Non-paywalled link: https://archive.ph/9Hihf
In his latest NYT column, Ezra Klein identifies the neoreactionary philosophy at the core of Marc Andreessen’s recent excrescence on so-called “techno-optimism”. It wasn’t exactly a difficult analysis, given the way Andreessen outright lists a gaggle of neoreactionaries as the inspiration for his screed.
But when Andreessen included “existential risk” and transhumanism on his list of enemy ideas, I’m sure the rationalists and EAs were feeling at least a little bit offended. Klein, as the founder of Vox media and Vox’s EA-promoting “Future Perfect” vertical, was probably among those who felt targeted. He has certainly bought into the rationalist AI doomer bullshit, so you know where he stands.
So have at at, Marc and Ezra. Fight. And maybe take each other out.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Andreessen, who sits on Meta’s board of directors, was asked about the possible fight at the Allen & Company conference, a gathering for the wealthy and well connected in Sun Valley, Idaho.
It “begins with a happy, well-ordered state where people who know their place live in harmony and submit to tradition and their God,” Mark Lilla writes in his 2016 book, “The Shipwrecked Mind: On Political Reaction.” He continues:
What the muscled ancients knew and what today’s flabby whingers have forgotten is that man must cultivate the strength and will to master nature, and other men, for the technological frontier to give way.
He is clear on who they are, in a section titled simply “The Enemy.” The list is long, ranging from “anti-greatness” to “statism” to “corruption” to “the ivory tower” to “cartels” to “bureaucracy” to “socialism” to “abstract theories” to anyone “disconnected from the real world … playing God with everyone else’s lives” (which arguably describes the kinds of technologists Andreessen is calling forth, but I digress).
In exchange for a cleaner environment, we adopted laws effective at modifying, slowing and even stopping traditional “brown” infrastructure seen as threatening environmental quality, such as highways, oil pipelines and industrial facilities.
But the politics of sustainability — as evidenced in legislation like the Inflation Reduction Act — have settled into another place entirely: a commitment to solving our hardest environmental problems by driving technology forward, by investing and deploying clean energy infrastructure at a scale unlike anything the government has done since the 1950s.
The original article contains 2,456 words, the summary contains 255 words. Saved 90%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!