in turn." It is a culture that loathes human dignity in general. to them, people are biological robots, stochastic parrots, attention algorithms to be gamed for profit, and resources to be exploited until they are used up and replaced with something superior. They moved fast. They broke their bank. And now, since it hurts them instead of everyone else, they're sad. Well to them I say stop being ungrateful brats and delight in the chaos and carnage like you always do. :)

mindslight 4y ago
The problem isn't libertarianism per se, but rather that by the time it's been chopped up by surveillance companies and sold to the public, it's ultimately just marketing used to carry weight for digital authoritarianism - essentially freedom for me but not for thee. The exact same dynamic occurs in the two mainstream political parties, where the grassroots start from decent places which then get transmuted into supporting corporate authoritarianism. Society is more used to the pathologies of mainstream parties, and I suspect the hypocrisy is more jarring when claiming an attitude of fierce individualism while actually creating something that "loathes human dignity". Libertarianism is ultimately rooted in individualism, which I think is a great basis for political understanding. The ability to "exit" and go one's own way is a powerful dynamic, even though it is impractical for most people to do so and impractical for anyone to do so for most things. Personally I can't understand how one can even determine what's right and wrong in this world without the starting point of individualism (eg human rights). But from that starting point, it's critically necessary to go in a positive direction - viewing things from others' perspective and extending them the same freedoms you expect, rather than the domination and hierarchy of short-sighted self interest. But yes, back to the larger Surveillance Valley culture? My thoughts are summarized right there in that name. Web 2.0 is just today's version of proprietary software, with the "innovations" of telemetry and centralized control. So is every corporate operating system / platform / etc, not wanting to be left out of owning a piece of the dystopia. So is most every product that gets thoroughly marketed to consumers, if not right out of the gate then definitely down the road after some pivots and acquisitions. Digital technology can provide a lot of freedom, but Surveillance Valley has done fuck all to actually get that unrestricted freedom into end users' hands, as there's no profit in doing so. Ultimately the only thing "libertarian" about Surveillance Valley is that same hypocritical dynamic of freedom for me but not for thee. It remains to be seen if anything worthwhile for non-techies comes out of web 3.0. Cryptocurrency is itself a bust, having been thoroughly colonized by finance douchebags even quicker than web 2.0. Perhaps fungible currencies have long term futures or perhaps not (non-fungible Bitcoin et al certainly do not). Or perhaps there are enough newly minted millionaires that some will actually continue to build solid human-empowered technology and reject the VC playbook of business disruption masquerading as "tech" in name only. Only time will tell.
- CatWChainsaw 4y ago
  I'm working through both The Loop and Your Computer Is On Fire which discuss the authoritarian tendencies of computing as it exists today. Everyone's been saying for years that democracy's at a breaking point, capitalism's at a breaking point, now technology is at a breaking point. Unless we stop flirting with fractures and actually hit that breaking point and survive, this paradigm will only continue to squeeze. Precious little time to find a future that isn't annihilation or incredibly bleak. I would wish best of luck to the techbros that anointed themselves our enlightened leaders and refer to everyone outside of tech as "normies" and "lemmings", but I've also read Survival of the Richest.

Spooky23 4y ago

Absolutely. For some reason Twitter is pushing the rantings of David Sacks at me. The stream of hysterical crying and whining coming out of that guy is hilarious. Suddenly when shit gets hard we abandon the principles of libertarian thought and start making appeals to think about the poor founders and their families. (And presumably the poor investors) If it were an evolution in thought it would be one thing, but I’m sure the normal programming of smartass techbro tough talk and whining about big media persecution will resume in a week or two.

WWLink 4y ago

And if you go look at /r/wallstreetsilver you'll see those same assholes are shitting all over the hand that fed them.

nebula8804 4y ago

At least the exposure happened at the beginning of the AI adoption curve. Thats a first compared to previous fads. Recall it took a long time for society to wise up to Uber/Airbnb relatively speaking(as an example). It will be interesting to see how society reacts given that the scam was exposed early this time.

2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago

As Warren Buffett basically says- they need America a lot more than America needs them. They are able to be wildly successful due to American dynamism, law and order, safety nets, educated workforce, etc.