5 ms·

I am sure Marc Andreesen is a very intelligent person but he built and sold a web browser. He isn’t an expert on every tech topic. Same with Peter Thiel and the

by ivape 2y ago

I am sure Marc Andreesen is a very intelligent person but he built and sold a web browser. He isn’t an expert on every tech topic. Same with Peter Thiel and the rest of the PayPal mafia. I would say it's similar to politicians. We won't really have your, I don't know, career Costco Manager in political leadership. We'll get AOC or a Vance (staying bipartisan to make the point, moving off this topic next sentence). The former knows more about basic commutes and the condition of public bathrooms than your average politician or tech mogul. Our tech leaders are not well-rounded or even representative. That's why they talk crazy shit because they are in a crazy rich insulated world. We tried some contrived way to get women and minorities to become CEOs, but I think it should start more grass roots and maybe think about stopping something like ycombinator (or Google for example) from constantly recruiting based on old boys club pedigree. Regular folks just don't get put into the mix for C-Level for whatever reason unless they are gifted at the ladder-climbing thing. Exceptionalism dictates that we will never put them into the mix, and I think the world is probably missing out on some good practicality and humanity just based on sheer regular folk experience some people can bring. Funny: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ru8WeRqB0ts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ru8WeRqB0ts

Uehreka 2y ago
You know AOC was a bartender before running for congress right? While most reps are lawyers, many come from a diverse range of backgrounds, there probably is in fact someone in congress who used to manage a supermarket. This diversity of backgrounds is generally seen as a good thing when it comes to understanding the impact of upcoming legislation.
- ivape 2y ago
  I understand that but she is pretty much in the mold of Hilary at this point (career politician). It's bartender to straight Congressional aid or something like that and I believe straight to national politics. So, by 27 she is already in the stratosphere (earlier even, in terms of being in the circuit) and no longer down to earth. Talk about going to mars. She's supposed to represent the Bronx, and I can assure you she knows nothing about walking in the Bronx. You need to get robbed in the Bronx a few times before representing it lol. I don't know, for both the politicians and CEOs, I sort of wonder like when do you get to say "okay I got enough out of regular life to now manage regular life for others"?. Thirty? Fourty? Fifty? So Elon is 55, but we see that simply being fifty is not enough. I'm open to having the wrong line of thinking here.
  - DoctorOW 2y ago
    > I can assure you she knows nothing about walking in the Bronx. Huh? You think a bartender in the Bronx wouldn't walk while living there?
    - queenkjuul 2y ago
      Clearly in this fantasy the middle class of the Bronx all have chauffeurs
  - Uehreka 2y ago
    I’m not sure where you get this impression of AOC. From her Wikipedia article: > After college, Ocasio-Cortez moved back to the Bronx and took a job as a bartender and waitress to help her mother—a house cleaner and school bus driver—fight foreclosure of their home. That sounds pretty “real Bronx” to me. As for her campaign: > Ocasio-Cortez began her campaign in April 2017 while waiting tables and tending bar at Flats Fix, a taqueria in New York City's Union Square. "For 80 percent of this campaign, I operated out of a paper grocery bag hidden behind that bar," I don’t think there’s an age when you are “ripe” to become a politician. I think that in order to be good at it, you have to maintain contact with ordinary people and listen to their concerns. Elon sucks at it not because he’s 55 but because he thinks he knows all the answers and doesn’t care what anyone else thinks.
    - ivape 2y ago
      Yeah I get it, Jensen Huang worked at Dennys too (I sound nippy, but I'm not trying to be). I just don't think these people stayed in those environments long enough, but her upbringing definitely sounds "for real". If you are out into national politics before 30 you are out of any normalcy imho. Some people are bartenders for a lot longer if you catch my drift.
      - Uehreka 2y ago
        I don’t really catch your drift. Part of the reason I’m digging in on this is because you picked a perfect counterexample as your example. AOC came from a working class background, was elected on the basis of grassroots organizing against a guy with a huge war chest, and is widely known for staying involved in her community (to a degree many politicians don’t) so she can best represent their interests. As a result of her local activism and accessibility her constituents love her and as a result she has been able to beat back candidates from both parties running on massive budgets and even has crossover support from Trump voters in her district.
- GauntletWizard 2y ago
  AOC was an intern for Ted Kennedy before being strategically placed in a "bartending" position as part of her background grooming. Her family owned multiple New York Brownstones in the rich part of the city. She has as much claim to humble background as Trump.
  - mikeyouse 2y ago
    Source for any of those claims? It's pretty well known after a few weird political fights that she grew up in a tiny house in Yorktown and that her dad died when she was a freshman in college and that her mom was a house cleaner. [her childhood home: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DhCMERUXUAAY68Z?format=jpg&name=small https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DhCMERUXUAAY68Z?format=jpg&name=...]. Hard to square with her family "owning multiple brownstones". Trump's dad gave him millions of dollars to start businesses and then left him somewhere near a billion when he died. I think those are two pretty different upbringings!
    - ojbyrne 2y ago
      Wikipedia supports the claim that she was an intern for Ted Kennnedy, but none of the rest. Interestingly she has an asteroid named after her. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandria_Ocasio-Cortez https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandria_Ocasio-Cortez
      - mikeyouse 2y ago
        Right - the rest is pretty much nonsense. She grew up in a 2-bedroom house and went to the ~4th best school in Boston and we're supposed to believe she's some long con plant? Just silly.
        indoordin0saur 2y ago
        Looking into this she seems to come from an upper-middle-class background but nothing elite. I will say before looking it up for some reason I had the impression that she came from a very humble working-class immigrant background.
ferguess_k 2y ago
I think the ideal foundation of democracy consists of: 1) All citizens get mandatory high education on Math, Science, Language and Logic (what level is high enough is open to debate. I'd say college level), regardless of career -> This is to make sure they have the basic knowledge to participate in meaningful discussions; 2) All citizens are encouraged, and by law mandated to attend and organize political stuffs -> This is to ensure that they can speak out when they are not happy about anything;
- hattmall 2y ago
  Mandatory as in what? You go to jail if you can't pass calculus?
- Veelox 2y ago
  >mandatory ... college level I'm curious what your experience is with the world that makes you think every citizen is capable of completing college level classes. People with an IQ of 85 or less are like 15% of population and I think most of them with have a very hard time with high level logic.
- johngossman 2y ago
  This is pretty much Plato with the (major) caveat that full citizenship was restricted to a subset of the population

by ivape 2y ago

Uehreka 2y ago

You know AOC was a bartender before running for congress right? While most reps are lawyers, many come from a diverse range of backgrounds, there probably is in fact someone in congress who used to manage a supermarket. This diversity of backgrounds is generally seen as a good thing when it comes to understanding the impact of upcoming legislation.

ivape 2y ago
I understand that but she is pretty much in the mold of Hilary at this point (career politician). It's bartender to straight Congressional aid or something like that and I believe straight to national politics. So, by 27 she is already in the stratosphere (earlier even, in terms of being in the circuit) and no longer down to earth. Talk about going to mars. She's supposed to represent the Bronx, and I can assure you she knows nothing about walking in the Bronx. You need to get robbed in the Bronx a few times before representing it lol. I don't know, for both the politicians and CEOs, I sort of wonder like when do you get to say "okay I got enough out of regular life to now manage regular life for others"?. Thirty? Fourty? Fifty? So Elon is 55, but we see that simply being fifty is not enough. I'm open to having the wrong line of thinking here.
- DoctorOW 2y ago
  > I can assure you she knows nothing about walking in the Bronx. Huh? You think a bartender in the Bronx wouldn't walk while living there?
  - queenkjuul 2y ago
    Clearly in this fantasy the middle class of the Bronx all have chauffeurs
- Uehreka 2y ago
  I’m not sure where you get this impression of AOC. From her Wikipedia article: > After college, Ocasio-Cortez moved back to the Bronx and took a job as a bartender and waitress to help her mother—a house cleaner and school bus driver—fight foreclosure of their home. That sounds pretty “real Bronx” to me. As for her campaign: > Ocasio-Cortez began her campaign in April 2017 while waiting tables and tending bar at Flats Fix, a taqueria in New York City's Union Square. "For 80 percent of this campaign, I operated out of a paper grocery bag hidden behind that bar," I don’t think there’s an age when you are “ripe” to become a politician. I think that in order to be good at it, you have to maintain contact with ordinary people and listen to their concerns. Elon sucks at it not because he’s 55 but because he thinks he knows all the answers and doesn’t care what anyone else thinks.
  - ivape 2y ago
    Yeah I get it, Jensen Huang worked at Dennys too (I sound nippy, but I'm not trying to be). I just don't think these people stayed in those environments long enough, but her upbringing definitely sounds "for real". If you are out into national politics before 30 you are out of any normalcy imho. Some people are bartenders for a lot longer if you catch my drift.
    - Uehreka 2y ago
      I don’t really catch your drift. Part of the reason I’m digging in on this is because you picked a perfect counterexample as your example. AOC came from a working class background, was elected on the basis of grassroots organizing against a guy with a huge war chest, and is widely known for staying involved in her community (to a degree many politicians don’t) so she can best represent their interests. As a result of her local activism and accessibility her constituents love her and as a result she has been able to beat back candidates from both parties running on massive budgets and even has crossover support from Trump voters in her district.
GauntletWizard 2y ago
AOC was an intern for Ted Kennedy before being strategically placed in a "bartending" position as part of her background grooming. Her family owned multiple New York Brownstones in the rich part of the city. She has as much claim to humble background as Trump.
- mikeyouse 2y ago
  Source for any of those claims? It's pretty well known after a few weird political fights that she grew up in a tiny house in Yorktown and that her dad died when she was a freshman in college and that her mom was a house cleaner. [her childhood home: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DhCMERUXUAAY68Z?format=jpg&name=small https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DhCMERUXUAAY68Z?format=jpg&name=...]. Hard to square with her family "owning multiple brownstones". Trump's dad gave him millions of dollars to start businesses and then left him somewhere near a billion when he died. I think those are two pretty different upbringings!
  - ojbyrne 2y ago
    Wikipedia supports the claim that she was an intern for Ted Kennnedy, but none of the rest. Interestingly she has an asteroid named after her. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandria_Ocasio-Cortez https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandria_Ocasio-Cortez
    - mikeyouse 2y ago
      Right - the rest is pretty much nonsense. She grew up in a 2-bedroom house and went to the ~4th best school in Boston and we're supposed to believe she's some long con plant? Just silly.
      - indoordin0saur 2y ago
        Looking into this she seems to come from an upper-middle-class background but nothing elite. I will say before looking it up for some reason I had the impression that she came from a very humble working-class immigrant background.

ferguess_k 2y ago

I think the ideal foundation of democracy consists of: 1) All citizens get mandatory high education on Math, Science, Language and Logic (what level is high enough is open to debate. I'd say college level), regardless of career -> This is to make sure they have the basic knowledge to participate in meaningful discussions; 2) All citizens are encouraged, and by law mandated to attend and organize political stuffs -> This is to ensure that they can speak out when they are not happy about anything;

hattmall 2y ago
Mandatory as in what? You go to jail if you can't pass calculus?
Veelox 2y ago
>mandatory ... college level I'm curious what your experience is with the world that makes you think every citizen is capable of completing college level classes. People with an IQ of 85 or less are like 15% of population and I think most of them with have a very hard time with high level logic.
johngossman 2y ago
This is pretty much Plato with the (major) caveat that full citizenship was restricted to a subset of the population