Balaji Srinivasan calls for tech to "exit democracy" and seize local governments (opens in new tab)

its so embarassing that the types of people like balaji represent us as an industry. my friends outside of tech world now treat being a software developer as a red flag

Originally described in 2014 as: "typified by libertarian political beliefs, Dawkins- style atheism, vague annoyance that the question of gay rights even comes up, eating paleo, drinking Soylent, calling in rides on Uber, reading lots of blogs, calling American football “sportsball”, getting conspicuously upset about the War on Drugs and the NSA, and listening to filk – but for our current purposes this is a distraction and they can safely be considered part of the Blue Tribe most of the time"

But since then the tech world went off the deep end into anti-wokeness and the left has (rightfully imo) come to resent tech and tech companies so they've moved to be on the side of the "red tribe"

but I do think that your explanations make sense, or rather- while I think he is earnest in wanted a new state ruled by "Grey Tribe", given the book listed at the top he wrote: The Network State: How To Start a New Country, but these specific complaints do feel like he's doing a mean Haha gotcha, how would it feel now ?? sort of style

Or I guess put another way, I think he is both earnestly wanting it but also choosing these examples to be a comparison so it seems "fair"

We live in a complex reality full of nuance, not a cartoon.

But anyway, it's a fallacy to think that just because something is bad, replacing it with just anything at all would be an improvement. The thing you replace government with would have to be better suited to it, which there is just no basis for saying Silicon Valley is. In fact, there's enough evidence that SV is bad at governing their own very very small kingdoms, even with the benefit of an existing infrastructure and rule of law, established by others, in place.

Man, it's weird for me to be in the position of defending government. I'm not that guy. But tech leadership is just laughably unsuited to replacing them.

Americans are so spoiled by their state, it can be better, but it can be so much worse.

The stability of western governance breeds the idea that this is just the natural state of things. Same thing with anti-vaxxers thinking we don’t need vaccines because they have no memory of what life was like before them.

That's a pithy and meaningless statement that doesn't add anything constructive to the conversation. If we take it as true, then we'd have to assume that you're actually optimistic about government, since it suggests that the only direction we can go is up.

But of course the reality is that that for as dysfunctional or corrupt as we might see some operating government, of course it could still be even much worse so still. That doesn't even require imagination, since examples abound across modern geography and even recent history.

If you can't even imagine things that are plainly visible in reality, then, sure I can see why you might struggle to imagine what could be worse. But we're not all so afflicted.

Yeah there are simple things that can be improved, like not using physical mail, and better appointment handling and such. That exists. But if you talk to people working in this business... those are the easy parts and people are working on those.

Then there is thousands of requests for building permits and these have to be checked, or people die because of buildings collapsing. And you need a skilled person to look at each individual location one at a time, because of physics. Those parts are really hard.

I am not having any illusions about Tech companies who are either running as dictatorship or feudalism (Board + C-suites making decisions like aristocracy), rest either goes along or is punished.

What you are missing is that extreme wealth insulates them from any significant personal consequences of their logical imaginativeness, so such feedback never gets incorporated into their logic.

If the rest of us espoused fascism and then lost our jobs and standing in our communities, we would be in real trouble.

For the tech uber-wealthy (pun intended), money is community. Your community (peers or acolytes) will keep boosting you as long as you have it, because it completes the circular logic that explains your success.

We spend our lives specializing into ever smaller subdomains of already small domains. A lifetime of bending your brain in one direction, being well compensated, being told you are smart... it leads to tremendous gaffs once you step out of your little specialized world.

It's important to maintain a deep humbleness and acknowledge the gaps in your knowledge. Don't disregard experts in other fields because they are saying things that conflict with your biases. Learn to identify your biases and think about how they may limit you from gaining understanding. It's much more fun to go through life with the attitude of not knowing everything and listening to people who know what they know.

We're discussing this article, after all, right? We know who Balaji is. While look at how many very rational "Show HN" posts here fail to get traction or reach the front page.

Oftentimes, there's a kernel of a true idea behind the hype, but it's been taken to the most extreme form possible simply because the most extreme form is the only one that goes viral.

What mechanisms can fix this?

I only see evidence of wealth. Not talent, skill or ability.

>"described a speech in which he “told a group of young entrepreneurs that the United States had become ‘the Microsoft of nations’: outdated and obsolescent.”

“The speech won roars from the audience at Y Combinator, a leading start-up incubator,”

I think this article is the most on-topic there could be.

The users here that want Tech News and Tech News only are doing themselves, and the community a disservice.

User flags can be overridden by moderators. There are some very notable examples, usually I have been very impressed by this.

So far, this is not one of those cases.