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This year tech founders, who were once mavericks, have gone increasingly mask-off. Zuckerberg, Thiel (OK, he was always mask-off), Pichai, Elon (Ok, he's been a

by jmyeet 2y ago

This year tech founders, who were once mavericks, have gone increasingly mask-off. Zuckerberg, Thiel (OK, he was always mask-off), Pichai, Elon (Ok, he's been awful for years), etc have been increasingly cozying up with the Trump campaign and (now) incoming administration. You see this in Meta's entirely hypocritical (and dangerous) suppression of speech [1]. All of these companies are increasingly moving in lockstep with the US State Department. Core to that is the insitutional belief that China is The Enemy [tm]. Banning Tiktok reflects this new reality and has the added benefit of banning a competitor who is eating Meta alive, for example. People who were attracted to tech were often idealistic. I wonder what this will do to staff retention and hiring as people increasingly realize their Big Tech employer is increasingly indistinguishable from a defense contractor like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon or Northron Grumman. AI and technology are weapons [2]. We've come a long from building tools to find and build community to beging a weapon in the American arsenal. [1]: https://www.hrw.org/report/2023/12/21/metas-broken-promises/systemic-censorship-palestine-content-instagram-and https://www.hrw.org/report/2023/12/21/metas-broken-promises/... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI-assisted_targeting_in_the_Gaza_Strip https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI-assisted_targeting_in_the_G...

aassddffasdf 2y ago
Weapons are good actually.
- backtoyoujim 2y ago
  Spoken like someone that hasn't had been a weapon's victim. The true American Exceptionalism.
  - graemep 2y ago
    Most countries think its good they have weapons. Democracies often worry about who they should supply weapons too, but rarely doubt themselves and close allies should have them.
  - renewiltord 2y ago
    The point of having weapons is to make sure the other guy is the victim because if you don’t have any you become the victim. But you do what you want to do. America is going to go guns guns guns.
- jmyeet 2y ago
  Let me quote that famous dove Eisenhower [1]: > Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. > This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter with a half-million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. . . . This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chance_for_Peace_speech#The_speech https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chance_for_Peace_speech#The_sp...
engcoach 2y ago
> to that is the insitutional belief that China is The Enemy [™] The PRC is the biggest threat to the United States and does not speak in favorable terms about the US. Do you have any reason to think they aren't the biggest enemy?
- ks2048 2y ago
  USA is their biggest trading partner.
- Dah00n 2y ago
  The biggest threat to the US is the US. Anyone calling another country “enemy” is a warmonger, IMO. China is not “the enemy”. They are, at most, a competitor. They aren't an invading force from Mars. They are human beings. This whole enemies right and left is very American and it is part of the state's Us versus Them that most Americans gobble up raw.
  - ein0p 2y ago
    Especially if the "other country" had seen no significant military action since 1991, when Sino-Vietnamese war ended, and in that time we completely destroyed 8 countries, had significant military action in 4 more, and overthrown some governments on top of that, with utterly devastating consequences in at least one country (Ukraine).
- ensignavenger 2y ago
  It may come down more to how one defines "enemy" and measures size. Romney was famously ridiculed for calling Russia out as the US's "number one geopolitical foe", rather than China. Many commentators changed their tune and decided he was right after Russia invaded Ukraine. Yet, Russia isn't as large as China, either by population, economy, or militarily. Is China really an "enemy" and if so, to what degree compared to other nations?
AndrewGaspar 2y ago
Believe it or not, a well equipped military is in fact a bipartisan issue.
swatcoder 2y ago
> Zuckerberg, Thiel (OK, he was always mask-off), Pichai, Elon (Ok, he's been awful for years) > People who were attracted to tech were often idealistic. It's worth noting that the founders you felt most worthy of calling out are specifically ones whose "idealism" was always about commercial domination, deal-making, and personal financial largess. These weren't aesthetes like Jobs or impassioned programmers like Gates, who found themselves caught up in a ethically challenging world of finance and business. The ones you're calling out were all opportunists prowling for whatever opportunity might ratchet them to greater personal success. And they're doing exactly that again now. There are no surprises here. Or at least there shouldn't be.
- swiftcoder 2y ago
  I think the idealism here is attributed to their employees, not the leaders. A pretty good chunk of BigTech employees were not on board with the boss' politics when I worked there, and it caused a lot of morale/retention issues when leaders made overt rightward moves like this.
- noirscape 2y ago
  > aesthetes like Jobs Just want to point out that Steve Jobs merely happened to be really good at aesthetics (which is more downstream from how he was really good at manipulating people). Reading up on his life's story is pretty revealing in the sense that if he hadn't run into someone like Wozniak, he probably would've ended up like Zuckerberg or Thiel and had more in common with them than people would realize. (Not necessarily much in common with Musk though, who is his own particular brand of awful.) He had very little morals outside of "whatever gets me ahead in the world", and it's just that Wozniak's actual skill with computers meant that translated to Apple instead of skeezier things. Apple was itself founded on money that Jobs stole from Wozniak after all (money that Wozniak later pointed out he would just have given to Jobs anyway if he told him what the plan was.) The fact he made Apple isn't anything to scoff at, but one wrong turn in life and he probably would've ended up in the same position as most other awful tech billionaires (and unlike most of them, he wouldn't have been a charisma void.)
Dah00n 2y ago
I don't see how this is new, sadly. Every administration has been doing this — increasingly — since, well, at least since NSA started snooping. They couldn't and don't do this alone. They always work with tech companies. Snowden likely only knew about the top of the iceberg. "China is The Enemy" is also old as dirt. The US need something to scare it citizens with. Russia, China, Muslims, communists, homosexuals... This is part of the core beliefs of every US adminitration. It will not change unless something wild happens. 3rd party in power? US being overtaken by most of the world? Invasion from Mars that forces it through....
mkolodny 2y ago
The Internet was largely developed by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) [0]. Tools like the Internet and AI can be used for many things, good and bad. [0] https://www.internetsociety.org/internet/history-internet/brief-history-internet-related-networks/ https://www.internetsociety.org/internet/history-internet/br...
rqaldk 2y ago
I'm not sure how to read the second paragraph? Does it suggest that suppression of speech goes hand in had with pandering to the Trump administration? Suppression of speech was the number one topic for Democrats from 2020. They ordered COVID censorship (admitted by Zuckerberg), suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story (admitted by Zuckerberg and Twitter/X), suggested a "disinformation tsar" (Jankowicz). They encouraged flagging and de-platforming of opposing opinions and people. Democrats did not oppose the use of Lavender (pre-crime software) and "Where is Daddy" (cynical name for assassination technology) in Gaza, despite their constant claims to care for people of color. I'm not saying that any of this will get better under Trump, but let's be realistic here. Though I do believe that Republicans will allow more free speech in total.
- jmyeet 2y ago
  > Does it suggest that suppression of speech goes hand in had with pandering to the Trump administration? Apologies for not being clear. I'll clarify. My view is that US foreign policy is uniparty. No matter who is in the White House or controls Congress, there is always money for weapons. So in that sense, suppressing speech that doesn't align with US foreign policy isn't pandering to one party or the other. It's moving in lockstep with the US State Department. Meta is increasingly comfortable becoming a government tool for mass surveillance and, essentially, a weapons manufacturer. So while that part is uniparty, you have to then consider what those weapons will be used for. Trump openly campaigned on mass deportations and has said since the election has confirmed that the mass deporation program will begin the first day of his administration [1]. It would be naive to think that social media platforms won't be used to identify targets for mass deportation. No one, particularly Zuckerberg, can argue this is a surprise. So Zuckerberg has either endorsed the mass deportation plan or at least not considered it a deal breaker. I wonder how the staff that actually created his fortune feel about this. Not good overall I suspect. Compare this to the Harris agenda. Were there any similar uses for social media likely? Not that I can recall. So one side wants to build concentration camps and the other doesn't. So yes, Zuckerberg has quite clearly cozied up to the Trump administration. [1]: https://www.indiatoday.in/world/story/donald-trumps-day-one-agenda-from-mass-deportations-to-green-new-deal-rollback-2629852-2024-11-07 https://www.indiatoday.in/world/story/donald-trumps-day-one-...
ks2048 2y ago
Add Bezos. He squashed the Washington Post Harris endorsement, killed a series exposing Trump, and publicly kissed Trump's ring on X. BTW, he didn't congratulate Biden on Twitter four years ago, so it's not just something he always does. You can argue papers shouldn't do endorsements, but changing this policy a week before the election against a guy famous for going after his enemies... you can't deny the motivations here.

by jmyeet 2y ago

aassddffasdf 2y ago

Weapons are good actually.

backtoyoujim 2y ago
Spoken like someone that hasn't had been a weapon's victim. The true American Exceptionalism.
- graemep 2y ago
  Most countries think its good they have weapons. Democracies often worry about who they should supply weapons too, but rarely doubt themselves and close allies should have them.
- renewiltord 2y ago
  The point of having weapons is to make sure the other guy is the victim because if you don’t have any you become the victim. But you do what you want to do. America is going to go guns guns guns.
jmyeet 2y ago
Let me quote that famous dove Eisenhower [1]: > Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. > This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter with a half-million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. . . . This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chance_for_Peace_speech#The_speech https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chance_for_Peace_speech#The_sp...

engcoach 2y ago

> to that is the insitutional belief that China is The Enemy [™] The PRC is the biggest threat to the United States and does not speak in favorable terms about the US. Do you have any reason to think they aren't the biggest enemy?

ks2048 2y ago
USA is their biggest trading partner.
Dah00n 2y ago
The biggest threat to the US is the US. Anyone calling another country “enemy” is a warmonger, IMO. China is not “the enemy”. They are, at most, a competitor. They aren't an invading force from Mars. They are human beings. This whole enemies right and left is very American and it is part of the state's Us versus Them that most Americans gobble up raw.
- ein0p 2y ago
  Especially if the "other country" had seen no significant military action since 1991, when Sino-Vietnamese war ended, and in that time we completely destroyed 8 countries, had significant military action in 4 more, and overthrown some governments on top of that, with utterly devastating consequences in at least one country (Ukraine).
ensignavenger 2y ago
It may come down more to how one defines "enemy" and measures size. Romney was famously ridiculed for calling Russia out as the US's "number one geopolitical foe", rather than China. Many commentators changed their tune and decided he was right after Russia invaded Ukraine. Yet, Russia isn't as large as China, either by population, economy, or militarily. Is China really an "enemy" and if so, to what degree compared to other nations?

AndrewGaspar 2y ago

Believe it or not, a well equipped military is in fact a bipartisan issue.

swatcoder 2y ago

> Zuckerberg, Thiel (OK, he was always mask-off), Pichai, Elon (Ok, he's been awful for years) > People who were attracted to tech were often idealistic. It's worth noting that the founders you felt most worthy of calling out are specifically ones whose "idealism" was always about commercial domination, deal-making, and personal financial largess. These weren't aesthetes like Jobs or impassioned programmers like Gates, who found themselves caught up in a ethically challenging world of finance and business. The ones you're calling out were all opportunists prowling for whatever opportunity might ratchet them to greater personal success. And they're doing exactly that again now. There are no surprises here. Or at least there shouldn't be.

swiftcoder 2y ago
I think the idealism here is attributed to their employees, not the leaders. A pretty good chunk of BigTech employees were not on board with the boss' politics when I worked there, and it caused a lot of morale/retention issues when leaders made overt rightward moves like this.
noirscape 2y ago
> aesthetes like Jobs Just want to point out that Steve Jobs merely happened to be really good at aesthetics (which is more downstream from how he was really good at manipulating people). Reading up on his life's story is pretty revealing in the sense that if he hadn't run into someone like Wozniak, he probably would've ended up like Zuckerberg or Thiel and had more in common with them than people would realize. (Not necessarily much in common with Musk though, who is his own particular brand of awful.) He had very little morals outside of "whatever gets me ahead in the world", and it's just that Wozniak's actual skill with computers meant that translated to Apple instead of skeezier things. Apple was itself founded on money that Jobs stole from Wozniak after all (money that Wozniak later pointed out he would just have given to Jobs anyway if he told him what the plan was.) The fact he made Apple isn't anything to scoff at, but one wrong turn in life and he probably would've ended up in the same position as most other awful tech billionaires (and unlike most of them, he wouldn't have been a charisma void.)

Dah00n 2y ago

I don't see how this is new, sadly. Every administration has been doing this — increasingly — since, well, at least since NSA started snooping. They couldn't and don't do this alone. They always work with tech companies. Snowden likely only knew about the top of the iceberg. "China is The Enemy" is also old as dirt. The US need something to scare it citizens with. Russia, China, Muslims, communists, homosexuals... This is part of the core beliefs of every US adminitration. It will not change unless something wild happens. 3rd party in power? US being overtaken by most of the world? Invasion from Mars that forces it through....

mkolodny 2y ago

The Internet was largely developed by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) [0]. Tools like the Internet and AI can be used for many things, good and bad. [0] https://www.internetsociety.org/internet/history-internet/brief-history-internet-related-networks/ https://www.internetsociety.org/internet/history-internet/br...

rqaldk 2y ago

I'm not sure how to read the second paragraph? Does it suggest that suppression of speech goes hand in had with pandering to the Trump administration? Suppression of speech was the number one topic for Democrats from 2020. They ordered COVID censorship (admitted by Zuckerberg), suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story (admitted by Zuckerberg and Twitter/X), suggested a "disinformation tsar" (Jankowicz). They encouraged flagging and de-platforming of opposing opinions and people. Democrats did not oppose the use of Lavender (pre-crime software) and "Where is Daddy" (cynical name for assassination technology) in Gaza, despite their constant claims to care for people of color. I'm not saying that any of this will get better under Trump, but let's be realistic here. Though I do believe that Republicans will allow more free speech in total.

jmyeet 2y ago
> Does it suggest that suppression of speech goes hand in had with pandering to the Trump administration? Apologies for not being clear. I'll clarify. My view is that US foreign policy is uniparty. No matter who is in the White House or controls Congress, there is always money for weapons. So in that sense, suppressing speech that doesn't align with US foreign policy isn't pandering to one party or the other. It's moving in lockstep with the US State Department. Meta is increasingly comfortable becoming a government tool for mass surveillance and, essentially, a weapons manufacturer. So while that part is uniparty, you have to then consider what those weapons will be used for. Trump openly campaigned on mass deportations and has said since the election has confirmed that the mass deporation program will begin the first day of his administration [1]. It would be naive to think that social media platforms won't be used to identify targets for mass deportation. No one, particularly Zuckerberg, can argue this is a surprise. So Zuckerberg has either endorsed the mass deportation plan or at least not considered it a deal breaker. I wonder how the staff that actually created his fortune feel about this. Not good overall I suspect. Compare this to the Harris agenda. Were there any similar uses for social media likely? Not that I can recall. So one side wants to build concentration camps and the other doesn't. So yes, Zuckerberg has quite clearly cozied up to the Trump administration. [1]: https://www.indiatoday.in/world/story/donald-trumps-day-one-agenda-from-mass-deportations-to-green-new-deal-rollback-2629852-2024-11-07 https://www.indiatoday.in/world/story/donald-trumps-day-one-...

ks2048 2y ago

Add Bezos. He squashed the Washington Post Harris endorsement, killed a series exposing Trump, and publicly kissed Trump's ring on X. BTW, he didn't congratulate Biden on Twitter four years ago, so it's not just something he always does. You can argue papers shouldn't do endorsements, but changing this policy a week before the election against a guy famous for going after his enemies... you can't deny the motivations here.