[HN Gopher] The Dubrovnik Interviews: Marc Andreessen
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The Dubrovnik Interviews: Marc Andreessen
Author : jger15
Score : 76 points
Date : 2021-05-31 13:37 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (niccolo.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (niccolo.substack.com)
| spoonjim wrote:
| Can someone explain this piece in the style of Reply All's "Yes
| Yes No"? Either there is a lot of context I don't have or this
| thing makes no sense.
| specialist wrote:
| The goal of "Software is going to eat the world", Thomas
| Friedman's "The World is Flat", Thiel's "Competition is for
| Losers" is to sound profound. Any inherit wisdom is accidental.
| luffapi wrote:
| Wow, what a terrible interview. It was so bad I thought it must
| be satire, but apparently it's real. Andreessen comes across as
| mind bogglingly ignorant. Who could possibly care what this guy
| has to say about anything?
|
| > _Two of your latest investments are in highly successful
| ventures: Substack and Clubhouse._
|
| Yeah, citation needed on that one.
| Grustaf wrote:
| I'd say he always comes across as a self-important ignorant
| buffoon. His partner sounds less buffoonish, but even more full
| of himself.
| tyingq wrote:
| The first paragraph is pretty telling.
| toiletfuneral wrote:
| I wish I hadn't read this, what a bunch of sociopathic horseshit
| keiferski wrote:
| WEIRD is an acronym for Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich,
| and Democratic:
|
| _I find this thesis enormously compelling and largely
| optimistic. I predict that we -- the West -- are going to
| WEIRDify the entire world, within the next 50 years, the next two
| generations. We will do this not by converting non-WEIRD people
| to WEIRD, but by getting their kids. Their kids, and their kids '
| kids, are going to grow up on the Internet at least as much as
| they grow up in the real world, and the pull of WEIRD culture
| will overwhelm all existing non-WEIRD cultures. I realize this is
| a very strong claim, but this process is already underway; at
| this point I think it's inevitable._
|
| I think he is about 5 years behind on this. While WEIRD culture
| has definitely been influential worldwide since ~the collapse of
| the USSR, I think it has reached its local peak. American culture
| is increasingly seen as something entertaining or strange, not as
| an aspirational role model. Democracy is losing its prestige and
| other nation states are starting to construct their own Great
| Firewalls to keep WEIRD out.
|
| Instead, I think we will see something more akin to the Middle
| Ages. Distributed authorities and sources of power, each with its
| own internally developing cultures. There will be connections
| between them, but not the universalizing homogenization he
| claims.
|
| Just my opinion as an American that has been living abroad for
| the last ~6 years.
| k__ wrote:
| _" American culture is increasingly seen as something
| entertaining or strange, not as an aspirational role model."_
|
| This is true.
|
| But the USA isn't the only WEIRD nation.
|
| Other WEIRD nations think of the USA as over its zenith too.
| jolux wrote:
| Yeah, this sounds like a very early 90s post-Soviet
| perspective, i.e. at least 30 years late. I'm a Fukuyamaist
| when it comes to historical development, but even Fukuyama has
| argued that the long-term trend towards liberal democracy may
| be upset by authoritarian backsliding in the short term.
| fsloth wrote:
| Could it be you've been interacting with the "parents"
| generation which supplies the internet for the kids but does
| not get WEIRDed. Kids soaking in YouTube, gaming - it's
| creating a geek monoculture. There are backlashes, sure, but I
| don't know how well they can keep the tide at bay.
|
| Anyway as a parent of 11 and 13 year olds this is the vibe I
| get. They are much more familiar with memes and internet
| "things" than anything I would call 'traditional' culture in my
| country (Finland). Of course we are in the west, so not sure
| what the situation is elsewhere. But it sure looks like getting
| more WEIRD (I mean rural folk not speaking english creating
| youtube channels to present their traditions to a global
| audience - how _can_ you hold it back (unless you are a large
| authoritarian nation state).
| keiferski wrote:
| No, I wouldn't say I'm only interacting with the parents
| generation. While the kids are definitely "online", I don't
| think this will trend toward them necessarily being more
| Western or Democratic.
|
| Andreessen's mistake seems similar to the one pundits made
| about China in the 80s and 90s. "Once they adopt markets and
| our communications technology, they'll inevitably think like
| us."
| adim86 wrote:
| I have to agree with you, as someone who lived in the US
| for 10 years and moved back to my home country, I see the
| influence of Western culture from TV and the internet, but
| in my absence the local culture also tweaked itself and
| started exporting it to neighbouring countries also via the
| same internet.
|
| There will be influence of the West for a while, but I
| think other countries are using these mediums also to push
| their own thought simultaneously. I have watched more
| spanish TV shows via netflix that I ever would if there was
| only cable (for example)
| blast wrote:
| In case anyone else is confused like I was, "WEIRD" here stands
| for Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic.
| keiferski wrote:
| Sorry, I'll add it to the comment.
| [deleted]
| tosh wrote:
| > on Twitter, you think you're reading and writing text, but
| you're actually absorbing and spitting Oral fire
| briefcomment wrote:
| Is this a real interview?
| etc-hosts wrote:
| "Niccolo" is a prolific poster on the Salon Forum, named after
| the Italian town that served as the capitol of the last Italian
| fascist state.
|
| I'm not sure why Andreeseen would associate publicly with someone
| like that.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Social_Republic#In_p...
| jolux wrote:
| Why does it have to start with a gross, misogynistic dig at
| Taylor Lorenz? Comes off as petty and gives me absolutely no
| appetite to read the rest of it.
| sithadmin wrote:
| Niccolo's entire brand is irony-poisoned shitposting from (what
| Americans would perceive as) a far-right perspective. If you
| want to take anything he writes seriously, you must
| simultaneously take nothing he writes seriously.
| [deleted]
| jolux wrote:
| What is the non-irony-poisoned translation of that paragraph
| that I'm meant to accept as the serious interpretation?
| jessedhillon wrote:
| It's bait. Certain people were probably never going to give
| the interview a honest read anyhow, but here you are giving
| it free advertising _and also_ putting on demonstration one
| of its theses (tendency of the WEIRD to insist on
| hyperconformity)
| jolux wrote:
| I was actually pretty interested in reading it until I
| saw that paragraph.
| 1cvmask wrote:
| Perhaps he is referring to the false accusations wrongfully
| leveled at Marc Andreessen (he never used the word retard in
| Clubhouse which was the appropriation term of reddit group
| wallstreetbets) by Taylor Lorenz:
|
| https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-journalistic-tattletale...
|
| https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1358463935771516928?la...
| [deleted]
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| yeah WTF, struggled to read that paragraph and then just closed
| this.
|
| Dunno who this guy is (Nicollo) or why should care but can we
| stop sharing these lame ass substack newsletters like they're
| decent content? They're newsletters silo'd away so these people
| and their readers can stay hidden away from the rest of us.
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| The interviewer has an interesting interview with Glenn Greenwald
| as well: https://niccolo.substack.com/p/the-kinshasa-interviews-
| glenn...
| Flatcircle wrote:
| After the first couple questions he really dropped a lot of
| wisdom.
|
| For instance, the story about the US's fear of the Japanese
| owning the flat screen tech in the 90's.
|
| and...
|
| "Total foreign imports are only about 11% of American
| consumption, and Chinese imports are 3%."
|
| "We've lived in a cultural and intellectual space just as much as
| we've lived in a physical space for thousands of years."
|
| much like the internet itself, you gotta read through lots of hay
| to find those golden needles.
|
| The comments from folks about how bad the interview was, probably
| stopped reading after the first couple of paragraphs and missed
| the meat of the interview.
| samstave wrote:
| I'd be willing to bet that every single household in the US has
| products more than 3% made in China.
| Flatcircle wrote:
| Sounds like you need to read the article.
| DSingularity wrote:
| Sound alike you need some critical thinking. Roughly
| speaking, what percentage of your household products are
| manufactured in China?
| Flatcircle wrote:
| Percentage of household products manufactured in china is
| irrelevant, he's talking about spending (excluding
| investments)
|
| so music, movies, television, video games, internet,
| cellphones plans, healthcare, schooling, food, gas,
| sporting events are all included in this equation. So
| importing Chinese goods isn't that much money when
| factoring the entire US consumption. That's a novel idea,
| that I never thought about before reading that article.
| bendbro wrote:
| > The comments from folks about how bad the interview was,
| probably stopped reading after the first couple of paragraphs
| and missed the meat of the interview
|
| Seems like a super effective way to filter modern,
| oversocialized hypersensitives out of your community.
| luffapi wrote:
| It seems like a great way to filter out any functional adult
| who doesn't want to read junior high, 4chan style edge lord
| rantings. I have far better things to do with my time then
| listen to a billionaire say "retard" because he thinks it
| makes him rebellious (when it really just makes him look like
| an ignorant and immature fool).
| TigeriusKirk wrote:
| I honestly did wonder if it was done for that reason.
|
| It's a fascinating interview with any number of interesting
| topics to discuss. But it seems like the interviewer went out
| of his way to offend up front. I figure that's mostly his
| brand or something (I have no clue who he is), but based on
| the comments here it certainly did filter people out.
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| It is his brand. All his interviews start that way. I'd be
| more concerned if his critics actually had something
| interesting of their own to say.
| clcaev wrote:
| > "Total foreign imports are only about 11% of American
| consumption, and Chinese imports are 3%."
|
| What sort of evidence does he cite for those numbers?
|
| The denominator in a percentage matters. Once you take out
| housing, food, fuel, insurance, education, etc. -- how much of
| our remaining expenditures are goods (mostly) made in China?
|
| While less than 3% of my household expenditures are electronic
| goods, the vast majority of those goods are made in China --
| this despite a concerted effort to buy domestic products.
| whoisjuan wrote:
| From the article: "Total foreign imports are only about 11%
| of American consumption, and Chinese imports are 3%. Most of
| any national economy, including ours, is domestic; you can't
| import a haircut, a house, or a hospital visit. So global
| trade is probably overblown as an issue generally. Which
| isn't good news; it's just to say that, as usual, most of our
| problems are our own."
|
| You seem to have forgotten the core expenditures of a
| household: Shelter, Food, Personal Care and Entertainment.
|
| Very little in there is coming from China. Certainly not food
| and most likely basic goods like stationery, toys,
| electronics, furniture and clothes. Seems reasonable to think
| that chinese goods fit the 3% figure based on the expenditure
| in those categories.
| TomMckenny wrote:
| This means that raising housing costs, interest rates and
| debt, taxes, and medical costs reduce his figure for
| foreign imports as a percentage of spending. That
| increasing the amount spent on those things is "good news"
| regarding trade deficits.
|
| At any rate, the numbers 11% and 3% are as fictional as the
| Taylor Lorenz quote but the amount of skepticism differs
| greatly. This hints more of ideology based beliefs than
| fact based.
| DSingularity wrote:
| What a terrible interview. Where is the substance?
| alfl wrote:
| The language is an intentional shibboleth [0].
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shibboleth
| mycologos wrote:
| That says a shibboleth is a word or phrase "that distinguishes
| one group of people from another". What is that group, here?
| Traster wrote:
| By intentionally being a massive arsehole they exclude people
| who won't tolerate arseholes so that they don't have to
| expose themselves to criticism from anyone with any sense of
| self-worth or intelligence.
| alfl wrote:
| For example, the people in the other threads, here, who say
| that they can't read past the first few paragraphs. The
| author is using diction to intentionally exclude those
| people.
| tyingq wrote:
| He says that, but it's also a fairly nice card to pull if
| you just like being an arrogant asshat.
| sithadmin wrote:
| For those who aren't aware, the interviewer is a founder of Salo
| Forum, which is an...interesting community. A sort of highbrow
| version of 4chan /pol/ with a posting style that feels very
| SomethingAwful.
| luffapi wrote:
| It doesn't seem highbrow _at all_.
| sithadmin wrote:
| Perspective is relative. I compared it /pol/. Nearly anything
| is highbrow compared to /pol/.
| luffapi wrote:
| This seemed like it would be very at home on /pol/.
|
| They literally spend paragraphs saying "retard" as much as
| possible. Total edgelord stuff.
| bendbro wrote:
| Yeah, its pretty repugnant. If I take a moment to unpack the
| dissonance here, it reminds me if a quote from a man smarter
| than I, Trevor Noah: "In this moment, I am euphoric. Not
| because of any phony poke at another's expense. But because,
| I am englightened by my own kindness."
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