This is absolutely excellent. This article says pretty much everything I feel about the the billionaire technocrats who think they're the "great man" who will create the AI that will solve all the...
This is absolutely excellent. This article says pretty much everything I feel about the the billionaire technocrats who think they're the "great man" who will create the AI that will solve all the worlds problems.
I want to read the rest of the essays, especially "Whitey on Mars" referencing the Whitey on the Moon poem, that I believe I first heard when watching Lovecraft Country
From Wiki a neat tidbit
On April 17, 2023, NASA astronaut Victor Glover, who would later pilot Artemis II in a planned fly-by around the Moon, said that he listened to "Whitey on the Moon" every Monday on his way to work as a reminder "that, at that time, that community, which is very similar to the community I grew up in, they didn't feel heard."[27]
If I have one complaint...
I get why the title is framed this way, but Silicon Valley doesn't have a Science Fiction problem, they have an ethics and a moral problem. They have appropriation problems and media literacy problems.
I'm a little surprised that the essay doesn't go beyond the superficial science fiction marketing to explore the science fiction writer who influenced the Silicon Valley founders' ethos the most...
I'm a little surprised that the essay doesn't go beyond the superficial science fiction marketing to explore the science fiction writer who influenced the Silicon Valley founders' ethos the most deeply: Ayn Rand.
It's her "'I' before 'we'", valorization of elite individuals, dismissal of any responsibility for collective good or harm, and abolition of empathy as a value that permeates Silicon Valley's leadership. Although they still get it wrong.
I think that is a separate point where they're "stealing" the philosophy of the book rather than the flashy name/idea without any of the message coming along. I also suspect fewer of them read it...
I think that is a separate point where they're "stealing" the philosophy of the book rather than the flashy name/idea without any of the message coming along. I also suspect fewer of them read it at all
Remember that brief period where Musk was naming stuff as if he was founding The Culture? I recall thinking at the time how much he had utterly, absolutely, galactically not understood Banks's...
Remember that brief period where Musk was naming stuff as if he was founding The Culture?
I recall thinking at the time how much he had utterly, absolutely, galactically not understood Banks's creation and if this was how The Culture got started then I didn't want any part of it.
I dont know man, I dont want to defend Elon Musk or Zuckerberg or whoever, but I just really get put off when someone makes an argument that the reason people resonate with _____ is because X, and...
I dont know man, I dont want to defend Elon Musk or Zuckerberg or whoever, but I just really get put off when someone makes an argument that the reason people resonate with _____ is because X, and if you dont agree with X and found anything else interesting about a work of art then you experienced that art wrong.
I dont think there is any problem with watching star trek or reading science fiction and just thinking the space stuff sounds cool. It really takes the artistry out of art to think otherwise in my opinion.
On one hand, I want to agree with you. On the other hand, tech billionaires keep building the goddamn Torment Nexus. Maybe someone could show them Event Horizon and we could finally get rid of...
On one hand, I want to agree with you. On the other hand, tech billionaires keep building the goddamn Torment Nexus.
Maybe someone could show them Event Horizon and we could finally get rid of them by sending them to a Torment Plane?
It's also hard to be neutral about people saying, "man that space/fantasy stuff is cool, I'm going to be the evil Emperor/Saruman/the Dominion/the bad guys.". Like there are some very basic...
It's also hard to be neutral about people saying, "man that space/fantasy stuff is cool, I'm going to be the evil Emperor/Saruman/the Dominion/the bad guys.". Like there are some very basic lessons in the books the folks highlighted here claim to love, this isn't about deep analysis of the text.
I think there is merit in evaluating how their ideas are shaped when presented with directly opposing worldviews. Some of this literature isn't necessarily open for interpretation unless you...
I think there is merit in evaluating how their ideas are shaped when presented with directly opposing worldviews.
Some of this literature isn't necessarily open for interpretation unless you specifically deny the intent of the author and fill it in with your alternative worldview. Fine perhaps from an artistry standpoint, odd maybe when looking at the actual harm these folks do by deliberately misinterpreting certain philosophies.
Perhaps Tolkien doesn't spell it out and you can be forgiven for not reading it as intended, though like I said it may have some merit to look at why they choose to interpret it in the way that's undeniably hostile to average people.
Rather than the ones highlighted as popular by the tech billionaires I recommend the ones they ignore I liked all three of these, though I don't think I finished the Mars trilogy.
Rather than the ones highlighted as popular by the tech billionaires I recommend the ones they ignore
Silicon Valley’s power rests on presenting a narrow, reactionary fantasy as inevitable progress. But other futures are possible, and other science fictions exist. Ursula K Le Guin’s The Dispossessed (1974) imagines an anarchist Moon colony built on mutual aid rather than extraction. Octavia Butler’s Parable series (1993-98) depicts communities surviving collapse through adaptation and care rather than escape to Mars. Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy (1992-96) shows planetary settlement as collective democratic project, not billionaire venture. These are not naive or utopian texts – they are demanding, difficult and honest about the costs of building anything new. They refuse the consolation of the lone visionary and insist, over and over, that the future is made by people working together.
I liked all three of these, though I don't think I finished the Mars trilogy.
I recall a Hacker News comment where the author said that they didn't care about animal preservation (specifically of rhinos or African elephants, I don't remember which) because we could just...
I recall a Hacker News comment where the author said that they didn't care about animal preservation (specifically of rhinos or African elephants, I don't remember which) because we could just clone these animals in the future. The horror of someone reading Jurassic Park and using its sci-fi plot to guide their political views, on something that for all we know is essential to the survival of these species struck me as a deeply irresponsible, thinly disguised fatalism. Hope for the future to the point of disowning responsibility for today's problems.
If that can happen and become an acceptable point of view that isn't immediately ridiculed to death in whatever little bubble they're in, it doesn't surprise me in the slightest the upper echelon of that cesspit, who have effectively isolated and removed themselves from worldly problems and to whom my life is about as much of a distant fantasy as Star Trek, are susceptiple to this.
I think Mark Zuckerberg is a particularly tragic example of this. I don't think he understands or even particularly likes people. Not as more than objects of marketable analysis. The entire business model of meta is contingent on the cynical exploitation of and contempt for it users. I think he struck gold by random chance with Facebook. It's fitting now that the company is named after an utter failure of a disproportionately expensive Second Life clone with absolutely no appeal to anyone, perfectly exemplifying that he's not King Midas, just a sad character struggling to understand people.
This is absolutely excellent. This article says pretty much everything I feel about the the billionaire technocrats who think they're the "great man" who will create the AI that will solve all the worlds problems.
I want to read the rest of the essays, especially "Whitey on Mars" referencing the Whitey on the Moon poem, that I believe I first heard when watching Lovecraft Country
From Wiki a neat tidbit
On April 17, 2023, NASA astronaut Victor Glover, who would later pilot Artemis II in a planned fly-by around the Moon, said that he listened to "Whitey on the Moon" every Monday on his way to work as a reminder "that, at that time, that community, which is very similar to the community I grew up in, they didn't feel heard."[27]
If I have one complaint...
I get why the title is framed this way, but Silicon Valley doesn't have a Science Fiction problem, they have an ethics and a moral problem. They have appropriation problems and media literacy problems.
We have a Silicon Valley problem.
But I get the title framing
He is, you know! Kind of a... national socialist, if you will.
I'm a little surprised that the essay doesn't go beyond the superficial science fiction marketing to explore the science fiction writer who influenced the Silicon Valley founders' ethos the most deeply: Ayn Rand.
It's her "'I' before 'we'", valorization of elite individuals, dismissal of any responsibility for collective good or harm, and abolition of empathy as a value that permeates Silicon Valley's leadership. Although they still get it wrong.
I think that is a separate point where they're "stealing" the philosophy of the book rather than the flashy name/idea without any of the message coming along. I also suspect fewer of them read it at all
Remember that brief period where Musk was naming stuff as if he was founding The Culture?
I recall thinking at the time how much he had utterly, absolutely, galactically not understood Banks's creation and if this was how The Culture got started then I didn't want any part of it.
I dont know man, I dont want to defend Elon Musk or Zuckerberg or whoever, but I just really get put off when someone makes an argument that the reason people resonate with _____ is because X, and if you dont agree with X and found anything else interesting about a work of art then you experienced that art wrong.
I dont think there is any problem with watching star trek or reading science fiction and just thinking the space stuff sounds cool. It really takes the artistry out of art to think otherwise in my opinion.
On one hand, I want to agree with you. On the other hand, tech billionaires keep building the goddamn Torment Nexus.
Maybe someone could show them Event Horizon and we could finally get rid of them by sending them to a Torment Plane?
It's also hard to be neutral about people saying, "man that space/fantasy stuff is cool, I'm going to be the evil Emperor/Saruman/the Dominion/the bad guys.". Like there are some very basic lessons in the books the folks highlighted here claim to love, this isn't about deep analysis of the text.
It's the most basic of media literacy really.
I think there is merit in evaluating how their ideas are shaped when presented with directly opposing worldviews.
Some of this literature isn't necessarily open for interpretation unless you specifically deny the intent of the author and fill it in with your alternative worldview. Fine perhaps from an artistry standpoint, odd maybe when looking at the actual harm these folks do by deliberately misinterpreting certain philosophies.
Perhaps Tolkien doesn't spell it out and you can be forgiven for not reading it as intended, though like I said it may have some merit to look at why they choose to interpret it in the way that's undeniably hostile to average people.
Great article and reading list btw. If you should recommend one book from this list…what would it be?
Rather than the ones highlighted as popular by the tech billionaires I recommend the ones they ignore
I liked all three of these, though I don't think I finished the Mars trilogy.
Seconding The Dispossessed, that's one of my favorites!
Not mentioned in the article, but Accelerando by Charles Stross has influenced a lot of the thinking around AI and transhumanism in Silicon Valley.
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress would be my pick.
I recall a Hacker News comment where the author said that they didn't care about animal preservation (specifically of rhinos or African elephants, I don't remember which) because we could just clone these animals in the future. The horror of someone reading Jurassic Park and using its sci-fi plot to guide their political views, on something that for all we know is essential to the survival of these species struck me as a deeply irresponsible, thinly disguised fatalism. Hope for the future to the point of disowning responsibility for today's problems.
If that can happen and become an acceptable point of view that isn't immediately ridiculed to death in whatever little bubble they're in, it doesn't surprise me in the slightest the upper echelon of that cesspit, who have effectively isolated and removed themselves from worldly problems and to whom my life is about as much of a distant fantasy as Star Trek, are susceptiple to this.
I think Mark Zuckerberg is a particularly tragic example of this. I don't think he understands or even particularly likes people. Not as more than objects of marketable analysis. The entire business model of meta is contingent on the cynical exploitation of and contempt for it users. I think he struck gold by random chance with Facebook. It's fitting now that the company is named after an utter failure of a disproportionately expensive Second Life clone with absolutely no appeal to anyone, perfectly exemplifying that he's not King Midas, just a sad character struggling to understand people.