Form: Quote Commentary

  • Why does tech have so many political problems? by Tyler Cowen These are original

    Why does tech have so many political problems?

    by Tyler Cowen

    These are originally derived from written notes, a basis for comments by somebody else, from a closed session on tech. I have added my own edits:

    Most tech leaders aren’t especially personable. Instead, they’re quirky introverts. Or worse.

    Most tech leaders don’t care much about the usual policy issues. They care about AI, self-driving cars, and space travel, none of which translate into positive political influence.

    Tech leaders are idealistic and don’t intuitively understand the grubby workings of WDC.

    People who could be “managers” in tech policy areas (for instance, they understand tech, are good at coalition building, etc.) will probably be pulled into a more lucrative area of tech. Therefore ther is an acute talent shortage in tech policy areas.

    The Robespierrean social justice terror blowing through Silicon Valley occupies most of tech leaders’ “political” mental energy. It is hard to find time to focus on more concrete policy issues.

    Of the policy issues that people in tech do care about—climate, gay/trans rights, abortion, Trump—they’re misaligned with Republican Party, to say the least. This same Republican party currently rules.

    While accusations of deliberate bias against Republicans are overstated, the tech rank-and-file is quite anti-Republican, and increasingly so. This limits the political degrees of freedom of tech leaders. (See the responses to Elon Musk’s Republican donation.)

    Several of the big tech companies are de facto monopolies or semi-monopolies. They must spend a lot of their political capital denying this or otherwise minimizing its import.

    The media increasingly hates tech. (In part because tech is such a threat, in part because of a deeper C.P. Snow-style cultural mismatch.)

    Not only does tech hate Trump… but Trump hates tech.

    By nature, tech leaders are disagreeable iconoclasts (with individualistic and believe it or not sometimes megalomaniacal tendencies). That makes them bad at uniting as a coalition.

    Major tech companies have meaningful presences in just a few states, which undermines their political influence. Of states where they have a presence — CA, WA, MA, NY — Democrats usually take them for granted, Republicans write them off. Might Austin, TX someday help here?

    US tech companies are increasingly unpopular among governments around the world. For instance, Facebook/WhatsApp struggles in India. Or Google and the EU. Or Visa and Russia. This distracts the companies from focusing on US and that makes them more isolated.

    The issues that are challenging for tech companies aren’t arcane questions directly in and of the tech industry (such as copyright mechanics for the music industry or procurement rules for defense). They’re broader and they also encounter very large coalitions coming from other directions: immigration laws, free speech issues on platforms, data privacy questions, and worker classification on marketplaces.

    Blockchain may well make the world “crazier” in the next five years. So tech will be seen as driving even more disruption.

    The industry is so successful that it’s not very popular among the rest of U.S. companies and it lacks allies. (90%+ of S&P 500 market cap appreciation this year has been driven by tech.) Many other parts of corporate America see tech as a major threat.

    Maybe it is hard to find prominent examples of the great good that big tech is doing. Instagram TV. iPhone X. Amazon Echo Dot. Microsoft Surface Pro. Are you impressed? Are these companies golden geese or have they simply appropriated all the gold?


    Source date (UTC): 2018-08-05 16:09:00 UTC

  • Nietzsche Is a Doorway – He Gives You Permission.

    September 5th, 2018 10:11 AM

    [D]on’t get me wrong. Nietzsche is wonderful. Like Rand, he is a doorway for teenagers. The problem is getting stuck in Nietzsche/Rand/Marx world like some people get stuck in comic book, harry potter, and lord of the rings worlds. You know, they’re STAGES of using literature to gain meaning you are not able to access yet by more direct means – they are not ENDS.

  • Nietzsche Is a Doorway – He Gives You Permission.

    September 5th, 2018 10:11 AM

    [D]on’t get me wrong. Nietzsche is wonderful. Like Rand, he is a doorway for teenagers. The problem is getting stuck in Nietzsche/Rand/Marx world like some people get stuck in comic book, harry potter, and lord of the rings worlds. You know, they’re STAGES of using literature to gain meaning you are not able to access yet by more direct means – they are not ENDS.

  • Smart: Why the Eastern Value of Orthodoxy

    SMART: WHY THE EASTERN VALUE OF ORTHODOXY —“Orthodoxy came before any written culture or urbanism had take root in those regions. As such, there was a syncretism with the local customs and religious practices, who’s traces remain visible to this day, in various folk and orthodox objects. The roman “invaders” where offering a higher level of culture, so we took it. There was no inquisition, no which hunts. Mass literacy, and the translation of the bible, occurred far latter here. (Around the 19th century, in 1899 it was at about 22% ), which is when some savvy writers, now part of our national cannon, started collecting our folklore and putting it in written form. So the folk and the church coexisted more or less harmoniously. Not that they could afford great conflicts and fanciful notions with the Turks knocking at our door. Every orthodox region has differences in art and architecture reflecting local folklore. I’d say it might have made us ‘meek’ these days, but I’m seeking to illuminate our attachment towards it. If “historical memory” begins with written records, then there was nothing (for us) before orthodoxy. Not a pagan “past”, so much as a pagan “amniotic fluid” surrounding our “orthodox” history. Note how this differs from the West’s situation.”— Dan Fodor

  • Smart: Why the Eastern Value of Orthodoxy

    SMART: WHY THE EASTERN VALUE OF ORTHODOXY —“Orthodoxy came before any written culture or urbanism had take root in those regions. As such, there was a syncretism with the local customs and religious practices, who’s traces remain visible to this day, in various folk and orthodox objects. The roman “invaders” where offering a higher level of culture, so we took it. There was no inquisition, no which hunts. Mass literacy, and the translation of the bible, occurred far latter here. (Around the 19th century, in 1899 it was at about 22% ), which is when some savvy writers, now part of our national cannon, started collecting our folklore and putting it in written form. So the folk and the church coexisted more or less harmoniously. Not that they could afford great conflicts and fanciful notions with the Turks knocking at our door. Every orthodox region has differences in art and architecture reflecting local folklore. I’d say it might have made us ‘meek’ these days, but I’m seeking to illuminate our attachment towards it. If “historical memory” begins with written records, then there was nothing (for us) before orthodoxy. Not a pagan “past”, so much as a pagan “amniotic fluid” surrounding our “orthodox” history. Note how this differs from the West’s situation.”— Dan Fodor

  • Paradigm Shifts

    Author: William S. Lind CD: 1 – Unipolar Power (Monopoly) vs return to balance of powers – nationalism (Markets). 2 – An Endless Supply of Money vs Return to ‘harder’ money (markets) 2 – Wilsonianism (Expansionary Democracy) vs Nationalism (Markets) 3 – Cultural Marxism (Anti-Whitism) vs Nationalism (Markets) 4 – The End of White Acquiescence. By William S Lind. The Establishment knows how to succeed in obtaining what it cares about, power and money, within the current paradigms. Those paradigms include America as the only real world power, before which all other nations must bow; an endless supply of money; Wilsonianism, i.e. forcing “democracy” down all other countries’ throats; and cultural Marxism, which seeks to put women over men, blacks over whites, and gays over straights (where they conflict, cultural Marxism takes precedence over democracy). But those paradigms are all beginning to shift. President Trump represents, at least in part, new paradigms which leave today’s Establishment irrelevant, isolated, and powerless. In response, the Establishment howls in fear and in hatred, especially hatred of a President who represents the heartland instead of the coastal elites. If we look at each of the above paradigms, we can see the shifts occurring. Not only does America lack the military power, money, and moral credit to dictate to every other country, all countries now face the challenge of Fourth Generation war, war waged by entities other than states. This challenge renders competition between states obsolete, something President Trump seems instinctively to grasp, at least in part. He knows a post-Communism Russian-American rivalry makes no strategic sense; he correctly thinks NATO is obsolete; and he may sense that states everywhere face crises of legitimacy, although of widely varying intensity. The Establishment howls because one of its major components, the Military-Industrial-Congressional complex must have “peer competitors”, other states it can inflate as threats, in order to justify the trillion dollars a year we spend on national security. F-35s, Ford-class aircraft carriers, and opposed amphibious landings have little relevance to 4GW. Meanwhile, the money is running out. The U.S., and most of the rest of the world, is heading for a colossal debt crisis. When it hits, we may not be able to afford $100 billion a year in defense, much less a trillion. This points to a third paradigm shift: the end of Wilsonianism. Our “defense” budget is really an offense budget. It supports a military that is supposed to force “democratic capitalism”, which is really oligarchic rent-seeking, down the throats of every people on earth — along with cultural Marxism and its definitions of “human rights”. Even if the money were not about to run out, Wilsonianism would be doomed from the start. Russell Kirk wrote, “There is no surer way to make a man your enemy than telling him you are going to remake him in your image for his own good.” Even Robespierre, too late, said that missionaries with bayonets are seldom welcome. President Trump grasps that attempts to turn places such as Afghanistan into Switzerland are foolish nonsense. Yet at the same time, he chose a neo-con, one of the people who tried to turn Iraq into a peaceful, secular democracy by invading it and destroying the state, as his national security advisor. So he still has a ways to go to ride this paradigm shift. ( cd: my view is that trump sees punishment until defeat and making ‘better choices’ rather than reconstruction in our demon-cratic image as his strategy and it’s working.) The last shift he not only grasps but rode into the White House on: the revolt of America’s heartland against political correctness, e.i., cultural Marxism. The Establishment either believes in cultural Marxism (most democrats) or is too cowardly to challenge it (most Republicans). Heartland voters are fed up with it, its advocates, and its sacred “victims” groups, most of whom distinguish themselves by their bad behavior. In a political battle between the coastal elites and their clients on the one hand and the heartland on the other, the heartland will win. Look at the percentage of whites among people who actually vote in all the swing states. The collapse of white acquiescence in cultural Marxism, both here and in Europe, may be the biggest paradigm shift of them all. And so, faced with irrelevance, the Establishment howls, froths at the mouth and chews the carpet, raging at President Trump. Like a madman whose derangement is killing him, it screams meaningless words, most ending in “ism”, as it dies. I’m sure the President will give it a grand funeral.

  • Paradigm Shifts

    Author: William S. Lind CD: 1 – Unipolar Power (Monopoly) vs return to balance of powers – nationalism (Markets). 2 – An Endless Supply of Money vs Return to ‘harder’ money (markets) 2 – Wilsonianism (Expansionary Democracy) vs Nationalism (Markets) 3 – Cultural Marxism (Anti-Whitism) vs Nationalism (Markets) 4 – The End of White Acquiescence. By William S Lind. The Establishment knows how to succeed in obtaining what it cares about, power and money, within the current paradigms. Those paradigms include America as the only real world power, before which all other nations must bow; an endless supply of money; Wilsonianism, i.e. forcing “democracy” down all other countries’ throats; and cultural Marxism, which seeks to put women over men, blacks over whites, and gays over straights (where they conflict, cultural Marxism takes precedence over democracy). But those paradigms are all beginning to shift. President Trump represents, at least in part, new paradigms which leave today’s Establishment irrelevant, isolated, and powerless. In response, the Establishment howls in fear and in hatred, especially hatred of a President who represents the heartland instead of the coastal elites. If we look at each of the above paradigms, we can see the shifts occurring. Not only does America lack the military power, money, and moral credit to dictate to every other country, all countries now face the challenge of Fourth Generation war, war waged by entities other than states. This challenge renders competition between states obsolete, something President Trump seems instinctively to grasp, at least in part. He knows a post-Communism Russian-American rivalry makes no strategic sense; he correctly thinks NATO is obsolete; and he may sense that states everywhere face crises of legitimacy, although of widely varying intensity. The Establishment howls because one of its major components, the Military-Industrial-Congressional complex must have “peer competitors”, other states it can inflate as threats, in order to justify the trillion dollars a year we spend on national security. F-35s, Ford-class aircraft carriers, and opposed amphibious landings have little relevance to 4GW. Meanwhile, the money is running out. The U.S., and most of the rest of the world, is heading for a colossal debt crisis. When it hits, we may not be able to afford $100 billion a year in defense, much less a trillion. This points to a third paradigm shift: the end of Wilsonianism. Our “defense” budget is really an offense budget. It supports a military that is supposed to force “democratic capitalism”, which is really oligarchic rent-seeking, down the throats of every people on earth — along with cultural Marxism and its definitions of “human rights”. Even if the money were not about to run out, Wilsonianism would be doomed from the start. Russell Kirk wrote, “There is no surer way to make a man your enemy than telling him you are going to remake him in your image for his own good.” Even Robespierre, too late, said that missionaries with bayonets are seldom welcome. President Trump grasps that attempts to turn places such as Afghanistan into Switzerland are foolish nonsense. Yet at the same time, he chose a neo-con, one of the people who tried to turn Iraq into a peaceful, secular democracy by invading it and destroying the state, as his national security advisor. So he still has a ways to go to ride this paradigm shift. ( cd: my view is that trump sees punishment until defeat and making ‘better choices’ rather than reconstruction in our demon-cratic image as his strategy and it’s working.) The last shift he not only grasps but rode into the White House on: the revolt of America’s heartland against political correctness, e.i., cultural Marxism. The Establishment either believes in cultural Marxism (most democrats) or is too cowardly to challenge it (most Republicans). Heartland voters are fed up with it, its advocates, and its sacred “victims” groups, most of whom distinguish themselves by their bad behavior. In a political battle between the coastal elites and their clients on the one hand and the heartland on the other, the heartland will win. Look at the percentage of whites among people who actually vote in all the swing states. The collapse of white acquiescence in cultural Marxism, both here and in Europe, may be the biggest paradigm shift of them all. And so, faced with irrelevance, the Establishment howls, froths at the mouth and chews the carpet, raging at President Trump. Like a madman whose derangement is killing him, it screams meaningless words, most ending in “ism”, as it dies. I’m sure the President will give it a grand funeral.

  • Curt Doolittle updated his status. PARADIGM SHIFTS Author: William S. Lind CD: 1

    Curt Doolittle updated his status.

    PARADIGM SHIFTS
    Author: William S. Lind

    CD:
    1 – Unipolar Power (Monopoly) vs return to balance of powers – nationalism (Markets).
    2 – An Endless Supply of Money vs Return to ‘harder’ money (markets)
    2 – Wilsonianism (Expansionary Democracy) vs Nationalism (Markets)
    3 – Cultural Marxism (Anti-Whitism) vs Nationalism (Markets)
    4 – The End of White Acquiescence.

    By William S Lind.

    The Establishment knows how to succeed in obtaining what it cares about, power and money, within the current paradigms.

    Those paradigms include America as the only real world power, before which all other nations must bow; an endless supply of money; Wilsonianism, i.e. forcing “democracy” down all other countries’ throats; and cultural Marxism, which seeks to put women over men, blacks over whites, and gays over straights (where they conflict, cultural Marxism takes precedence over democracy).

    But those paradigms are all beginning to shift. President Trump represents, at least in part, new paradigms which leave today’s Establishment irrelevant, isolated, and powerless. In response, the Establishment howls in fear and in hatred, especially hatred of a President who represents the heartland instead of the coastal elites.

    If we look at each of the above paradigms, we can see the shifts occurring. Not only does America lack the military power, money, and moral credit to dictate to every other country, all countries now face the challenge of Fourth Generation war, war waged by entities other than states.

    This challenge renders competition between states obsolete, something President Trump seems instinctively to grasp, at least in part. He knows a post-Communism Russian-American rivalry makes no strategic sense; he correctly thinks NATO is obsolete; and he may sense that states everywhere face crises of legitimacy, although of widely varying intensity.

    The Establishment howls because one of its major components, the Military-Industrial-Congressional complex must have “peer competitors”, other states it can inflate as threats, in order to justify the trillion dollars a year we spend on national security. F-35s, Ford-class aircraft carriers, and opposed amphibious landings have little relevance to 4GW.

    Meanwhile, the money is running out. The U.S., and most of the rest of the world, is heading for a colossal debt crisis. When it hits, we may not be able to afford $100 billion a year in defense, much less a trillion.

    This points to a third paradigm shift: the end of Wilsonianism. Our “defense” budget is really an offense budget. It supports a military that is supposed to force “democratic capitalism”, which is really oligarchic rent-seeking, down the throats of every people on earth — along with cultural Marxism and its definitions of “human rights”.

    Even if the money were not about to run out, Wilsonianism would be doomed from the start. Russell Kirk wrote, “There is no surer way to make a man your enemy than telling him you are going to remake him in your image for his own good.” Even Robespierre, too late, said that missionaries with bayonets are seldom welcome.

    President Trump grasps that attempts to turn places such as Afghanistan into Switzerland are foolish nonsense. Yet at the same time, he chose a neo-con, one of the people who tried to turn Iraq into a peaceful, secular democracy by invading it and destroying the state, as his national security advisor. So he still has a ways to go to ride this paradigm shift.

    ( cd: my view is that trump sees punishment until defeat and making ‘better choices’ rather than reconstruction in our demon-cratic image as his strategy and it’s working.)

    The last shift he not only grasps but rode into the White House on: the revolt of America’s heartland against political correctness, e.i., cultural Marxism.

    The Establishment either believes in cultural Marxism (most democrats) or is too cowardly to challenge it (most Republicans).

    Heartland voters are fed up with it, its advocates, and its sacred “victims” groups, most of whom distinguish themselves by their bad behavior.

    In a political battle between the coastal elites and their clients on the one hand and the heartland on the other, the heartland will win.

    Look at the percentage of whites among people who actually vote in all the swing states. The collapse of white acquiescence in cultural Marxism, both here and in Europe, may be the biggest paradigm shift of them all.

    And so, faced with irrelevance, the Establishment howls, froths at the mouth and chews the carpet, raging at President Trump. Like a madman whose derangement is killing him, it screams meaningless words, most ending in “ism”, as it dies. I’m sure the President will give it a grand funeral.


    Source date (UTC): 2018-08-04 16:28:05 UTC

  • “The Church, as we know it, in all this has a lot to answer for! They haven’t be

    —“The Church, as we know it, in all this has a lot to answer for! They haven’t been teaching Men how to fish!
    They’ve created schools of fish from Men. To be harvested!”—Nick Heywood


    Source date (UTC): 2018-08-04 13:53:39 UTC

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1025741560238039041

  • Curt Doolittle updated his status. —“The Church, as we know it, in all this ha

    Curt Doolittle updated his status.

    —“The Church, as we know it, in all this has a lot to answer for! They haven’t been teaching Men how to fish! They’ve created schools of fish from Men. To be harvested!”—Nick Heywood


    Source date (UTC): 2018-08-04 13:53:30 UTC