I love Gilder, even if he sometimes drives me crazy. His “Soul of Silicon” was the lighthouse of my early career, and a direct precursor to my embracing Radical Centrism.
> On Sep 3, 2018, at 3:17 PM, Billy Rojas <[email protected]> > wrote: > > There's still a lot to take issue with in Gilder's latest transformation, > his annual > re-invention of himself, but there is more now to agree with and be thankful > for. > He still touts Reagan, who, to me, was mostly a dud as a president, but > maybe we can set that aside to focus on his critique of Silicon Valley. > > Here is someone who at least shares some of my sentiments about Google, et al, > that the people at the top in these software giants are full of themselves, > and > full of crap. And I agree with Gilder that the technology is amazing but that > the values that animate the tech industry are bad news, indeed, so such > anarchism / nihilism / regurgitated libertarianism; plus a heavy dose > of Leftist politics. > > Some day I want to develop a full-throated critique of Silicon Valley. > The social values of the Valley cause me considerable anxiety, fear of > censorship at the top of my list, but including hyper-technophilia, > ideological Cultural Marxist values a la Brin and others, and so forth, > and there seem to be some good ideas in Gilder's latest material > to make productive use of. > > > Billy > > --------------------- > > > Sage Against the Machine > > A leading Google critic on why he thinks the era of ‘big data’ is done, why > he opposes Trump’s talk of regulation, and the promise of blockchain. > > By > Tunku Varadarajan > Aug. 31, 2018 4:30 p.m. ET > > New York > ‘I rarely have an urge to whisper,” says George Gilder—loudly—as he settles > onto a divan by the window of his Times Square hotel room. I’d asked him to > speak as audibly as possible into my recording device, and his response, > while literal, could also serve as a metaphor: Nothing Mr. Gilder says or > writes is ever delivered at anything less than the fullest philosophical > decibel. > > Mr. Gilder is one of a dwindling breed of polymath Americans who thrive in a > society obsessed with intellectual silos. As academics know more and more > about less and less, he opines brazenly on subjects whose range would keep > several university faculties on their toes: marriage and family, money and > economics, law and regulation, and the social role of technology, a subject > that engrosses him at present and the topic of his latest book, “Life After > Google: The Fall of Big Data and the Rise of the Blockchain Economy.” > > > Mr. Gilder has published 20 books, the best-known of which, “Wealth and > Poverty” (1981), sold more than a million copies and made him rich. It was an > impassioned defense of the morality and compassion of the free market. Ronald > Reagan acknowledged that the book bolstered his confidence in supply-side > economics, and he was known to be particularly beguiled by its opening line, > which reads: “The most important event in the recent history of ideas is the > demise of the socialist dream.” > > Mr. Gilder also had a vast and avid following during the tech boom of the > 1990s, when his Gilder Technology Report—an idiosyncratic subscription > newsletter—shaped the investing habits of thousands around the world. > Analysts spoke of a Gilder Effect, which had investors rushing to buy stock > in any new company mentioned in the Report. The newsletter effectively ended, > Mr. Gilder tells me, “in the months after the stock market crash of 2000, > when I lost nearly all my 106,000 subscribers.” > > Mr. Gilder, 78, is still immersed in the world of tech, but he doesn’t like > all that he sees. Google makes him mad, as does Silicon Valley more broadly, > and his ire is directed at the “new catastrophe theory” which holds “that > artificial intelligence will make human minds obsolete, and that we’ll soon > produce machine-learning tools and robotics that excel the capabilities of > human brains.” He calls this attitude “Google Marxism”—a phrase he utters > with a certain salivary distaste—“because Marx’s essential theme was that the > Industrial Revolution of the 19th century had overcome all the challenges of > production.” From that point on, Marx held, “human beings would focus on > redistributing wealth among the classes rather than creating it.” > > > > > > > Marx was convinced that the steam turbine, electrification and what William > Blake called “dark satanic mills” were a final stage in social evolution—“an > eschaton.” Mr. Gilder loves abstruse words, and this one, which signifies a > kind of climax in human attainment, is a particular favorite. “Google and the > Silicon Valley people also imagine that their artificial intelligence, their > machine learning, their cloud computing, is an eschaton—another ‘end of > history’ moment. And it’s just preposterous.” > > In truth, Mr. Gilder says, Google is at the end of its “paradigm,” which he > defines as “avoiding the challenge of security across the internet by giving > away most of its products for free, and financing itself with an ingenious > advertising strategy.” Mr. Gilder also contends that Google believes > capitalism is at an end—that “this is the winner-take-all universe,” as he > puts it, “and the existing generation of capitalists are the final > capitalists. That’s their vision.” And if you believe that “machines can > re-create new machines in a steady cascade of greater capabilities that are > beyond human comprehension and control, you really believe that’s the end of > the human race.” > > Mr. Gilder rejects the premise. “Machines can’t be minds,” he says. > “Information theory shows that.” Citing Claude Shannon, the American > mathematician acknowledged as the father of information theory, Mr. Gilder > says that “information is surprise. Creativity always comes as a surprise to > us. If it wasn’t surprising, we wouldn’t need it.” However useful they may > be, “machines are not capable of creativity.” Human minds can generate > counterfactuals, imaginative flights, dreams. By contrast, “a surprise in a > machine is a breakdown. You don’t want your machines to have surprising > outcomes!” > > The narrative of human obsolescence, Mr. Gilder says, is giving rise to a > belief that the only way forward is to provide redundant citizens with some > sort of “guaranteed annual income,” which would mean the end of the market > economy: “If everyone gets supported without any kind of growing up and > facing the challenges of life, then our capitalist culture would collapse.” > > Mr. Gilder worries deeply about the state of capitalism in America, and > President Trump’s adamant focus on the trade gap irks him. “To the extent > that the U.S. is the world’s leading capitalist power and welcomes foreign > investment, it can’t possibly run a trade surplus.” Mr. Trump “is a > politician, and his chief goal is to communicate to the unions in the Midwest > that he’s on their side. Besides, it’s a lot easier to blame China than it is > to really explain the widespread campaign in the colleges of this country to > suppress manufacturing and industry in the United States.” > > As we talk of capitalism and America’s universities, Mr. Gilder sits upright, > unable to mask his indignation. “The point is that we didn’t want > manufacturing in this country, and we suppressed it. All of our colleges are > devoted to stopping things rather than starting them.” The “whole focus” of > science in American higher education, he says, is on “the dangers and perils > of technology rather than its promise.” > > America’s university system, says Mr. Gilder, is “incredibly corrupt and > ideological.” How did it come to be like that? Surely, I observe, it wasn’t > that way when he graduated from Harvard in 1962. “It was beginning to get > that way,” he says, as he revs his engines for a fresh sortie. “The rise of > affluence through the 1960s created this kind of amazing irresponsibility > that resulted in a whole generation losing track of reality.” > > The pithy aperçu is Mr. Gilder’s forte. He tells me here that “human beings > have a propensity to believe in leftism”—in the idea that government can > “answer all of their problems, guarantee their future, and relieve them of > the challenges of life.” The idea of a “completely providential government” > arose in America, and a “whole generation of young people were given college > loans in a fabulous national mistake, in which the Republicans participated.” > These loans were used by the university system to “increase perks and tenured > luxuries and ideological distractions”—all of which led to the “diversity > campaigns and CO2 panics” that currently dominate university faculties. > > The only way to undo this “vast blunder,” says Mr. Gilder, is to forgive > student loans across the board and “extract the money from all the college > endowments and funds that were used to just create useless departments and > political campaigns.” More than $1.5 trillion in student-loan money is > outstanding, according to the Federal Reserve. That money, Mr. Gilder says, > “wasn’t deployed to improve education. Not a scintilla of evidence has been > adduced that learning has been improved. It was used entirely to lavish on > bureaucracies that, in turn, paid tribute to government and leftist nihilism.” > > The impact of these loans, and of the academic ecosystem they engendered, has > been catastrophic, in Mr. Gilder’s view. “The result was to destroy the > entrepreneurial optimism of a whole generation of young people, to drive them > toward socialism, which they now tend to favor, and to even dissuade them > from marriage.” The last is a consequence of debt, “which cripples them for > the future.” Any benefit that education might confer on the young is, in Mr. > Gilder’s dark view, nullified by the economic burden inflicted on them, which > “leaves these kids impotent in the world.” > > We turn to national politics, and Mr. Gilder reaffirms his view—which he’s > expressed often—that Reagan set the gold standard for the modern American > presidency. “I hope Trump emulates him,” Mr. Gilder says. “I don’t know > Trump, but he beat all my candidates, and he’s got something going for him. > He’s a man of action, and I think too much stress is placed on his verbiage.” > He credits the president with having “rolled back the climate-change cult in > government to some degree. He’s appointing good justices, who can actually > see through leftist claims, and he’s dismantling the reach of the > administrative state.” > > Although Mr. Gilder is a critic of Google, he disapproves of Mr. Trump’s talk > of regulating the search engine—a prospect the president raised in a tweet > describing its results as “rigged” against him and possibly “illegal.” This > is no time, Mr. Gilder says, “for American conservatives to advocate an > expansion of the administrative state into social networks and search > engines.” If right-leaning content ranks low on Google, that shows that > “conservatives still have a long way to go if they are to prevail in the > opinion wars on social media. They cannot expect the government to do it for > them.” > > For all the gloom about Silicon Valley that appears to suffuse his new book, > Mr. Gilder insists that he’s not a tech-pessimist. “I think technology has > fabulous promise,” he says, as he describes blockchain and cryptocurrency as > “a new technological revolution that is rising up as we speak.” He says it > has generated “a huge efflorescence of peer-to-peer technology and > creativity, and new companies.” The decline of initial public offerings in > the U.S., he adds, has been “redressed already by the rise of the ICO, the > ‘initial coin offering,’ which has raised some $12 billion for several > thousand companies in the last year.” > > It is clear that Mr. Gilder is smitten with what he calls “this cryptographic > revolution,” and believes that it will heal some of the damage to humanity > that has been inflicted by the “machine obsessed” denizens of Silicon Valley. > Blockchain “endows individuals with control of their data, their identity, > the truths that they want to assert, their transactions, their visions, their > content and their security.” Here Mr. Gilder sounds less like a tech guru > than a poet, and his words tumble out in a romantic cascade. > > With the cryptographic revolution, he says, “we’re now in charge of our own > information. For the first time in history, really, you don’t have to prove > who you are, or what you are, before a transaction.” A blockchain allows > users “to be anonymous if they wish, while also letting them keep a > time-stamped record of all their previous transactions. It allows us to > establish unimpeachable facts on the internet.” > > That evokes trust in the internet, “without having to trust or rely on Sergey > Brin, Larry Page, Mark Zuckerberg, or whoever the paladins of the new economy > may be.” In the age of the almighty machine, Mr. Gilder believes, this is a > notable victory for mankind. > > Mr. Varadarajan is a fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. > > > > > > Paul Cameron, Ph.D. > Chairman, Family Research Institute > POB 62640 > Colorado Springs, CO 80962 > 303 681 3113 > www.familyresearchinst.org <http://www.familyresearchinst.org/> > > ____________________________________________________________ > Drink This Before Bed, Watch Your Body Fat Melt Like Crazy > Celebrity Local > > <http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3142/5b8d8e217f1c0e210e06st01vuc>http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3142/5b8d8e217f1c0e210e06st01vuc > <http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3142/5b8d8e217f1c0e210e06st01vuc> > > -- > -- > Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community > <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> > Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism > <http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism> > Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org > <http://radicalcentrism.org/> > > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout > <https://groups.google.com/d/optout>. -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. 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