“Our enemy is the Precautionary Principle.”

April 26, 2024 3:06 PM

“I’m glad there’s OxyContin and video games to keep those people quiet.” "It was 2017, and a YIMBY activist invited me to talk about my book Nixonland with his book club, which also happened to be Marc Andreessen’s book club."

He was joking, sort of; but he was serious—definitely. “Kidding on the square,” jokes like those are called. All that talk about human potential and morality, and this man afire to reorder life as we know it jokingly welcomes chemical enslavement of those he grew up with, for the sin of not being as clever and ambitious as he.

There is something very, very wrong with us, that our society affords so much power to people like this.

posted by mecran01 (16 comments total)

This is excellent, can't wait to read the next installment. Perlstein is a very perspicacious observer of class & politics; Nixonland is brilliant as is Reaganland.
posted by chavenet at 3:20 PM on April 26 [6 favorites]

Marc Andreessen’s book club

Incredibly cursed phrase.
posted by Artw at 4:22 PM on April 26 [22 favorites]

Andreesen and I were at Illinois at the same time and his departure with all that IP for building a browser forced the creation of several IP policies for faculty working with student researchers.

He just continues to be a gross jerk.
posted by pantarei70 at 5:05 PM on April 26 [33 favorites]

Rick Perlstein is such a fine writer and historian. Very nice person, too.
posted by doctornemo at 5:37 PM on April 26 [6 favorites]

Related, about a different but adjacent Silicon Valley personality, Balaji Srinivasan: The Tech Baron Seeking to “Ethnically Cleanse” San Francisco

Starts with “What I’m really calling for is something like tech Zionism,” but then gets even wilder from there. The whole thing is worth reading in full.
posted by splitpeasoup at 7:52 PM on April 26 [11 favorites]

Couldn't make it through that...

"Christ, what a bunch of assholes"
posted by Windopaene at 9:20 PM on April 26 [4 favorites]

I'd like to precaution his ass down to the airlock and "jettison it with extreme prejudice". Perlstein is right, there is something deeply wrong with us that we give people like this such power over us. We truly could do, and have done so much better. But alas... I suppose my only comfort is that none of us are getting out of this alive anyway, and that will include him.
posted by cybrcamper at 10:04 PM on April 26 [4 favorites]

Related, about a different but adjacent Silicon Valley personality, Balaji Srinivasan: The Tech Baron Seeking to “Ethnically Cleanse” San Francisco

Starts with “What I’m really calling for is something like tech Zionism" […]

People like Balaji Srinivasan might want to be a little more careful in their selection of metaphors, because the situation in India is dire

Expert who predicted Rwandan genocide warns same could happen in India against Muslims

The founder of Genocide Watch, Dr Gregory Stanton, who had predicted a genocide in Rwanda years before it took place in 1994 has warned of an impending genocide of Muslims in India, comparing the situation of the country under the Narendra Modi government to events in Myanmar and Rwanda.
[…]

If Modi really does begin a campaign of ethnic cleansing/genocide against India's estimated 200+ million Muslims, the ~5 million people of Indian descent in the US will indeed face a dilemma similar to that of American Jews now confronting Netanyahu's version of Zionism as it plays itself out in Palestine, but on a scale orders of magnitude larger, and with a proportionately larger potential backlash as well.
posted by jamjam at 10:50 PM on April 26 [8 favorites]

I'm Indian and the situation you are referring to is already happening. The Modi admin has already been pursuing ethnic cleansing, that's what the CAA/NRC bills are about, as well as the bulldozing of Muslim neighborhoods, etc.

The Indian diaspora in the US has an over representation of dominant caste Hindus and sadly a majority are quite pro Modi and tolerant to supportive of Hindutva-fascism.

However I'm not sure Balaji Srinivasan cares about Indian events or policy, or if he has I haven't heard about it.
posted by splitpeasoup at 11:08 PM on April 26 [15 favorites]

Many years ago, I was walking to my new office for the first time in the Mission district. I had gotten an absolute steal on a huge converted warehouse; an A16Z company had raised a round of financing and was moving out, and SF commercial real estate was a very different game before the pandemic - I had signed the lease sight unseen while in I had been living in Shenzhen overseeing a manufacturing run, and was very excited to check out the new digs. Just as I was approaching the front door, it swung open and out comes the founders I had been in touch with, followed by Marc Andreessen. They had to descend a short flight of stairs to leave the office, but their path was blocked by a very visibly unwell, probably unhoused man who was lying unconscious on the landing.

I remember watching Marc stepping over that man to get to his Tesla, and thinking, “There goes a billion dollars over a man who has nothing.” I wouldn’t say it was that moment that turned me into a socialist, but it definitely left a mark.
posted by 1024 at 11:37 PM on April 26 [27 favorites]

People like Balaji Srinivasan might want to be a little more careful in their selection of metaphors, because the situation in India is dire

I don't know this specific asshole's position, but there are a lot of U.S. Indian tech people who are very into that situation.
posted by away for regrooving at 1:24 AM on April 27 [4 favorites]

Thank you, mecron01, for posting this. It is excellent. Also, 1024, you reminded me of something I witnessed while briefly attending an elite all women's college (think cousin of the seven sisters) in the late 1960s. I entered the multiple stall bathroom near the cafeteria to find a student literally writhing in pain on the floor near a sink and, after reassuring her as best I could, went to get help. She was suffering from debilitating menstrual cramps and was given medication at the college clinic. I stayed with her. Once she was coherent, she explained that she'd been on the floor for about 20-30 minutes before I arrived, unable to communicate but aware of her surroundings. Multiple students stepped over or around her during this time, with one remarking while leaving, "There's someone sleeping on the floor in here." My political and social radicalization away from my ultra-conservative parents and upbringing likely was sparked in that moment.
posted by Scout405 at 8:09 AM on April 27 [9 favorites]

I don't know this specific asshole's position, but there are a lot of U.S. Indian tech people who are very into that situation.

Part of it is just rich people reinventing being rich people in an era of appalling wealth inequality, but I have wondered if the diasporan Indian influence hasn't made a significant contribution (among its many other, mostly much more positive ones) to the current U.S. ultrawealthy's willingness to be so explicit in public about their comfort with extremely rigid and moralized hierarchies. Like, Mitt Romney will talk about the 47%, but at closed dinners with his asshole cohort. Srinivasan will say these things in public, in writing, even.
posted by praemunire at 10:27 AM on April 27 [7 favorites]

These people think they are inventing some kind of cool cyberpunk libertarian fantasy, with their rich people enclaves and private police to keep the poors out and stupid imitation armored cars they are just inventing Brazil. Their security guards can’t start kidnapping them for money soon enough.
posted by Artw at 11:41 AM on April 27 [9 favorites]

“Our enemy is the Precautionary Principle.”

coughStocktonRushcough
posted by Pouteria at 7:27 PM on April 27 [1 favorite]

Along the way, I also learned he was a major stockholder in Facebook and a member of the civilian board that helped oversee the Central Intelligence Agency.

Hang on.
posted by officer_fred at 5:47 PM on April 28 [4 favorites]