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Paul Graham's latest essay posits that in the tech startup world, nice people finish first. He writes:
For most of history success meant control of scarce resources. One got that by fighting, whether literally in the case of pastoral nomads driving hunter-gatherers into marginal lands, or metaphorically in the case of Gilded Age financiers contending with one another to assemble railroad monopolies. For most of history, success meant success at zero-sum games. And in most of them meanness was not a handicap but probably an advantage.
That is changing. Increasingly the games that matter are not zero-sum. Increasingly you win not by fighting to get control of a scarce resource, but by having new ideas and building new things. (Peter Thiel would point out that successful founders still get rich from controlling monopolies, just monopolies they create rather than ones they capture. And while this is largely true, it means a big change in the sort of person who wins.)
Putting asside that he hasn't really defined what "mean" is, is Graham right? Or is this just further evidence that his techno-utopianism has completely disconnected him from reality?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by aristarchus on Monday December 01 2014, @06:17AM
There was a nice prince of the Russian Royal family, you know, the Tsars, whose name was Peter. He was an anarchist. He wrote a very nice book titled "Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution" The idea was that those of us that cooperated would be more successful (why is it that when people say "successful" they often mean "survival"?) than the Social Darwinist, Ayn Rand, Rand Paul, Ron Paul, Paul Ryan types who go for the Nietzschean obermensch without any of the actual intelligence. You see, individual humans are puny, weak, and like most Randians, totally oblivious of the consequences of their actions. You piss off enough of the community, and the community will come after you, not any particular individual. This means you will lose, because you thought that power was all that mattered, without realizing that power is a possession of communities, not of individuals. If individuals seem to possess power for a time, it is because the community has allowed them to, and that permission can always, and immediately, be revoked.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 01 2014, @06:34AM
So the cock-sucking popular types always succeed no matter what? It doesn't matter what you know, but whose cock you sucked off? Well shit. That sure sounds like mutual aid! Suck off each others cocks, and let the windmill chaser go fuck himself.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday December 01 2014, @06:47AM
I am sorry, but I am pretty sure that, well, I am pretty sure that nobody has ever, . . . have you considered professional help? There is probably someone who cares about you, if only because you are human (though a sorry negative pressure orifice one) who can help you find help. See? This is the point Kropotkin makes, helping helps the survival of the species more than seeking your own personal, um, discharge.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 01 2014, @07:17AM
Don't worry, Charlie, I won't pull away the football this time, honest.
Have you ever seen Charlie Brown kick a football? Lucy is a lying bitch!
Trust is an invitation to betrayal.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday December 01 2014, @07:42AM
And betrayal is more than an invitation to self destruction. I was watching ShÅhei Imamura's "Ballad of Narayama" (which by the way includes some parts about dogs that you probably would enjoy), and noticed that in this subsistence economy, the family that was discovered to be hoarding and not sharing with the rest of the commune was summarily killed and buried in a common grave. If you screw over all of us, we are not only coming after you, we are coming after your family, and your dog, because you seem to have genes that threaten us all. And of course, in this movie, it was not some Reardon Ayn Rand hero that was the hero, but Orin, the old woman who sought to sacrifice herself for the greater good of all, against her son's wishes. If you are conservative, I recommend this movie to you as an epitome of conservative values. (Oh, if you are conservative, I will have to explain that "epitome" means something like a "perfect example". And, you do not have to speak or understand Japanese, but the ability to read subtitles is a must. Call one of your literate liberal friends if you need help.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 01 2014, @08:26AM
Oh no where's the mutual aid? Why would murderers with superior numbers win a fight for resources? That's mean! They should fail because they're mean! No this story needs a rewrite full of pink unicorns and rainbows. The food was poisonous, only the family hoarding it knew how to prepare it safely, their secret died with them, and the commune all died a mean people's death from poisonous food. Now that's an egalitarian utopia. Everybody dies!
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday December 01 2014, @08:34AM
Fool! You know what happens when the murderers with superior numbers win? They are all mean! They will fail, because there is no honor amongst thieves. They turn on each other. I am amazed that someone has to point this out to you, and I can only attribute it to a incompetent upbringing. Yes, I am sorry, but like all those young teenage male misogynists, we are going to have to tell your mom. And get off the dog! (I take it you have not seen the movie, or you would know what a mother's love means.) Oh tempores, Oh Mores! To what depths our ACs have fallen! Is there no hope for humankind?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 01 2014, @05:58PM
Invalid generalizations are the root of all evil.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 02 2014, @02:27AM
Your stuff (the content) is often interesting.
Your formating, however, leaves something to be desired.
If you would put in a paragraph break every 150 words or so, it would be easier to read what you write.
(You must still have young|good eyes.)
.
As for your use of the word "Conservative", Right-Wingers around here haven't wanted to conserve anything since around 1933.
The proper term for the current bunch would be Reactionary. [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [alayham.com]
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 01 2014, @12:07PM
You see, individual humans are puny, weak, and like most Randians, totally oblivious of the consequences of their actions. You piss off enough of the community, and the community will come after you, not any particular individual. This means you will lose, because you thought that power was all that mattered, without realizing that power is a possession of communities, not of individuals.
This is why the anarchists fail. They build up these nice rationalizations completely ignoring actual, observed, historical human behavior. "The Community" will rise up against the oppressors. The tsars ran Russia for 200 years with brutality that makes Syria look enlightened. Nicholas ii only left because he managed to kill off most of his own armies, and alienate the rest, in wars against Japan and Germany. Feudal lords dominated Europe for 600 years. American slavery lasted 300 years, and it wasn't an uprising of the oppressed community that ended it.
Humans are astonishingly tolerant of their own oppression, especially if they have the sense that they can "keep their head down" and make it through. Most humans seem completely uninterested in "success," and satisfy themselves with "survival." Survival and fantasies of rising up to take revenge against the oppressors.
(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Thursday December 04 2014, @06:16AM
I've read many good AC comments on this page and the parent is one of them.
Bite harder Ouroboros, bite! tails.boum.org/ linux USB CD secure desktop IRC *crypt tor (not endorsements (XKeyScore))
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 01 2014, @02:58PM
> You piss off enough of the community, and the community will come after you, not any particular individual.
I think you misunderstand Ayn Rand. Much of what she wrote was an indictment of the power of community to bully the individual. She was not in favor of personal or political power over the individual.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 02 2014, @02:42AM
Obligatory xkcd.
http://m.xkcd.com/1049/ [xkcd.com]
If you have tootips enabled, hover over the image.
If not, right-click and select Properties.
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Wednesday December 03 2014, @12:28AM
I think you misunderstand Ayn Rand. Much of what she wrote was an indictment of the power of community to bully the individual.
I think you misunderstand how much I understand Ayn Rand. Of course she would say things like that, because Greenspan!! Never read any of her books, didn't see the movie (not the only one, evidently), and do not plan to because, to put it bluntly, there is not much to understand there.