Podcasts about techno optimist manifesto

Connor Leahy and Gabriel Alfour, AI researchers from Conjecture and authors of "The Compendium," joinus for a critical discussion centered on Artificial Superintelligence (ASI) safety and governance. Drawing from their comprehensive analysis in "The Compendium," they articulate a stark warning about the existential risks inherent in uncontrolled AI development, framing it through the lens of "intelligence domination"—where a sufficiently advanced AI could subordinate humanity, much like humans dominate less intelligent species.SPONSOR MESSAGES:***Tufa AI Labs is a brand new research lab in Zurich started by Benjamin Crouzier focussed on o-series style reasoning and AGI. They are hiring a Chief Engineer and ML engineers. Events in Zurich. Goto https://tufalabs.ai/***TRANSCRIPT + REFS + NOTES:https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/p86l75y4o2ii40df5t7no/Compendium.pdf?rlkey=tukczgf3flw133sr9rgss0pnj&dl=0https://www.thecompendium.ai/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connor_Leahyhttps://www.conjecture.dev/abouthttps://substack.com/@gabecc​TOC:1. AI Intelligence and Safety Fundamentals [00:00:00] 1.1 Understanding Intelligence and AI Capabilities [00:06:20] 1.2 Emergence of Intelligence and Regulatory Challenges [00:10:18] 1.3 Human vs Animal Intelligence Debate [00:18:00] 1.4 AI Regulation and Risk Assessment Approaches [00:26:14] 1.5 Competing AI Development Ideologies2. Economic and Social Impact [00:29:10] 2.1 Labor Market Disruption and Post-Scarcity Scenarios [00:32:40] 2.2 Institutional Frameworks and Tech Power Dynamics [00:37:40] 2.3 Ethical Frameworks and AI Governance Debates [00:40:52] 2.4 AI Alignment Evolution and Technical Challenges3. Technical Governance Framework [00:55:07] 3.1 Three Levels of AI Safety: Alignment, Corrigibility, and Boundedness [00:55:30] 3.2 Challenges of AI System Corrigibility and Constitutional Models [00:57:35] 3.3 Limitations of Current Boundedness Approaches [00:59:11] 3.4 Abstract Governance Concepts and Policy Solutions4. Democratic Implementation and Coordination [00:59:20] 4.1 Governance Design and Measurement Challenges [01:00:10] 4.2 Democratic Institutions and Experimental Governance [01:14:10] 4.3 Political Engagement and AI Safety Advocacy [01:25:30] 4.4 Practical AI Safety Measures and International CoordinationCORE REFS:[00:01:45] The Compendium (2023), Leahy et al.https://pdf.thecompendium.ai/the_compendium.pdf[00:06:50] Geoffrey Hinton Leaves Google, BBC Newshttps://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65452940[00:10:00] ARC-AGI, Chollethttps://arcprize.org/arc-agi[00:13:25] A Brief History of Intelligence, Bennetthttps://www.amazon.com/Brief-History-Intelligence-Humans-Breakthroughs/dp/0063286343[00:25:35] Statement on AI Risk, Center for AI Safetyhttps://www.safe.ai/work/statement-on-ai-risk[00:26:15] Machines of Love and Grace, Amodeihttps://darioamodei.com/machines-of-loving-grace[00:26:35] The Techno-Optimist Manifesto, Andreessenhttps://a16z.com/the-techno-optimist-manifesto/[00:31:55] Techno-Feudalism, Varoufakishttps://www.amazon.co.uk/Technofeudalism-Killed-Capitalism-Yanis-Varoufakis/dp/1847927270[00:42:40] Introducing Superalignment, OpenAIhttps://openai.com/index/introducing-superalignment/[00:47:20] Three Laws of Robotics, Asimovhttps://www.britannica.com/topic/Three-Laws-of-Robotics[00:50:00] Symbolic AI (GOFAI), Haugelandhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolic_artificial_intelligence[00:52:30] Intent Alignment, Christianohttps://www.alignmentforum.org/posts/HEZgGBZTpT4Bov7nH/mapping-the-conceptual-territory-in-ai-existential-safety[00:55:10] Large Language Model Alignment: A Survey, Jiang et al.http://arxiv.org/pdf/2309.15025[00:55:40] Constitutional Checks and Balances, Bokhttps://plato.stanford.edu/entries/montesquieu/

Atlas Shrugged seems to be everywhere today. Randian villains are in the news. Rand remains influential on the right, from the Reagan era to the modern libertarian movement. Perhaps most significantly, entrepreneurs like Elon Musk and Marc Andreessen who are moving into government with DOGE, have been influenced by Rand, and, fascinatingly, Andreessen only read the novel four years ago. Hollis Robbins (@Anecdotal) and I talked about how Atlas Shrugged is in conversation with the great novels of the past, Rand's greats skills of plotting, drama, and character, and what makes Atlas Shrugged a serious novel, not just a vehicle for ideology. Love it or loathe it, Atlas Shrugged is having a moment. Everyone brings a preconception of Ayn Rand, but she has been opposed by the right and the left ever since she first published. Other than Jennifer Burns' biography, academic study has largely declined to notice Rand. But Rand deserves our serious attention, both as a novelist, and as an influence on the modern world. Here are a couple of excerpts.We talk a lot these days about, “how can I be my best self?” That's what Rand is saying. She's saying, actually, it's not about earning money, it's not about being rich. It is about the perfection of the moral life. It's about the pursuit of excellence. It's about the cultivation of virtue. These are the important things. This is what Dagny is doing. When all the entrepreneurs at the end, they're in the happy valley, actually, between them, they have not that much money, right?Also this.What would Ayn Rand think about the influencer economy? Oh, she'd despise it. She would despise it… all these little girls wanting to grow up to be influencers, they're caught in some algorithm, which is awful. Why would you want to spend your life influencing others? Go create something. It's a hard medicine.And.Her aesthetic is very classical, draped. She doesn't wear flowery patterns. She wears draped, clearly close-fitting gowns and gray tailored suits and a minimum of jewelry, though she does have this bracelet chain made of Rearden metal. You don't know when she possibly has time to go shopping, but she's perfectly dressed all the time in the fashion that we would understand as feminist. She wears trousers, she wears suits, but when she goes out, this black velvet cape. I think it's important to see her as that, even though nobody talks about that in terms of this novel, what a heroine she is. I know that when I was reading her as a teenage girl, that's it.TranscriptHenry: Today, I am talking with Hollis Robbins, former dean of the humanities at Utah University and special advisor on the humanities and AI. We are talking about Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. Hollis, hello.Hollis Robbins: Hello. I'm really glad to have this conversation with you. We've known each other for some years and follow each other's work. I was trained as a scholar of 19th-century American, Victorian, and African-American literature, mostly novels, and love having conversations with you about big, deep novels. When I suggested that we read this book, I was hoping you would be enthusiastic about it, so I'm really happy to be having this conversation. It's hard to know who's interviewing you or what conversation this is, but for you coming at this middle-aged. Not quite middle-aged, what are you?Henry: I'm middle enough. No. This is not going to be an interview as such. We are going to have a conversation about Atlas Shrugged, and we're going to, as you say, talk about it as a novel. It always gets talked about as an ideology. We are very interested in it as a novel and as two people who love the great novels of the 19th century. I've been excited to do this as well. I think that's why it's going to be good. Why don't we start with, why are we doing this?Hollis: I wanted to gesture to that. You are one of the leading public voices on the importance of reading literature and the importance of reading novels particularly, though I saw today, Matt Yglesias had a blog post about Middlemarch, which I think he just recently read. I can credit you with that, or us, or those of us who are telling people read the big novels.My life trajectory was that I read Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead before I read Dickens, before I read Jane Austen, before I read Harriet Beecher Stowe or Melville or the Brontës. For me, Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead were foundational novels as novels. I wondered what it would be like to talk to somebody whose experience was flipped.Henry: Right, I'm 38 and I'd never read this book. I was coming at it partly having read all those other books, but partly for my whole life, people have said, "Oh, that's really a bad book. That's so badly written. That book is no good." The number one thing I can say to people is this book is fun.Hollis: It's really fun. I was going to say usually what I forget to do in talking about books is give the summary. I'm going to hold up my copy, which is my dog-eared copy from high school, which is hilarious. It's got the tiniest print, which I couldn't possibly read now. No underlining, which is interesting. I read this book before I understood that you were supposed to underline when you liked passages in the book.It was interesting to me. I'd probably read it five or six times in my youth and didn't underline anything. The story is--- You can help me fill in the blanks. For readers who haven't read it, there's this young woman, Dagny Taggart, who's the heiress of the Taggart Transcontinental Railroad fortune. She's a woman. This takes place in about, I think, the '40s, '50s. Her older brother, Jim Taggart, is CEO. She's COO, so she's the operations person. It is in some ways the story of her-- It's not quite a bildungsroman. This is the way I tell the story. It's the story of her coming to the realization of how the world works. There's many ways to come at this story. She has multiple boyfriends, which is excellent. Her first boyfriend, his name is Francisco d'Anconia. He's the head of d'Anconia Copper. He too is an heir of this longstanding copper fortune. Her second is a metals magnate, Hank Rearden, who invents this great metal, Rearden metal.Really, it's also the story of the decline of America, and the ways that, in this Randian universe, these villainous group of people who run the country are always taking and extracting from producers. As she's creating and building this great railroad and doing wonderful things and using Rearden metal to do it, something is pulling all the producers out of society, and she's like, "What is going on?"It turns out there's this person, John Galt, who is saying, "I don't like the way the country is run. I don't like this extractive philosophy. I am going to take all the producers and lure them voluntarily to a--" It's a hero's lair. It's not like a James Bond villain lair. It's a hero lair in Colorado called Galt's Gulch. He is John Galt. It ends up being a battle between who is right in a wrong world. Is it the ethical person, Dagny Taggart, who continues to strive and try to be a producer and hold on to her ethics in this corrupt world, or is it somebody saying, "To hell with this. I am going on strike. You guys come with me and let the world collapse." How's that for summary?Henry: No, I think that's great. I couldn't have done a better job. One thing that we can say is that the role of reason, of being a rational person, of making reason the sole arbiter of how you make choices, be they practical, ethical, financial, whatever, that's at the heart of the book, right?Hollis: That's the philosophy. We could go there in a second. I think the plot of the book is that she demonstrates this.Henry: What she has to learn, like what is the big lesson for Dagny, is at the beginning, she hasn't fully understood that the good guys use reason and the bad guys do not, as it were.Hollis: Right. I think that's right. I like thinking about this as a bildungsroman. You said that the book is fun. Her part of the book is fun, but not really fun. The fun part of the book, and you can tell me because every time you kept texting me, "Oh my God, Jim Taggart. Oh my God, Jim Taggart. Oh my God, Jim Taggart."--Henry: These guys are so awful. [laughs]Hollis: They're so awful. The fun parts of the book, the Rand villains are the government entities and the cabals of business leaders who she calls looters and second-handers who run the country and all they do is extract value. Marc Andreessen was on a podcast recently and was all about these Rand villains and these looters. I think, again, to get back to why are we doing this and why are we doing this now, Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged is in the air with the second Trump administration.Henry: Yes. In a way, we're doing this because the question is, is this the novel of the future? Right? What we're seeing is it's very influential on the right. Rand's ideas have long been a libertarian inspiration. Elon Musk's read her. You mentioned Andreessen, Peter Thiel, all these people. It goes back to the Reagan days. People in the Republican Party have been quoting Ayn Rand. Then more broadly, we see all these worries about social collapse today. What happens in the plot of Atlas Shrugged is that society does slowly collapse.Dagny has to realize it's because of these people who are not using their reason and they're nationalizing things and taking resource away from proficient entrepreneurs and stuff. It's all about infrastructure, energy, people doing exploitation in the name of the common good, ineffective political leaders, people covering up lies and misdemeanors, people being accepting of what is obviously criminal behavior because it's in the cause of the greater good. We have free speech, all these topics, energy production. We're seeing this in the headlines. When I was reading this book, I was like, "Oh my God, how did she know?"Hollis: How did she know?Henry: How did she know.Hollis: I think the bildungsroman aspect of this as a novel. It's hard to read it as a novel. I think it's hard. By the way, I have to really I applaud you for not, until you got almost to the end of the book, texting me about this person or that person, or how it's political. I admire you for looking at the book and coming to the book as an expert in novels.What she comes to terms with, and it's a real slowly-- It's not even scales falling from her eyes. She doesn't sit and say, "Oh my God, the world is corrupt." She just is like, "That person's corrupt. I'm not going to deal with them. That person's corrupt. I'm not going to deal with them." She just keeps going, but she doesn't ever accept with a fatalism that she's living in this world where every single person who's in charge is going to let her down.Henry: It's also interesting to me that she doesn't complain.Hollis: No.Henry: Now, that reminded me of I wrote about Margaret Thatcher in my book. She was another big one for however hard it was, however difficult it was, why would you complain? Let's just go to work. A lot of people found her difficult for that reason. When I was reading this, I was like, "Ayn Rand clearly has the same idea. You can nationalize every last inch of the economy. I'm going to get up and go to work and try and beat you. I'm not going to sit around and complain." It's a very stern attitude in a way. She's very strict with herself. I found the book to be-- I know Rand is very atheist, but a very Protestant book.Hollis: Yes, it really is.Henry: Intensely Protestant, yes.Hollis: That's a nice way to think about it. A certain kind of Protestant, a Weberian Protestant.Henry: Sure.Hollis: Not a Southern Baptist Protestant who believes in the absence of reason. I was thinking I was teaching in Mississippi years ago. I was teaching a course on Wordsworth and had to do a unit on Voltaire because you can't really understand Wordsworth unless you understand Voltaire. There was a woman in my class. She was a version of Presbyterian who doesn't believe in reason, believes that in the fall, man lost their reason.Therefore, she asked if she could be excused from class because I was talking about Voltaire and the importance of reason. She said, "This is against my religion. If you believe that man has reason, you are actually going about it wrong, so may I be excused?" Which in all the years I've had people ask for excuses to miss class, that was a memorable one.Henry: That's unique. [laughs]Hollis: It's interesting because, again, I should get back to the novel, the opposition from Rand is as strong on the religious right as it is on the left. In fact, very strong. When Atlas Shrugged came out, William F. Buckley famously had Whittaker Chambers write the review. He hated her. He despised her. He despised the fact that she put reason first.Henry: Yes. I think that's worth emphasizing that some people listening will think, "I'm Rand. These nasty ideas, she's on the right." She's been ideologically described in that way so many times. Deirdre McCloskey in the Literary Review has just in the most recent edition written an absolutely scathing article about Rand. That's libertarian opposition to Rand.McCloskey is saying Hayek is the real thing here and Rand would have hated everything that Hayek did. She got everything wrong. I think the opposition to her, as you say, it's on both sides. One thing that's interesting about this novel is that because she created her own philosophy, which people will have different views on how well that went, but there isn't anyone else like this. All the other people like this are her followers.Hollis: Exactly.Henry: She's outside of the other systems of thought in a way.Hollis: We should talk about Rand. I'm going to quote a little bit from this book on feminist interpretation of Ayn Rand. Let's talk a little bit, if we can, about Dagny as the heroine of a novel, or a hero, because one of the really interesting things about reading Rand at this moment is that she's got one pronoun, he, him, man. She is in this era where man means man and women. That there isn't men and women, he and she, and now it's he, she, and them. She is like, "There's one pronoun." Even she talks about the rights of man or man believes. She means everybody, but she only means man too. It's interesting.I was very much part of the first pronoun wars in the 1980s when women scholars were like, "He and she." Now we're thrown out the window with that binary. Again, we don't need to talk about pronouns, but it's really important to understanding Rand and reading this novel, how much she embraces men and the male pronoun, even while she is using it both ways, and even while her story is led by this woman. She's beautiful. She's beautiful in a very specific way. She's tall, she's slender, she's got great cheekbones, she's got great shoulders, she's got long legs.Her aesthetic is very classical, draped. She doesn't wear flowery patterns. She wears draped, clearly close-fitting gowns and gray tailored suits and a minimum of jewelry, though she does have this bracelet chain made of Rearden metal. You don't know when she possibly has time to go shopping, but she's perfectly dressed all the time in the fashion that we would understand as feminist. She wears trousers, she wears suits, but when she goes out, this black velvet cape. I think it's important to see her as that, even though nobody talks about that in terms of this novel, what a heroine she is. I know that when I was reading her as a teenage girl, that's it.Henry: I want to be Dagny.Hollis: I want to be Dagny. I want to have capes, right?Henry: There's a very important scene, it's not too much of a plot spoiler, where Hank Rearden has invented this new metal. It's very exciting because it's much more efficient and it's much stronger and you can build new bridges for the trains and everything. He makes a bracelet of his new metal. It's a new steel alloy, I think, and gives it to his wife. His wife basically doesn't care.She's not really interested in what it takes to earn the money, she just wants to have the money. You get the strong impression throughout the book that some of the people that Rand is most scathingly disapproving of are wives who don't work. None of those people come out well. When Dagny goes to a party at the Rearden house and she is romantically involved with Hank Rearden, she sees the bracelet.Hollis: She isn't then, right? Isn't she not then?Henry: No, but they have feelings for each otherHollis: Right. Reasonable feelings for each other.Henry: That's right, reasonable feelings, but they're not currently acting on those feelings. She sees the bracelet and she exchanges her, I think, diamonds-Hollis: Diamond bracelet.Henry: -for the Rearden metal bracelet with the wife. It's this wonderful moment where these two opposite ideals of womanhood that Rand is presenting. It's a great moment of heroism for Dagny because she is saying, "Who cares about glittering diamonds when you have a new steel alloy that can make this incredible bridge?" It sounds crazy, but this is 1957. Dagny is very much what you might call one of the new women.Hollis: Right.Henry: I think in some ways, Rand-- I don't like the phrase she's ahead of her time. I've read a lot of 1950s fiction. This is not the typical woman.Hollis: No, this is not Cheever. This is not a bored suburban housewife at a time when the way the '50s are taught, certainly in America, it's like women could work during the war, then they were suburban housewives, there was bored, there were key parties and all sorts of Cheever sorts of things. This is not that. I read this first. I was only 15 years after it was published, I think, in the '60s, early '70s reading it.This, to me, seemed perfectly normal and everything else seemed regressive and strange and whiny. There's a lot to be said for reading this novel first. I think if we can talk a little bit about these set pieces because I think for me reading it as a novel and hearing you talk about it as a novel, that novels, whether we're thinking about-- I want to see if you want to compare her to Dorothea or just to any other Victorian women novel that you can think of. That's the closest, right? Is there anybody that's closest to Dorothea from Middlemarch? Is that there are these set pieces. People think that Rand-- the idea is that she's not a great writer. She is a great writer. She started in Hollywood. Her first book, The Fountainhead, was made into a movie. She understands plotting and keeping the reader's attention. We go forward, we go backwards. There's her relationship with Francisco d'Anconia that we see her now, years after, then we have flashbacks to growing up and how they became lovers.There are big meeting set pieces where everybody's in the room, and we have all the backstories of the people in the room, what is going to happen. There are these big party scenes, as you say. For example, this big, glorious, glamorous party at the Rearden house, Francisco is there. Francisco and Hank Rearden get in a conversation, and she's like, "I want to go see what my old boyfriend is talking to the guy I like about."There are these moments where you're not supposed to come at the book that way in this serious philosophical way. Then later on when there's this wonderful scene where Francisco comes to see Dagny. This is much later. Hank and Dagny are lovers, so he has a key to her apartment. He walks in and everybody sees immediately what's going on. It's as good as any other farce moment of somebody hiding behind a curtain, right?Henry: Yes.Hollis: Everything is revealed all at once. She's very good at scenes like that.Henry: Yes, very good. She's very good at high drama. One of the phrases that kept coming back to me was that this book is a melodrama of ideas.Hollis: Yes.Henry: Right? It's not a novel of ideas as such, it's a melodrama of ideas. I think one thing that people who think she's a bad writer will say is it's melodrama, the characters are flat, the prose is not lyrical, all these different things. Whereas when I read it, I was like, "She's so good at melodrama." I feel like, in some ways, it does not feel like a 1950s novel because there's so much excitement about technology, so much feminism, just so many things that I do not associate--Maybe I'm being too English, but I don't read John Cheever, for example, and think, "Oh, he loves the train." Whereas this book is very, very exciting as a story about inventing a new kind of train that goes really fast," which sounds silly, but that's a really Dickensian theme, that's in Middlemarch. Actually, that's what Matt Yglesias was talking about in his excellent piece today. What does feel very 1950s is you've got the Hollywood influence. The dialogue, I think, is not always great, but it is often great.I often would read pages and think, "This would actually be really good in, not an A++ movie, but in a decent crime movie or something. This would be quite good dialogue." There's a comic book aesthetic to it in the way that the scenes play out. Just a lot of these '50s aesthetics actually are present in the book. I'm going to read one paragraph. It's from part one. I think we should read out loud a few bits to give people a sense.Hollis: Yes.Henry: This is when Dagny has built a new train line using grid and metal to make the bridge so that it can go over a valley. I think that's right. The train can do 100 miles an hour. It's this very, very exciting new development. It means that energy can be supplied to factories, and so it's a huge, big deal. This is when she's on the train going at 100 miles an hour and she just can't believe it's happening."Things streaked past a water tank, a tree, a shanty, a grain silo. They had a windshield wiper motion. They were rising, describing a curve, and dropping back. The telegraph wires ran a race with the train, rising and falling from pole to pole, in an even rhythm like the cardiograph record of a steady heartbeat written across the sky. She looked ahead at the haze that melted rail and distance, a haze that could rip apart at any moment to some shape of disaster.""She wondered why she felt safer than she had ever felt in a car behind the engine. Safer here where it seemed as if should an obstacle rise, her breast and the glass shield would be the first to smash against it. She smiled, grasping the answer. It was the security of being first with full sight and full knowledge of one's own course, not the blind sense of being pulled into the unknown by some unknown power ahead."That's not MFA prose or whatever, but it turns the pages. I think she's very good at relating we're on the train and it's going very fast to how Dagny is thinking through the philosophical conundrum that is basically going to drive the whole plot forwards. I was reminded again and again of what Virginia Woolf said about Walter Scott, where she compared Scott to Robert Louis Stevenson. She said that Stevenson had beautiful sentences and dapper little adjectives. It was all jeweled and carefully done. You could marvel over each sentence.She said, "Whereas Scott, it's just page after page and no sentence is beautiful," but she says, "He writes at the level of the page. He's not like Stevenson. He's not writing at the level of the sentence. You have to step into the world." You can say, 'Oh, that wasn't a very good sentence,' but my goodness, the pages keep turning and you're there in the world, right?Hollis: Exactly.Henry: I think she made a really important point there and we just undervalue that so much when we say, oh, so-and-so is not a good writer. What we mean is they're not a Robert Louis Stevenson, they're a Walter Scott. It's like, sure, but Walter Scott was great at what he did. Ayn Rand is in the Walter Scott inheritance in the sense that it's a romance, it's not strictly realistic novel. You have to step into the world. You can't spend your whole time going, "Was that a great sentence? Do I really agree with what she just--" It's like, no, you have to go into this utopian sci-fi universe and you have to keep turning the pages. You get caught up and you go, "Wow, this is this is working for me."Hollis: Let me push back on that-Henry: Yes, good.Hollis: -because I think that was a beautiful passage, one of my favorite passages in this book, which is hard to say because it's a really, really big book. It's a memorable passage because here she is in a place at this moment. She is questioning herself. Isn't she questioning why? Why do I feel safe? Then it strikes her. In this moment, all interior while all this stuff is happening. This whole Rearden metal train bridge set piece is one of the highlights of at least the first half of the book. You come away, even if we've had our entire life up to her, understanding her as a philosophical this woman. How is that different from Dorothea or from Elizabeth Bennet? Yes, Elizabeth Bennet, right?Henry: Oh, no, I agree. My point was purely about prose style, which was to say if you say, "Oh, she writes like a Walter Scott, not like a Robert Louis Stevenson," you're going to deny yourself seeing what you've just said, which is that actually, yes, she has the ability to write philosophical characters.Hollis: When I first read Pride and Prejudice, I read it through the lens of Rand. Now, clearly, these heroines had fewer choices. Dorothea marries Casaubon, I don't know how you pronounce it, because she thinks he's a Randian expert, somebody who's got this grand idea. She's like, "Whoa, I want to be part of this endeavor, the key to all mythologies." Then she's so let down. In the Randian sense, you can see why she would have wanted him.Henry: That's right. I think George Eliot would have strongly disagreed with Rand philosophically. The heroines, as you say, what they're doing in the novel is having to realize that there are social conventions I have to understand and there are things I have to learn how to do, but actually, the key to working all that out is more at the moral philosophical level. This is what happens to Dagny. I think it's on the next page from what I just read. There's another passage where it says that she's in the train and she's enjoying. It's working and she's thrilled that her train is working. She was trying not to think, but she couldn't help herself.She said, "Who made the train. Is it the brute force of muscle? Who can make all the dials and the levers? How is it possible that this thing has even been put together?" Then she starts thinking to herself, "We've got a government who's saying it's wrong to do this, you're taking resources, you're not doing it for the common good." She says, "How can they regard this as evil? How can they believe that this is ignoble to have created this incredible thing?"She says she wants to be able to toss the subject out of the window and let it get shattered somewhere along the track. She wants the thoughts to go past like the telegraph poles, but obviously, she can't. She has this moment of realization that this can't be wrong. This type of human accomplishment can't be against the common good. It can't be considered to be ignoble. I think that is like the Victorian heroines.To me, it was more like Fanny Price, which is that someone turns up into a relatively closed system of ideas and keeps their own counsel for a long time, and has to admit sometimes when they haven't got it right or whatever. Basically, in the end, they are vindicated on fairly straightforward grounds. Dagny comes to realize that, "I was right. I was using my reason. I was working hard. I was being productive. Yes, I was right about that." Fanny, it's more like a Christian insight into good behavior, but I felt the pattern was the same.Hollis: Sure. I'll also bring up Jane Eyre here, right?Henry: Yes.Hollis: Jane Eyre, her relationship, there's a lot to be said of both Mr. Darcy and Mr. Rochester with Hank Rearden because Hank Rearden has to come to his sense. He's married. He doesn't like his wife. He doesn't like this whole system that he's in. He wants to be with a woman that's a meeting of the mind, but he's got all this social convention he has to deal with. Rochester has to struggle, and of course, Bertha Mason has to die in that book. He ends up leaving his wife, but too late. If we're going to look at this novel as a novel, we can see that there are these moments that I think have some resonance. I know you don't seem to want to go to the Mr. Darcy part of it.Henry: No. I had also thought about Jane Eyre. My thought was that, obviously, other than being secular because Jane Eyre is very Christian, the difference is that Hank Rearden and Dagny basically agree that we can't conduct our relationship in a way that would be morally compromising to her. They go through this very difficult process of reasoning like, "How can we do this in a good way?"They're a little bit self-sacrificing about it because they don't want to upset the moral balance. Whereas Mr. Rochester, at least for the first part of the book, has an attitude that's more like, "Yes, but she's in the attic. Why does it matter if we get married?" He doesn't really see the problem of morally compromising Jane, and so Jane has to run away.Hollis: Right.Henry: One of the interesting things about Rand, what is different from like Austen and the Brontës and whatever, is that Dagny and Hank are not in opposition before they get together. They have actually this unusual thing in romance and literature, which is that they have a meeting of minds. What gets in the way is that the way their minds agree is contra mundum and the world has made this problem for them.Hollis: I think in a way, that's the central relationship in--Henry: Yes. That was how I read it, yes.Hollis: Yes. The fact as we think about what the complications are in reading this novel as a novel is that here is this great central romance and they've got obstacles. She's got an old boyfriend, he's married. They've got all these things that are classic obstacles to a love story. Rand understands that enough to build it, that that will keep a lot of readers' interest, but then it's like, "That's actually not the point of my book," which is how the second half or the last third of the novel just gets really wiggy." Again, spoiler alert, but Hank is blackmailed to be, as the society is collapsing, as things are collapsing--Henry: We should say that the government has taken over in a nationalizing program by this point.Hollis: Right, because as John Galt is pulling all the thought leaders and the industrialists and all the movers of the world into his lair, things are getting harder and harder and harder, things are getting nationalized. Some of these big meetings in Washington where these horrible people are deciding how to redistribute wealth, again, which is part of the reason somebody like Congressman Paul Ryan would give out copies of Atlas Shrugged to all of his staffers. He's like, "You've got to read this book because we can't go to Washington and be like this. The Trumpian idea is we've got to get rid of people who are covering up and not doing the right thing."They've blackmailed Hank Rearden into giving up Rearden Metal by saying, "We know you've been sleeping with Dagny Taggart." It's a very dramatic point. How is this going to go down?Henry: Right. I think that's interesting. What I loved about the way she handled that romance was that romance is clearly part of what she sees as important to a flourishing life. She has to constantly yoke it to this idea that reason is everything, so human passion has to be conducted on the basis that it's logically reasonable, but that it therefore becomes self-sacrificing. There is something really sad and a little bit tragic about Hank being blackmailed like that, right?Hollis: Yes. I have to say their first road trip together, it's like, "Let's just get out of here and go have a road trip and stay in hotels and have sex and it'll be awesome." That their road trip is like, "Let's go also see some abandoned factories and see what treasures we might find there." To turn this love road trip into also the plot twist that gets them closer to John Galt is a magnificent piece of plot.Henry: Yes. I loved that. I know you want to talk about the big John Galt speech later, but I'm going to quote one line because this all relates to what I think is one of the most central lines of the book. "The damned and the guiltiest among you are the men who had the capacity to know yet chose to blank out reality." A lot of the time, like in Brontë or whatever, there are characters like Rochester's like that. The center of their romance is that they will never do that to each other because that's what they believe philosophically, ethically. It's how they conduct themselves at business. It's how they expect other people to conduct themselves. They will never sacrifice that for each other.That for them is a really high form of love and it's what enables huge mutual respect. Again, it's one of those things I'm amazed-- I used to work in Westminster. I knew I was a bit of a libertarian. I knew lots of Rand adjacent or just very, very Randian people. I thought they were all insane, but that's because no one would ever say this. No one would ever say she took an idea like that and turned it into a huge romance across hundreds of pages. Who else has done that in the novel? I think that's great.Hollis: It really is hard. It really is a hard book. The thing that people say about the book, as you say, and the reason you hadn't read it up until now, is it's like, "Oh, yes, I toyed with Rand as a teenager and then I put that aside." I put away my childish things, right? That's what everybody says on the left, on the right. You have to think about it's actually really hard. My theory would be that people put it away because it's really, really hard, what she tried is hard. Whether she succeeded or not is also hard. As we were just, before we jumped on, talking about Rand's appearance on Johnny Carson, a full half hour segment of him taking her very seriously, this is a woman who clearly succeeded. I recently read Jennifer Burn's biography of her, which is great. Shout out to Jennifer.What I came away with is this is a woman who made her living as a writer, which is hard to do. That is a hard thing to do, is to make your living as a writer, as a woman in the time difference between 1942, The Fountainhead, which was huge, and 57, Atlas Shrugged. She was blogging, she had newsletters, she had a media operation that's really, really impressive. This whole package doesn't really get looked at, she as a novelist. Again, let me also say it was later on when I came to Harriet Beecher Stowe, who is another extraordinary woman novelist in America who wrote this groundbreaking book, which is filled--I particularly want to shout out to George Harris, the slave inventor who carried himself like a Rand hero as a minor character and escapes. His wife is Eliza, who famously runs across the ice flows in a brave Randian heroine escape to freedom where nobody's going to tell them what to do. These women who changed literature in many ways who have a really vexed relationship or a vexed place in academia. Certainly Stowe is studied.Some 20 years ago, I was at an event with the great Elaine Showalter, who was coming out with an anthology of American women writers. I was in the audience and I raised my hand, I said, "Where's Ayn Rand?" She was like, "Ha, ha, ha." Of course, what a question is that? There is no good reason that Ayn Rand should not be studied in academia. There is no good reason. These are influential novels that actually, as we've talked about here, can be talked about in the context of other novels.Henry: I think one relevant comparison is let's say you study English 19th-century literature on a course, a state-of-the-nation novel or the novel of ideas would be included as routine, I think very few people would say, "Oh, those novels are aesthetically excellent. We read them because they're beautifully written, and they're as fun as Dickens." No one's saying that. Some of them are good, some of them are not good. They're important because of what they are and the barrier to saying why Rand is important for what she is because, I think, people believe her ideas are evil, basically.One central idea is she thinks selfishness is good, but I think we've slightly dealt with the fact that Dagny and Hank actually aren't selfish some of the time, and that they are forced by their ethical system into not being selfish. The other thing that people say is that it's all free-market billionaire stuff, basically. I'm going to read out a passage from-- It's a speech by Francisco in the second part. It's a long speech, so I'm not going to read all eight pages. I'm going to read this speech because I think this theme that I'm about to read out, it's a motif, it's again and again and again.Hollis: Is this where he's speaking to Hank or to Dagny?Henry: I think when he's speaking to Dagny and he says this."Money will not purchase happiness for the man who has no concept of what he want. Money will not give him a code of values if he has evaded the knowledge of what to value, and it will not provide him with a purpose if he has evaded the choice of what to seek. Money will not buy intelligence for the fool, or admiration for the coward, or respect for the incompetent."The man who attempts to purchase the brains of his superiors to serve him with his money replacing his judgment ends up by becoming the victim of his inferiors. The men of intelligence desert him, but the cheats and the frauds come flocking to him, drawn by a law which he has not discovered, that no man may be smaller than his money."Hollis: That's a good--Henry: Right? It's a great paragraph. I feel like she says that in dozens of ways throughout the book, and she wants you to be very clear when you leave that this book is not a creed in the name of just make money and have free market capitalism so you can be rich. That paragraph and so many others, it's almost biblical in the way she writes it. She's really hammering the rhythms, and the tones, and the parallels. She's also, I think, trying to appropriate some of the way the Bible talks about money and turn it into her own secular pseudo-Aristotelian idea, right?Hollis: Yes.Henry: We talk a lot these days about, how can I be my best self? That's what Rand is saying. She's saying, actually, it's not about earning money, it's not about being rich. It is about the perfection of the moral life. It's about the pursuit of excellence. It's about the cultivation of virtue. These are the important things. This is what Dagny is doing. When all the entrepreneurs at the end, they're in the happy valley, actually, between them, they have not that much money, right?Hollis: Right.Henry: The book does not end in a rich utopia, it's important to say.Hollis: It's interesting. A couple of things. I want to get this back since we're still in the novel. Let me say when we get to Galt's great speech, which is bizarre. He says a similar thing that I'll bring in now. He says, "The mother who buys milk for her baby instead of a hat is not sacrificing because her values are feeding the baby. The woman who sacrifices the hat to feed her baby, but really wants the hat and is only feeding the baby out of duty is sacrificing." That's bad. She's saying get your values in order. Understand what it is you want and do that thing, but don't do it because somebody says you have to. She says this over and over in many ways, or the book says this.Henry: We should say, that example of the mother is incidental. The point she's always making is you must think this through for yourself, you must not do it because you've been told to do it.Hollis: Right, exactly. To get back to the love story aspects of the book because they don't sit and say they love each other, even all the great romances. It's not like, "I love you. I love you." It's straight to sex or looks and meetings of the minds. It's interesting. We should deal with the fact that from The Fountainhead and a little bit in this book, the sex is a little rapey. It's a difficult thing to talk about. It's certainly one of the reasons that feminists, women writers don't approve of her. In the book, it's consensual. Whatever one wants to think about the ways that people have sex, it is consensual in the book. Also in The Fountainhead.I'm sure I'll get hate mail for even saying that, but in her universe, that's where it is. What's interesting, Francisco as a character is so interesting. He's conflicted, he's charming, he's her first lover. He's utterly good in every way. He ends up without her. Hank is good. Hank goes through his struggles and learning curve about women prioritizing. If you don't like your wife, don't be married to your wife. It's like he goes through his own what are my values and how do I live them.I know you think that this is bizarre, but there's a lot of writing about the relationship of Hank and Francisco because they find themselves in the same room a lot. They happen to have both been Dagny's lovers or ex-lovers, and they really, really like each other. There's a way that that bonding-- Homosexuality does not exist in her novels, whatever, but that's a relationship of two people that really are hot for one another. There is a lot of writing. There are queer readings of Rand that make a lot of that relationship.Again, this isn't my particular lens of criticism, but I do see that the energy, which is why I asked you which speech you were reading because some of Francisco's best speeches are for Hank because he's trying to woo Hank to happy valley. Toward the end when they're all hanging out together in Galt's Gulch, there's clearly a relationship there.Henry: Oh, yes. No, once you pointed out to me, I was like, "That makes sense of so many passages." That's clearly there. What I don't understand is why she did that. I feel like, and this is quite an accomplishment because it's a big novel with a lot of moving parts, everything else is resolved both in terms of the plot, but also in terms of how it fits her philosophical idea. That, I think, is pretty much the only thing where you're left wondering, "Why was that in there? She hasn't made a point about it. They haven't done anything about it." This I don't understand. That's my query.Hollis: Getting ready to have this conversation, I spent a lot of time on some Reddit threads. I ran Atlas Shrugged Reddit threads where there's some fantastic conversations.Henry: Yes, there is.Hollis: One of them is about, how come Francisco didn't end up with anybody? That's just too bad. He's such a great character and he ends up alone. I would say he doesn't end up alone, he ends up with his boyfriend Hank, whatever that looks like. Two guys that believe in the same things, they can have whatever life they want. Go on.Henry: Are you saying that now that they're in the valley, they will be more free to pursue that relationship?Hollis: There's a lot of things that she has said about men's and women's bodies. She said in other places, "I don't think there'll ever be a woman president because why would a woman want to be president? What a woman really wants is a great man, and we can't have a president who's looking for a great man. She has to be a president." She's got a lot of lunacy about women. Whatever. I don't understand. Someplace I've read that she understands male homosexuality, but not female homosexuality. Again, I am not a Rand scholar. Having read and seen some of that in the ether, I see it in the book, and I can see how her novel would invite that analysis.I do want to say, let's spend a few seconds on some of the minor characters. There are some really wonderful minor characters. One of them is Cherryl Taggart, this shop girl that evil Jim Taggart meets one night in a rainstorm, and she's like, "Oh, you're so awesome," and they get married. It's like he's got all this praise for marrying the shop girl. It's a funny Eliza Doolittle situation because she is brought into this very wealthy society, which we have been told and we have been shown is corrupt, is evil, everybody's lying all the time, it's pretentious, Dagny hates it.Here's the Cherryl Taggart who's brought into this. In the beginning, she hates Dagny because she's told by everybody, "Hate Dagny, she's horrible." Then she comes to her own mini understanding of the corruption that we understand because Dagny's shown it in the novel, has shown it to us this entire time. She comes to it and she's like, "Oh my God," and she goes to Dagny. Dagny's so wonderful to her like, "Yes. You had to come to this on your own, I wasn't going to tell you, but you were 100% right." That's the end of her.Henry: Right. When she meets Taggart, there's this really interesting speech she has where she says, "I want to make something of myself and get somewhere." He's like, "What? What do you want to do?" Red flag. "What? Where?" She says, "I don't know, but people do things in this world. I've seen pictures of New York," and she's pointing at like the skyscrapers, right? Whatever. "I know that someone's built that. They didn't sit around and whine, but like the kitchen was filthy and the roof was leaking." She gets very emotional at this point. She says to him, "We were stinking poor and we didn't give a damn. I've dragged myself here, and I'm going to do something."Her story is very sad because she then gets mired in the corruption of Taggart's. He's basically bit lazy and a bit of a thief, and he will throw anyone under the bus for his own self-advancement. He is revealed to be a really sinister guy. I was absolutely hissing about him most of the time. Then, let's just do the plot spoiler and say what happens to Cherryl, right? Because it's important. When she has this realization and Taggart turns on her and reveals himself as this snake, and he's like, "Well, what did you expect, you idiot? This is the way the world is."Hollis: Oh, it's a horrible fight. It's the worst fight.Henry: Right? This is where the melodrama is so good. She goes running out into the streets, and it's the night and there are shadows. She's in the alleyway. Rand, I don't have the page marked, but it's like a noir film. She's so good at that atmosphere. Then it gets a little bit gothic as well. She's running through the street, and she's like, "I've got to go somewhere, anywhere. I'll work. I'll pick up trash. I'll work in a shop. I'll do anything. I've just got to get out of this."Hollis: Go work at the Panda Express. Henry: Yes. She's like, "I've got to get out of this system," because she's realized how morally corrupting it is. By this time, this is very late. Society is in a-- it's like Great Depression style economic collapse by this point. There really isn't a lot that she could do. She literally runs into a social worker and the social-- Rand makes this leering dramatic moment where the social worker reaches out to grab her and Cherryl thinks, "Oh, my God, I'm going to be taken prisoner in. I'm going back into the system," so she jumps off the bridge.This was the moment when I was like, I've had this lurking feeling about how Russian this novel is. At this point, I was like, "That could be a short story by Gogol," right? The way she set that up. That is very often the trap that a Gogol character or maybe a Dostoevsky character finds themselves in, right? That you suddenly see that the world is against you. Maybe you're crazy and paranoid. Maybe you're not. Depends which story we're reading. You run around trying to get out and you realize, "Oh, my God, I'm more trapped than I thought. Actually, maybe there is no way out." Cherryl does not get a lot of pages. She is, as you say, quite a minor character, but she illustrates the whole story so, so well, so dramatically.Hollis: Oh, wow.Henry: When it happens, you just, "Oh, Cherryl, oh, my goodness."Hollis: Thank you for reading that. Yes, you could tell from the very beginning that the seeds of what could have been a really good person were there. Thank you for reading that.Henry: When she died, I went back and I was like, "Oh, my God, I knew it."Hollis: How can you say Rand is a bad writer, right? That is careful, careful plotting, because she's just a shop girl in the rain. You've got this, the gun on the wall in that act. You know she's going to end up being good. Is she going to be rewarded for it? Let me just say, as an aside, I know we don't have time to talk about it here. My field, as I said, is 19th century African American novels, primarily now.This, usually, a woman, enslaved woman, the character who's like, "I can't deal with this," and jumps off a bridge and drowns herself is a fairly common and character. That is the only thing to do. One also sees Rand heroes. Stowe's Dred, for example, is very much, "I would rather live in the woods with a knife and then, be on the plantation and be a slave." When you think about, even the sort of into the 20th century, the Malcolm X figure, that, "I'm going to throw out all of this and be on my own," is very Randian, which I will also say very Byronic, too, Rand didn't invent this figure, but she put it front and center in these novels, and so when you think about how Atlas Shrugged could be brought into a curriculum in a network of other novels, how many of we've discussed so far, she's there, she's influenced by and continues to influence. Let's talk about your favorite minor character, the Wet Nurse.Henry: This is another great death scene.Hollis: Let's say who he is, so the government sends this young man to work at the Rearden Mills to keep an eye on Hank Rearden.Henry: Once they nationalize him, he's the bureaucrat reporting back, and Rearden calls him the Wet Nurse as an insult.Hollis: Right, and his job, he's the Communist Party person that's in every factory to make sure that everything is--Henry: That's right, he's the petty bureaucrat reporting back and making sure everyone's complying.Hollis: He's a young recent college graduate that, Hank, I think, early on, if it's possible even to find the Wet Nurse early scene, you could tell in the beginning, too, he's bright and sparkly right out of college, and this is, it seems like a good job for him. He's like, "Woohoo, I get to be here, and I get to be--" Yes, go ahead.Henry: What happens to him is, similarly to Cherryl, he has a conversion, but his conversion is not away from the corruption of the system he's been in, he is converted by what he sees in the Rearden plant, the hard work, the dedication, the idealism, the deep focus on making the metal, and he starts to see that if we don't make stuff, then all the other arguments downstream of that about how to appropriate, how to redistribute, whatever, are secondary, and so he becomes, he goes native, as it were. He becomes a Reardenite, and then at the end, when there's a crowd storming the place, and this crowd has been sent by the government, it's a fake thing to sort of--Hollis: Also, a very good scene, very dramatic.Henry: She's very good at mobs, very good at mobs, and they kill, they kill the Wet Nurse, they throw him over. He has a couple of speeches in dialogue with Rearden while he's dying, and he says--Hollis: You have to say, they throw him, they leave him on this pile of slag. He crawls up to the street where Rearden happens to be driving by, and car stops, and so that finding the Wet Nurse there and carrying him in his arms, yes.Henry: That's right, it's very dramatic, and then they have this dialogue, and he says, "I'd like to live, Mr. Rearden, God, how I'd like to, not because I'm dying, but because I've just discovered tonight what it means to be alive, and it's funny, do when I discovered it? In the office, when I stuck my neck out, when I told the bastards to go to hell, there's so many things I wish I'd known sooner, but it's no use crying over spilt milk," and then Rearden, he goes, "Listen, kid, said Rearden sternly, I want you to do me a favor." "Now, Mr. Rearden?" "Yes, now." "Of course, Mr. Rearden, if I can," and Rearden says, "You were willing to die to save my mills, will you try and live for me?"I think this is one of those great moments where, okay, maybe this isn't like George Eliot style dialogue, but you could put that straight in a movie, that would work really well, that would be great, right? I can hear Humphrey Bogart saying these things. It would work, wouldn't it?She knows that, and that's why she's doing that, she's got that technique. He's another minor character, and Rand is saying, the system is eating people up. We are setting people up for a spiritual destruction that then leads to physical destruction. This point, again, about it's not just about the material world. It's about your inner life and your own mind.I find it very moving.Hollis: These minor characters are fantastic. Then let's talk a little bit about Eddie Willers, because I think a lot about Eddie Willers. Eddie Willers, the childhood three, there were three young people, we keep going back to this childhood. We have Dagny, Francisco, because their parents were friends, and then Eddie Willers, who's like a neighborhood kid, right?Henry: He's down the street.Hollis: He lives down the street. He's like the neighborhood kid. I don't know about you. We had a neighborhood kid. There's always neighborhood kids, right? You end up spending time with this-- Eddie's just sort of always there. Then when they turn 15, 16, 17, and when there's clearly something going on between Dagny and Francisco, Eddie does take a step back, and he doesn't want to see.There's the class issues, the status issues aren't really-- they're present but not discussed by Rand. Here we have these two children heirs, and they don't say like, "You're not one of us, Eddie, because you're not an heir or an heiress." He's there, and he's got a pretty good position as Dagny's right-hand man in Taggart Transcontinental. We don't know where he went to college. We don't know what he does, but we know that he's super loyal, right?Then when she goes and takes a break for a bit, he steps in to be COO. James is like, "Eddie Willers, how can Eddie Willers be a COO?" She's like, "It's really going to be me, but he's going to be fine." We're not really supposed to identify with Eddie, but Eddie's there. Eddie has, all through the novel, all through the big old novel, Eddie eats lunch in the cafeteria. There's always this one guy he's having lunch with. This is, I don't know, like a Greek chorus thing, I don't quite know, but there's Eddie's conversations with this unknown person in the cafeteria give us a sense, maybe it's a narrator voice, like, "Meanwhile, this is going on in the world." We have these conversations. This guy he's having lunch with asks a lot of questions and starts asking a lot of personal questions about Dagny. Then we have to talk to-- I know we've gone for over an hour and 15 minutes, we've got to talk about Galt's Speech, right? When John Galt, toward the end, takes over the airwaves and gives this big three-hour speech, the big three-hour podcast as I tweeted the other day, Eddie is with Dagny.Henry: He's in the radio studio.Hollis: He's in the studio along with one of John Galt's former professors. We hear this voice. Rand says, or the narrator says, three people in the room recognize that voice. I don't know about you, did you guess that it was Galt before that moment that Eddie was having lunch with in the cafeteria?Henry: No, no, no, I didn't.Hollis: Okay, so you knew at that moment.Henry: That was when I was like, "Oh, Eddie was talking, right?" It took me a minute.Hollis: Okay, were you excited? Was that like a moment? Was that a big reveal?Henry: It was a reveal, but it made me-- Eddie's whole character puzzles me because, to me, he feels like a Watson.Hollis: Yes, that's nice, that's good.Henry: He's met Galt, who's been under their noses the whole time. He's been going through an almost Socratic method with Galt, right? If only he could have paid a little bit more attention, he would have realized what was going on. He doesn't, why is this guy so interested in Dagny, like all these things. Even after Galt's big speech, I don't think Eddie quite takes the lesson. He also comes to a more ambiguous but a bad end.Hollis: Eddie's been right there, the most loyal person. The Reddit threads on Eddie Willers, if anybody's interested, are really interesting.Henry: Yes, they are, they're so good.Hollis: Clearly, Eddie recognizes greatness, and he recognizes production, and he recognizes that Dagny is better than Jim. He recognizes Galt. They've been having these conversations for 12 years in the cafeteria. Every time he goes to the cafeteria, he's like, "Where's my friend, where's my friend?" When his friend disappears, but he also tells Galt a few things about Dagny that are personal and private. When everybody in the world, all the great people in the world, this is a big spoiler, go to Galt's Gulch at the end.Henry: He's not there.Hollis: He doesn't get to go. Is it because of the compromises he made along the way? Rand had the power to reward everybody. Hank's secretary gets to go, right?Henry: Yes.Hollis: She's gone throughout the whole thing.Henry: Eddie never thinks for himself. I think that's the-- He's a very, I think, maybe one of the more tragic victims of the whole thing because-- sorry. In a way, because, Cherryl and the Wet Nurse, they try and do the right thing and they end up dying. That's like a more normal tragedy in the sense that they made a mistake. At the moment of realization, they got toppled.Eddie, in a way, is more upsetting because he never makes a mistake and he never has a moment of realization. Rand is, I think this is maybe one of the cruelest parts of the book where she's almost saying, "This guy's never going to think for himself, and he hasn't got a hope." In a novel, if this was like a realistic novel, and she was saying, "Such is the cruelty of the world, what can we do for this person?" That would be one thing. In a novel that's like ending in a utopia or in a sort of utopia, it's one of the points where she's really harsh.Hollis: She's really harsh. I'd love to go and look at her notes at some point in time when I have an idle hour, which I won't, to say like, did she sit around? It's like, "What should I do with Eddie?" To have him die, probably, in the desert with a broken down Taggart transcontinental engine, screaming in terror and crying.Henry: Even at that stage, he can't think for himself and see that the system isn't worth supporting.Hollis: Right. He's just going to be a company man to the end.Henry: It's as cruel as those fables we tell children, like the grasshopper and the ants. He will freeze to death in the winter. There's nothing you can do about it. There are times when she gets really, really tough. I think is why people hate her.Hollis: We were talking about this, about Dickens and minor characters and coming to redemption and Dickens, except Jo. Jo and Jo All Alones, there are people who have redemption and die. Again, I don't know.Henry: There's Cherryl and the Wet Nurse are like Jo. They're tragic victims of the system. She's doing it to say, "Look how bad this is. Look how bad things are." To me, Eddie is more like Mr. Micawber. He's hopeless. It's a little bit comic. It's not a bad thing. Whereas Dickens, at the end, will just say, "Oh, screw the integrity of the plot and the morals. Let's just let Mr. Micawber-- let's find a way out for him." Everyone wants this guy to do well. Rand is like, "No, I'm sticking to my principles. He's dead in the desert, man. He's going to he's going to burn to death." He's like, "Wow, that's okay."Hollis: The funny thing is poor John Galt doesn't even care about him. John Galt has been a bad guy. John Galt is a complicated figure. Let's spend a bit on him.Henry: Before we do that, I actually want to do a very short segment contextualizing her in the 50s because then what you say about Galt will be against this background of what are some of the other ideas in the 50s, right?Hollis: Got it.Henry: I think sometimes the Galt stuff is held up as what's wrong with this novel. When you abstract it and just say it, maybe that's an easier case to make. I think once you understand that this is 1957, she's been writing the book for what, 12 years, I think, or 15 years, the Galt speech takes her 3 years to write, I think. This is, I think the most important label we can give the novel is it's a Cold War novel. She's Russian. What she's doing, in some ways, is saying to America, "This is what will happen to us if we adopt the system of our Cold War enemies." It's like, "This is animal farm, but in America with real people with trains and energy plants and industry, no pigs. This is real life." We've had books like that in our own time. The Mandibles by Lionel Shriver said, that book said, "If the 2008 crash had actually gone really badly wrong and society collapsed, how would it go?" I think that's what she's reacting to. The year before it was published, there was a sociology book called The Organization Man.Hollis: Oh, yes. William Whyte.Henry: A great book. Everyone should read that book. He is worrying, the whole book is basically him saying, "I've surveyed all these people in corporate America. They're losing the Protestant work ethic. They're losing the entrepreneurial spirit. They're losing their individual drive. Instead of wanting to make a name for themselves and invent something and do great things," he says, "they've all got this managerial spirit. All the young men coming from college, they're like, 'Everything's been done. We just need to manage it now.'" He's like, "America is collapsing." Yes, he thinks it's this awful. Obviously, that problem got solved.That, I think, that gives some sense of why, at that moment, is Ayn Rand writing the Galt speech? Because this is the background. We're in the Cold War, and there's this looming sense of the cold, dead hand of bureaucracy and managerialism is. Other people are saying, "Actually, this might be a serious problem."Hollis: I think that's right. Thank you for bringing up Whyte. I think there's so much in the background. There's so much that she's in conversation with. There's so much about this speech, so that when you ask somebody on the street-- Again, let me say this, make the comparison again to Uncle Tom's Cabin, people go through life feeling like they know Uncle Tom's Cabin, Simon Legree, Eliza Crossing the Ice, without having ever read it.Not to name drop a bit, but when I did my annotated Uncle Tom's Cabin, this big, huge book, and it got reviewed by John Updike in The New Yorker, and I was like, "This is freaking John Updike." He's like, "I never read it. I never read it." Henry Louis Gates and then whoever this young grad student was, Hollis Robbins, are writing this book, I guess I'll read it. It was interesting to me, when I talk about Uncle Tom's Cabin, "I've never read it," because it's a book you know about without reading. A lot of people know about Atlas Shrugged without having read it. I think Marc Andreessen said-- didn't he say on this podcast that he only recently read it?Henry: I was fascinated by this. He read it four years ago.Hollis: Right, during COVID.Henry: In the bibliography for the Techno-Optimist Manifesto, and I assumed he was one of those people, he was like you, he'd read it as a teenager, it had been informative. No, he came to it very recently. Something's happening with this book, right?Hollis: Huge things are happening, but the people who know about it, there's certain things that you know, you know it's long, you know that the sex is perhaps not what you would have wanted. You know that there's this big, really long thing called John Galt's Speech, and that it's like the whaling chapters in Moby-Dick. People read Moby-Dick, you're like, "Oh, yes, but I skipped all the chapters on cetology." That's the thing that you say, right? The thing that you say is like, "Yes, but I skipped all the John Galt's Speech." I was very interested when we were texting over the last month or so, what you would say when you got to John Galt's Speech. As on cue, one day, I get this text and it's like, "Oh, my God, this speech is really long." I'm like, "Yes, you are the perfect reader."Henry: I was like, "Hollis, this might be where I drop out of the book."Hollis: I'm like, "Yes, you and the world, okay?" This is why you're an excellent reader of this book, because it is a frigging slog. Just because I'm having eye issues these days, I had decided instead of rereading my copy, and I do have a newer copy than this tiny print thing, I decided to listen on audiobook. It was 62 hours or whatever, it was 45 hours, because I listen at 1.4. The speech is awesome listening to it. It, at 1.4, it's not quite 3 hours. It's really good. In the last few days, I was listening to it again, okay? I really wanted to understand somebody who's such a good plotter, and somebody who really understands how to keep people's interest, why are you doing this, Rand? Why are you doing this, Ms. Rand? I love the fact that she's always called Miss. Rand, because Miss., that is a term that we

Marc Andreessen is a prominent Silicon Valley entrepreneur, investor, and technologist and the cofounder and general partner at Andreessen Horowitz. This discussion covers Andreessen's journey from his upbringing in rural Wisconsin, through his founding Netscape and the development of one of the first commercial internet browsers in his twenties, to his pivotal role in shaping Silicon Valley and now national politics. The interview also delves into the technological and political evolution of Silicon Valley and Andreessen's own shifting political affiliations from left to right, along with his vision for leveraging technology to drive societal progress, the role of innovation in addressing energy challenges, border security, and national defense. Andreessen also discusses DOGE, a policy initiative focused on government efficiency (and the strategy DOGE may use to accomplish its goals), his “Techno-Optimist Manifesto,” and the imperative for revitalizing the US military's technological capabilities to maintain global competitiveness.  Recorded on January 9, 2024.

The Techno-Optimist Manifesto https://a16z.com/the-techno-optimist-manifesto/ (via ChatGPT) Anniversary Date Probability https://chatgpt.com/share/67642ece-bafc-8006-ab09-12030a082310 The bizarre story of a rodent utopia that predicted doom for humanity http://newscientist.com/article/mg26435212-600-the-bizarre-story-of-a-rodent-utopia-that-predicted-doom-for-humanity The Tech-God Complex: Why We Need to be Skeptics https://pca.st/ndxwaq65 Are animals conscious? We're finally realising that many species are http://newscientist.com/article/2440012-are-animals-conscious-were-finally-realising-that-many-species-are Estrelas semelhantes ao Sol têm uma superexplosão a cada século http://folha.uol.com.br/ciencia/2024/12/estrelas-semelhantes-ao-sol-tem-uma-superexplosao-a-cada-seculo.shtml ... Read more The post Tecnologia agora é Deus? o segredo por trás das coincidências incríveis, cultuemos o Sol! appeared first on radinho de pilha.

Paris Marx is joined by Becca Lewis to discuss the right-wing project to shape the internet in the 1990s and how we're still living with the legacies of those actions today.Becca Lewis is a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University.Tech Won't Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.Also mentioned in this episode:Paris wrote about Marc Andreessen mentioning the Italian Futurists in his Techno-Optimist Manifesto.Ruth Eveleth wrote about the Italian Futurists in the context of Silicon Valley.In 1995, Wired published a story on how “America's futurist politicians” Al Gore and Newt Gingrich were in an epic struggle to shape the internet.Becca mentioned the work of Nicole Hemmer and Patricia Aufderheide.Support the show

Paris Marx is joined by Jacob Silverman to discuss all the money Elon Musk is pouring into the US election and what Silicon Valley's political influence will mean regardless of who becomes president.Jacob Silverman is the author of Gilded Rage: Elon Musk and the Radicalization of Silicon Valley, coming in September 2025 from Bloomsbury. His book Easy Money is now available in paperback.Tech Won't Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.Also mentioned in this episode:The New York Times reported on Elon Musk's efforts to get Trump elected in the final two weeks of the campaign.The Pennsylvania district attorney sued Elon Musk's PAC to stop his $1 million giveaways.Marc Andreessen wrote the Techno-Optimist Manifesto and the Little Tech Agenda.FTX was up to way more shady things that didn't make it into the first trial of Sam Bankman-Fried. The second didn't go ahead after he was found guilty in the first.The canvassing operation for Trump by Elon Musk's PAC has been flagged as potentially fraudulent.The US Supreme Court's Chevron decision will have significant consequences for federal regulators.Support the show

Paris Marx is joined by Julia Black to discuss who Curtis Yarvin is and how his anti-democratic, far-right writings have influenced the politics of Silicon Valley and the wider American extreme right.Julia Black is a features reporter on The Information's Weekend Team.Tech Won't Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.Also mentioned in this episode:Julia wrote about Curtis Yarvin and his ideas for The Information. She also wrote about the Musk-aligned tech CEOs trying to shape how we think about the future.Paris wrote about Marc Andreessen's Techno-Optimist Manifesto.The Dark Enlightenment is an anti-democratic, anti-egalitarian political project.Gil Duran wrote about the Reboot Conference and how it put the connections between the tech industry and the Heritage Foundation on display.The Heritage Foundation is flooding federal agencies with thousands of information requests to identify government employees to be purged under a second Trump administration.Peter Thiel wanted Balaji Srinivasan to become head of the Federal Drug Administration under the Trump presidency.According to Nick Land, hyperstition refers to ideas that bring themselves into being.Support the show

【聊了什么】 近年来，硅谷这个传统的民主党堡垒正悄然发生变化。科技界的“右转”现象，以及马斯克和Marc Andreessen等大佬对特朗普的公开支持，似乎预示着一场政治地震。这是否反映了科技界对主流社会长期“敌意”的反弹？ 在这期节目里，我们探讨了硅谷在即将到来的大选中的政治取向，AI革命下科技界政治光谱的变迁，以及源自科技圈的新兴政治话语及其在网络上的传播。 【支持我们】 如果喜欢这期节目并希望支持我们将节目继续做下去： 欢迎加入我们的会员计划： https://theamericanroulette.com/paid-membership/ 会员可以收到每周2-4封newsletter，可以加入会员社群，参加会员活动，并享受更多福利。 欢迎在看理想订阅收听《美国大选与世界转向》节目： https://www.vistopia.com.cn/detail/372 合作投稿邮箱：american.roulette.pod@gmail.com 【时间轴】 03:25 AI的浪潮引发政治语言的变革 08:17 回顾这几个月最近硅谷发生的“大佬右转，支持川普”的情况 13:27 Marc Andreessen和a16z对特朗普的公开支持，以及他的《科技乐观主义宣言》背后说了什么 21:00 华盛顿和硅谷之间撕裂从2016年开始不断加大 31:49 e/acc (有效加速主义）是什么？以及有哪些硅谷“cults”出现了？ 40:40 什么是Marc Andreessen和Ben Horowitz的“The Little tech agenda (小型科技议程)”？他们如何看待AI 监管？ 58:10 简析Peter Thiel对于特朗普的支持，以及他和JD Vance之间的历史 01:04:10 简析马斯克对于特朗普的公开支持 01:13:50 扎克伯格最近的态度：没有表态但是... 01:28:00 科技届的在公众面前的形象如何在2016年之后逐渐“崩坏”？ 01:33:10 哈里斯和加州湾区的关系，以及科技圈对哈里斯的支持网“VC for Kamala” 【我们是谁】 美轮美换是一档深入探讨当今美国政治的中文播客。 本期的主播和嘉宾： 小华：媒体人，美政观察者 曹起曈：青椒，政治行为研究者 Afra: 在湾区生活工作的科技从业者 一闻：商业记者，曾驻旧金山报道科技行业 主播和嘉宾的言论不代表其所在机构或其雇主的观点。 【 What We Talked About】 In recent years, Silicon Valley, traditionally a Democratic stronghold, has been undergoing subtle changes. The tech industry's "right turn" and public support for Trump from prominent figures like Elon Musk and Marc Andreessen seem to herald a political earthquake. Does this reflect a backlash from the tech world against long-standing "hostility" from mainstream society? In this episode, we explore Silicon Valley's political leanings in the upcoming election, the shifts in the tech industry's political spectrum amidst the AI revolution, and the emergence and spread of new political language originating from the tech sphere. 【Support Us】 If you like our show and want to support us, please consider the following: Join our membership program: americanroulette.ghost.io Support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/americanroulette Business Inquiries and fan mail: american.roulette.pod@gmail.com 【Timeline】 03:25 How AI is transforming political language 08:17 Recent "rightward shift" of Silicon Valley leaders supporting Trump 13:27 Marc Andreessen and a16z's public support for Trump, and what his "Techno-Optimist Manifesto" reveals 21:00 The widening rift between Washington and Silicon Valley since 2016 31:49 What is e/acc (effective accelerationism)? And what Silicon Valley "cults" have emerged? 40:40 What is Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz's "Little Tech Agenda"? Their views on AI regulation 58:10 Brief analysis of Peter Thiel's support for Trump and his historical connection with J.D. Vance 01:04:10 Brief analysis of Elon Musk's public endorsement of Trump 01:13:50 Mark Zuckerberg's recent attitude: No statement, but... 01:28:00 How has the tech industry's public image gradually "collapsed" after 2016? 01:33:10 Kamala Harris's relationship with the Bay Area, and the tech circle's support network "VC for Kamala" 【Who We Are】 The American Roulette is a podcast dedicated to helping the Chinese-speaking community understand fast-changing U.S. politics. Our Hosts and Guests: 小华 (Xiao Hua): Journalist, political observer 曹起曈 (Thomas Cao): Assistant professor at the Tufts Fletcher School Afra: Tech professional living and working in the Bay Area 一闻（Yiwen）：Business reporter, with previous experience covering the tech sector while based in San Francisco The views expressed by the host and guests do not represent the opinions of their employers or any affiliated institutions. 【拓展链接】 Key Issues in the 2024 United States Presidential Election, https://fletcher.tufts.edu/news-events/news/key-issues-2024-united-states-presidential-election The Little Tech Agenda, https://a16z.com/the-little-tech-agenda/ The Techno-Optimist Manifesto, https://a16z.com/the-techno-optimist-manifesto/ VCs for Kamala, https://www.vcsforkamala.org/

Our Silicon Valley overlords are not content with merely ruling the world; they want us to think they are doing it for the greater good. In this patrons-only bonus, Kate Willett and the Party Girls crew read and break down Silicon Valley capitalist Marc Andreessen's "Techno-Optimist Manifesto," which presents old school reactionary elitism in a stupid new package. Sign up now at Patreon.com/partygirls to get the full version of this episode, all other bonus content, Discord access, and a shout out on the pod! The Techno-Optimist Manifesto: https://a16z.com/the-techno-optimist-manifesto/ Follow us on Instagram: @party.girls.pod Leave us a nice review on Apple podcasts if you feel so inclined :)

Last year, the venture capitalist Marc Andreesen published a document he called “The Techno-Optimist Manifesto.” In it, he argued that “everything good is downstream of growth,” government regulation is bad, and that the only way to achieve real progress is through technology.Of course, Silicon Valley has always been driven by libertarian sensibilities and an optimistic view of technology. But the radical techno-optimism of people like Andreesen, and billionaire entrepreneurs like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk, has morphed into something more extreme. In their view, technology and government are always at odds with one another.But if that's true, then how do you explain someone like Audrey Tang?Tang, who, until May of this year, was Taiwan's first Minister of Digital Affairs, is unabashedly optimistic about technology. But she's also a fervent believer in the power of democratic government.To many in Silicon Valley, this is an oxymoron. But Tang doesn't see it that way. To her, technology and government are – and have always been – symbiotic.So I wanted to ask her what a technologically enabled democracy might look like – and she has plenty of ideas. At times, our conversation got a little bit wonky. But ultimately, this is a conversation about a better, more inclusive form of democracy. And why she thinks technology will get us there.Just a quick note: we recorded this interview a couple of months ago, while Tang was still the Minister of Digital Affairs.Mentions:“vTaiwan”“Polis”“Plurality: The Future of Collaborative Technology and Democracy” by E. Glen Weyl, Audrey Tang and ⿻ Community“Collective Constitutional AI: Aligning a Language Model with Public Input,” AnthropicFurther Reading:“The simple but ingenious system Taiwan uses to crowdsource its laws” by Chris Horton“How Taiwan's Unlikely Digital Minister Hacked the Pandemic” by Andrew Leonard

Í þessum þætti fara bræðurnir yfir Marc Andreessen frumkvöðul frá A til Ö, þannig að þú þarft ekki að vita hver hann er til að byrja að hlusta. Hann skrifaði skjal að nafni Techno-Optimist Manifesto á dögunum, þar sem verulega verðmæta innsýn er að finna. Stjórnmál, fjárfestingar, andlegt ástand almennings, allsnægtahugarfarið, orkumál, allt mögulegt á milli himins og jarðar. Ef þú ert týndur og þér finnst hugmyndafræði þín ekki passa við daglegar athafnir þínar – hlustaðu á þennan þátt og sjáðu hvort þú getir látið þetta passa. 

Marc Andreessen, co-founder of a leading venture capital firm in Silicon Valley, historically a Democrat, now supports Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential race due to Trump's policies favoring tech and startups. Both Andreessen and his co-founder Ben Horowitz believe the future of technology and America is at significant risk. They argue that American success in technology, economy, and military has led to global dominance, especially highlighting tech's role in ending the Cold War. They criticize the Biden administration for overregulation and taxation that stifles innovation, contrasting it with Trump's supportive stance on artificial intelligence and crypto. Andreessen cites Biden's unrealized capital gains tax proposal as a key reason for his shift, emphasizing it would harm startups by taxing valuation increases. Last year, Andreessen published a "Techno-Optimist Manifesto" highlighting the pivotal role of tech in societal growth.Learn more on this news visit us at: https://greyjournal.net/news/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, Dan Salmon, Dan Morganti and Vanessa Toholka welcome socio-technology ethicist and founder of Trustworthy By Design Nate Kinch onto Byte Into IT to discuss Marc Andreessen's Techno-Optimist Manifesto. They also chat about the nostalgia of FPS video games and boomer shooters.

Investor Marc Andreessen called tech ethics and safety teams “the enemy” in his “Techno-Optimist Manifesto” last year. Today he clarified he's in favor of online guardrails for his 9-year-old son. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Paris Marx is joined by Gil Duran to discuss Balaji Srinivasan's plan to implement “tech Zionism” in San Francisco and the threat posed by Silicon Valley's growing opposition to democracy.Gil Duran is an independent journalist and former editorial page editor for the Sacramento Bee. Tech Won't Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry. Also mentioned in this episode:Gil has written about Balaji's Network State, Garry Tan of Y Combinator, and the plan to build a tech city in Northern California.Paris wrote about Marc Andreessen's Techno-Optimist Manifesto.Peter Thiel no longer feels “freedom and democracy are compatible.”Elon Musk claimed he sent ventilators to hospitals. They received biPAP and CPAP machines.Gil mentioned Quinn Slobodian's “Crack Up Capitalism.”Support the Show.

Bill Duane has been navigating complex situations since he was a child, but facing his father's death as an adult created an experience that he didn't have an answer for. Trying to come to terms with his situation, Bill realized that what he needed wasn't more safety – it was more meaning. Through his exploration of diverse disciplines like Buddhism and AI, Bill is now able to help other companies and individuals create more meaningful work through reflection, innovation, and growth.Bill Duane is the principal at Bill Duane and Associates, a consulting firm focused on innovation that serves notable clients such as Google, Amazon, and The White House. In this episode, Dart and Bill discuss:- Blending disciplines like Buddhism and AI to foster innovation- Bill's intellectual and spiritual history- The relationship between technology and humanity- How to change a company's standard model of thinking- Spaces where limitless growth is ineffective- Optimizing work for the medium and long-term- Utilizing love and care to problem-solve at work- And other topics…Bill Duane is the principal at Bill Duane and Associates, a consulting firm focused on innovation. With 12 years of experience at Google and a decade in consulting, Bill specializes in navigating change and complexity across industries like tech, healthcare, finance, and media. His clients include Google, Amazon, and The White House, among others. With studies in neuroscience, Bill integrates AI, team effectiveness, and mindfulness to drive innovative work approaches and collaboration. He shares his expertise through his AI workshops at Stanford's Hasso Plattner Institute of Design and as the Director of Strategy and Implementation at the Center for the Study of Apparent Selves, where he works on applied AI ethics. Bill also holds a Research Fellowship at Kathmandu University as part of this effort.Resources mentioned:“The Real Problem with the OpenAI Drama,” by Bill Duane: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/real-problem-open-ai-drama-bill-duane-hbwzc/ “The Techno-Optimist Manifesto,” by Marc Andreessen: https://a16z.com/the-techno-optimist-manifesto/ “Can Buddhism help humanity (and AI) navigate the AI revolution?” by the Center for the Study of Apparent Selves: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zRPql4lkkMKg4J9ThZmbG40rT2ojDaC4/view Care as a Driver of Intelligence in Humans and AI: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtta_5rGsHU&t=7s 159 Doctor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlgWasFmmDo Technological Approach to Mind Everywhere: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JC4FOzAuHF4Bioelectricity: the Software of the Body: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncuLWpwfRycHow evolution creates problem-solving machines: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vR3UWx-G9Ks&t=255s“Technological Approach to Mind Everywhere,” by Michael Levin: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnsys.2022.768201/full Connect with Bill:www.BillDuane.com 

This episode features an interview with a16z GP and co-founder Marc Andreessen, discussing his intellectual influences and detailing his quest to understand how the world works. He covers the authors who have shaped his thinking, the influence of elites on policies, and global governance. This conversation was recorded in late 2022. Since then, Marc and a16z have released “The Techno-Optimist Manifesto". If you enjoyed this episode with Marc check out episode 1 of Turpentine VC with Ben Horowitz who discusses the how they built the firm and its future plans. --- LINKS: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto: https://a16z.com/the-techno-optimist-manifesto/ --- RECOMMENDED PODCAST: Turpentine Finance   Host Sasha Orloff (3x Founder & CEO) is joined by top founders and finance leaders at high growth tech companies who share how they navigated huge make-or-break decisions, rode inflection points, and architected success. If you want to learn the mental models and tactics top business leaders and CFOs, subscribe below. Debut episode features Casey Woo unpacking his wild ride managing billions in budgets at WeWork – arguably one of the craziest capital stories ever. Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5BflNhFxxLjqT2RA47352G  Listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/id1704418764 --- SPONSOR: SQUAD Access global engineering without the headache and at a fraction of the cost: head to choosesquad.com and mention “Turpentine” to skip the waitlist. --- Join our free newsletter: https://turpentinevc.substack.com/ - --- RELATED SHOWS:  @10xcapitalpodcast  If you like Turpentine VC, check out our show The 10x Capital Podcast with David Weisburd, where David talks to the investors behind the investors: https://10xcapitalpodcast.com/ --- X / TWITTER: @pmarca (Marc) @eriktorenberg (Erik) @turpentinemedia --- TIMESTAMPS: (00:00) Intro (01:33) How much has Marc changed vs the world changed? (05:05) How much do ideas matter? Who drives society — the elite or the masses? (08:07) People respond to interests more than ideas (10:18) Mental models for the left and the right (12:54) Sponsors: Turpentine | Squad (15:12) The road to hell is paved with good intentions (16:58) Master morality and slave morality (21:37) Unpacking Elon's quote “Wokeness is the mind-virus” (24:17) Is classical liberalism sustainable and how it leads to wokeness (33:18) James Burnham's worldview (41:09) How the left captured the institutions (43:44) Elon as the return to entrepreneurial capitalism (46:22) The experiments Elon is running (53:09) The billionaire mindset toward politics (55:49) We live in an oligarchy, not a democracy (1:04:13) Larry Page is the contrarian billionaire (1:05:48) Effective altruists think they can play God (1:08:54) SBF's roll-the-dice philosophy (1:09:33) Aristocratic vs Meritocratic elite (1:20:04) Elites are insulated from the consequences of their policies (1:22:06) Why global governance is a nerd trap (1:25:28) Global governance is anti-diversity (1:29:00) Tech people are politically homeless (1:29:49) Elites can't be removed, they can only be replaced (1:33:21) Advice for counter-elites (1:45:39) Reasons to be optimistic --- This show is produced by Turpentine: a network of podcasts, newsletters, and more, covering technology, business, and culture — all from the perspective of industry insiders and experts. We're launching new shows every week, and we're looking for industry-leading sponsors — if you think that might be you and your company, email us at erik@turpentine.co.

As is probably obvious from previous episodes, John is extremely interested in generative AI and thinks it will be the next transformative technology to entirely up-end how society works. Tim, however, is much more sceptical and thinks a lot of the rhetoric around AI is overblown. So, prompted by Tim sharing an AI-sceptical blog, in this episode we talk through the anatomy of a tech hype bubble, looking at previous cases such as the internet, cryptocurrency and smartphones to figure out where AI might be on the ‘S-curve' of tech adoption. How can Christians live responsibly and faithfully through these moments, where culture is running away with itself about something new and flashy? Is it incumbent on us not to get left behind and languish in ignorance about something which could change the world? Or should we be consciously opting out of the techno-optimist hype and preferring prudent caution over giddy excitement? • The Ed Zitron blog on AI scepticism https://www.wheresyoured.at/sam-altman-fried • Marc Andreessen's Techno-Optimist Manifesto https://a16z.com/the-techno-optimist-manifesto/ • Subscribe to the Matters of Life and Death podcast: https://pod.link/1509923173 • If you want to go deeper into some of the topics we discuss, visit John's website: http://www.johnwyatt.com • For more resources to help you explore faith and the big questions, visit: http://www.premierunbelievable.com

If you've been surfing the tech sphere lately, you may have come across the term e/acc or effective accelerationism as if it was something new. But like most of these tech elite driven ideologies, it's largely a mutation of more naive and sometimes sinister trends. For this episode I spoke to Adam Jones, host of Acid Horizon and Zer0 Books and Repeater Media and author of Anti-Oculus. Anti-Oculus is a psychedelic trip through the eyes of power, exploring avenues of escaping systems of control in our cyberpunk reality.During the interview, Adam helps explain the core of accelerationist theory, where it comes from, and what e/acc is. We also dive into the Techno-Optimist Manifesto from Marc Andreessen ,why it's a giant circle jerk and Nick Land would hate them. If you want to learn more about accelerationism and particularly left accelerationism , check out my interview with Nick Srnicek who wrote the left accelerationist manifesto.If you liked the podcast be sure to give it a review on your preferred podcast platform. If you find content like this important consider donating to my Patreon starting at just $3 per month. It takes quite a lot of my time and resources so any amount helps. Follow me on Twitter (@TBSocialist) or Mastodon (@theblockchainsocialist@social.coop) and join the r/CryptoLeftists subreddit and Discord to join the discussion.Support the showICYMI I've written a book about, no surprise, blockchains through a left political framework! The title is Blockchain Radicals: How Capitalism Ruined Crypto and How to Fix It and is being published through Repeater Books, the publishing house started by Mark Fisher who's work influenced me a lot in my thinking. The book is officially published and you use this linktree to find where you can purchase the book based on your region / country.

In this episode, Trish & Hirad discuss Marc Andreesen's techno-optimist manifesto, advancements in AI, accelerationism vs decelerationism, the concept of the right-wing progressive, and the historical follies of progressivism.Links to the articles discussed:- The Techno-Optimist Manifesto- The Rise of the Right Wing Progressive- Yudkowski's call to shut down AI in Time Magazine 

Marc Andreessen lays out a 5000 word case to be optimistic and welcoming to new technology for the economic betterment of all as narrated by host, Jim Herlihy. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/james-herlihy/message

Venture capitalist billionaire ding-a-ling Marc Andreessen argues technology is making everything better. If the quality of his manifesto is any indication, he's wrong. We talk some shit, introduce a new segment, and have a good time with our guest, Nate. Send comments and jokes to clubmanifesto420@gmail.com

Leadership Lessons From The Great Books #92 - When a Man Comes to Himself by Woodrow Wilson w/Libby Unger---00:00 Welcome and Introduction - When a Man Comes to Himself by Woodrow Wilson with Libby Unger.02:00 Woodrow Wilson, Progressivism, and Techno-Optimism.05:41 When a Man Comes to Himself by Woodrow Wilson. 11:46 The Literary Life of Woodrow Wilson.15:35 Woodrow Wilson and the Complications of Political Leadership.21:05 The Personalities of 'Captains of Industry.'26:50 Identity Politics, Marxism and the Intellectual Superiority of Aristocracy.31:46 The Philosophical Challenges to Leadership Proposed by Marc Andreesen.35:00 The Challenges to the Management Beaucracy State from Artificial Intelligence Algorithms.39:02 Woodrow Wilson on the Impact of Christianity on Wealth.45:00 Wealth and Worldview: A Study in Techno-Optimism50:00 Positive View of the World and Technological Success.53:00 Leadership at the End of the Fourth Turning and the 'Doom Cycle.'01:00:00 The Machine of Davros and the World Economic Forum.01:02:00 The Exposure Wrought by the Apocalypse.01:08:39 The Roko Basilik, Accelerationism, and Deaccelerationism. 01:11:20 The Transcendent Forces that Bind People Together Must Not Be Frayed01:18:16 Elon Musk, Zuby, and the West Being "Screwed" Without Christianity.01:23:00 Servant Leadership and the Transcendent.01:10:03 Your Animal Brain, the Seven Deadly Sins, and The Burglar's Christmas.01:32:41 Family, the Tenderloin District, and What Will Make People Whole.01:35:19 Leaders Help People Escape the Shame Cycle with an Exchange of Meaning.01:37:26 The WPA, Welfare-to-Work Programs, and the Role of the State.01:40:00 Staying on the Leadership Path with When a Man Comes to Himself by Woodrow Wilson.Opening theme composed by Brian Sanyshyn of Brian Sanyshyn Music.---References:Mike Solano and Pirate Wires - https://www.piratewires.com/The Rise of the Right-Wing Progressives by N.S. Lyons - https://open.substack.com/pub/theupheaval/p/the-rise-of-the-right-wing-progressives.The Techno Optimist Manifesto by Marc Andreessen - https://pmarca.substack.com/p/the-techno-optimist-manifesto.Glenn Beck - https://www.facebook.com/GlennBeck/videos/welcome-to-woodrow-wilsons-progressive-dream-state/2103907989801102/.WHYY - https://whyy.org/articles/president-woodrow-wilsons-legacy-progressive-politics-and-racism/.Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodrow_Wilson.---Pick up your copy of 12 Rules for Leaders: The Foundation of Intentional Leadership NOW on AMAZON!Check out the Leadership Lessons From the Great Books podcast reading list!---Check out HSCT Publishing at: https://www.hsctpublishing.com/.Check out LeadingKeys at: https://www.leadingkeys.com/Check out Leadership ToolBox at: https://leadershiptoolbox.us/Contact HSCT for more information at 1-833-216-8296 to schedule a full DEMO of LeadingKeys with one of our team members.---Leadership ToolBox website: https://leadershiptoolbox.us/.Leadership ToolBox LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ldrshptlbx/.Leadership ToolBox YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@leadershiptoolbox/videosLeadership ToolBox Twitter: https://twitter.com/ldrshptlbx.Leadership ToolBox IG: https://www.instagram.com/leadershiptoolboxus/.Leadership ToolBox FB: https://www.facebook.com/LdrshpTlbx.

The most vomit-inducing document of 2023 has to be the "Techno-Optimist Manifesto," written (oh so obviously) by a billionaire Silicon Valley venture capitalist. Join Jason, Rob, and Asher if you feel like sharing in some outrage and learning about a WAY better manifesto that just so happens to focus on the world's smallest monkeys.Warning: This podcast occasionally uses spicy language.References:Marc Andreessen's horrifying "Techno-Optimist Manifesto" Peer-reviewed paper featuring Jason's far superior "Dehumanist Manifesto"Description of the pygmy marmosetThe idea of Beth Sawin's Multisolving InstituteThe dark triad -- narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathyThe original paper on the taxonomy of Phalse ProphetsArticle by Richard Heinberg about free will.Support the show

La chiamano «Artificial Intelligence as a Service». È l'intelligenza artificiale del futuro prossimo. Comoda, pratica e alla portata di tutti: come l'elettricità. Si preannuncia una rivoluzione, mentre il dibattito impazza e montano posizioni ostili. A quelle apocalittiche, che denunciano i rischi di una diffusione incontrollata dell'AI, si oppongono orientamenti ultra-entusiastici, ben riassunti nel «The Techno-Optimist Manifesto» dell'imprenditore statunitense Marc Andreessen. Sembra impossibile bilanciare l'accelerazione tecnologica – di per sé inarrestabile – e il contenimento, di per sé inapplicabile ai mille rivoli in cui va disperdendosi l'Intelligenza artificiale. Eppure, dalla ricerca di questo equilibrio dipende ciò che potranno diventare le macchine pensanti: una nuova elettricità che illumina il pianeta oppure una nuova arma capace di distruggerlo. Il contributo audio contenuto in questa puntata è tratto dal film Matrix del 1999, scritto e diretto dalle sorelle Wachowski e prodotto da Warner Bros, disponibile su Netflix. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

TRANSCRIPTThis month, Shobita and Jack reflect on the recent COP meeting in the United Arab Emirates, recent AI news including the Biden Administration's Executive Order, the UK summit, and the fates of the two Sams: Altman and Bankman-Fried. And they chat with Sarah de Rijcke, Professor in Science, Technology, and Innovation Studies and Scientific Director at the Centre for Science and Technology Studies at Leiden University in the Netherlands.References:- D'Ignazio, C. and L. F. Klein.Data Feminism. The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2020. - Andreessen, M. (2023, October 16).The Techno-Optimist Manifesto. Andreessen Horowitz. - de Rijcke, S. (2023). Does science need heroes? Leiden Madtrics blog, CWTS, Leiden University.- Pölönen, J., Rushforth, A.D., de Rijcke, S., Niemi, L., Larsen, B. & Di Donato, F. (2023). Implementing research assessment reforms: Tales from the frontline.- Rushforth, A.D. & de Rijcke, S. (2023). Practicing Responsible Research Assessment: Qualitative study of Faculty Hiring, Promotion, and Tenure Assessments in the United States. Preprint. DOI: 10.31235/osf.io/2d7ax- Scholten, W., Franssen, T.P., Drooge, L. van, de Rijcke, S. & Hessels, L.K. (2021). Funding for few, anticipation among all: Effects of excellence funding on academic research groups. Science and Public Policy, 48(2), 265-275. DOI: 10.1093/scipol/scab018 https://academic.oup.com/spp/article/48/2/265/6184850- Penders, B., de Rijcke, S. & Holbrook, J.B. (2020). Science's moral economy of repair: Replication and the circulation of reference. Accountability in Research, first published online January 27, 2020. DOI: 10.1080/08989621.2020.1720659.- Müller, R. & De Rijcke, S. (2017). Thinking with indicators. Exploring the Epistemic Impacts of Academic Performance Indicators in the Life Sciences. Research Evaluation. DOI: 10.1093/reseval/rvx023. Study Questions:1. What is techno-optimism, and how does it apply in the case of AI?2. How might we think about the strengths and weaknesses of current efforts to address AI governance by the U.S. government?3. What are some negative consequences of simplistic performance metrics for research assessment, and why do such metrics remain in use?4. How do large companies like Elsevier now extend their domain beyond publishing? How might this shape the trajectory of research assessment methods?5. What hopes exist for better performance metrics for research assessments?More at thereceivedwisdom.org

A 5,000-word essay titled The Techno-Optimist Manifesto is getting a lot of attention in Silicon Valley and elsewhere. Written by the venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, the essay is a paean to technology as a driver of wealth and happiness but also a jingoistic glorification of late-stage capitalism and American nationalism. Adam and Cameron discuss. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Marc Andreessen's Techno-Optimist Manifesto set the tech world ablaze just a few short weeks ago – and now, he responds to his critics. A bold statement of principles arguing for the liberatory potential of technology, his manifesto generated criticism from both the left and right—including FAI's own Sam Hammond.In this special edition of The Dynamist, FAI Senior Fellow Jon Askonas and Marc Andreessen hash out the foundations of the Techno-Optimist politics of tomorrow. Marc is a cofounder and general partner at the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. He has achieved two rare feats in the tech industry: pioneering a software category used by more than a billion people, and establishing multiple billion-dollar companies. You can read the Techno-Optimist Manifesto here, along with responses discussed on the episode from Ezra Klein and TechCrunch.

In this episode, Robert Hendershott and Yaron Brook discuss Marc Andreessen's Techno-Optimist Manifesto and the backlash against optimism in technology.  What does this mean for innovation?     Sign up for our newsletter at ingenuism.com.

Episode 115: Last month, Marc Andreessen published a column he titled the “Techno-Optimist Manifesto.” Andreesen, who was the cofounder of Netscape in the 1990s and later became a wealthy investor in numerous tech companies, argues that civilization was built on technology, and that, "Technology is the glory of human ambition and achievement, the spearhead of progress, and the realization of our potential." In part, this was written as a response to much of the hand-wringing going on over the quick introduction of artificial intelligence in many parts of our lives. Although some say a slow and steady approach to AI is the correct path, Andreessen says we should have few guard rails because history shows that the benefits of transformative technology far outweigh any possible worries. Hosts Richard Kyte and Scott Rada discuss what we have learned from past scientific advancements and whether the AI revolution presents an entirely new challenge. Links to stories discussed during the podcast: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto, by Marc Andreessen 'Frictionless' experiences remove human touch, Richard Kyte The techno-optimist's fallacy, by Matt Yglesias The Pessimists Archive About the hosts: Scott Rada is social media manager with Lee Enterprises, and Richard Kyte is the director of the D.B. Reinhart Institute for Ethics in Leadership at Viterbo University in La Crosse, Wis. His forthcoming book, "Finding Your Third Place," will be published by Fulcrum Books.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We dive into effective accelerationism—its cult of personality, capitalist metaphysics, techno-theology, and lukewarm manifestos. We connect it to previous movements like Singulatariansim, strip away the mercurial branding of these ideologies, and look more closely at the material politics at their core. ••• ‘It's a Cult': Inside Effective Accelerationism, the Pro-AI Movement Taking Over Silicon Valley https://www.theinformation.com/articles/its-a-cult-inside-effective-accelerationism-the-pro-ai-movement-taking-over-silicon-valley ••• The Techno-Optimist Manifesto https://a16z.com/the-techno-optimist-manifesto/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

In this episode, Robert Hendershott and Yaron Brook discuss Marc Andreessen's Techno-Optimist Manifesto and how his vision for humanity paves the way for progress.  What drives progress? Sign up for our newsletter at ingenuism.com.

If you're looking for a smart and punchy companion piece to my new book, The Conservative Futurist: How to Create the Sci-Fi World We Were Promised, then you are in luck. Look no further than venture capitalist Marc Andreessen's wonderful new mega-essay, “The Techno-Optimist Manifesto.”If there's a sentence or even a word in that manifesto that I disagree with, I have yet to find it. That's why I am so delighted to have Marc Andreessen, a founder and general partner at Andreessen Horowitz — as well as the co-author of Mosaic, the first widely used web browser, and co-founder of Netscape — on this special episode of Faster, Please! — The Podcast. In This Episode* The time for techno-optimism is now (1:19)* Why has there been a downshift in innovation? (8:56)* The importance of embracing AI (16:08)* Slouching towards Utopia: Marc's response to AI critics (23:27)* The economics of techno-optimism (36:29)* The future of domestic technology policy (44:38)Oh, by the way, the transcript of our conversation will be posted tomorrow, November 9.Hey, I have a new book out! The Conservative Futurist: How To Create the Sci-Fi World We Were Promised is currently available pretty much everywhere. I'm very excited about it! Let's gooooo!

Influential venture capitalist Marc Andreessen recently released a widely-discussed essay, "The Techno-Optimist Manifesto." Contrary to recent doomsayers about the growth of technology (especially artificial intelligence), he argues that technology is the key to human progress and that free markets are the only way to unleash its potential. But does Andreessen realize the full meaning of what he is saying? Do other tech leaders who admire his manifesto? What does real admiration for the power of technology look like, and what does it require, philosophically? Join Don Watkins and Ben Bayer to address these and other questions on the latest episode of New Ideal Live.

The future is a conversation. What the future looks like, and how and which technologies will shape it, isn't something we can plan, or dictate, or demand in advance, but rather something that emerges from the back-and-forth bargaining of everyone with a stake in it.That's the argument presented by my guest today, Jason Kuznicki, Editor in Chief of TechFreedom. Jason recently published an essay responding to the venture capitalist Marc Andreessen's “The Techno-Optimist Manifesto,” which presents the future as under assault by enemies of progress. Jason and I talk about what it means to be a futurist, why certain ideologies have colonized the different sides in debates about emerging technologies, and how we can get back to a hopeful vision of the future as a conversation.ReImagining Liberty is an independent show. If you enjoy it, consider becoming a supporter. You'll be able to listen to episodes early and get all my essays a week before they're released to everyone else. Learn more.Podcast art by Sergio R. M. Duarte. Music by Kevin MacLeod. Get full access to Aaron Ross Powell at www.aaronrosspowell.com/subscribe Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

00:10 | Andreessen is a Techno-Optimist- Marc Andreessen is co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz, a $35b AUM venture capital firm- "The Techno-Optimist Manifesto" celebrates potential of technology, markets, and human intelligence for societal progress and abundance- Challenges tech stagnation, anti-technology sentiment, and excessive tech regulation- Created in response to government and public apprehension on AI, the metaverse, nuclear technology, and other emerging tech01:40 | SpaceX 2nd Starship attempt- FAA completes safety review of SpaceX's Starship rocket, clearing major hurdle for its second liftoff- Next US Fish and Wildlife Service review and approve the new water deluge system- Launch date remains TBD02:32 | Startup bankruptcies could be a bottoming?- OliveAI, Convoy, Pebble, Hello Bello all declared bankruptcy or had a fire sale- Each were big companies that a few years back would have easily been able to raise additional capital to keep going- Large business failures like this force startup CEOs to recognize that they need to drive to profitability fast in order to control their own destiny and also acknowledge that the valuations of their businesses are not going back to 2021 levels- The goal is to get to market clearing prices and these realizations are catalysts to get the market there03:57 | X.com -57% to $19b- X announced a $19b internal valuation, -57% below the Musk purchase price of $44b- Musk envisions X as the ‘everything app', implying integration of functionalities like tweets, YouTube videos, checking accounts, Venmo, merchant payments, sports betting, news article micro-payments, and shopping- Investment thesis for X centers on Musk's ability to [1] actualize the 'everything app' concept, and [2] its potential adoption by US users akin to Chinese users' engagement with WeChat, the China ‘everything app'- WeChat a primary product for Tencent with a $373b market cap06:11 | Anthropic +400% in 5 months- Google invests $500m now and commits $1.5b in the future at a $25b post-money valuation (source Pitchbook)- Google previously invested $300m in Apr 2023 for a 10% stake- Amazon invested $1.25b in Sep 2023, with potential to add $2.75b at a future date07:18 | Big capital raises- Anthropic (www.anthropic.com) | $2.0b Series F, $25b valuation- Pony.ai (www.pony.ai) | $100m Series D2, $8.5b valuation- Island (www.island.io) | $100m Series C, $1.5b valuation- Zhizi Automobile (www.xn--i8sq31b1uyx4b.com) | $76m Series B, $1.45b valuation- AgentSync (www.agentsync.io) | $125m Series B, $1.25b valuation08:28 | Pre-IPO -0.21% for week- Week winners: Klarna +2.81%, Rippling +2.41%, Scale.ai +1.53%, Airtable +1.40%, Databricks +0.70%- Week losers: SpaceX -5.29%, Anthropic -2.82%, Deel -2.54%, Stripe -1.73%, Discord -1.64%- Top valuations: ByteDance $203b, SpaceX $152b, OpenAI $80b, Stripe $51b, Databricks $47b lead in current valuationInvest in pre-IPO stocks with AG Dillon Funds - www.agdillon.com

5 am. Day 4 of executive plant medicine retreat. The venture capital tech bro sits on a metaverse mountaintop, immersed in deep meditation. He hears a hum—a vibration from the great beyond. A mantra rises up like kundalini gas bubbles just in front of his spine: techno-capital machine. Today we dissect Marc Andreessen's anarcho-capitalist attempt at a Silicon Valley religious doctrine, The Techno-Optimist Manifesto. If you've never donated through GiveWell before, you can have your donation matched up to $100 before the end of the year or as long as matching funds last. To claim, go to GIVEWELL.ORG and pick PODCAST and enter Conspirituality at checkout. Show Notes The Techno-Optimist Manifesto The Ben & Marc Show: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto What the Techno-Billionaire Missed About Techno-Optimism When was the last time Marc Andreessen talked to a poor person? The Futurist Manifesto Marc Andreessen Is the Buyer of Serge Azria's Malibu Home The Billionaire's Dilemma The Summer of NIMBY in Silicon Valley's Poshest Town 37.9 million Americans are living in poverty, according to the U.S. Census. But the problem could be far worse. Why American wages haven't grown despite increases in productivity Post-pandemic poverty is rising in America's suburbs The Federal Reserve says Taylor Swift's Eras Tour boosted the economy. One market research firm estimates she could add $5 billion The Surprising Poverty Levels Across the U.S. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Podcastはこちら https://youtu.be/u_K0oektpJw テクノ楽観主義マニフェスト原文はこちら：https://pmarca.substack.com/p/the-techno-optimist-manifesto マーク・アンドリーセンは、テクノロジーがすべての人にとってより優れた生活を創造する可能性を秘めていると信じている。彼は、テクノロジーがすでに何十億もの人々を貧困から救い、生活を無数の方法で向上させてきたという事実を指摘する。 マーク・アンドリーセンは、テクノロジーに伴うリスクがあることを認めているが、メリットの方がリスクを上回ると信じている。彼は、人々にテクノオプティミストになり、テクノロジーの力を人類の未来のために活用するよう呼びかける。 1.ソフトウエアが世界を食らう、に続く新しいトレンドを作りにきている 2.a16zのマーク・アンドリーセンとは 3.The Techno-Optimist Manifesto概要 4.私たちの敵 5.テクノロジー 6.マーケット 7.エネルギー 8.ゆたかさ 9.未来 ■関連Episode ネットワークエフェクト https://open.spotify.com/episode/1mDva76V0Js1TXbo7DdhNy?si=808fb11ddb0d4a04 なぜ今web3なのか https://open.spotify.com/episode/2nhA9FQBhinfhYIv979BUQ?si=da5225b8dfe645ed 金城：⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/illshin⁠⁠⁠ 中司：⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/nakatsukasa_13⁠⁠ AKINDOのプロジェクトはこちら：⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/akindo_io⁠⁠

Czy technologia nas wybawi? Czy zdjęcie obroży regulacji jest rozwiązaniem, które nas doprowadzi do nirwany i powszechnego dobrobytu?  W sieci wylądował "The Techno-Optimist Manifesto" a my wzięliśmy go na warsztat i zrobiliśmy mały "roast". Europa ... stary kontynent. Czy ma nowe możliwości? Jak wygląda przyszłość? Jak podejście do regulacji i innych rzeczy wpływa na rozwój kontynentu? Rynek inwestycji w tech w Europie vs reszta świata. AI w Europie ... czy to poleci. O tym wszystkim w Brew #9. Merytorycznie, mięsiście

Justin and William witness the Techno-Optimist Manifesto, German university students requesting the installation of glory holes, and an Insomniac writer self-inserting into the Spider-Man 2 game. William also reviews Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part 1.

A16z Podcast Key Takeaways  Capitalism and free markets are the machine that has lifted people out of poverty for the last 500 yearsIt is best to embrace, support, and accelerate technology as much as possible, and then deal with the issues as they arise“I think the single biggest policy mistake of my lifetime was the decision in the 70s and 80s to essentially ban civilian nuclear power throughout the U.S. and throughout Europe as well.” – Marc AndreessenIt can take decades for the consequences of certain decisions to materialize The digital technologies that most people worry about are actually the mostegalitarian technology that has ever been produced, even more so than running water and electricityIncumbents frame new technologies as dangerous so that governments step in and effectively create sanctioned barriers to competition A society built on the idea that love scales becomes an incredibly dark, dystopian, murderous place; when you take away the carrot, all you have is a stickHumans are the ultimate resource: By having more of us, we will find better ways to solve existing problems If the education industry were primarily market-based, competitive pressures would force universities to be good and to meet the needs of society better Humility is key; technologists must not “cross the line” and do societal engineering in their spare timePeople who are hyper verbal and “work in ideas” tend to get arbitrarily unhinged over time and become more disconnected from the real world Throughout history, the inventors of the new technology have not been great at speculating on how it is to be regulated  Read the full notes @ podcastnotes.orgSubscribe to The Ben & Marc Show on Apple Podcasts: https://bit.ly/3SdsfNtSubscribe to The Ben & Marc Show on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3SclPOrRead the full manifesto: https://a16z.com/the-techno-optimist-manifesto/ This past week, Marc released his new vision for the future – “The Techno-Optimist Manifesto”.In an article that has sparked widespread conversation across traditional and social media, Marc challenges the pessimistic narrative surrounding technology today, and instead celebrates it as a liberating force that can lead to growth, progress and abundance for all. In this one-on-one conversation based on YOUR questions from X (formerly Twitter), Ben and Marc discuss how technological advancements can improve the quality of human life, uplift marginalized communities, and even encourage us to answer the bigger questions of the universe.We hope you'll be inspired to join us in this Techno-Optimist movement. Enjoy! Stay Updated: Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16zFind a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16zSubscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithioPlease note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

A16z Podcast Key Takeaways  Capitalism and free markets are the machine that has lifted people out of poverty for the last 500 yearsIt is best to embrace, support, and accelerate technology as much as possible, and then deal with the issues as they arise“I think the single biggest policy mistake of my lifetime was the decision in the 70s and 80s to essentially ban civilian nuclear power throughout the U.S. and throughout Europe as well.” – Marc AndreessenIt can take decades for the consequences of certain decisions to materialize The digital technologies that most people worry about are actually the mostegalitarian technology that has ever been produced, even more so than running water and electricityIncumbents frame new technologies as dangerous so that governments step in and effectively create sanctioned barriers to competition A society built on the idea that love scales becomes an incredibly dark, dystopian, murderous place; when you take away the carrot, all you have is a stickHumans are the ultimate resource: By having more of us, we will find better ways to solve existing problems If the education industry were primarily market-based, competitive pressures would force universities to be good and to meet the needs of society better Humility is key; technologists must not “cross the line” and do societal engineering in their spare timePeople who are hyper verbal and “work in ideas” tend to get arbitrarily unhinged over time and become more disconnected from the real world Throughout history, the inventors of the new technology have not been great at speculating on how it is to be regulated  Read the full notes @ podcastnotes.orgSubscribe to The Ben & Marc Show on Apple Podcasts: https://bit.ly/3SdsfNtSubscribe to The Ben & Marc Show on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3SclPOrRead the full manifesto: https://a16z.com/the-techno-optimist-manifesto/ This past week, Marc released his new vision for the future – “The Techno-Optimist Manifesto”.In an article that has sparked widespread conversation across traditional and social media, Marc challenges the pessimistic narrative surrounding technology today, and instead celebrates it as a liberating force that can lead to growth, progress and abundance for all. In this one-on-one conversation based on YOUR questions from X (formerly Twitter), Ben and Marc discuss how technological advancements can improve the quality of human life, uplift marginalized communities, and even encourage us to answer the bigger questions of the universe.We hope you'll be inspired to join us in this Techno-Optimist movement. Enjoy! Stay Updated: Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16zFind a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16zSubscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithioPlease note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

Ken Braun is Capital Research Center's senior investigative researcher and authors profiles for InfluenceWatch.org and the Capital Research magazine. He previously worked for several free market policy organizations, spent six years as a chief of staff in the Michigan Legislature, and also wrote political columns for MLive Media Group, a consortium including the Grand Rapids Press and seven other mid-sized Michigan newspapers. He is an alumni of Michigan State University. Ken Braun with Hugo Kruger: “The Anti-Nuclear NGO Industrial Complex”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24vUIWK19I4 https://twitter.com/BraunKen https://capitalresearch.org/person/ken-braun/ This piece was mentioned by Ken Braun in this podcast: “The Techno-Optimist Manifesto” by Marc Andreessen https://a16z.com/the-techno-optimist-manifesto/ At 0:45 here: “we've revealed how radical groups, funded by George Soros, hired rent-a-mobs to incite others to riot in Ferguson, Missouri” https://youtu.be/3QmnSVmvwwQ?si=a96qI6qha8kWMCbx ========= About Tom Nelson: https://linktr.ee/tomanelson1 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL89cj_OtPeenLkWMmdwcT8Dt0DGMb8RGR Twitter: https://twitter.com/tan123 Substack: https://tomn.substack.com/ About Tom: https://tomn.substack.com/about

Will technology — and the people who make it — lead us into a better future? Or a worse one? This week on “Matter of Opinion,” the hosts discuss Elon Musk, techno-optimism and the manifesto taking Silicon Valley by storm. Plus, we learn that Ross wears dad drag.(A transcript of this episode can be found at the top of the episode page on the Times website.) Thoughts about the show? Email us at matterofopinion@nytimes.com. Mentioned in this episode:“The Techno-Optimist Manifesto,” by Marc Andreessen“Elon Musk,” by Walter Isaacson“Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future,” by Elizabeth Kolbert

On this episode we talk about Anthropomorphism, AI-assisted screen scraping, Nvidia to Reportedly Triple Output of Compute GPUs in 2024: Up to 2 Million H100s, Quantum startup Atom Computing first to exceed 1,000 qubits, AI generated political propaganda, Why there will never be a Canva or Atlassian from Aussie AI, Bill Gates does not expect GPT-5 to be much better than GPT-4, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says ChatGPT would have passed for an AGI 10 years ago and The Techno-Optimist Manifesto.

Marc Andreessen isn't just some stuck up old one percenter. He's a lot like you and me, hatin' on the Malthusian globalists who want to control the world with population reducing environmentalism. Jump on board the Techno-Optimist train today to arrive in Abundance Town tomorrow! Topics include: Dallas trip, taking stock, Revolve book, transhumanism, converging technologies, esoteric side of technology, alchemy, religion, occult, alternative and fringe groups, conspiracy minded billionaires, Marc Andreessen, Silicon Valley, tech industry, Techno-Optimist Manifesto, one percenters, contrarian thinking, link between tangible and intangible, leisure time afforded by wealth, population levels, Libertarian ideology, Accelerationism, Philosopher's Stone, abundance, dominant minority, market structures suit those in power, CEOs and politicians are lackeys, insider trading, artists, philosophy, technological supermen, Nietzsche, sustainable development, Limits of Growth, Club of Rome, Agenda 21, climate change, global warming, First Global Revolution, Malthusian view, nihilism, the Dying God, artifice, intelligence, perpetual motion, radio spots, hopeless pandering to potential employers

Subscribe to The Ben & Marc Show on Apple Podcasts: https://bit.ly/3SdsfNtSubscribe to The Ben & Marc Show on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3SclPOrRead the full manifesto: https://a16z.com/the-techno-optimist-manifesto/ This past week, Marc released his new vision for the future – “The Techno-Optimist Manifesto”.In an article that has sparked widespread conversation across traditional and social media, Marc challenges the pessimistic narrative surrounding technology today, and instead celebrates it as a liberating force that can lead to growth, progress and abundance for all. In this one-on-one conversation based on YOUR questions from X (formerly Twitter), Ben and Marc discuss how technological advancements can improve the quality of human life, uplift marginalized communities, and even encourage us to answer the bigger questions of the universe.We hope you'll be inspired to join us in this Techno-Optimist movement. Enjoy! Stay Updated: Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16zFind a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16zSubscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithioPlease note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

David and Devindra entertain the possibility of a new Kick-Ass film, kick around their thoughts on Beckham and dig into the time travel mystery of Bodies. Then Jeff Cannata joins us for our review of the epic period drama, Killers of the Flower Moon.  The Filmcast Patreon feed is now available through Spotify! Check out this article on how to link your Spotify account to Patreon. We're making video versions of our reviews! Be sure to follow us on the following platforms: YouTube Tiktok Instagram Threads Weekly Plugs David - Decoding Everything: Killers of the Flower Moon Devindra - Engadget Podcast: Breaking down the “Techno-Optimist Manifesto” with Paris Marx and An interview with Max Evry on his Dune oral history Shownotes (All timestamps are approximate only)    What we've been watching (16:04) David - Beckham, Last Stop Larrimah: Murder Down Under, Bodies Devindra - The Pigeon Tunnel, Frasier 2.0, Bodies Featured Review (~59:56)     Killers of the Flower Moon SPOILERS (~1:19:10) Support David's artistic endeavors at his Patreon and subscribe to his free newsletter Decoding Everything. Check out Jeff Cannata's podcasts DLC and We Have Concerns. Listen to Devindra's podcast with Engadget on all things tech. You can always e-mail us at slashfilmcast(AT)gmail(DOT)com, or call and leave a voicemail at 781-583-1993. Also, follow us on Twitter @thefilmcastpod. Credits: Our theme song is by Varsity Blue, the newest project byTim McEwan from The Midnight. Our weekly plugs and spoiler bumper music comes from Noah Ross. Our Slashfilmcourt music comes from Simon Harris. If you'd like advertise with us or sponsor us, please e-mail slashfilmcast@gmail.com. You can support the podcast by going to patreon.com/filmpodcast or by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts.

This episode of the Cyberlaw Podcast begins with the administration's aggressive new rules on chip exports to China. Practically every aspect of the rules announced just eight months ago was sharply tightened, Nate Jones reports. The changes are so severe, I suggest, that they make the original rules look like a failure that had to be overhauled to work. Much the same could be said about the Biden administration's plan for an executive order on AI regulation that Chessie Lockhart thinks will  focus on government purchases. As a symbolic expression of best AI practice, procurement focused rules make symbolic sense. But given the current government market for AI, it's hard to see them having much bite. If it's bite you want, Nate says, the EU has sketched out what appears to be version 3.0 of its AI Act. It doesn't look all that much like Versions 1.0 or 2.0, but it's sure to take the world by storm, fans of the Brussels Effect tell us. I note that the new version includes plans for fee-driven enforcement and suggest that the scope of the rules is already being tailored to ensure fee revenue from popular but not especially risky AI models. Jane Bambauer offers a kind review of  Marc Andreessen's “‘Techno-Optimist Manifesto”.  We end up agreeing more than we disagree with Marc's arguments, if not his bombast. I attribute his style to a lesson I once learned from mountaineering. Chessie discusses the Achilles heel of the growing state movement to require that registered data brokers delete personal data on request. It turns out that a lot of the data brokers, just aren't registering. The Supreme Court, moving with surprising speed at the Solicitor General's behest, has granted cert and a stay  in the jawboning case, brought by Missouri among other states to stop federal agencies from leaning on social media to suppress speech the federal government disagrees with. I note that the SG's desperation to win this case has led it to make surprisingly creative arguments, leading to yet another Cybertoonz explainer. Social media's loss of public esteem may be showing up in judicial decisions. Jane reports on a California decision allowing a lawsuit that seeks to sue kids' social media on a negligence theory for marketing an addictive product. I'm happier than Jane to see that the bloom is off the section 230 rose, but we agree that suing companies for making their product's too attractive may run into a few pitfalls on the way to judgment. I offer listeners who don't remember the Reagan administration a short history of the California judge who wrote the opinion. And speaking of tort liability for tech products, Chessie tells us that Chinny Sharma, another Cyberlaw podcast stalwart, has an article in Lawfare confessing some fondness for products liability (as opposed to negligence) lawsuits over cybersecurity failures.  Chessie also breaks down a Colorado Supreme Court decision approving a keyword search for an arson-murder suspect. Although played as a win for keyword searches in the press, it's actually a loss. The search results were deemed admissible only because the good faith exception excused what the court considered a lack of probable cause. I award EFF the “sore winner” award for its whiny screed complaining that, while it agree with EFF on the principle, the court didn't also free the scumbags who burned five people to death. Finally,  Nate and I explain why the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency won't be getting the small-ball cyber bills through Congress that used to be routine. CISA overplayed its hand in the misinformation wars over the  2020 election, going so far as to consider curbs on “malinformation” – information that is true but inconvenient for the government. This has led a lot of conservatives to look for reasons to cut CISA's budget. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.)  gets special billing. Download 478th Episode (mp3) You can subscribe to The Cyberlaw Podcast using iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, Pocket Casts, or our RSS feed. As always, The Cyberlaw Podcast is open to feedback. Be sure to engage with @stewartbaker on Twitter. Send your questions, comments, and suggestions for topics or interviewees to CyberlawPodcast@gmail.com. Remember: If your suggested guest appears on the show, we will send you a highly coveted Cyberlaw Podcast mug! The views expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and do not reflect the opinions of their institutions, clients, friends, families, or pets.

Last week, Marc Andreessen released his new vision for the future – “The Techno-Optimist Manifesto” (https://a16z.com/the-techno-optimist-manifesto/). In an article that has sparked widespread conversation across the media and social media, Marc challenges the pessimistic narrative surrounding technology today, and instead celebrates technology as a liberating force that can lead to growth, progress and abundance for all. In this one-on-one conversation based on YOUR questions from X (formerly Twitter), Ben Horowitz and Marc discuss how technological advancements can improve the quality of human life, uplift marginalized communities, and even encourage us to answer the bigger questions of the universe. We hope you'll be inspired to join us in this Techno-Optimist movement. Enjoy! Watch the video version here: https://youtu.be/HCfwKBwxLYk?si=c5HaDwI-_nlKxRsb  Resources:Marc on X: https://twitter.com/pmarcaMarc's Substack: https://pmarca.substack.com/Ben on X: https://twitter.com/bhorowitz Book mentioned on this podcast:– “When Reason Goes on Holiday: Philosophers in Politics” by Neven Sesardic https://amzn.to/455zYRv– “The Ultimate Resource” by Julian Lincoln Simon https://amzn.to/3Ft2MIi Stay Updated: Find us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16zFind us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z The views expressed here are those of the individual personnel quoted and are not the views of a16z or its affiliates. This content is provided for informational purposes only, and should not be relied upon as legal, business, investment, or tax advice. Furthermore, this content is not directed at nor intended for use by any investors or prospective investors and may not under any circumstances be relied upon when making a decision to invest in any a16z funds. PLEASE SEE MORE HERE: https://a16z.com/disclosures/

Invictus by William Ernest Henley | Poetry Foundation https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/51642/invictus Captain Cook: History's Greatest Explorer https://play.pocketcasts.com/podcasts/c507d410-fd89-0138-4167-0acc26574db2 CultureLab: Free will doesn't exist? Robert Sapolsky's vision to reshape society https://pca.st/p0e24tcd A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace https://www.eff.org/cyberspace-independence What the Techno-Billionaire Missed About Techno-Optimism https://www.wired.com/story/plaintext-marc-andreessen-techno-billionaire-wrong-techno-optimism/ The Techno-Optimist Manifesto https://a16z.com/the-techno-optimist-manifesto/ meu perfil no Threads: https://www.threads.net/@renedepaulajr meu perfil no BlueSky ... Read more

This week Liz Lumley is joined by special guest Chris Hladczuk, chief revenue officer at fintech Meow. They discuss cash management for start-ups, T+1 settlement times, money laundering, terrorism and cryptocurrencies, and get a hot take on *that* Techno-Optimist Manifesto. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Alex and Evelyn discuss the "Techno-Optimist Manifesto" posted by Marc Andreessen this week and whether one can love technology and also think about risk management at the same time. Tricky! They then discuss the ongoing challenges of moderating during war, the Supreme Court's cert grant of the jawboning case out of the 5th circuit, and Threads' position on news.

In this weekend's long read, two very different takes on the future than those we heard about in the Techno Optimist Manifesto earlier this week. First, a direct response to Andreessen from Wired's Steven Levy https://www.wired.com/story/plaintext-marc-andreessen-techno-billionaire-wrong-techno-optimism/ Then, Mustafa Suleyman and Eric Schmidt call for an International Panel on AI Safety https://www.ft.com/content/d84e91d0-ac74-4946-a21f-5f82eb4f1d2d ABOUT THE AI BREAKDOWN The AI Breakdown helps you understand the most important news and discussions in AI.  Subscribe to The AI Breakdown newsletter: https://theaibreakdown.beehiiv.com/subscribe Subscribe to The AI Breakdown on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheAIBreakdown Join the community: bit.ly/aibreakdown Learn more: http://breakdown.network/

Ed and Ron will explore Marc Andresseen's The Techno-Optimist Manifesto. It's a thought-provoking piece that we largely agree with. You can find the Manifesto at: https://a16z.com/the-techno-optimist-manifesto/

Ed and Ron will explore Marc Andresseen's The Techno-Optimist Manifesto. It's a thought-provoking piece that we largely agree with. You can find the Manifesto at: https://a16z.com/the-techno-optimist-manifesto/

For Bend and other Oregon startups, it's High Desert Innovation Week in Bend, Oregon, with Bend Venture Conference (BVC) and more. But that's not the only thing in Oregon startup news, this week. There's stuff in Portland startup news, as well. Portland startup news, this week https://siliconflorist.com Bend Oregon High Desert Innovation Week https://www.hdinnovationweek.com/ Built Oregon + Cultivate Bend = Built Festival 2023 https://siliconflorist.com/2023/10/19/built-to-bend-collaboration-with-cultivate-bend-culminates-in-successful-built-festival-2023/ Bend Outdoor Worx (BOW) Venture Out https://www.bendoutdoorworx.com/ Bend Venture Conference (BVC) https://www.bendvc.com/ Chaos Town https://www.youtube.com/@chaostown Hello Portland startup community https://siliconflorist.com/2023/10/18/hello-portland-startup-community-im-erik-blanchard/ Pitch Latino 2023 https://www.latinofounder.com/ KGW features Finnegan the Dragon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qs8xbACrjq4 TiE XL Boot Camp https://siliconflorist.com/2023/10/18/need-the-basics-for-building-a-startup-or-maybe-just-a-refresher-course-tie-xl-boot-camp-may-be-the-answer/ Portland Business Journal on venture capital in Oregon 2023 https://siliconflorist.com/2023/10/18/portland-business-journal-on-portlands-lackluster-q3-funding/ Climate Curious https://www.climatecurious.co/ a16z Techno Optimist Manifesto https://a16z.com/the-techno-optimist-manifesto

After unpacking the latest news from Israel and Gaza, Caleb and Adriele check in on several ongoing stories including Jim Jordan's failing bid to become the new House speaker, Elon's latest plans to make X financially viable, and another round of return-to-office announcements. Then, they go deep on corporate responses to global crises, and which companies are obligated to speak up and when. Next, they react to a “Techno-Optimist Manifesto” from Marc Andreessen that left both of them speechless (not in a good way.) All that, plus the Fed is rethinking debit card swipe fees and Caleb's other podcast is determining the best album for becoming a Swiftie. Discussed this week: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto | Andreessen Horowitz Fed to Propose Lowering Debit-Card Swipe Fees | WSJ Best Album For Podcast

Featured Guests: Pete Flint, general partner, NFX | Antonio Avitabile, managing director, Sony Innovation Fund: Africa Marc Andreessen makes the case against regulating technological progress in his “Techno-Optimist Manifesto,” Sony establishes its newest Innovation Fund in Africa, and Tucker Carlson's new media company is backed by an ‘anti-woke' venture firm.

Marc Andreessen has just published The Techno-Optimist Manifesto. NLW reads the piece and provides context on why it matters for the AI discourse. Read: https://a16z.com/the-techno-optimist-manifesto/ Today's Sponsors: Listen to the chart-topping podcast 'web3 with a16z crypto' wherever you get your podcasts or here: https://link.chtbl.com/xz5kFVEK?sid=AIBreakdown  ABOUT THE AI BREAKDOWN The AI Breakdown helps you understand the most important news and discussions in AI.  Subscribe to The AI Breakdown newsletter: https://theaibreakdown.beehiiv.com/subscribe Subscribe to The AI Breakdown on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheAIBreakdown Join the community: bit.ly/aibreakdown Learn more: http://breakdown.network/

(0:00) Title (0:14) 3 Opening Quotes (1:28) Lies (2:22) Truth (3:17) Technology (6:30) Markets (13:34) The Techno-Capital Machine (16:04) Intelligence (18:25) Energy (21:39) Abundance (25:10) Not Utopia, but Close Enough (26:04) Becoming Technological Supermen (28:46) Technological Values (32:43) The Meaning of Life (34:04) The Enemy (39:40) The Future (40:40) Patron Saints of Techno-Optimism We believe: growth is progress. everything good is downstream of growth. not growing is stagnation. technology is a lever on the world. this is the story of the material development of our civilization. this is why our descendents will live in the stars. that there is no material problem that cannot be solved with more technology. free markets are the most effective way to organize a technological economy. the market economy is a discovery machine, a form of intelligence. Hayek's Knowledge Problem overwhelms any centralized economic system. in market discipline. markets lift people out of poverty. markets are an inherently individualistic way to achieve superior collective outcomes.  markets do not require people to be perfect, or even well intentioned. the ultimate moral defense of markets is that they divert people who otherwise would raise armies and start religions into peacefully productive pursuits. markets, to quote Nicholas Stern, are how we take care of people we don't know. markets are the way to generate societal wealth for everything else we want to pay for. there is no conflict between capitalist profits and a social welfare system that protects the vulnerable. central economic planning elevates the worst of us and drags everyone down; markets exploit the best of us to benefit all of us.  central planning is a doom loop; markets are an upward spiral. in David Ricardo's concept of comparative advantage – as distinct from competitive advantage. a market sets wages as a function of the marginal productivity of the worker. in Milton Friedman's observation that human wants and needs are infinite. markets also increase societal well being by generating work in which people can productively engage. technological change, far from reducing the need for human work, increases it. that since human wants and needs are infinite, economic demand is infinite, and job growth can continue forever. markets are generative, not exploitative; positive sum, not zero sum. the techno-capital machine of markets and innovation never ends, but instead spirals continuously upward. in accelerationism – the conscious and deliberate propulsion of technological development. the techno-capital machine is not anti-human. the cornerstone resources of the techno-capital upward spiral are intelligence and energy. intelligence is the ultimate engine of progress. intelligence is in an upward spiral. we are poised for an intelligence takeoff that will expand our capabilities to unimagined heights. Artificial Intelligence is our alchemy, our Philosopher's Stone. Artificial Intelligence is best thought of as a universal problem solver. Artificial Intelligence can save lives. any deceleration of AI will cost lives. in Augmented Intelligence just as much as we believe in Artificial Intelligence. Augmented Intelligence drives marginal productivity which drives wage growth which drives demand which drives the creation of new supply. energy should be in an upward spiral. energy need not expand to the detriment of the natural environment. a second energy silver bullet is coming – nuclear fusion. there is no inherent conflict between the techno-capital machine and the natural environment. technology is the solution to environmental degradation and crisis. a technologically stagnant society has limited energy at the cost of environmental ruin. we should place intelligence and energy in a positive feedback loop, and drive them both to infinity. we should use the feedback loop of intelligence and energy to make everything we want and need abundant.