The Techno-Optimist Manifesto
⏱ Just got round to reading The Techno-Optimist Manifesto
by Marc Andreessen.
🙁 Wish I hadn’t, so many good and positive points about how Technology has, can and should serve us to make for a better future, obliterated by the aggressive, hubristic, and polarizing tone which ironically resonated with one of the points mentioned in the manifesto.
➡️ “Our enemy is the ivory tower, the know-it-all credentialed expert worldview, indulging in abstract theories, luxury beliefs, social engineering, disconnected from the real world, delusional, unelected, and unaccountable – playing God with everyone else’s lives, with total insulation from the consequences.”
(Not that I am calling Marc the enemy by any means, it’s the rest of the statement that resonated)
📜 The manifesto will turn more people to believe in the so called “lies”, which in their overarching format are pretty much all truths, they require a bit of nuance and EI to come off as more than just an overopiniated rant.
🔎 Cleverly inserted as one of the “lies” is this, apparently “We are told to be angry, bitter, and resentful about technology”, What a load of absolute twaddle, and the only reason this line exists is to stop people on the fence to call anything in the manifesto out. Manipulative narrative? I feel so, made me have second thoughts about writing for at least 2 seconds.
✅ Fortunately “We believe in free thought, free speech, and free inquiry.” allows me to write my opinion.
⭐️ Being a Techno-Optimist is about having a positive outlook on the capabilities and potential of technology to significantly improve the quality of life, address societal challenges, and propel human advancement, first and foremost it is for the betterment of humanity and should not be at a cost to humanity, or guided by human made constructs as the primary drivers, this unfortunately has been totally overlooked and disregarded in the manifesto which feels like it was written by some Victorian industrialist.
✅ Would love to hear other opinions and Interpretations as maybe my recent break in nature has turned me into a tree hugging luddite 🤷🏼♂️
for the ❤️ of startup