• tedd_deireadh@piefed.socialEnglish
    6 hours

    Because we get asked a lot.

    The Technological Republic, in brief.

    1. Silicon Valley owes a moral debt to the country that made its rise possible. The engineering elite of Silicon Valley has an affirmative obligation to participate in the defense of the nation.

    2. We must rebel against the tyranny of the apps. Is the iPhone our greatest creative if not crowning achievement as a civilization? The object has changed our lives, but it may also now be limiting and constraining our sense of the possible.

    3. Free email is not enough. The decadence of a culture or civilization, and indeed its ruling class, will be forgiven only if that culture is capable of delivering economic growth and security for the public.

    4. The limits of soft power, of soaring rhetoric alone, have been exposed. The ability of free and democratic societies to prevail requires something more than moral appeal. It requires hard power, and hard power in this century will be built on software.

    5. The question is not whether A.I. weapons will be built; it is who will build them and for what purpose. Our adversaries will not pause to indulge in theatrical debates about the merits of developing technologies with critical military and national security applications. They will proceed.

    6. National service should be a universal duty. We should, as a society, seriously consider moving away from an all-volunteer force and only fight the next war if everyone shares in the risk and the cost.

    7. If a U.S. Marine asks for a better rifle, we should build it; and the same goes for software. We should as a country be capable of continuing a debate about the appropriateness of military action abroad while remaining unflinching in our commitment to those we have asked to step into harm’s way.

    8. Public servants need not be our priests. Any business that compensated its employees in the way that the federal government compensates public servants would struggle to survive.

    9. We should show far more grace towards those who have subjected themselves to public life. The eradication of any space for forgiveness—a jettisoning of any tolerance for the complexities and contradictions of the human psyche—may leave us with a cast of characters at the helm we will grow to regret.

    10. The psychologization of modern politics is leading us astray. Those who look to the political arena to nourish their soul and sense of self, who rely too heavily on their internal life finding expression in people they may never meet, will be left disappointed.

    11. Our society has grown too eager to hasten, and is often gleeful at, the demise of its enemies. The vanquishing of an opponent is a moment to pause, not rejoice.

    12. The atomic age is ending. One age of deterrence, the atomic age, is ending, and a new era of deterrence built on A.I. is set to begin.

    13. No other country in the history of the world has advanced progressive values more than this one. The United States is far from perfect. But it is easy to forget how much more opportunity exists in this country for those who are not hereditary elites than in any other nation on the planet.

    14. American power has made possible an extraordinarily long peace. Too many have forgotten or perhaps take for granted that nearly a century of some version of peace has prevailed in the world without a great power military conflict. At least three generations — billions of people and their children and now grandchildren — have never known a world war.

    15. The postwar neutering of Germany and Japan must be undone. The defanging of Germany was an overcorrection for which Europe is now paying a heavy price. A similar and highly theatrical commitment to Japanese pacifism will, if maintained, also threaten to shift the balance of power in Asia.

    16. We should applaud those who attempt to build where the market has failed to act. The culture almost snickers at Musk’s interest in grand narrative, as if billionaires ought to simply stay in their lane of enriching themselves . . . . Any curiosity or genuine interest in the value of what he has created is essentially dismissed, or perhaps lurks from beneath a thinly veiled scorn.

    17. Silicon Valley must play a role in addressing violent crime. Many politicians across the United States have essentially shrugged when it comes to violent crime, abandoning any serious efforts to address the problem or take on any risk with their constituencies or donors in coming up with solutions and experiments in what should be a desperate bid to save lives.

    18. The ruthless exposure of the private lives of public figures drives far too much talent away from government service. The public arena—and the shallow and petty assaults against those who dare to do something other than enrich themselves—has become so unforgiving that the republic is left with a significant roster of ineffectual, empty vessels whose ambition one would forgive if there were any genuine belief structure lurking within.

    19. The caution in public life that we unwittingly encourage is corrosive. Those who say nothing wrong often say nothing much at all.

    20. The pervasive intolerance of religious belief in certain circles must be resisted. The elite’s intolerance of religious belief is perhaps one of the most telling signs that its political project constitutes a less open intellectual movement than many within it would claim.

    21. Some cultures have produced vital advances; others remain dysfunctional and regressive. All cultures are now equal. Criticism and value judgments are forbidden. Yet this new dogma glosses over the fact that certain cultures and indeed subcultures . . . have produced wonders. Others have proven middling, and worse, regressive and harmful.

    22. We must resist the shallow temptation of a vacant and hollow pluralism. We, in America and more broadly the West, have for the past half century resisted defining national cultures in the name of inclusivity. But inclusion into what?

    Excerpts from the #1 New York Times Bestseller The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West, by Alexander C. Karp & Nicholas W. Zamiska

    • willington@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      7 minutes
      1. Silicon Valley owes a moral debt to the country that made its rise possible. The engineering elite of Silicon Valley has an affirmative obligation to participate in the defense of the nation.

      Billionaires owe a moral debt to the broader society and to the commons, that made their wealth, influence and giant egos bossible.

      1. We must rebel against the tyranny of the apps. Is the iPhone our greatest creative if not crowning achievement as a civilization? The object has changed our lives, but it may also now be limiting and constraining our sense of the possible.

      We must rebel against the tyranny of the oligarchs.

      1. Free email is not enough. The decadence of a culture or civilization, and indeed its ruling class, will be forgiven only if that culture is capable of delivering economic growth and security for the public.

      Billionaires have their asset portfolios in the game, but not their skin.

      The 99% have their skin in the game, because skin is all they got.

      Relative the economic royalists the 99% got no assets to speak of.

      Our interests are those of cattle and the ranchers. Our interests clash. The ranchers systematically limit and drain the life energy of the cattle to boost their own freedom and energy. That is not a society.

      1. The limits of soft power, of soaring rhetoric alone, have been exposed. The ability of free and democratic societies to prevail requires something more than moral appeal. It requires hard power, and hard power in this century will be built on software.

      This is the lesson the 99% are waiting to learn.

      The billionaires already know about every kind of power, soft and hard, and aren’t ashamed to show their ass in public to use power to get their objectives met.

      It’s the 99% who are politely queueing up in line and are waiting their turn, which never comes. And the longer the 99% continue surrendering their power and their initiative, the furtheir the objectives of the 99% are from them.

      The billoinaires don’t ask for permission. They just take. They 99% ask for permission first, and are denied permission.

      1. The question is not whether A.I. weapons will be built; it is who will build them and for what purpose. Our adversaries will not pause to indulge in theatrical debates about the merits of developing technologies with critical military and national security applications. They will proceed.

      The question is not whether AI will be bult, but who will own the AI. AI will serve the owners at the expence of all the non-owners.

      The real divide is not USA vs China, but the legal owners of the AI machine vs the rest.

      1. National service should be a universal duty. We should, as a society, seriously consider moving away from an all-volunteer force and only fight the next war if everyone shares in the risk and the cost.

      Sky high top marginal rate wealth taxes should be a universal duty.

      Wealthy people must be forced to live as a poor person would, and among the poor, for 5 years straight, from age 20 to 25, so they stop talking out of their ass and get a fucking clue. I don’t wanna hear about the 10 dollar bananas, Michael.

      Every wealth accumulation above 500 million (indexed to median wealth) is a policy failure.

      1. If a U.S. Marine asks for a better rifle, we should build it; and the same goes for software. We should as a country be capable of continuing a debate about the appropriateness of military action abroad while remaining unflinching in our commitment to those we have asked to step into harm’s way.

      No. The society should not serve the U.S. Marines and the billionaires, how absurd. Of course the billionaires want to throw some crumbs to the folks with guns that are backstopping their power. That’s how the billionaires’ thugocracy works.

      1. Public servants need not be our priests. Any business that compensated its employees in the way that the federal government compensates public servants would struggle to survive.

      “Run the government like a business” claptrap.

      1. We should show far more grace towards those who have subjected themselves to public life. The eradication of any space for forgiveness—a jettisoning of any tolerance for the complexities and contradictions of the human psyche—may leave us with a cast of characters at the helm we will grow to regret.

      The public doesn’t want billionaires’ grace, for fucks sake.

      The public, the 99%, wants, and should want, POWER, precisely to avoid depending on grace.

      1. The psychologization of modern politics is leading us astray. Those who look to the political arena to nourish their soul and sense of self, who rely too heavily on their internal life finding expression in people they may never meet, will be left disappointed.

      Talk about using extreme wealth accumulations to nourish their soul and sense of self. Who does that?

      1. Our society has grown too eager to hasten, and is often gleeful at, the demise of its enemies. The vanquishing of an opponent is a moment to pause, not rejoice.

      If what I said under the point 6 were the norm, my eyes would not now be assaulted by such ignorant claptrap.

      1. The atomic age is ending. One age of deterrence, the atomic age, is ending, and a new era of deterrence built on A.I. is set to begin.

      The owners of the AI machines will use their private ownership of the AI to deter all the non-owners. Got it.

      1. No other country in the history of the world has advanced progressive values more than this one. The United States is far from perfect. But it is easy to forget how much more opportunity exists in this country for those who are not hereditary elites than in any other nation on the planet.

      Take that, Finland and Iceland.

      1. American power has made possible an extraordinarily long peace. Too many have forgotten or perhaps take for granted that nearly a century of some version of peace has prevailed in the world without a great power military conflict. At least three generations — billions of people and their children and now grandchildren — have never known a world war.

      Doing 5 regime changes a year is peace. America is trying to put the billionaires’ handpicked dictator to run every country around the world. That’s what they call “peace”.

      Again, point 6.

      1. The postwar neutering of Germany and Japan must be undone. The defanging of Germany was an overcorrection for which Europe is now paying a heavy price. A similar and highly theatrical commitment to Japanese pacifism will, if maintained, also threaten to shift the balance of power in Asia.

      Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

      1. We should applaud those who attempt to build where the market has failed to act. The culture almost snickers at Musk’s interest in grand narrative, as if billionaires ought to simply stay in their lane of enriching themselves . . . . Any curiosity or genuine interest in the value of what he has created is essentially dismissed, or perhaps lurks from beneath a thinly veiled scorn.

      So close, and yet so far.

      1. Silicon Valley must play a role in addressing violent crime. Many politicians across the United States have essentially shrugged when it comes to violent crime, abandoning any serious efforts to address the problem or take on any risk with their constituencies or donors in coming up with solutions and experiments in what should be a desperate bid to save lives.

      Combat the extreme levels of wealth inequality. Play a role in that! Then watch what happens to violent crime once everyone has significant assets in the game and not just their naked and cold skin.

      1. The ruthless exposure of the private lives of public figures drives far too much talent away from government service. The public arena—and the shallow and petty assaults against those who dare to do something other than enrich themselves—has become so unforgiving that the republic is left with a significant roster of ineffectual, empty vessels whose ambition one would forgive if there were any genuine belief structure lurking within.

      Then why is the executive branch of government in the USA filled with more billionaires than ever?

      Looks like the problem is not talent, but the objective of said talent.

      Economic royalists are savant talented in the area of wealth accumulation and power consolidation. No surprise this kind of talent does’t help them serve the 99%.

      1. The caution in public life that we unwittingly encourage is corrosive. Those who say nothing wrong often say nothing much at all.

      Broken clock.

      1. The pervasive intolerance of religious belief in certain circles must be resisted. The elite’s intolerance of religious belief is perhaps one of the most telling signs that its political project constitutes a less open intellectual movement than many within it would claim.

      If we all take the Bible a bit more seriously, the Israel/USA vs Iran war will get hotter (God gave all that land to the Jewish faithful, you know), and the winners of that war will be the pedo billionaires building out their private rivieras on top of the bodies of the 99%.

      Religion has gone too far already. Separation of Church and State NOW.

      1. Some cultures have produced vital advances; others remain dysfunctional and regressive. All cultures are now equal. Criticism and value judgments are forbidden. Yet this new dogma glosses over the fact that certain cultures and indeed subcultures . . . have produced wonders. Others have proven middling, and worse, regressive and harmful.

      This is saying “White people > brown people” in dog whistle.

      Name the cultures! What specifically is better? Talk straight and plain. No more dog whistles for the nat c’s.