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From: https://a16z.com/the-techno-optimist-manifesto/ https://a16z.com/the-techno-optimist-manifesto/ >TRUTH: > We are being lied to. > We are told that tech

From: https://a16z.com/the-techno-optimist-manifesto/ https://a16z.com/the-techno-optimist-manifesto/ >TRUTH: > We are being lied to. > We are told that technology takes our jobs, reduces our wages, increases inequality, threatens our health, ruins the environment, degrades our society, corrupts our children, impairs our humanity, threatens our future, and is ever on the verge of ruining everything. > We are told to be angry, bitter, and resentful about technology. > We are told to be pessimistic. > The myth of Prometheus – in various updated forms like Frankenstein, Oppenheimer, and Terminator – haunts our nightmares. > We are told to denounce our birthright – our intelligence, our control over nature, our ability to build a better world. > We are told to be miserable about the future. Yep, Silicon Valley has become its own cult now. Maybe even worse, they are still best friends with big finance.

ddkper 3y ago
I mean it has some substance if you take those statements and then start to look at any news aggregator. I find the internet to be quite depressing and focused on the bad side of everything. I try to actively cultivate a more positive and optimistic information pool of which usually HackerNews is a good source, though ironically this post is pessimistic. Even still it is impossible to avoid the constant deluge of how bad and dystopian technology is or will be. One of my favorite examples was going to Wired's website and seeing front page an article about how the NASA Dart mission could be negative because of space debris. Here we have humans developing a way to defend ourselves against meteoric extinction and we are looking at the downsides of a small amount of byproduct space debris in the infinite expanse of space. Go to the technology subreddit and count how many upvoted posts have positive sentiment versus negative sentiment. You don't have to agree with the rest of what Mark says to see the validity in how pessimistic the views presented to us are about technology.

ddkper 3y ago

I mean it has some substance if you take those statements and then start to look at any news aggregator. I find the internet to be quite depressing and focused on the bad side of everything. I try to actively cultivate a more positive and optimistic information pool of which usually HackerNews is a good source, though ironically this post is pessimistic. Even still it is impossible to avoid the constant deluge of how bad and dystopian technology is or will be. One of my favorite examples was going to Wired's website and seeing front page an article about how the NASA Dart mission could be negative because of space debris. Here we have humans developing a way to defend ourselves against meteoric extinction and we are looking at the downsides of a small amount of byproduct space debris in the infinite expanse of space. Go to the technology subreddit and count how many upvoted posts have positive sentiment versus negative sentiment. You don't have to agree with the rest of what Mark says to see the validity in how pessimistic the views presented to us are about technology.