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I am defending the honor of technology, of makers, of people who believe the world can be improved through positive-sum progress rather than continuing the nega
by michaelochurch 11y ago
I am defending the honor of technology, of makers, of people who believe the world can be improved through positive-sum progress rather than continuing the negative-sum squabbling that often dominates human history, and that is all that is left if bad leaders are chosen. I am fighting because there is a good side and a bad side and I want the good side to win.
The decision to produce Evan Spiegel, to fund him and make his career and pull strings to make his startup succeed and give him press exposure, was a fuck-you to all the people who've spent years and decades in technology working hard and actually trying to build things worth caring about. There is a cultural war going on between the future and the past. Evan Spiegel was produced (and he is a product, not an entrepreneur) because of his rich daddy; he is a product of past, much like a tyrannosaur's forearms. But when the past blocks the future, when resources are being diverted away from progress to pay tribute to a set of entrenched players who deliver no present or future value, it's time to speak up and encourage the fight. The problem won't go extinct if we don't throw a meteor or few its way.
When people fund and support the careers of unqualified psychopaths, generating bad companies with horrible cultures, we can let it go or we can fight. One way to fight is with public ridicule. Attempting to discover peoples' motivations, when they act in bad faith, should not be out of consideration. When the suppositions are reasonable, as they were in my case, it is a valid tactic of discourse.
I never claimed with certainty that there was any specific type of relationship between these two people. I merely pointed to the most likely possibility given the information in the OP. It should be clear that I was, in fact, making a claim of suspicion (justified by what was in the OP) rather than certainty.
This war is bigger than the two of them, and it really doesn't matter what type of motivations the main actors have. It matters what people do. When people are working for the bad side, does it really matter why? Perhaps I should apologize, not because I may have been wrong (and I thought the admission of suspicion rather than certainty was clear) but because I brought forth a divisive topic that threatens to distract us from the real issues. I do not always fight perfectly, but you must admit that I do fight. The desire to defend what is good and oppose what is bad is one that I hold strongly, and I do not believe that I should be ashamed of it.
- AndrewKemendo 11y agoI think this quote is apt for what you describe: Never attribute to malice that which could be equally attributed to incompetence All that you describe is not unique to Technology or anything else. Anywhere there are power relationships there is the cronyism and nepotism that you describe. I wish I could say I am with you in this fight, but I think it's just a fundamental part of human nature - making countering it a Sisyphean task. "as it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen."
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- dang 11y agoThis absurd rhetoric is a perfect example. There's nothing of substance here, except an admission that you imagined what you said. HN threads are for conversation, not imaginary "wars" and ideological harangues. No more of this, please.
- michaelochurch 11y agoYou have lost the ability to differentiate between what you want this industry to be and what it is. Therefore, your view of it is rosy. That said, I think we can both agree that this thread is tired.
- dang 11y ago"No more of this, please" means not merely in this thread, but on Hacker News in general.
- michaelochurch 11y agoYou didn't acknowledge my claim that your view of the tech industry is rose-colored and inaccurate.
- nostrademons 11y ago