Need to invest in fixing the audio. It’s hard to follow along. I have to blast the volume to hear her and then Antonio jumps on and blows out my ear drum
?!? So she says David Sachs doesn’t know what he wants and then at then at the slightest push back takes everything back and second guesses if she is too hard on him. I am no David sachs fan but how is this top tier ?
I gotta say, I agree with Erik’s skepticism about the institutionalist/anti-institutionalist framing. I think the anti-institutionalist framing is a well packaged narrative and it clearly describes some phenomena (albeit cherry-picked). However, the anti-institutionalists don’t seem to provide cogent, compelling alternatives outside their tech verticals. For example, university accreditation in the US is privatized so any anti-institutionalists could make a set of competing accreditation standards and build a wholly new set of university-like institutions. And yet, they don’t which I suspect comes from their belief in the university system as it stands, just not the way it’s run or who runs them. More broadly though, what’s a falsifiable claim we could use to determine whether someone is an institutionalist or an anti-institutionalist? That way we can just look at the requirements and see if they’re self referential.
Establishing a new credential system would betray the whole anti-institutional philosophy of the likes of Elon Musk and Peter Thiel. They don't just want to see the end of contemporary institutions, they work to disrupt and dismantle the very notion of institutions themselves. Unless you count Silicon Valley Through the Thiel Fellowships, Thiel invests in research and innovation outside the nexus of traditional institutions. I have worked in research at the top ranked university in my country and I have a lot of sympathy for this approach. Academia is broken. The current imperatives and incentives of academia is focused on the reproduction and self-perpetuation of the institution and the personal career ambitions of academics and the administration not the actual mission of education and the pursuit of knowledge as originally intended. Credentialism is really one of the aspects of modern academia that is distorting, perverting, and degrading the purpose of these institutions. It really serves no meaningful purpose besides social sorting. www.gawker.com/5829806/facebook-billionaire-splits-from-his-libertine-pinup
@@hemiedwards217 I see your point, but I disagree that people like Elon and Thiel "work to disrupt and dismantle the very notion of institutions themselves." Thiel claims that every company should strive to become a monopoly which implies that every company strives to become an institution. Elon bought Twitter with the goal of making it an institution in his own vision. Perhaps we're operating under different definitions of institution. I'm not sure what a falsifiable definition would entail, but institutions to me are organizations that people cannot imagine the world without. Thiel and Elon definitely strive to make organizations the world cannot live without. With respect to your comment about academia, I'll have to take your word for it. I'm actually about to start a full-time job Ivy League school (in a lab, not administrative) so perhaps I'll have more to say on this later. However, I will say that academia is still feels the most upstream in STEM. The attention mechanism in "Attention is All You Need" was created in academic ML labs, career academics in Korea might've discovered room-temperature super-conductors, mRNA technology was pioneered in academic labs, etc. It's exemplary of the power law. Most academic institutions/labs can be shit, but the few bright spots more than make up for the shitty ones. Of course it could be better, but almost no one else is on that end of the risk-return curve.
@@darveshgorhe I have been thinking on your argument since I saw you had responded. In my view, the likes of Thiel and Musk don't consider their companies to be institutions separate from themselves, but rather an extension of their own will. Even though they may be minority stockholders in an absolute sense, through the dual-class share structure, they still remain controlling shareholders who retain decision-making power. I view institutions as a distinct entity with it's own goals, agenda, and agency that's separate from any person or even people. Both Thiel and Elon thoroughly imbue their own distinct beliefs, motivations, and very identity throughout the firms they created. With Thiel it extends as far as naming conventions of the companies that he founded, which are all drawn from the world built by J.R..R Tolkien..
@@darveshgorhe I think these great breakthroughs you cite are the exception rather than the rule. Just recently the President of Stanford University was forced to resign due to revelations from by the freshman editor of the university newspaper revealed that he was responsible for falsifying research data when he was a researcher. There is a crisis of replicability and reproducibility in science, precisely, because of the career pressures that career driven academics are under to secure tenure. There are fewer and fewer tenure positions and competition for the dwindling spots is getting progressively more fierce. I actually worked in an AI Lab though as a lowly RA. In my lab principal researchers were responsible for writing funding applications and we all had to pitch in. Since my contract at the Lab ended I've been told that they've been struggling, because their funding stream came to an end, precisely at a time when AI is foremost in the public consciousness. I suspect that it's because every department at the university wants to jump on the AI bandwagon and everyone who fighting over a scarce funding pool. Here in New Zealand our universities rely on student enrolments and government subsidies per local student, and student numbers have dropped since Covid and the global cost of living crisis.
I love the nostalgia for SF in the 2013-14 era. Instagram was just a handful a guys in South Park, Uber was scaling. SF was indeed trying to be cooler than the Valley
Antonio delivers such heavy blows by being oh so brief. He basically said a portion of the population won't exist because of not being able to compete in modern capitalism.
46:50 Antonio again explains The Problem: techno-capitalism alone cannot fulfill the promises of liberal democracy, because liberal democracy is rooted in premodern religion while techno-capitalism is rooted in secular modernity. 1:07:07 Nadia asks a great question: from whence cometh legitimate authority? Erik and Dan articulated well on this episode. Kudos, gents! 👋
@@segasys1339 46:50 bro. What Eric Weinstein calls EGOs are a design flaw within the system. The system itself (liberal democracy) is an expression of ideas -- sanctity of life, individual rights, justice, opportunity, etc. -- which are religious in nature. Bounded by this "religion" coded into law, capitalism delivers on the system's promises, albeit gradually and unequally. Unbounded, it does not and cannot.
@@Stashley78 OK point taken, but again, neither system can provide exponential economic growth on a linear material substrate that stands on the precipice of the end of cheap oil. Cool stamps bruh.
@@Stashley78 But at the same time, liberal democracy has granted freedoms that premodern religion never would have. So it's half an heir to and half a refutation of what came before it. Of course, that depends on how much one views the feudal/hierarchical aspects of religion (right of kings, etc) as part of the religion itself vs the society that it inhabited.
48:20 I disagree , self made elites was always a thing. In the past it was often achieved through Martial competence. Look at Napoleon. With the Industrial Revolution it shifted away from Martial capabilities to Entrepreneurship / industriousness
I don't know what happened to my comments on the video where I shared my own perspective and observations on your discussion, particularly relating to the politics of the likes of Musk and Thiel. I would be hilariously ironic that I have been censored given your stance on woke culture and the propensity of silencing and censorship in the liberal media and mainstream social media platforms. I was respectful and directly addressed the subject matter of the conversation, so it could only be due to someone not liking what I said or the sources that I drew my information from.
Send your guest a microphone 🎙️
Yeah like that would like be a like a good idea, like you know would I mean like?
And a camera
@@josephfriedman1305 totally like agree, like like like like like. How many times does like need to be said. She’s a Writooor. Mid AF.
Need to invest in fixing the audio. It’s hard to follow along. I have to blast the volume to hear her and then Antonio jumps on and blows out my ear drum
Also the cameras. Some are crystal clear 1080p, others are blurry.
This is an amazing show talking about really deep topics that enough of the “techies” don’t talk about. Great episode
I think Eric standing up for his point was great, absolutely loved it. Nadia top tier guest. Would love to see her back more often.
?!? So she says David Sachs doesn’t know what he wants and then at then at the slightest push back takes everything back and second guesses if she is too hard on him. I am no David sachs fan but how is this top tier ?
I agree with you about Erik. 😅
1:11:00 - Great. That's the whole spirit of this show. The smart conversation that open our eyes
I gotta say, I agree with Erik’s skepticism about the institutionalist/anti-institutionalist framing. I think the anti-institutionalist framing is a well packaged narrative and it clearly describes some phenomena (albeit cherry-picked). However, the anti-institutionalists don’t seem to provide cogent, compelling alternatives outside their tech verticals. For example, university accreditation in the US is privatized so any anti-institutionalists could make a set of competing accreditation standards and build a wholly new set of university-like institutions. And yet, they don’t which I suspect comes from their belief in the university system as it stands, just not the way it’s run or who runs them. More broadly though, what’s a falsifiable claim we could use to determine whether someone is an institutionalist or an anti-institutionalist? That way we can just look at the requirements and see if they’re self referential.
Establishing a new credential system would betray the whole anti-institutional philosophy of the likes of Elon Musk and Peter Thiel. They don't just want to see the end of contemporary institutions, they work to disrupt and dismantle the very notion of institutions themselves. Unless you count Silicon Valley Through the Thiel Fellowships, Thiel invests in research and innovation outside the nexus of traditional institutions. I have worked in research at the top ranked university in my country and I have a lot of sympathy for this approach. Academia is broken. The current imperatives and incentives of academia is focused on the reproduction and self-perpetuation of the institution and the personal career ambitions of academics and the administration not the actual mission of education and the pursuit of knowledge as originally intended. Credentialism is really one of the aspects of modern academia that is distorting, perverting, and degrading the purpose of these institutions. It really serves no meaningful purpose besides social sorting.
www.gawker.com/5829806/facebook-billionaire-splits-from-his-libertine-pinup
@@hemiedwards217 I see your point, but I disagree that people like Elon and Thiel "work to disrupt and dismantle the very notion of institutions themselves." Thiel claims that every company should strive to become a monopoly which implies that every company strives to become an institution. Elon bought Twitter with the goal of making it an institution in his own vision. Perhaps we're operating under different definitions of institution. I'm not sure what a falsifiable definition would entail, but institutions to me are organizations that people cannot imagine the world without. Thiel and Elon definitely strive to make organizations the world cannot live without.
With respect to your comment about academia, I'll have to take your word for it. I'm actually about to start a full-time job Ivy League school (in a lab, not administrative) so perhaps I'll have more to say on this later. However, I will say that academia is still feels the most upstream in STEM. The attention mechanism in "Attention is All You Need" was created in academic ML labs, career academics in Korea might've discovered room-temperature super-conductors, mRNA technology was pioneered in academic labs, etc. It's exemplary of the power law. Most academic institutions/labs can be shit, but the few bright spots more than make up for the shitty ones. Of course it could be better, but almost no one else is on that end of the risk-return curve.
@@darveshgorhe I have been thinking on your argument since I saw you had responded. In my view, the likes of Thiel and Musk don't consider their companies to be institutions separate from themselves, but rather an extension of their own will. Even though they may be minority stockholders in an absolute sense, through the dual-class share structure, they still remain controlling shareholders who retain decision-making power. I view institutions as a distinct entity with it's own goals, agenda, and agency that's separate from any person or even people. Both Thiel and Elon thoroughly imbue their own distinct beliefs, motivations, and very identity throughout the firms they created. With Thiel it extends as far as naming conventions of the companies that he founded, which are all drawn from the world built by J.R..R Tolkien..
@@darveshgorhe I think these great breakthroughs you cite are the exception rather than the rule. Just recently the President of Stanford University was forced to resign due to revelations from by the freshman editor of the university newspaper revealed that he was responsible for falsifying research data when he was a researcher. There is a crisis of replicability and reproducibility in science, precisely, because of the career pressures that career driven academics are under to secure tenure. There are fewer and fewer tenure positions and competition for the dwindling spots is getting progressively more fierce.
I actually worked in an AI Lab though as a lowly RA. In my lab principal researchers were responsible for writing funding applications and we all had to pitch in. Since my contract at the Lab ended I've been told that they've been struggling, because their funding stream came to an end, precisely at a time when AI is foremost in the public consciousness. I suspect that it's because every department at the university wants to jump on the AI bandwagon and everyone who fighting over a scarce funding pool. Here in New Zealand our universities rely on student enrolments and government subsidies per local student, and student numbers have dropped since Covid and the global cost of living crisis.
this is probably the best episode so far.
Anti-status, mannerism deconstructive instincts are a must for keeping or making tech a force for democracy.
Brought to you by "Like", the word of the day.
Driving me up the wall. What’s the like counter here ?
I love the nostalgia for SF in the 2013-14 era. Instagram was just a handful a guys in South Park, Uber was scaling. SF was indeed trying to be cooler than the Valley
Loved Eric getting into the mix with his views as well
One of the best episodes to date
what's up with the re-loads? happened w/ another ep too.
Antonio delivers such heavy blows by being oh so brief. He basically said a portion of the population won't exist because of not being able to compete in modern capitalism.
Timestamp?
@@Stashley78 47:40
@@shrek22 Thank you
That's a great point. Where's the hostbitals tech Bros? What have you done for your city?
Appreciate the talk.
46:50 Antonio again explains The Problem: techno-capitalism alone cannot fulfill the promises of liberal democracy, because liberal democracy is rooted in premodern religion while techno-capitalism is rooted in secular modernity.
1:07:07 Nadia asks a great question: from whence cometh legitimate authority?
Erik and Dan articulated well on this episode. Kudos, gents! 👋
Timestamp your argument bro and the root problem is embedded growth obligations, not the ontology of the system, though that’s an issue.
@@segasys1339 46:50 bro. What Eric Weinstein calls EGOs are a design flaw within the system. The system itself (liberal democracy) is an expression of ideas -- sanctity of life, individual rights, justice, opportunity, etc. -- which are religious in nature. Bounded by this "religion" coded into law, capitalism delivers on the system's promises, albeit gradually and unequally. Unbounded, it does not and cannot.
@@Stashley78 OK point taken, but again, neither system can provide exponential economic growth on a linear material substrate that stands on the precipice of the end of cheap oil. Cool stamps bruh.
@@Stashley78 But at the same time, liberal democracy has granted freedoms that premodern religion never would have. So it's half an heir to and half a refutation of what came before it. Of course, that depends on how much one views the feudal/hierarchical aspects of religion (right of kings, etc) as part of the religion itself vs the society that it inhabited.
@@segasys1339 communism will work this time?
Much better audio quality this time. Audio > video
48:20 I disagree , self made elites was always a thing. In the past it was often achieved through Martial competence. Look at Napoleon. With the Industrial Revolution it shifted away from Martial capabilities to Entrepreneurship / industriousness
I don't know what happened to my comments on the video where I shared my own perspective and observations on your discussion, particularly relating to the politics of the likes of Musk and Thiel. I would be hilariously ironic that I have been censored given your stance on woke culture and the propensity of silencing and censorship in the liberal media and mainstream social media platforms. I was respectful and directly addressed the subject matter of the conversation, so it could only be due to someone not liking what I said or the sources that I drew my information from.
horrible audio for nadia - muddy. kills the vibe
Blood diamond for the win.
Damn, Romero looking down bad this week
Thanks for interviewing yet another word shell dispenser
Can you buy proper camera’s? It’s nicer to watch. AGM’s camera looks like a 2014 instagram filter
She states “she’s a very happy capitalist. “
Better AUDIO. YOU LOSE SUBS EVERY EPISODE YOU DONT UPGRADE MICS. SEND ONE TO YOUR GUEST.
And cameras for crisp clear high quality in 1080!