On Marc Andreessen’s “techno-optimist manifesto”
It has been thirty years. The Internet isn’t just the realm of the future anymore. It is also our present and has a substantial past. It is worth examining how the past promises of those 90s techno-optimists worked out.
They promised that technology would solve our environmental problems. And there has, just recently, been some real progress in clean tech. But the trend lines are somewhere between bad and cataclysmic. We do not inhabit the future they insisted they were building. For Andreessen, in 2023, to declare that “there is no material problem – whether created by nature or by technology – that cannot be solved with more technology” is an act of willful self-deception. Just how long are we supposed to clap-and-wait while Andreessen’s investment portfolio tries to science the shit out of the climate crisis?
They aren’t interested in innovation, they are interested in profit. Tech billionaires are not innovators, they are immoral businessmen. Jobs stole, Musk buys and squanders, Bezos buries - each for their own benefit with no care for whether the things they destroy will help others. You are looking to the wrong people for help in any of this - they aren’t saviors they are parasites.
It’s down (&up!) to us to teach them.
Internet runs on open source. Facebook, Google, Apple, twatter, Microsoft are all ways they’ve painted it, but the bare bones of the net is based on open source servers.
Open sourced communications are what need to be used, developed (fediverse seems like a nice collaboration of platforms, a restart). Back to Usenet! (Dunno…just spitballing here)
We need to focus on World Wealth rather than hoarding imaginary currencies.
My mind’s eye of Wealthy Earth is a place where everyone is connected to, sustained by, developmental of, & grateful to our collective Earth ship that circles the sun for daily, yearly sustenance & inspirations.
Note to self: Learn to connect! Learn to grow! Learn to build. We don’t need governments, corporations or boundaries to build a better planet. They’re stop gap measures who’s times are due. They’ve fostered disconnection, dependencies: we’ve been Stockholm syndrome capitalists for thousands of years. We don’t need capital to connect with plants, fungii, & the billions of microbiomes within our own bodies and in our environments. We need ourselves & each other. We need to cultivate understanding & exchange with the Earth for foods, medications, shelters & toys (transportation, computer & other technologies to name a few). Anything done by corporations or governments was done by humans. We can do better with and without the greedy overlords by combining & collaborating knowledge & experience in pursuit of healthier, happier, balanced & creative life on Earth. Do it with gratitude.
I want to believe that we can each develop a connection that provides us with basic needs (food, shelter, medication, transportation & dress) and close or local communities that help grow those connections to fruition, as well as tend to greater aspirations & larger needs (computers, conversations, medical development).
Looking to RichardStallman& LinusTorvalds with gratitude for open source software bounties; Paul Stamets, Merlin Sheldrake & the brothers McKenna for reminders that decomposers provide composers with building blocks & insight. The grift of capital culture needs to be lichen-ized/myco-remediated. Their shit stinks & has too long poisoned the planet.
Grow, brew, build, & create better wherever you may be. This whole planet can regrow to be an Amazonian Eden - and beyond!
Billionaires can’t really do anything. They’re useless and barely human. They depend on society to take care of them.
Glib (though truthful) answers aside, I thought this was a good read. Thank you for posting it.
