What we have with the old Wired / Kevin Kelly article (which was ridiculous at the time and I and others lambasted it at publication BTW), and also with the rec

What we have with the old Wired / Kevin Kelly article (which was ridiculous at the time and I and others lambasted it at publication BTW), and also with the recent Andreesen thing is textbook ideology: I insist that what makes my livelihood possible and makes me prosperous and powerful is what is true and universal and natural for everyone. It's not surprising or anything that people would think this in these patterns, but it betrays a lack of critical conscience. It's a class of people mostly centered around California, who have strong interests economically and politically and who benefit directly by promulgating that vision to the whole world. Whether the rest of the world benefits is always a matter of dispute -- some will, some won't. Both this and Andreesen's recent screed lack any subtlety on this matter. I commented elsewhere about how that era was by no means some neo-liberal utopia. There was war all over the world and there's clearly in retrospect nothing prophetically smart about declaring a "long boom" right on the cusp of the insane .com crash and the 2008 blow-up right after (arguably part of a contiguous economic crisis.) It's no different than climate change denial by people working in the energy sector.