Is it reasonable to assign the descriptor “authoritarian” to anyone who simply does not subscribe to the common orthodoxy of one faction in the american culture war? That is what it seems to me is happening here, though I would love to be wrong.
I have not seen anything from sama or pmarca that I would classify as “authoritarian”.
Donating millions to a fascist president (in Altman’s case) seems pretty authoritarian to me. And he seems happy enough hanging out with Thiel and other Yarvin groupies.
I think this is more a symptom of the level of commonplace corruption in the American regulatory environment than any indication of the political views of the person directing such donations.
Tim Apple did it too, and we don’t assume he’s an authoritarian now too, do we? I imagine they would probably have done similarly regardless of who won the election.
It sure seems like an endorsement, but I think it’s simply modern corporate strategy in the American regulatory environment, same as when foreign dignitaries stay in overpriced suites in the Trump hotel in DC.
Those who don’t kiss the ring are clearly and obviously punished. It’s not in the interest of your shareholders (or your launch partners) to be the tall poppy.
I do feel that way about every CEO in those cheery inauguration day photos (https://apnews.com/article/trump-inauguration-tech-billionai...). Zuckerberg, Bezos, Pichai, Cook, Altman, Musk, Thiel: enablers of fascism, every one. However, it should be noted that Cook donated from his own name and not Apple. Guess he didn't want his shittiness to rub off on his company.
As far as “enablers” of fascism - would we have the same amount of fascism if they didn’t participate? I posit that the answer is yes.
Furthermore, you are dead wrong on the last point. The “dispute” between the FBI and Apple is a fiction designed to restore public trust in Apple’s privacy stance following the Snowden revelations about FAA702 (aka PRISM) that shows that companies allow the USG warrantless access to their data in realtime via special APIs or portals.
The tech executives came to DC to meet with Obama in the wake of the whole Snowden thing to discuss it, though it was widely reported as being a consult on fixing healthcare.gov (lol) a few outlets reported it correctly. There are photos of the meeting kicking around.
I imagine the Apple-vs-the-FBI narrative (which is widely regarded as true and has resulted in mainstream false belief, such as yours demonstrated here) was borne directly out of these meetings.
Apple intentionally maintains access to the majority of their users’ data by the USG and the CCP (in their respective zones). It is required for them to continue operating in their current fashion. Every iMessage and (basically) every file
in iCloud (photos included) is readable by Apple and the government. Apple has the technical capability to prevent this by migrating their userbase to e2ee systems, and they do not.
I firmly believe that this is by design, and that they would be very severely punished, legally or extralegally, if they changed the status quo.
I’m not sure exactly what they meant by “liberal” in this case, but since they put it in contrast with authoritarianism, I assume they meant it in the conventional definition of the word (where it is the polar opposite of authoritarianism). Instead of the American politics-as-sports definition that makes it a synonym for “team blue.”
correct. "liberal" as in the general ideas that ie expanding the franchise is important, press freedoms are good, that government can do good things for people and for capital etc. Wikipedia's intro paragraph does a good job of describing what I was getting at (below). In prior decades Republicans in the US would have been categorized as "liberal" under this definition; in recent years, not so much.
>Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, the right to private property, and equality before the law. Liberals espouse various and often mutually conflicting views depending on their understanding of these principles but generally support private property, market economies, individual rights (including civil rights and human rights), liberal democracy, secularism, rule of law, economic and political freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion. Liberalism is frequently cited as the dominant ideology of modern history.
No, "authoritarian" is a word with a specific meaning. I'm not sure about applying it to Sam Altman, but Marc Andreessen has expressed views that I consider authoritarian in his victory lap tour since last year's presidential election.
No I don't think it is. I DO think those two people want to be in charge (along with other billionaires) and they want the rest of us to follow along, which is in my book an authoritarian POV. pmarca's recent "VC is the only job that can't be done by AI" is a good example of that; the rest of us are to be managed and controlled by VCs and robots.
it is opt in until they manage to convince some government to allow them to be the contracted provider of "humanness verification" that is then made a prerequisite to access services.
Comcast is also opt-in. Except, in many areas there are no real alternatives.
I doubt Worldcoin will actually manage to corner the market. But the point is, if it did, bad things would happen. Though, that’s probably true of most products.
I have not seen anything from sama or pmarca that I would classify as “authoritarian”.