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Has the tech industry always been this depraved? Or something fundamentally change within these people with the advent of Trumpism?

fidotron 1y ago
Post dot com boom, yes, but before that I think it was more of the traditional golf/cocaine/strippers/Vegas situation. The FTX horror show was nothing like as anomalous as the PR of other places would have you believe, which is one reason VCs felt so OK flinging money at them.
cjs_ac 1y ago
These sorts of people have always existed somewhere, but no one paid any attention to them until now. As a non-American, I'm looking forward to watching the in-fighting that will occur once their attempts to put their competing ideologies into practice start to conflict.
- actionfromafar 1y ago
  One faction will win and then you will have Russia but with more power.
graemep 1y ago
Not always, but the change happened long before Trump. it is also part of a wider change. Some of the ideas mentioned in the article such as subscription policing and seasteading have been around for decades. The arrogance of the wealthy goes back to the 80s, and reflects the moral change of "greed is good" replacing "money is the root of all evil" (which started long before, of course).
Mountain_Skies 1y ago
Did you not notice the last decade of the tech industry anointing itself as the one arbiter of truth and gatekeeper of human communications? Seems difficult to not noticed with how loudly that role was cheered on by those who thought it would entrench their political ideology into society forever.
- dragonwriter 1y ago
  > Did you not notice the last decade of the tech industry anointing itself as the one arbiter of truth and gatekeeper of human communications? No, I've seen individual firms in the various (social and otherwise) online media subindustries, like firms in every earlier media subindustry, each declaring themselves the one arbiter of what will be treated as true and/or worth transmitting on the platforms they operate, but... that's a very different thing than your claim. > Seems difficult to not noticed with how loudly that role was cheered on by those who thought it would entrench their political ideology into society forever. Some people may have cheered on individual moderation decisions (but typically the people invested enough to do so had an even longer list they objected too), but no significant group cheered on the fantasy you describe, nor did any significant group embrance the even more fantastic belief you describe as characteristic of the people cheering on that fantasy.
rich_sasha 1y ago
I suppose making it to the very, very top of worldwide wealth requires some incredibly unusual personality traits. Single-mindedness, ruthlessness, enormous risk tolerance and so on. These aren't necessarily bad, even if selecting for these criteria tends to end up with narcissists. But equally these maybe aren't the best qualities in a political leader. Maybe what's changed is that SV wasn't running the country 10-20 years ago?
bregma 1y ago
The tech industry? No. The "tech" is misleading: it's always been about excess wealth allocations. The railway boom of the 1800s. The oil boom of the early 1900s. People get rich, the greedy take over, they try to subvert institutions in their favour. History is rife with this recurring theme. This is just the latest iteration, and it will inevitably end the same way. Learning actual history can be enlightening.

fidotron 1y ago

Post dot com boom, yes, but before that I think it was more of the traditional golf/cocaine/strippers/Vegas situation. The FTX horror show was nothing like as anomalous as the PR of other places would have you believe, which is one reason VCs felt so OK flinging money at them.

cjs_ac 1y ago

These sorts of people have always existed somewhere, but no one paid any attention to them until now. As a non-American, I'm looking forward to watching the in-fighting that will occur once their attempts to put their competing ideologies into practice start to conflict.

actionfromafar 1y ago
One faction will win and then you will have Russia but with more power.

graemep 1y ago

Not always, but the change happened long before Trump. it is also part of a wider change. Some of the ideas mentioned in the article such as subscription policing and seasteading have been around for decades. The arrogance of the wealthy goes back to the 80s, and reflects the moral change of "greed is good" replacing "money is the root of all evil" (which started long before, of course).

Mountain_Skies 1y ago

Did you not notice the last decade of the tech industry anointing itself as the one arbiter of truth and gatekeeper of human communications? Seems difficult to not noticed with how loudly that role was cheered on by those who thought it would entrench their political ideology into society forever.

dragonwriter 1y ago
> Did you not notice the last decade of the tech industry anointing itself as the one arbiter of truth and gatekeeper of human communications? No, I've seen individual firms in the various (social and otherwise) online media subindustries, like firms in every earlier media subindustry, each declaring themselves the one arbiter of what will be treated as true and/or worth transmitting on the platforms they operate, but... that's a very different thing than your claim. > Seems difficult to not noticed with how loudly that role was cheered on by those who thought it would entrench their political ideology into society forever. Some people may have cheered on individual moderation decisions (but typically the people invested enough to do so had an even longer list they objected too), but no significant group cheered on the fantasy you describe, nor did any significant group embrance the even more fantastic belief you describe as characteristic of the people cheering on that fantasy.

rich_sasha 1y ago

I suppose making it to the very, very top of worldwide wealth requires some incredibly unusual personality traits. Single-mindedness, ruthlessness, enormous risk tolerance and so on. These aren't necessarily bad, even if selecting for these criteria tends to end up with narcissists. But equally these maybe aren't the best qualities in a political leader. Maybe what's changed is that SV wasn't running the country 10-20 years ago?

bregma 1y ago

The tech industry? No. The "tech" is misleading: it's always been about excess wealth allocations. The railway boom of the 1800s. The oil boom of the early 1900s. People get rich, the greedy take over, they try to subvert institutions in their favour. History is rife with this recurring theme. This is just the latest iteration, and it will inevitably end the same way. Learning actual history can be enlightening.