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This tracks with my experience here, watching tech thought leaders. Obviously Andreesen went very hard right, as did Musk, but just in general the tech elite s

by ajross 2y ago

This tracks with my experience here, watching tech thought leaders. Obviously Andreesen went very hard right, as did Musk, but just in general the tech elite suddenly and surprisingly turned Trumpy over the last few years; Ackman being a really good case study. Note that pg himself took a fairly surpising reactionary turn in right about the 2020/2021 timeframe this article describes. A guy who'd always been a left-center pragmatist suddenly was yelling in public tweets about the Campus Left's Desire for Cancellation and whatnot. Those of us closer to the trenches never really did get the ire here: I mean, yeah, kids are intemperate jerks, but they've always been intemperate jerks. And the tech community... has always celebrated the idea behind the intemperate jerk and an engine for change and disruption. Let the ideas fight it out and pick winners and all, right? Suddenly these billionaires were all snowflakes looking to a political realignment to save them? This article goes a long way to explaining why.

pbiggar 2y ago
pg has been yelling about the Campus Left's Desire for Cancellation for years and years (I want to say since 2011?). It's been very frustrating to watch because lots of us identified this as right wing propaganda that (imo) pg was unwittingly participating in.
dist-epoch 2y ago
[flagged]
- Apocryphon 2y ago
  The idea of shutting down ideas is itself an idea that can be fought by other ideas. Those kids do not actually control institutions that can enforce the shutting down of ideas, even if cultural mores might have temporarily aligned with their positions from time to time.
- bilbo0s 2y ago
  Well, they're learning from the adults. Soon as Trump's term started he started removing any mention of slavery from the Smithsonian cuz 'merica. That's really the concerning thing. Liberals and conservatives not only dislike ideas, they dislike history and facts. That's what makes them dangerous. On the left it seems you at least had a few moderates who had the good sense to keep the wing nuts in line. We tried the right, thinking we might get better governance, and have discovered, to our collective horror, that the right is wing nuts the whole way down. So you get things like tariffs, and purges, and wild 4$$ ravings about plane crashes being caused by too many blacks. In the US we need to take things back in hand or it really will be way too late to do anything. These extremists will run the nation right into the ground.
- roguecoder 2y ago
  The "kids" are not the ones kidnapping people who disagree with them. Bill Maher still has a show, despite having spent more than twenty-five years being a racist POS. There is no such thing as "Cancel Culture": there are just people who are SUPER mad that their kids think their racism is bad.
  - ryandrake 2y ago
    "I have been silenced!"[1] says the side with all three branches of government, owns newspapers and TV stations, business leaders and executives in front of microphones all the time. But, yea--they're the ones that are being silenced. 1: https://leftycartoons.com/2018/08/01/i-have-been-silenced/ https://leftycartoons.com/2018/08/01/i-have-been-silenced/
slibhb 2y ago
[flagged]
- marcellus23 2y ago
  > Today, virtually everyone is anti-woke I am not a fan of a lot of the tenets associated with "wokeness", but this is just totally wrong.
  - slibhb 2y ago
    None of the very left people I know would describe themselves as anti-woke...but they all make it very clear that they find wokeness (or whatever you want to call it) ridiculous.
    - fyrabanks 2y ago
      This is fairly anecdotal.
      - slibhb 2y ago
        Ah you're right next time I'll do a study before posting my opinion on the internet.
    - amanaplanacanal 2y ago
      I wish when people use the term woke they would say what they actually mean. I suspect they don't because they don't want to be seen as racist, sexist, homophobic, or whatever. What do you mean by woke?
      - ryandrake 2y ago
        "Woke" is the right's word that means "Anything I don't like." Similar to what "fascist" means when the left says it.
    - roguecoder 2y ago
      The "left" is huge and diverse (which people don't know because left-wing thinkers don't get the adoration and amplification right-wing thinkers do in this country.) I am guessing you are referring to Marxist-Lennonists, or even Tankies. Folks who believe that only class oppression is worth fighting, and that the solution is centralized authoritarian regimes with left wing people in power. Those folks are generally anti-liberal, despite being on the left, and deny any history that would complicate their politics. Alternatively, you might know neoliberals, who believe in the power of capitalism to address social problems and deny any history that might complicate their politics. Or you might know Syndicalists, who believe unions are the path to worker's political power, and who deny any history that might complicate their politics. Etc. If you know one "very left" person, you know one very left person.
cess11 2y ago
I've looked at pg:s tweets recently and was surprised that he takes issue with both the genocide in Palestine and the university related disappearings. I had expected him to be more radical and aligned with the current regime.
acdha 2y ago
I think you’re right but would also add the nascent tech worker organization during the same period. I think many of these guys were bitterly resentful of the idea of workers trying to unionize or otherwise negotiate on a more even level, and that made the general political concerns very personal.
- Apocryphon 2y ago
  Not just tech unions but the brief shift in tech labor power also saw phenomena like the Great Resignation, overemployment, quiet quitting, etc.
  - ryandrake 2y ago
    Yea, no matter how left-leaning the business owners are, the second that labor gets even a smidgen of power, they all suddenly turn into Ronald Reagans.
vuggamie 2y ago
Maybe Paul Graham was simply protecting his station within the oligarchy all along. The turn toward appeasing fascism is nothing more than the path of least resistance. But I'm sure he'll write some blogs warning of complacency and send some tweets on Musk's nazi propaganda site. He's one of the good ones.

by ajross 2y ago

pbiggar 2y ago

pg has been yelling about the Campus Left's Desire for Cancellation for years and years (I want to say since 2011?). It's been very frustrating to watch because lots of us identified this as right wing propaganda that (imo) pg was unwittingly participating in.

dist-epoch 2y ago

[flagged]

Apocryphon 2y ago
The idea of shutting down ideas is itself an idea that can be fought by other ideas. Those kids do not actually control institutions that can enforce the shutting down of ideas, even if cultural mores might have temporarily aligned with their positions from time to time.
bilbo0s 2y ago
Well, they're learning from the adults. Soon as Trump's term started he started removing any mention of slavery from the Smithsonian cuz 'merica. That's really the concerning thing. Liberals and conservatives not only dislike ideas, they dislike history and facts. That's what makes them dangerous. On the left it seems you at least had a few moderates who had the good sense to keep the wing nuts in line. We tried the right, thinking we might get better governance, and have discovered, to our collective horror, that the right is wing nuts the whole way down. So you get things like tariffs, and purges, and wild 4$$ ravings about plane crashes being caused by too many blacks. In the US we need to take things back in hand or it really will be way too late to do anything. These extremists will run the nation right into the ground.
roguecoder 2y ago
The "kids" are not the ones kidnapping people who disagree with them. Bill Maher still has a show, despite having spent more than twenty-five years being a racist POS. There is no such thing as "Cancel Culture": there are just people who are SUPER mad that their kids think their racism is bad.
- ryandrake 2y ago
  "I have been silenced!"[1] says the side with all three branches of government, owns newspapers and TV stations, business leaders and executives in front of microphones all the time. But, yea--they're the ones that are being silenced. 1: https://leftycartoons.com/2018/08/01/i-have-been-silenced/ https://leftycartoons.com/2018/08/01/i-have-been-silenced/

slibhb 2y ago

[flagged]

marcellus23 2y ago
> Today, virtually everyone is anti-woke I am not a fan of a lot of the tenets associated with "wokeness", but this is just totally wrong.
- slibhb 2y ago
  None of the very left people I know would describe themselves as anti-woke...but they all make it very clear that they find wokeness (or whatever you want to call it) ridiculous.
  - fyrabanks 2y ago
    This is fairly anecdotal.
    - slibhb 2y ago
      Ah you're right next time I'll do a study before posting my opinion on the internet.
  - amanaplanacanal 2y ago
    I wish when people use the term woke they would say what they actually mean. I suspect they don't because they don't want to be seen as racist, sexist, homophobic, or whatever. What do you mean by woke?
    - ryandrake 2y ago
      "Woke" is the right's word that means "Anything I don't like." Similar to what "fascist" means when the left says it.
  - roguecoder 2y ago
    The "left" is huge and diverse (which people don't know because left-wing thinkers don't get the adoration and amplification right-wing thinkers do in this country.) I am guessing you are referring to Marxist-Lennonists, or even Tankies. Folks who believe that only class oppression is worth fighting, and that the solution is centralized authoritarian regimes with left wing people in power. Those folks are generally anti-liberal, despite being on the left, and deny any history that would complicate their politics. Alternatively, you might know neoliberals, who believe in the power of capitalism to address social problems and deny any history that might complicate their politics. Or you might know Syndicalists, who believe unions are the path to worker's political power, and who deny any history that might complicate their politics. Etc. If you know one "very left" person, you know one very left person.

cess11 2y ago

I've looked at pg:s tweets recently and was surprised that he takes issue with both the genocide in Palestine and the university related disappearings. I had expected him to be more radical and aligned with the current regime.

acdha 2y ago

I think you’re right but would also add the nascent tech worker organization during the same period. I think many of these guys were bitterly resentful of the idea of workers trying to unionize or otherwise negotiate on a more even level, and that made the general political concerns very personal.

Apocryphon 2y ago
Not just tech unions but the brief shift in tech labor power also saw phenomena like the Great Resignation, overemployment, quiet quitting, etc.
- ryandrake 2y ago
  Yea, no matter how left-leaning the business owners are, the second that labor gets even a smidgen of power, they all suddenly turn into Ronald Reagans.

vuggamie 2y ago

Maybe Paul Graham was simply protecting his station within the oligarchy all along. The turn toward appeasing fascism is nothing more than the path of least resistance. But I'm sure he'll write some blogs warning of complacency and send some tweets on Musk's nazi propaganda site. He's one of the good ones.