[HN Gopher] Silicon Valley, the new lobbying monster
___________________________________________________________________
Silicon Valley, the new lobbying monster
Author : fortran77
Score : 239 points
Date : 2024-10-07 13:21 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.newyorker.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.newyorker.com)
| mitchbob wrote:
| https://archive.ph/94cDH
| amelius wrote:
| Can we use ChatGPT to neutralize them?
| random3 wrote:
| Who's "we"?
| prpl wrote:
| Who's "them"?
| meiraleal wrote:
| Them
| 0_____0 wrote:
| Tools of the master etc. etc.
| mgh2 wrote:
| Dirty brainwashing ad tricks sneak into Congress, no surprise:
| "If you are pro-crypto, we will help you, and if you are anti we
| will tear you apart."
| startupsfail wrote:
| Crypto = money from Putin, no? The regular channels for Putin
| to support disintegration of democracy in the West had dried
| up, so Crypto is now being used.
| edm0nd wrote:
| No.
|
| Crypto = Crypto
| boh wrote:
| I wouldn't say "new". This has been a thing for decades. While
| the companies who are the top spenders may have changed, Silicon
| Valley tech as a whole has been pretty aggressively represented
| for some time.
| Eumenes wrote:
| My thoughts exactly. This article calls out crypto but tech
| lobbying has a much longer history with Amazon, Google, and
| Meta. I view crypto as an extension of the financial services
| industry at this point (look at the boards and execs of these
| companies; they are more finance than tech), which obviously is
| the king of financing campaigns.
| alephnerd wrote:
| And the corporation that owns the The New Yorker (Conde Nast)
| is a notorious lobbyist in both the US and EU around AI
| Regulations and AdTech.
|
| Goes to show that most political op-eds are just
| entertainment.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| A bit more than a decade.
|
| A while ago software companies where taking every kind of abuse
| from the US government, coming from well represented
| entertainment, finance, and all kinds of other industries. This
| suddenly stopped when they started to lobby.
| MangoCoffee wrote:
| Microsoft intensified its lobbying efforts when it faced
| scrutiny for bundling IE with Windows. Similarly, Facebook,
| Google, Apple, and others have increased their lobbying over
| the years.
|
| As you pointed out, this is nothing new. When companies or
| entire industries feel threatened, they ramp up lobbying - even
| Huawei hired Tony Podesta to advocate for them.
|
| Hillary Clinton's call to repeal Section 230 for stricter
| social media regulation will likely prompt tech companies to
| boost their lobbying efforts.
|
| Sooner or later, companies in emerging industries will start
| lobbying to protect their interests or advance their agendas.
|
| https://www.politico.com/news/2021/07/23/huawei-hires-tony-p...
| alephnerd wrote:
| Yep! For example, the EFF was notably supported by Google back
| when Google was taking on Microsoft, the ITIF has been active
| for decades, and the Obama admin was notorious for being
| overrepresented by Google leadership.
|
| Ain't no point adding morality to lobbying - it's just what it
| is.
| bbqfog wrote:
| "Political VC" has been the worst and most damaging industry
| trend I've ever seen. From overt Zionism, to Gary Tan constantly
| whining about SF politics, to Reid Hoffman interfering with
| elections... Peter Thiel funding Trump, Vinod Khoslha fighting
| zoning laws...
|
| _None_ of that has to do with technology or innovation, yet as
| innovators we are forced to navigate some of the most toxic
| politics known to man. I no longer seek venture capital because I
| don 't want to work with any of these people. We need
| alternatives to fund innovation.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| You get a much more usable framework if you drop the idea that
| there is some "pure" tech or innovation that politics are a
| corruption of and instead realize that technology and
| innovation _are always_ political. Politics were there from the
| beginning, but they may have been invisible to you in a
| previous era.
|
| Understanding how that could be and articulating what the
| politics were before is key to deciding what to do about the
| changes now.
| bbqfog wrote:
| I agree, so much of our tech was built out as part of the
| global war machine. It was easier to keep your head in the
| sand with "libertarian-esque" ideas (at least for me), but as
| those ideas came to fruition and social media exposed the
| thoughts of the people behind the money, the reality of the
| situation became easier to see.
| broken_clock wrote:
| > None of that has to do with technology or innovation
|
| Liberalism was the greatest innovation we ever came up with as
| a species. VCs are paid to have strong opinions on
| technological innovations. Why wouldn't they have strong
| opinions on the institutions and systems of governance that
| make tech possible?
| candiddevmike wrote:
| Because their strong opinions aren't enabling technological
| innovations, they're enabling commercialization and
| regulatory capture so they can make money.
| lazide wrote:
| Oh my. And you think the prior attitudes were honest on
| their face, and not about undermining the prior incumbents
| so they could eat their lunch - to get the new folks here?
|
| The prior incumbents were the way they were because they
| were incumbents. _all_ incumbents end up doing these
| things. Because they work.
|
| At least until someone figures out the chink in the armor,
| and it stops working.
|
| Welcome to the new set.
|
| Die young a hero, or live to be a villain.
| bbqfog wrote:
| I don't agree at all that Liberalism was the greatest
| innovation. Neo-liberalism is quite the opposite actually.
| VCs are part of a rigged system of global capital. They get
| paid to be part of that system and continue its existence. It
| has nothing to do with innovation other than occasional
| random bets that pay off.
| loufe wrote:
| I'm not sure why you're getting voted down. The HN
| guidelines clearly state downvotes are not to be used to
| express disagreement. Your point was politely and concisely
| made, and stuck to the topic.
|
| Do better, voters.
| immibis wrote:
| What is supposed to happen and what actually happen are
| two different things. Example: Liberalism was supposed to
| make everyone prosperous, but it actually made everyone
| more prosperous according to metrics that don't matter
| (CPU cores per pocket) while taking away all the
| prosperity that does matter (stability of living space,
| nutritional quality of food, etc).
| mrguyorama wrote:
| >Liberalism was the greatest innovation we ever came up with
| as a species
|
| Pottery, agriculture, control over the electromagnetic field,
| basket weaving, LANGUAGE, formalized society, written
| language, MATH, metalworking etc
|
| and you posit UNREGULATED MARKETS as the greatest innovation?
|
| NONE of the above monumental achievements of humanity are
| even remotely related to people being able to do business
| with slightly less regulation and slightly fewer taxes.
| Nearly all human innovation has occurred when being murdered
| by your king for petty reasons was the norm.
|
| Integrated circuits as a commodity mostly exists because the
| US air force wanted it to. None of that is about liberalism.
|
| The Navy trained up hundreds of thousands of people
| essentially to the level of electrical engineers, basic
| information sciences, and computers and computation and
| electric fields for WW2, to improve radar and targeting,
| including building and deploying a networked computer system
| for automated fleet defense and intercept tasking _in the
| fifties_ , and then these people are mostly just let go, to
| spread their paid for knowledge to anyone in the commercial
| space, no non-competes. Wouldn't you know it, training up a
| bulk of people in a brand new but important field, with
| minimal cost to them, and then just freely giving that away
| reaped insane rewards for the next 50 years!
| fallingknife wrote:
| It has everything to do with tech an innovation. Nothing shifts
| the balance of power in a society like technological
| advancement. How could you possibly think a multi trillion
| dollar industry could avoid politics? You can't just bury your
| head in the sand.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| > We need alternatives to fund innovation
|
| I know! A federal Department of Innovation! How about that?
| geodel wrote:
| Oh "we, the innovators" need a new "innovation fund" what an
| awesome idea. I wonder what kind of innovations has been
| brought by these innovators.
| zooq_ai wrote:
| Lobbying is a necessary evil to counter populism, brainwashed
| people (from TikTok, Reddit).
| game_the0ry wrote:
| No, good policy that benefits a wide group of constitutes
| instead of a few key donors is how you counter populism.
|
| Lobbying makes it worse bc the response (populism) will have
| credible grievances, which is why you will see populist
| candidates all over the west.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| so-called "deliverism" as a cure to populism has empirically
| not worked very well.
|
| actual material changes do very little to defuse populist
| cultural moments in modern wealthy societies
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| Source?
|
| Making your people first world is extremely good at
| defeating "populist cultural moments" like communism,
| unless of course you consider may 68 in France of evidence
| of the contrary.
|
| I'll even go further and claim that Occupy Wall-Street died
| because the US economy boomed from 2012 on (return to
| embarrassed millionaire)
| whimsicalism wrote:
| The US is already first world. OWS was much smaller than
| the media might make you think - the US economy really
| only started booming 2017,2018,2019.
|
| https://democracyjournal.org/arguments/the-death-of-
| deliveri...
| game_the0ry wrote:
| This comment comes of as over-intellectual incoherent
| internet babble. I do not even know what you are saying.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| because I used the word 'deliverism'?
|
| HN is a safe space from anti-intellectualism, thankfully
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| I've seen this analysis before, but I'm really not sure
| what it's supposed to mean beyond "modern populist
| movements want changes I don't consider to be material".
| There's no big mystery here - Denmark successfully defused
| their populist movement by delivering what populists say
| are their biggest priorities, stricter immigration policies
| and an increased focus on small towns (https://www.project-
| syndicate.org/commentary/denmark-europea...).
| John_Cena wrote:
| There is no big mystery; I believe it is proposed as that
| because the politicians just want to act in their own
| self-interest or that of lobbyists and not those of their
| constituents.
|
| Even bringing up immigration policies leads to vitriol
| online, and all I can do is think "to whose advantage is
| this really"..
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| The people handing money to lobbyists in washington are the
| same people funding these misinformation campaigns that
| brainwash the populace.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| [flagged]
| teaearlgraycold wrote:
| The worst are the seed stage founders complaining about the
| proposed paper gains tax (while not knowing enough about it to
| answer if it would apply to startup equity) because they're
| _definitely_ going to have enough value for the $100MM
| threshold to apply to them.
| dgs_sgd wrote:
| When the income tax was first passed it applied to less than
| 1% of citizens, yet look where we are now. Just because a new
| law doesn't apply to you personally doesn't mean you can't be
| concerned about the potential downstream effects.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| Slippery slope arguments with taxes make no sense. A new
| tax could appear any day on any income level.
| xienze wrote:
| > because they're definitely going to have enough value for
| the $100MM threshold to apply to them.
|
| Tax cutoffs have this habit of drifting downward over time
| (the whole, "eventually you run out of other people's money"
| thing). See the original revenue act of 1913 (modern US
| income tax). At first it was 1% starting at today's
| equivalent of $93K and didn't go any higher until you made
| the equivalent of about $500K. And today, well, it's a little
| different.
|
| New taxes are always pitched this way -- "oh it'll never
| affect you, just those rich people, what's your problem?"
| xhkkffbf wrote:
| Why are you being a Democrat shill? Didn't you see that recent
| video of Democratic party boss Hillary Clinton saying the quiet
| part outloud? If the social media isn't censored, "we lose
| control." And by "we", she didn't mean you and me.
|
| I just don't see this as "SO much better."
| Eumenes wrote:
| > cyber-libretarians like Ron Wyden
|
| This dude is a certified ghoul.
|
| In May 2017, Wyden co-sponsored the Israel Anti-Boycott Act,
| Senate Bill 720, which made it a federal crime, punishable by a
| maximum sentence of 20 years imprisonment,[88] for Americans to
| encourage or participate in boycotts against Israel and Israeli
| settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories if
| protesting actions by the Israeli government. The bill would
| make it legal for U.S. states to refuse to do business with
| contractors that engage in boycotts against Israel.[89]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Wyden#Israel
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| [flagged]
| Eumenes wrote:
| I don't know what a cyber-libertarian is but Bernie Sanders
| is completely irrelevant (literally). The 3 bills he
| sponsored that became law were renaming highways and post-
| offices. The guy is a meme at this point. Look how he
| rolled over for the DNC two cycles in a row.
|
| Here are his accomplishments:
| https://www.congress.gov/member/bernard-
| sanders/S000033?q=%7...
|
| If you look at co-sponsored, its more of the same fluff.
| I'd say he's pretty ineffective.
| geoka9 wrote:
| FWIW, your post prompted me to take a bit of time to
| research. I found this interesting:
|
| "According to The New York Times, "Big legislation
| largely eludes Mr. Sanders because his ideas are usually
| far to the left of the majority of the Senate ... Mr.
| Sanders has largely found ways to press his agenda
| through appending small provisions to the larger bills of
| others."[146] During his time in the Senate, he had lower
| legislative effectiveness than the average senator, as
| measured by the number of sponsored bills that passed and
| successful amendments made.[147] Nevertheless, he has
| sponsored over 500 amendments to bills,[148] many of
| which became law."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Sanders
| Eumenes wrote:
| Thats the conclusion I came to. It seems like he'd be
| more effective as a consultant/advisor or non-elected
| official. Taking up a valuable senate seat to make
| amendments seems like a waste of influence.
| geoka9 wrote:
| My take is that he's still a successful lawmaker, it's
| just that he is more successful implementing his agenda
| with amendments rather than standalone bills.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are both cyber libertarians
| so I don't see the problem.
| dang wrote:
| Could you please stop posting in the flamewar style? Your
| account has been doing it a ton, it's not what this site is
| for, and destroys what it is for.
|
| I don't want to ban you because you clearly know a lot of
| things and have posted quite a few good things over the
| years. But your comments include so much name-calling,
| swipes, snark, and nastiness that you're not leaving much
| choice.
|
| Here's one of many examples, on an unrelated topic:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41630774. That's a
| great comment, ruined by name-calling and personal attack.
| On the subject of cartoons of all things! There's no need
| to treat other people this way, or use the comment section
| to vent bile like that.
|
| If you wouldn't mind reviewing
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking
| the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be
| grateful.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| This isn't a flame war style, and you're off base to even
| try to moderate me here.
|
| If you want to ban me over this or my previous comment,
| do so. It'd be a fitting bit of evidence that this place
| has truly gone off the deep end. N gate died far too
| soon.
|
| The entire premise of trying to dig peoples comments up
| and shame them has failed to do anything except embolden
| me even more. Maybe you should focus on moderating the
| significantly nastier comments in this very thread rather
| than targeting me unjustly yet again, or focus on adding
| the sorely needed PM system this website lacks rather
| than engage in airing out dirty laundry in public.
|
| And if you really are the cyber detective you like to
| larp as, you'd know that my whole body of work is in
| argument mining and competitive debate. Simply being
| argumentative is not flame-bait or whatever other
| nonsense term you'll claim it to be. Of course I'm going
| to be argumentative and political, and that's okay.
|
| There are so many worse comments in this very thread
| which you ignored yet you focused me, and this has
| happened several times now despite in every thread you do
| it in, others are far more egregious in their violation
| of the rules.
|
| Seems you need some help with moderation.
| game_the0ry wrote:
| Hillary Clinton went on TV and said we should get rid of
| Section 230 in order to moderate content. So is it really that
| surprising that SV made a right turn?
| ajuc wrote:
| SV made the choice before (by accepting money from
| dictatorships for political influence via social media).
| Attempts at regulation were a reaction to that.
|
| There's no way the situation can stay like that forever.
| There will be regulation like there's regulation of TV,
| radio, press, etc.
|
| Without regulation you don't get a libertarian utopia - you
| just get oligarchy.
| mlinhares wrote:
| Wait, the libertarian utopia IS oligarchy. So it is all
| right by their standards.
| ajuc wrote:
| There's orders of magnitude more libertarians than
| oligarchs. It's even in the name :)
|
| Most libertarians aren't rational egoists, they are just
| naive losers oligarchs take advantage of to get more
| power.
| mlinhares wrote:
| They still firmly believe they'll be the oligarchs, just
| like lots of people think if they were in medieval Europe
| they would be nobles or knights.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| This argument doesn't hold water. Hillary Clinton is kind of
| irrelevant at this point. She doesn't hold any kind of
| elected office and remains pretty unpopular among lefties
| after losing in 2016. Meanwhile Trump openly tried to reduce
| the protections of Section 230 _while he was president_ [1].
|
| [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/abrambrown/2020/05/28/what-
| is-s...
| jkaptur wrote:
| Donald Trump is strongly against Section 230.
|
| https://www.cfr.org/in-brief/trump-and-section-230-what-know
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Bernie Sanders is a cyber-libertarian? What does that mean?
| Manuel_D wrote:
| > Folks that think that Trump and his friends like "freedom of
| speech" or any of the type of techno freedoms we take for
| granted are in for a deeply rude awakening. The reality is that
| democrats are so, SO much better on most cyber issues that
| you're actually a deplorable if you are voting for trump.
|
| I'm curious as to why you conclude that Democrats are better
| than Republicans in terms of IT liberty. Trump ended operation
| choke point, a program of essentially harassing banks into
| dropping certain customers [1]. De-banking is, in my opinion,
| one of the most important threats to "cyber liberties" since
| it's absolutely crucial for any business to survive.
| Individuals who are de-banked also find it incredibly difficult
| to survive: Plenty of services, including apartments and HOAs,
| do not accept non-electronic payments.
|
| The censorship of "misinformation" (much of which later turned
| out to be true) also grew considerably under the 2020
| administration, which did in fact reach out to social media
| companies to try and influence their decision making. One of
| the more salient examples was covered by HN here:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41365868 To be clear, I'm
| not concerned about private companies autonomously deciding
| what to host. I take issue with the government coercing
| companies into making moderation decisions. This has huge
| potential for abuse, such as forcing the takedown of
| politically disadvantageous material.
|
| Both Republicans and Democrats are in favor of getting rid of
| Section 230, but for essentially totally different reasons:
| Republicans seem to want to return to the precedence set by
| Cubby Inc. vs. CompuServe [2]. Democrats seem to want to
| narrowly repeal Section 230 to empower the government to
| dictate the contents of social media. Both are negative in my
| opinion, but the patter seems more insidious and prone to long
| term harm.
|
| And to be clear, these issues are far, far from enough to get
| me to vote for Trump. I'm interested in hearing the counter-
| claim, that the Democrat party is better in terms of cyber
| liberties.
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Choke_Point
|
| 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubby,_Inc._v._CompuServe_Inc.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| > The right-wing turn is absolutely disgusting and should be
| shattered as soon as possible with prejudice.
|
| Do you understand how you are the problem here?
|
| Silicon Valley didn't care about politics until politicians
| started getting involved and attempting to impose censorship
| regimes, aggressive unrealized gains taxation, and killing
| crypto assets. Tech startups were find being ignored.
|
| But as you illustrate, you can't ignore DC if it chooses not to
| ignore you. If people like you want to use the power of the
| state to "shatter" anyone you politically disagree with, well,
| of course the tech companies will hit back.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| > Porter, who had initially polled well, lost decisively in the
| primary, coming in third, with just fifteen per cent of the vote.
|
| She was running against Adam Schiff, who had much broader name
| recognition. It also didn't help that she's overweight and
| "Porker" became her nasty nickname.
|
| This is a shoddy piece of reporting. Tech lobbying didn't start
| with Chris Lehane, Uber, Lyft, or crypto. Anytime government is
| capable of helping or hurting an industry, they form a lobbying
| group. The more money involved, the bigger the lobbying effort.
| JohnMakin wrote:
| It didn't help that the Schiff campaign (backed by the CA
| democratic party) donated to the Garvey campaign to force her
| out of the primary. Seems weird to not mention this.
|
| https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-03-06/californ...
| whatever1 wrote:
| I like how they started with different values compared to the old
| American companies (oil, cigarettes, defense).
|
| But they ended up exactly the same. Helping the worst regimes,
| all-in in military complex, taking advantage of screen addiction
| and teen insecurities.
|
| But hey at least they don't wear white collars like the old bad
| guys.
| azinman2 wrote:
| In terms of numbers, there aren't that many SV companies that
| exploit kids via insecurities and screen addiction. But I don't
| doubt their impact.
| drawkward wrote:
| I am not sure what your subtext here is. Are you saying it
| doesnt matter as much because there are fewer SV companies?
| azinman2 wrote:
| "But they ended up exactly the same. Helping the worst
| regimes, all-in in military complex, taking advantage of
| screen addiction and teen insecurities."
|
| This implies all. I then said I don't doubt their impact.
|
| They're not all like this is my point.
| drawkward wrote:
| Thank you for clarifying.
| mjlawson wrote:
| My take is that maybe we shouldn't paint all of SV with the
| same brush. Not every SV company is Philip Morris.
| drawkward wrote:
| Right, only the ones that touch all of humanity are
| Philip Morris!
| linguae wrote:
| You are right; there are still many good people and
| companies in Silicon Valley. Unfortunately the Philip
| Morrises of Silicon Valley have outsized influence since
| they control major social media platforms, Web
| infrastructure and standards, advertising networks, cloud
| computing platforms, and other essential tech
| infrastructure. Locally, they are also large employers in
| the Bay Area, and due to the housing crunch it is very
| difficult for non-"Philip Morris" workers, even in tech,
| to compete for housing (not every software engineer makes
| $200k+ in salary and gets RSU grants), which is pushing
| some of them out the Valley, helping make the Valley even
| more of a "Philip Morris" shop.
| mistercheph wrote:
| But all of them would kill for Philip Morris levels of
| product-market fit.
| plussed_reader wrote:
| Maybe you shouldn't demonize all of SV, and it's the one
| working against your self interest?
|
| I admit that's a large ask for a consumer, to keep track of
| a larger organizations abusing you.
| csomar wrote:
| The ones that do are so huge that the number of companies
| doesn't matter. Facebook market cap is 1.5 Trillion and has
| $150bn of revenue every year. That's more than many countries
| around the world. (and I am comparing revenues to GDP).
| azinman2 wrote:
| "I don't doubt the impact"
| avisser wrote:
| Sure, but you led with something that implied the
| opposite. Were I your editor, I'd've struck it.
| azinman2 wrote:
| I don't think it's misleading. SV isn't the sum of Meta,
| YouTube, and TikTok (which isn't even SV despite some
| roles here) - even if those companies impacts are
| outsized. The article explicits calls out things like AI;
| Anthropic and OpenAI are nowhere near like those others.
| And that's just one category.
|
| I would hope a YCombinator news site of all places would
| see that.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| Money and power is clearly one hell of a drug.
| jajko wrote:
| Also a collective mindset - if most people one knows are
| doing exactly the same, morality lines tend to conveniently
| blur, it requires very strong personality to keep the inner
| compass untainted for decades.
|
| And its a grey business so to say, you can see various
| justifications for it also here since many folks here work
| for them, its not some Zyklon-B factory. At the end,
| everybody under certain circumstances has a price, and kids
| tend to blur this even more for many.
| sitkack wrote:
| This is one of the many reasons that tech wants to hire
| young.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| What really gets me, is very young software engineers
| (not managers or marketers), that emulate the values and
| behaviors of tech bro billionaires.
|
| It's not surprising, but it is kind of disappointing.
|
| When I was young, I was convinced that all the bad in the
| world, was the fault of evil, greedy old men. If young
| folks ran things, we'd be empathetic, kind, ethical, and
| positive.
|
| As SV is basically completely run by young folks, of
| various races, genders, and backgrounds , I have to admit
| that it is actually _worse_ , than the evil old men.
| fallingknife wrote:
| There is only one reason that tech hires young and that's
| the growth rate in the number of software engineers. The
| profession looks young simple because there are probably
| 10x as many now as there were 30 years ago, so naturally
| there will be a whole lot less 50 year olds than 20 year
| olds.
| sangnoir wrote:
| This is not new: read articles of transcripts of speeches
| from 10+ years ago by Thiel or pg that lionize young,
| inexperienced founders and the benefits of working at
| startups pitched to the youth.
| Rebuff5007 wrote:
| "You either die a hero or you live long enough to become the
| villain"
| kibwen wrote:
| _> I like how they started with different values compared to
| the old American companies (oil, cigarettes, defense)._
|
| They started with the same values: make as much money as
| possible, even if it destroys the world. Any entreaties to the
| contrary were a smokescreen to deflect criticism until they
| could shore up their position. This is the natural end-state of
| incentivizing profit maximization.
| safety1st wrote:
| How does your worldview explain the GPL?
| tensor wrote:
| What does the GPL have to do with profit maximization?
| Matl wrote:
| RMS is not Mark Zuckerberg?
| linguae wrote:
| Exactly. Silicon Valley used to be countercultural, an
| alternative to Corporate America. Yes, there was _always_ a
| money-making emphasis, and there's a long history of less-than-
| ethical practices, but this was countered by many positive
| aspects of the Valley, such as the paying-it-forward ethos and
| the feeling that technology matters. There's a reason Xerox
| PARC was placed in Palo Alto and not in New England. There's a
| reason why many of personal computing's pioneers had a
| countercultural vibe.
|
| Today Silicon Valley _is_ the establishment. It seems less like
| the nerd mecca it used to be (remember Weird Stuff?) and is now
| a place that is much more obsessed with money. When a basic
| 1960s suburban tract house within a reasonable commute from
| work costs more than $2 million, it's hard not to be obsessed
| with money. There are still good people and awesome
| technologies in Silicon Valley, which is one of the main
| reasons I've decided to stay in the Bay Area, but it seems like
| some companies in Silicon Valley have gone absolutely
| mercenary, and they have eroded the goodwill the area had as
| recently as a decade ago.
|
| But I think this is part of the natural evolution of industry.
| The same could be said about the history of the railroad and
| car industries in America. Think of how essential
| telecommunications and electricity are to modern society, yet
| I've yet to meet a person who loves Comcast and PG&E.
| cornercasechase wrote:
| I used to think this was the case as well, even though I
| suffered through the reality: computing was always a rich
| person's game. Even more so in the early days. Even a C64 was
| an upper middle class toy. Cosplaying counter cultural
| (really well) doesn't change the fact that if you cold afford
| to build the foundation of the computer industry, you were at
| least very aligned with capital. Now that alignment has been
| exposed, highlighted and scaled to global proportions.
| lovich wrote:
| My eyes were opened when I started realizing the Wikipedia
| pages of luminaries in the software field had blue links to
| their famous parents and those parents also had blue links
| to _their_ famous parents
|
| Hell I'm guilty of some myself. I was surprised early in my
| career when I found out that most of my peers did not have
| a computer and internet access as children in the early 90s
| mempko wrote:
| You need to watch "All Watched over by Machines of Loving
| Grace" by Adam Curtis which outlines Silicon Valley's long
| Libertarian roots. Making money and greed has been deeply
| embedded from the start.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Is it based on the poem or just named after it? I don't
| remember anything particularly libertarian about the poem.
| marxisttemp wrote:
| It is just named after the poem, as a reference to the SV
| ideology of stepping back and letting the machines and
| the networks decide our future.
| marxisttemp wrote:
| Absolutely love Adam Curtis. I was first exposed to
| AWOBMOLG in the basement of the Palais de Tokyo as an
| idealistic undergrad, and bristled at his claims. Since
| then it has become one of my favorite pieces of filmmaking.
| Great soundtrack too.
| Terr_ wrote:
| > "All Watched over by Machines of Loving Grace"
|
| This reminds me of the tycoon's thunderously semi-religious
| speech from The Network [0], which has aged pretty well for
| a movie 50 years old.
|
| > The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man
| crawled out of the slime. And our children will live, Mr.
| Beale, to see that... perfect world... in which there's no
| war or famine, oppression or brutality. One vast and
| ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to
| serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share
| of stock. All necessities provided, all anxieties
| tranquilized, all boredom amused.
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35DSdw7dHjs&t=0m43s
| CPLX wrote:
| > Silicon Valley used to be countercultural, an alternative
| to Corporate America.
|
| Turns out this is bullshit.
|
| It's fine I bought into it too. But it's a pretty unbroken
| path from today back through the history of business in
| Silicon Valley. It's always been a smokescreen.
|
| I recommend this book, it's highly illuminating and specific:
| https://www.amazon.com/Palo-Alto-History-California-
| Capitali...
| literallycancer wrote:
| It has nearly nothing to do with the tech industry or
| counterculture and everything to do with being shit at urban
| planning and selling land to speculators on the cheap, so you
| end up with nowhere for the sprawl to go, and the land owner
| voting block that sabotages any attempt at building high
| density settlements.
| d_burfoot wrote:
| > different values compared to the old American companies (oil,
| cigarettes, defense).
|
| To play devil's advocate a bit, I think those old industries
| started out just as idealistic as the tech sector. The oil
| companies pursued amazing feats of science and engineering to
| power the new industrial economy. The defense companies made
| remarkable technological advances to help deter Soviet
| aggression and win the space race. And before the link to lung
| cancer was discovered, tobacco was like coffee: it gave people
| a nice cognitive boost, as well as possibly helping them stay
| thin.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| This is in no way to defend smoking. I've never smoked, and
| good riddance to it.
|
| However:
|
| Amidst all the talk about the causes of obesity, surely "not
| smoking anymore" is in there somewhere?
| paduc wrote:
| Meth addicts are often very thin as well. /s
| consteval wrote:
| Personally I would argue that the addiction simply
| shifted for most Americans. It was cigarettes, now it is
| food, particularly ultra-processed food.
|
| There's a large subset of people, the majority in my
| opinion, who are somewhat prone to addiction. Most are
| just a wee bit prone. They certainly won't peruse the
| streets for drugs. But, if something is readily available
| and socially accepted, they'll do it.
|
| Before this was smoking, now its ultra-processed foods.
| Fast food, junk food, sweets type stuff.
|
| It's probably still a boon, I'd say. I mean, I think
| being obese is probably healthier than smoking. But we
| didn't really "solve" anything, we just moved the
| problem.
| willy_k wrote:
| Not very surprising, considering it's the same companies
| using the same playbook. I'm not so sure that being obese
| is healthier than smoking, being obese might not give you
| cancer but it will certainly mess with your heart, and I
| would not be surprised if someone who smoked for the same
| amount of time someone else was obese ends up having a
| better prognosis after quitting.
| fortran77 wrote:
| Obesity is associated with many forms of cancer. See
| https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-
| prevention/risk/o...
| cycomanic wrote:
| The connection is even closer. Tobacco company
| extensively invested in the highly processed food
| industry and brought their advertisement experts in. The
| obesity crisis (and addiction to sugary and fatty
| processed foods) is not an accident, it's the result of a
| sophisticated advertisement campaign directed by the
| brains behind tobacco and alcohol campaigns.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| This seems ideologically rather than evidence-driven.
|
| Smokers used to claim that it suppressed their appetites.
| Not being a smoker, or obese, I wouldn't know. But it
| seems plausible as a (partial) cause.
| TeaBrain wrote:
| They aren't defending smoking. They're referring to the
| industry and its ethos when it originally grew. While
| smoking was established as being bad for health in the
| mid-20th century, this wasn't as clear in the late 19th and
| early 20th, when the tobacco industry boomed and brought
| many jobs to the southern US economy.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| Who's "they"?
| TeaBrain wrote:
| I take it you're being purposefully obtuse, but I was
| referring to the person you responded to.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| > I take it you're being purposefully obtuse
|
| No, but you're being purposefully hyper-sensitive.
|
| If you're replying to someone higher, you should hit
| Reply on _that_ comment. Not on someone lower down.
| TeaBrain wrote:
| No, that was honestly how I interpreted your comment.
| That may have been the wrong interpretation, but your two
| word reply didn't leave me with much. I possibly
| misinterpreted your first comment also, but I wasn't
| really sure how you were leaning there, whether it be
| just an absurdity or a question honestly pondered.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| OK. All you see when you hit Threads is what YOU said.
| Not what the person above you said.
| joecool1029 wrote:
| > And before the link to lung cancer was discovered, tobacco
| was like coffee: it gave people a nice cognitive boost
|
| Now you can just buy nicotine products for that boost with a
| substantially reduced risk profile (it's not a carcinogen).
| Some writeup on it: https://gwern.net/nicotine
| sangnoir wrote:
| > it gave people a nice cognitive boost,
|
| Does nicotine give a cognitive boost, or does it return one
| to their pre-addiction baseline?
| BriggyDwiggs42 wrote:
| Same question applies perfectly to caffeine. I might just
| be justifying my addiction, but it's possible this is still
| worthwhile as it allows one to manually select when they
| want to expend their mental energy, overriding the normally
| semirandom fluctuations brought on by exhaustion, mood,
| etc.
| cedilla wrote:
| A big difference is that caffeine isn't addictive. It may
| seem like it, and you do get a few headaches when you
| quit cold turkey, but you just don't get the intense
| graving you get with addictions.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > A big difference is that caffeine isn't addictive. It
| may seem like it, and you do get a few headaches when you
| quit cold turkey, but you just don't get the intense
| graving you get with addictions.
|
| I'm curious what definition of "addiction" you're using
| to arrive at the conclusion that caffeine isn't
| addictive.
| lokar wrote:
| Isn't the standard definition that you continue to use
| the drug despite it causing serious negative problems in
| your life?
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > Isn't the standard definition that you continue to use
| the drug despite it causing serious negative problems in
| your life?
|
| There's no one standard definition of "addiction", and
| most concise definitions (one or two lines) are extremely
| fragile and break down when you try to apply them in any
| meaningful context.
|
| By this definition you're putting forth, caffeine
| certainly could be addictive, as could any substance -
| and in fact, nearly any behavior, which is why
| professionals generally frown upon using this measure
| definitionally, because it leads to pseudoscientific
| terms like "X addiction", for absurd values of X.
| debo_ wrote:
| There are tools for measuring the level of dependence and
| addiction for different substances (like the severity of
| dependence scale.)
|
| You may also be interested in studies on caffeine
| dependence, like:
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3777290/
|
| > Numerous controlled laboratory investigations reviewed
| in this article show that caffeine produces behavioral
| and physiological effects similar to other drugs of
| dependence. Moreover, several recent clinical studies
| indicate that caffeine dependence is a clinically
| meaningful disorder that affects a nontrivial proportion
| of caffeine users.
| nradov wrote:
| There is fairly good evidence that nicotine causes some
| mild cognitive benefits beyond the baseline. Of course
| there are also downsides even separate from the effects of
| smoking.
|
| https://peterattiamd.com/ama23/
| xenospn wrote:
| It actually helps Alzheimer's patients regain their
| faculties, if only temporarily.
| mistermann wrote:
| One similarity between the scenarios: fake democracy, with
| minimal (and easily compromised) checks and balances.
|
| Theatre at its finest. But this shan't ever be discussed.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| If you let money drive, you end up where money wants to go.
| patcon wrote:
| I like this framing.
|
| Anyone care to suggest what money "wants" or where it wants
| to go?
|
| I know it's a flawed question, because money is in many ways
| inert, but we have similar caveats around genes and
| evolution. Non-sentient things can still create persistent
| structures that we can label with our human values. Or
| something :)
| stackskipton wrote:
| Money tends to want more money. Thus, it's extremely amoral
| so we shouldn't be shocked when it does things people
| consider bad.
| Vegenoid wrote:
| Money wants to go to where more money is, and accumulate in
| great pools that can pull in more and more money. Money
| seeks to erode barriers that would prevent this, so that
| the money pool can accumulate faster and faster. This force
| can overcome morals that are barriers to the process of
| money accumulation.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| Its ancestors wanted to feed the Roman army, and to ensure
| that the recently conquered stayed conquered next year. I
| don't think it's much different today: provide legitimacy
| to cases where those with power want to coerce those
| without.
|
| The modern wrinkle is that our effects on the world are
| more significant. This design has side effects (re: the
| climate, to name just one). These are side effects which we
| may not be able to tolerate forever. I think that money,
| being a status-quo preserver, "wants" us to ignore them for
| as long as possible, but since they're cumulative, that's
| going to be tougher sell as time goes on.
|
| Also, It's an information technology. As the makers of such
| things I think it's up to us to figure out what the next
| version should look like.
| anonyfox wrote:
| I think money is simply like mass: it has some kind of
| gravitational force, so people are drawn to it (the more
| money the stronger the pull), and it attracts itself (money
| tends to accumulate like a black hole), if left unchecked.
|
| The only way to interfere with it is by using other
| unrelated forces, like kindness, just like we can move
| masses around with electromagnetism.
| usefulcat wrote:
| "Show me the incentive and I'll show you the outcome."
|
| --Charlie Munger
| whoomp12342 wrote:
| hoodies are the new white collar
| karmasimida wrote:
| Maybe because when the government looks to regulate them, that
| is why the lobbying effort takes up?
|
| Nothing ever has changed
| scoofy wrote:
| Tim Wu discussed this at length in The Master Switch back in
| 2010:
|
| https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8201080-the-master-switc...
| flakiness wrote:
| Also "The Curse of Bigness" is as relevant as that book.
| https://www.amazon.com/Curse-Bigness-Antitrust-New-Gilded-
| eb...
| beezlebroxxxxxx wrote:
| The Andreessen and Horowitz quotes in this are particularly
| hilarious and pathetic. The desperate attempts at linking their
| greed to the fate of the country itself is so nakedly self-
| serving (as are many of the quotes from these lobbyists and other
| VCs) that they should make them a laughing stock.
|
| The Citizens United decision will be a cancer in American
| politics and a boon for the ultra-wealthy for generations.
| coredog64 wrote:
| What specifically in Citizens United is bad? Are there any
| positive outcomes from CU?
| drawkward wrote:
| For one thing, it equates money with speech, which
| destabilizes our democracy by giving more power to those who
| have money. Obviously, money does that in many ways outside
| of the electoral process, but one would imagine that any
| _serious_ democracy would want to keep its democratic
| processes maximally equitable.
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| I hear you , but that doesn't seem to pass the smell test.
|
| The vast majority (97% ?) of voters are low-information
| voters. 1 such vote is equal to 1 high information vote (3%
| ?), those who research, read bills, etc.
|
| So the process is already not maximally equitable - in
| fact, the system severely punishes high information voters
| via opportunity cost.
|
| At that point dollars positively affect your outcome
| because with paid mediums , low information voters can now
| get more information, despite being unwilling to inform
| themselves via hard work. So that's a benefit. That
| information flow is subject to competition, so the best
| ideas (and information) will win out. That's another plus.
| Money competes for eyeballs, and your dollars are just as
| good as mine. If you have more $$, i can pool my friends
| and beat you. There's nothing more equitable than that we
| have discovered so far.
|
| Now, enter someone with a ton of money, Musk. You could
| argue that he would tilt the game. But we then observe the
| opposite: Billionaires are also subject to the law of
| diminishing returns. 'Donations' will only buy so much
| favor, and then they become a losing proposition. So, do
| you want a billionaire burning his cash in the political
| process? The answer is absolutely: it signals a level of
| credibility and conviction, when business opportunity is
| already a loser.
|
| So in short, you want people to risk all their chips in
| something they believe, instead of limiting their bets and
| just get rich off the house, playing the long game .
|
| Perhaps we start from the other side of the table. Maybe
| money is not the problem. Perhaps it is the power
| concentrated in too few individuals ? How about cutting off
| power from those that are selling favors to the highest
| bidders ?
| zelias wrote:
| The massive influx of money has empirically had a
| tendency to turn a substantial portion of your "high
| information votes" into "high _dis_information votes"
| drawkward wrote:
| American democracy does not give special preference to
| information content of a voter, nor should it. Did you
| skip the entire Jim Crow era of history where the
| racially-presumed information content of a particular
| voter was used to disenfranchise those voters, even
| spuriously?
|
| Our constitution does not begin, "We, the highly-informed
| people..."
|
| Anything else, and you are no longer talking democracy.
| MacsHeadroom wrote:
| Our constitution established a republic, not a democracy.
| The drafters famously despised democracy. https://founder
| s.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-02-02-6371
| drawkward wrote:
| Yawn-inducing attempt at sleight of hand. Despite being a
| republic, we nevertheless select our representatives
| democratically. I vote directly on state-level
| constitutional amendments.
| piva00 wrote:
| > At that point dollars positively affect your outcome
| because with paid mediums , low information voters can
| now get more information, despite being unwilling to
| inform themselves via hard work. So that's a benefit.
| That information flow is subject to competition, so the
| best ideas (and information) will win out.
|
| I don't believe in this rosy view of the "marketplace of
| ideas", fear wins out, populism wins out, not the best
| ideas. The best ideas have nuance, they demand to be
| understood in context, they aren't catchphrases nor
| explore scapegoats for societal problems. All of that
| demands a high-information voter to parse through and
| judge what's the "best idea" within their context,
| environment, community, etc.
|
| No, I do not believe that allowing ideas to fight it out
| inevitably leads to the best ideas raising to the top,
| people don't vote intellectually, they vote emotionally
| and the person who tries to fight strong emotions (such
| as fear) with ideas will lose out.
| drawkward wrote:
| >That information flow is subject to competition, so the
| best ideas (and information) will win out.
|
| Did you miss all of COVID era on social media?
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| For the best ideas to win, they must subject themselves
| to open conflict.
|
| I didn't make a claim on how long conflict would last,
| but money is not infinite.
|
| Noise is part of the system, and the system is not
| perfect, but that's a reflection of our imperfections, vs
| anything wrong with the final outcome.
| drawkward wrote:
| Yes, well we are discussing elections which very
| definitely have time frames. We can't wait for Edward
| Gibbons to come along 2 millennia later and tell us that
| some bullshit idea's poisoning of this particular
| election is going to wreck democracy.
|
| Add to that the fact that bullshit is cheaper to produce
| than truth. Sprinkle in the notion also that bullshit is
| likely more profitable too. Consider what might happen if
| the bullshitters control orders of magnitude more money
| in the first place, and then filter through Brandolini's
| Law:
|
| Add to that
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law
|
| Democracy is too sacred to be left to the loudest.
| fallingknife wrote:
| Citizens United was the correct decision. The alternative is
| our government deciding who gets to engage in politics. Without
| Citizens United politics would be even more restricted to a
| much smaller set of even wealthier people and established
| politicians who have access to the governemnt approved outlets
| of political speech.
| drawkward wrote:
| The correct decision is to set a limit on campaigning, and
| fund it with tax dollars, no outside spending.
| fallingknife wrote:
| So we should let the government choose who gets campaign
| funding? Sounds like an established politician's wet dream.
| throw4847285 wrote:
| Oh no! Established politicians! They know how the
| government works, and could possibly be effective. We
| can't let them get reelected!
|
| I joke, but the current system is so much more vastly
| corrupt than this imagined scenario where small potatoes
| money gets handed out equally to all candidates in a
| race, that I just can't really imagine what your actual
| nightmare scenario might be.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| The nightmare scenario is that the money is not handed
| out equally to all candidates.
|
| If corrupt incumbent politicians have complete control of
| the finances of an election, how could they be held
| accountable? Anyone wanting to run against them on this
| issue would simply be denied the money to do so.
| drawkward wrote:
| >If corrupt incumbent politicians have complete control
| of the finances of an election, how could they be held
| accountable?
|
| The exact same way any relief is sought against the
| government: the court system.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| Ok, and who appoints the judges? And who is responsible
| for enforcing court decisions?
| drawkward wrote:
| The government is not the conspiracy your post requires
| it to be.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| I agree that our current government is not.
|
| But what you are proposing is a different government, one
| in which leaders could operate without the primary
| accountability that they face now: that anyone can
| organize a campaign against them.
| drawkward wrote:
| Assuming that what you say is the outcome of a proposal
| like mine (which, btw, it isn't): I would rather have the
| government (which is beholden to the constitution) than
| the wealthy (who aren't beholden to the constitution) be
| the gatekeeper.
|
| In fact, this money would be available to anyone who met
| whatever threshold was legally enshrined, a far better
| alternative than having to kiss the ring of an oligarch,
| as you propose.
| piva00 wrote:
| Many modern, developed democracies do exactly that, and
| are quite more democratic than 2 parties running the
| state. As well as not making elections a show might help
| democracy instead of the best showman.
|
| I will be waiting for the American exceptionalism
| arguments on why a thing that well functioning
| democracies/countries do wouldn't work in the USA.
| drawkward wrote:
| Oh god not gun control! /s
| 9dev wrote:
| The government should set sensible limits on campaign
| contributions that avoid a system of legalised bribery,
| aka. SuperPACs, such that actual people get to choose
| their representatives, not a handful of ultra-rich with
| the means to steer politics.
|
| The only candidate in American politics that lives up to
| your idealised, independent politician of the people, is
| Bernie Sanders. And guess what? He strongly opposes
| billionaires buying themselves a government.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| Donations to political campaigns are still limited. Even
| after Citizens United.
|
| What's not limited is independent expenditures. You can,
| for example, organize rallies or put up billboards
| advocating more serious efforts to combat climate change
| without limit.
| pakyr wrote:
| > Without Citizens United politics would be even more
| restricted to a much smaller set of even wealthier people
|
| Really? Because there are many countries with far stricter
| regulations on campaign financing than the US had pre-
| Citizens United, that also have much more working class
| representation in their politics than the US.[0]
|
| [0]https://www.noamlupu.com/Carnes_Lupu_ARPS.pdf
| p_j_w wrote:
| This is a reasonable sounding hypothesis that has been shown
| to be completely false.
| ikrenji wrote:
| citizens united = sell the election to the highest bidder. no
| need to put lipstick on a pig
| Manuel_D wrote:
| Clinton got twice as much corporate donations as Trump in
| 2016, but she still lost. It's not so simple.
| smaddox wrote:
| False dichotomy. Prior to CU, individuals could contribute to
| any candidate of their choosing (up to an annual contribution
| limit). Companies are compased of individuals. CU was twisted
| logic to reach a preconceived, corrupt outcome.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| You are misunderstanding what the Citizens United vs. FEC
| determined. Candidate contributions are still limited, even
| after CU. What's not limited is independent expenditures.
| smaddox wrote:
| I can understand how the "up to an annual contribution
| limit" part of my comment could be confusing. I added
| that in an attempt to not be misleading / to circumvent
| spurious disagreement. I've moved it inside of
| parenthesis to de-emphasise it.
|
| If you read my comment as a response to the parent, I
| believe it will make more sense.
|
| ---
|
| CU opened the floodgates of anonymous, unlimited
| political contributions to "independent", but not really
| independent, organizations which can campaign on behalf
| of candidates.
|
| The goal was/is to replace our democratic republic with
| an oligarchy. And we're now in the end game.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| > which can campaign on behalf of candidates.
|
| Wrong, if the candidates are directing or otherwise
| leading ostensibly-independent donations this is illegal.
| Independent donations are exactly that: independent of a
| candidate's campaign. If they're carried out on behalf of
| a candidate, they're not independent donations.
|
| You can put up billboards saying, "X candidate's record
| is the best on climate change, tax policy, etc.". Your
| spending in this manner is not subject to limits. If the
| candidate calls you up and says "It'd be really good if
| you put up billboards saying X, Y, and Z" then that's
| breaking election laws.
|
| Citizens United is not even remotely close to replacing
| our republic with an oligarchy. You can't buy elections,
| no matter how much people try to say so. Clintion
| received about twice as many donations as Trump in 2016,
| but still lost the election.
| samatman wrote:
| Indeed. The First Amendment guarantees freedom of the press,
| which in clear language protects free speech for
| corporations. That includes the right to engage in political
| advocacy, which is what Citizens United v. FEC was about.
|
| A lot of people have a, let's say _filtered_ understanding of
| the decision, which has become a sort of shibboleth rather
| than a direct reference to the Supreme Court 's ruling.
|
| I encourage reading up on the ruling itself, at least the
| Wikipedia summary
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC
|
| Or should you prefer primary sources (as ideally you should)
| just read the ruling
| https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/558/310/
|
| The canonical source, just for completeness. Justia has the
| same text
| https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/boundvolumes/558bv.pdf
| renewiltord wrote:
| Makes sense. Lobbyists for legacy competitors tried to screw them
| so they picked up the game. In Canada and Australia they tried to
| screw them on the news / search linking debacle. The problem is
| that when you come at the king, you best not miss.
| architango wrote:
| The excellent financial podcaster/youtuber Patrick Boyle has a
| related entry, "Crypto Has Bought The 2024 Election":
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpZvC_5leDY
| nickpinkston wrote:
| +1 for Patrick Boyle's channel - very informative and his dry
| humor is fun too
| mistercheph wrote:
| An unprecedented peek-behind-the-covers at the inside of
| mainstream media brain.
|
| Man with wide eyes and stock photos and nordvpn sponsorship on
| set with full makeup and steampunk costume rambles through
| various headlines, not forgetting to show you how to
| (mis)interpret facts, and how to manifest life as a rabid
| political fanatic, ready to ruin any dialog you come across
| with barking and screeching and red eyes.
|
| There is nothing in that video that even resembles thought or
| rationality, it is just classic mainstream media non-sequitur
| that adorns the regalia of knowledge and batters the viewer
| with meaningless "facts" and "figures" until they are in a
| state of ready-to-be-filled aporia.
| architango wrote:
| I guess I fell for it, then - I'm not particularly
| intelligent nor media-savvy, so perhaps that's no surprise.
|
| In your estimation, what's an example of a fact that Boyle
| misinterprets in this video?
| mistercheph wrote:
| It's not about "intelligence" or about any particular
| factual misinterpretation, I'm sure there's some "source"
| that more-or-less backs each individual claim made in the
| video, the problem is, in broad strokes, the standard of
| evidence for each individual "fact", and the narrative that
| guides the viewer through the set of curated and
| disconnected facts to an implied conclusion, which is less
| like a conclusion and more like a sentiment: "The crypto
| industry is a bunch of rich scammers like FTX and Sam
| Bankman Fried that are trying to grease the wheels of power
| with all of their ill-gotten wealth to protect themselves
| and continue to rob dopes that are buying into this trash."
| It's easy to imagine a conjugate set of disconnected and
| non-sequitur facts that with the right presentation lead to
| precisely the opposite conclusion.
|
| But, neither of those is thinking. I mean that, the problem
| is not that the ambiguity of the situation provides for two
| or more interpretations, which it seems to me that it does,
| but that this mode of investigation, which outwardly
| accounts for itself like "Each side go to your corner and
| gather as many facts as you can, then we'll gather in the
| middle and compare, whoever has the more and heavier facts
| shall be found truthful!", but is really more like, "Let's
| all divide ourselves in two, randomly, and amass as many
| facts as we can that back up our point-of-view, while
| dismissing any that support the other, and just for fun
| let's add in hating the other corner too, because it makes
| all of this more exciting."
|
| If you hang your thinking on the results of some surveys,
| and one account of what happened in some particular
| historical event, plus some truistic phrase like "All's
| well that end's well" and a couple of well-timed stock
| photo gags to pull it all together, you will find yourself
| 1. impermeable to any ideas that don't fit in the point-of-
| view or framing of the question you already have and 2.
| completely and willfully uncurious about the world and
| questions you aren't already asking about the things you
| don't already have preconceived notions of.
| keiferski wrote:
| Steampunk costume? Are you watching the same video?
| mistercheph wrote:
| How I see it: https://www.ottavionuccio.com/en/steampunk-
| groom-italian-tai...
| sillyfluke wrote:
| Curious if there is a reference for his 86% win rate from 42
| primaries for the crypro Super Pacs that another poster also
| mentioned?
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41720799
| drawkward wrote:
| Dismantle what SV has evolved into under venture capital.
|
| When tech was scrappy and didnt have billions at stake, its
| products seemed to benefit humanity. Now it is (the most
| powerful?) part of the oppresive regime.
| startupsfail wrote:
| Silicon Valley is not Crypto. Most likely Crypto influencers
| are Putin-proxies, as usual.
|
| There is a part of Silicon Valley that is dabbing in finance
| and banking, and somehow this part (crypto, X.com, etc) is
| somehow aligned with Putin's agenda.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Most of that is Peter Thiel and his "friends". The "somehow"
| is that he made a lot of money off of Paypal and has spent
| the past 25 years peddling influence and building a police
| state, because he _earnestly believes_ in what Putin does.
|
| They want the USA to be Russia so they can be the Prigozhins,
| "caterers" who literally own a 60k strong army.
|
| Except the rest of SV doesn't have nearly as much of a
| problem with that as you seem to be implying.
|
| Zuck does not care whether the US is a democratic utopia or a
| Russian style oligarchical hellscape, he is rich and powerful
| either way. And as a backup, he's going to go live in one of
| his bunkers if anything goes bad.
|
| YC doesn't seem to care, and is happy to give these people
| money for dubious or outright scam projects because "it
| invests in people and teams", as if the team and people who
| put together an outright scam project are worth even talking
| to.
|
| Most of SV's big money know each other. Very very few have
| openly come out against any of this, and fewer still have put
| money behind preventing any of this bullshit.
| bee_rider wrote:
| It seems like a bad move though, I mean these are nerdy
| investor guys, right? They do well in this meritocratic
| system. If I was a tech billionaire I'd be very worried
| that a guy who's only skills were catering and gangster
| stuff would have had a lot more time to study the latter,
| than me.
| lovich wrote:
| These tech moguls assume they will be in charge in the
| event of any sort of revolution or apocalypse. Look at
| some of what the Reddit founders have said for an example
|
| https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/30/doomsday-
| prep-...
| bee_rider wrote:
| I don't have a subscription, but does their plan involve
| preposterously loyal soldiers who have no motivation to
| follow their instructions for any reason other than
| suddenly valueless money?
| lovich wrote:
| Yes.
|
| It's not unique to the wealthy in tech, most nouveau
| riche seem to forget at some point that the only reason
| most people attend to their needs or are in their orbit
| is to get money and if that becomes useless or turns off
| they will be dropped like a bad habit
| TeaBrain wrote:
| > he earnestly believes in what Putin does
|
| According to what? I've never heard him say anything
| positive about Putin. He also reportedly tipped off the FBI
| when the Kremlin invited him to meet with Putin.
| sangnoir wrote:
| _Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries
| and the extension of the franchise to women - two
| constituencies that are notoriously tough for
| libertarians - have rendered the notion of "capitalist
| democracy" into an oxymoron_
|
| _I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are
| compatible._
|
| Both quotes by Peter Thiel in a Cato Unbound[1] blog
| post, 2009. The second quote is - let's call it
| "interesting" - considering Thiel is the patron of a VP
| candidate who may be a heartbeat away from the
| presidency.
|
| 1. https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-
| thiel/educatio...
| drawkward wrote:
| I presume that "franchise" here is meant as voting
| enfranchisement, i.e., women having the right to vote?
| sangnoir wrote:
| Your presumption is correct - the 19th Amendment was
| passed in 1920, amd its passing allowed women to vote in
| the US
| TeaBrain wrote:
| You're likely reading the quote wrong, since it reads
| completely differently out of context. He was referring
| specifically to how beneficiaries of the government are
| incentivized to vote for policies which provide
| government benefits to themselves, thereby continually
| maintaining or increasing the size of the government. His
| implication is that as the government grows bigger, as it
| does with continually increasing beneficiaries, who vote
| in order to increase their benefit as the system allows,
| the freedom of those who are not advantaged by a growing
| and naturally increasingly regulatory government will
| decrease, due to a higher tax and regulatory burden.
| sangnoir wrote:
| > He was referring specifically to how beneficiaries of
| the government are incentivized to vote for policies
| which provide government benefits to themselves
|
| I can believe that, but one has to be willfully ignorant
| to believe that such voter self-interest started in 1920,
| and that previous cohorts voted in an objective manner,
| always devoid of self-interest and for everyone's
| benefit.
|
| The underlying question is "Whose interests does (or
| should) the government concern itself with"
| TeaBrain wrote:
| A government beneficiary doesn't typically refer to
| anyone who is advantaged by a governments laws, but
| essentially a person or entity who receives a monetary
| benefit from the government, which is likely what is
| being referred to. This is what did not exist in the US
| till the early 20th century.
| Ray20 wrote:
| >who literally own a 60k strong army
|
| Prigozhin had never own an army. He was just high-ranking
| Putin's clerk. He "owned" a 60k army in a meaning, in which
| any general owns an army.
|
| >Russian style oligarchical hellscape
|
| Russia has nothing to do with oligarchs. There's none left.
| Because oligarchy is about political power via the money,
| political will of capitals. And capitals have about zero
| political power in Russia.
|
| >he is rich and powerful either way.
|
| In Russia it works the other way around: you are powerful -
| and because of that you have money, and Zuck is NOT
| powerful. Literally one government decree - and he owns
| nothing and decides nothing, and considers himself lucky
| enough if after that decree he is allowed to get tenth of
| the marketprice for meta, or maintain his position as
| formal owner of de facto government controlled meta
| adamrezich wrote:
| > Most likely Crypto influencers are Putin-proxies, as usual.
|
| What proof do you have for this assertion? I find
| cryptocurrency influencers to be incredibly distasteful and
| lame, but I am unaware of any evidence that supports this
| theory.
| ericfr11 wrote:
| At least the media and public are aware. The oil industry: not
| so much: they are destroying the whole planet, and their
| lobbying is so much more secret and politically motivated
| drawkward wrote:
| One has to wonder if we are truly aware. How much is AI
| ruining the environment via its constant demands for
| electricity and water? I'd expect more harms will come to
| light way down the line, as was true with big oil, tobacco,
| etc.
| fragmede wrote:
| not so far down the line. Deepfakes have obvious harms and
| Sora/similar is obviously going to get abused (as well as
| used).
| wslh wrote:
| The media is also part of the corrupt system though. They
| also have an agenda, use clickbait, and focus on the topics
| that maximize conversions.
| lacy_tinpot wrote:
| If VCs disappear overnight most tech would not change
| ideologically. It hasn't changed too much ideologically for the
| past few decades.
|
| Most were libertarian and continue to be libertarian.
|
| The minor shift is from being left libertarian to more right
| libertarian, though that's mostly due to the political
| landscape where there isn't much room for contrarian leftists.
| sangnoir wrote:
| > If VCs disappear overnight most tech would not change
| ideologically. It hasn't changed too much ideologically for
| the past few decades.
|
| What _has_ changed is that the proportion of people who wind
| up in tech primarily due to passion has drastically dropped
| as it became more prestigious. I 'll paraphrase something I
| read elsewhere that rang true to me. In the 80s and 90s,
| amoral,greed-is-good, get-rich-by-any-means people got into
| banking and finance because it paid well. Now they go into
| tech.
| zelias wrote:
| Semi on-topic: Why should the federal government even entertain a
| "strongly" pro-cryptocurrency agenda, when the real goal of
| cryptocurrencies is to displace/reduce the power of the U.S.
| dollar, from which the federal government (and the American
| people) derive many, many benefits?
| snowwrestler wrote:
| That's not the real goal of cryptocurrencies.
|
| It started off that way--remember people buying pizzas and
| domain names with bitcoin? That is the sort of thing that
| people do with dollars.
|
| But it became quickly apparent that cryptocurrencies suck as
| currency because they are so strongly deflationary. However,
| that makes them work great as commodity financial instruments.
|
| So viewing crypto as a financial market (not a currency), it
| benefits the U.S. to have as much of the market transacting
| within the jurisdiction as possible. Then you get the tax
| benefits, and ancillary benefits (e.g. rich crypto owners
| buying things).
| RestlessMind wrote:
| Because blockchains can be a great weapon against dictatorships
| who cannot allow free expression.
|
| US has enough cultural and institutional flexibility to
| accommodate dissent. First amendment protects almost any speech
| against the government, including insulting the president.
|
| Compare that against China, who simply cannot tolerate citizens
| having any freedom of expression beyond what the party allows.
| See "tanks of tiananmen" smart contract[1] or "winnie the pooh"
| NFTs [2] - the only thing CCP can do at that point is to ban
| the entire blockchain ecosystem. But if blockchains are a big
| success in the rest of the world, CCP also has to cater to it
| just to keep pace with the West's tech progress.
|
| [1]
| https://bscscan.com/token/0xb79c9c73e8c7b4be7244e697e6bdb9f5...
|
| [2] https://opensea.io/collection/poohsnft
| mac-attack wrote:
| Because you need to be/stay elected in order to enforce policy.
|
| As an aside, one could easily replace 'crypto-currency' with
| 'fascism' in your comment to accurately describe why
| Republicans are following a similar tact in spite of the
| benefits of a democracy
| ModernMech wrote:
| From "Don't be evil" to "We're the baddies".
| rlewkov wrote:
| What a politician wants most is to win reelection. This explains
| everything
| resters wrote:
| If anyone needs to see what happen, read Marc Andreesen's cringy
| posts on X. The guy is a MAGA promoter and sounds more and more
| like an elderly "the country is going to hell in a handbasket"
| geriatric conservative every second.
|
| Too many years in a bubble of undeserved wealth where people suck
| up to him constantly.
|
| YC helped fund/promote Palantir, the dystopian surveillance
| company.
|
| The Iraq war defense contractor boom pumped tons of money into
| pro-war entities and this is just the result of that capital
| finding its way into new ventures. Ideology comes along for the
| ride. It's the very definition of dystopian, government
| propaganda and big-lie-driven malinvesment and (in hindsight)
| massive financial fraud on taxpayers.
|
| I'm personally shocked that PG touches any of this dirty money.
| When is enough enough?
| marxisttemp wrote:
| PG is good buddies with Peter Thiel. Why do you think he's not
| a part of this neo-monarchist SV milieu?
| pj_mukh wrote:
| YC does fund defense companies, esp tech innovative ones, a
| posture change they made due to the situation in Taiwan and
| Ukraine [1]
|
| But they didn't fund Palantir or Anduril or any of the
| companies that blew up during the Border Panics of 2016-2020.
|
| Unless you're playing guilty by association games in which case
| ..carry on.
|
| [1]: https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/ares-industries
| resters wrote:
| YC gave Palantir a massive platform at startup school to
| present the company and vision and recruit talent. Far more
| than the seed investment would have been worth.
|
| With respect to the ares industries, YC buys into the neocon
| view strongly enough that it wants to help create the next
| wave of military tech. The only reason anyone perceives these
| "threats" and perceives the US to be "woefully unprepared"
| because of the marketing budget the defense industry has
| after profiting handsomely from the Iraq wars, etc.
|
| The US is not in danger and does not need new and state of
| the art weapons systems. We are not losing in Ukraine because
| we don't have adequate weapons but because we are playing a
| very stupid and risky strategy. See the comments of Jeffrey
| Sachs on all of this.
| lovich wrote:
| "New"
|
| They've been this way for decades. The whole "don't be evil"
| facade slipped away once the money started flowing
| farseer wrote:
| Innocent question: what other major lobbying monsters are there
| in the US?
| karaterobot wrote:
| Something that surprised me recently was learning that the U.S.
| Chamber of Commerce is a private organization. I assumed it was
| some office funded by the government in a town, that worked
| with local businesses--or something along those lines. But no,
| they're a lobbying group, and they are the biggest lobbying
| group in the country. I'm not saying they are a monster (I
| clearly don't know anything about them) but at that size, how
| could you not be?
|
| https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/top-spenders
| lovich wrote:
| Id posit that they are simply from giving themselves that
| name and not disabusing anyone of the notion.
|
| They like to get puff pieces in the news with their analysis
| on legislation and most people have the same misconception as
| a result
| js2 wrote:
| You can view it sliced various ways here:
|
| https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying
| auntienomen wrote:
| Oil/energy, real estate pros, health insurance, ...
| mlinhares wrote:
| Car dealers. Also the biggest financiers of the Republican
| party.
| AnarchismIsCool wrote:
| See also, MLMs and the supplement industry. They're
| contributing for the legal right to screw average people out
| of their money.
| mlinhares wrote:
| The trifecta. If we regulated the supplement industry,
| ended MLMs and removed the requirement of car companies of
| having to use dealerships the country would be at a much
| better place.
| it_citizen wrote:
| Boeing
| julianeon wrote:
| A lot of the action has moved upstream now that Citizens United
| is the law (January 21, 2010: "this decision allowed
| corporations and unions to spend unlimited amounts of money on
| political campaigns"). Ideally from the corp. perspective you
| don't wait until a crisis point. You spend early and shape the
| narrative to prevent a crisis from ever happening. The Koch
| brothers created a network of donors who operate on this
| strategic plane more than the tactical "this specific
| regulation has to be changed" level. See Mayer's "Dark Money"
| for a comprehensive history.
| mdgrech23 wrote:
| YC was cool like 15 years ago when I first joined this forum now
| they kinda sux
| karaterobot wrote:
| What's a cooler place you could go instead?
| Sytten wrote:
| Those articles kept reminding me that I am right to be very
| cynical. Is lobbying #foundermode? /s
| brodouevencode wrote:
| The comments in this thread are rather disheartening. Very few
| here were complaining four years ago when The Valley did all the
| bidding of politicians in the form of canceling those who
| questioned the Covid origins or the need for masks and vaccines,
| deplatformed/banned/mocked anyone talking about Hunter Biden's
| laptop, or disagreeing with oppression-movement du jour.
|
| Now that the tech bros have flipped sides it's a sudden problem.
| It's (nearly) completely one-sided on here. The honorable thing
| to do would be to acknowledge that this is an echo chamber if
| you're going to complain. Now, I fully expect to be downvoted
| into oblivion for this take, but don't let that stop you.
| John_Cena wrote:
| I was ostracized at a right-wing small military contractor
| during covid for being skeptical of the novel medical treatment
| being offered for free with zero liability for those profiting
| from it.
|
| I almost stopped trying to rationalize the world around me at
| that point in my life. I assume my experience was simply
| because the CTO had everyone under his thumb and he decided it
| was a good idea.
| brodouevencode wrote:
| The authoritarianisms that came from both left and right wing
| sources during that time continue to baffle me. Very
| dangerous precedents were set during that time.
| mistercheph wrote:
| Money loves power, silicon valley will continue to vanguard
| political causes that extend political, economic,
| psychological, and spiritual control over people, through
| useful idiots at the IC level that actually love the fart
| smells and don't care which direction the wind is blowing the
| farts, an HR machine that marches to the beat of a global borg-
| impulse, tirelessly filling any structure vacuum they can find
| with pointless systems in order to restrain any remnant of
| human spirit, and a psychopathic management class that is
| unrepentantly self-serving.
| brodouevencode wrote:
| I don't know that I agree with this, but it is rather
| poetically written.
| chollida1 wrote:
| One of Microsoft's biggest lessons out of their anit monopoly
| trial was that they were not political enough.
|
| Before the trial Bill Gates though spending money on lobbying was
| a waste and its a widely held belief that their anti trust trial
| wouldn't have happened if they had spent on lobbiest like
| healthcare, finance, and anything military do.
|
| Post 2000, silicon valley learned this lesson and became one of
| the biggest lobbyers of the government. To the point where they
| eclipsed the oil and farm lobbies.
| 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote:
| Any time the message is "We should do X because if we don't, the
| bogeyman will do it," it should be a red flag. Seems to be one of
| the common themes in the article.
|
| It's always admitting that the thing you want to do is bad, but
| wanting to do it anyways. And more often than not, it relies on a
| mischaracterization of the supposed bogeyman: "the democrats _eat
| babies_ and wouldn 't hesitate to do X, so that justifies us
| sinking lower unless we want _baby eaters_ to win. "
|
| Or maybe it's just inevitable that anything structurally
| resembling a race to the bottom ends up with everybody on the
| bottom.
| llamaimperative wrote:
| It should definitely be a red flag and warrant deeper
| inspection, but that doesn't mean it's always wrong. The dems
| _do_ eat babies, obviously ;)
| smoovb wrote:
| >The Valley's enthusiasm for Biden, however, was short-lived. The
| President quickly appointed three prominent tech skeptics--Gary
| Gensler, Lina Khan, and Jonathan Kanter--to oversee the
| Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Trade Commission,
| and the antitrust division of the Department of Justice,
| respectively. Soon the government was suing or investigating
| Google, Apple, Amazon, Meta, Tesla, and dozens of other
| companies.
|
| Gensler, Warren and Khan have been exceptionally anti-tech. Nice
| of this article to notice there is a growing number of techies
| putting their money where their mouth is in response.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-10-07 23:01 UTC)