The problems of "meritocracy"

[ygolo]

One by one heroes, crumble. I know I won't gain much favor on this site by saying that I was once an Elon Musk fan and a Ray Dalio fan.

I always knew our heroes were flawed versions of the ideals shown.

I also know that our modern world pushes people into maintenance of image to a level that's pathological.

But some of this, if true, would be quite beyond the pale. I'm not in finance, but considering that it's essentially people in finance saying this, I personally give it some credence:

I wonder if I would turn into a litigious, paranoid individual if I ran a hedge fund.

The Fundamental Attribution Error can be made in any number of directions.

If I see the political-economy as nothing but the flow of money and power, what guides my pursuit or use of these things?

I want life to be better for all people. This isn't a weird desire, and I feel like most people want that too.

But, if you have to play some power game just to survive, and that game is rigged by those in power already to keep them there, what's the way out?

 

[The Cat]

Out of curiosity what ever struck you as impressive about elon musk? Ive never seen the appeal and its always fascinating to me some people see him as anything more than what he's always been?

 

[ceecee]

One by one heroes, crumble. I know I won't gain much favor on this site by saying that I was once an Elon Musk fan and a Ray Dalio fan.

I always knew our heroes were flawed versions of the ideals shown.

I also know that our modern world pushes people into maintenance of image to a level that's pathological.

But some of this, if true, would be quite beyond the pale. I'm not in finance, but considering that it's essentially people in finance saying this, I personally give it some credence:

I wonder if I would turn into a litigious, paranoid individual if I ran a hedge fund.

The Fundamental Attribution Error can be made in any number of directions.

If I see the political-economy as nothing but the flow of money and power, what guides my pursuit or use of these things?

I want life to be better for all people. This isn't a weird desire, and I feel like most people want that too.

But, if you have to play some power game just to survive, and that game is rigged by those in power already to keep them there, what's the way out?

If you were wealthy, you would be paranoid. Always afraid that *someone* was going to take it from you. Even for people that weren't always wealthy, they still develop this irrational thought process on money and others. I was married to someone from a wealthy family just like this and as I got to know other people that were also wealthy, I found similar issues. And many of them do not belong in society at all but that's another conversation.

I started reading Ray Dalio's book - Principals - awhile back. I put it down and never opened it again after making it to about the second chapter. Obviously things that have come to light about him and his business more recently, make sense.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Out of curiosity what ever struck you as impressive about elon musk? Ive never seen the appeal and its always fascinating to me some people see him as anything more than what he's always been?

Probably the same thing I did. He was "the man who was going to bring us the future", and recalled the more optimistic attitude of the 80s and 90s. It was like those cars with a gull-wing doors driving through a cyan and magenta neon landscape while synth music played.

And then I saw this bullshit with Twitter and I learned better.

 

[The Cat]

Probably the same thing I did. He was "the man who was going to bring us the future", and recalled the more optimistic attitude of the 80s and 90s. It was like those cars with a gull-wing doors driving through a cyan and magenta neon landscape while synth music played.

And then I saw this bullshit with Twitter and I learned better.

No such man exists. Not in the singular. Never has. The future has always been coming hard and fast regardless of what any one man has to say on the subject. IDK Ive never felt such things with regard to individuals. Musk has always struck me like a "beautiful" Tik Tok chef, who gets people to smile and compliment them while they eat their hot garbage; a regular person would have been checked long before they decided that everyone needed to try their fried skittle steaks. But thank you for sharing your perspective on it.

 

[ygolo]

Out of curiosity what ever struck you as impressive about elon musk? Ive never seen the appeal and its always fascinating to me some people see him as anything more than what he's always been?

Firstly, he is someone who is open about being bipolar and on the autism spectrum. This is something that makes me feel a certain kinship. If someone like me can be that successful, then just getting by with these conditions seems a lot more possible.

He is ambitious at a level that few people are willing to be. A reusable rocket system, whatever else you want to say about him, probably wouldn't exist at this point in time if it wasn't for his ambition. Certainly, there are loads of others who should share in the credit. But the naked ambition brings along with it funding and resources that speeds the timeline for results.

I still admire that about him, frankly. If he offloaded all his other companies and decided just to be chief engineer at SpaceX, I think it is possible I could admire him more generally too.

Also, this "warm-body" theory of history and technology is the other extreme of unrealism with the "great man" theory being the main myth(which Musk cultivates).

The process has actually been studied extensively.

https://www.amazon.com/Creativity-Science-Chance-Genius-Zeitgeist/dp/052154369X

There is such a thing as an idea whose time has come. Largely, these times come about from collaborations and correspondence with a group of people.

However, there are plenty of problems people have worked on for very long times without progress till someone comes along and solves it.

There are also more problems that few people even care about until someone comes along and makes people care about them.

The second part has been Elon Musk's role. He cultivates the reputation to be able to do that. It has always been largely marketing. But it was marketing that used to work pretty well for the parties involved.

I feel he's been "red-pilled" recently. Remember, this is the guy who openly declared himself a socialist, and was at one time, chummy with the Obama administration.

A lot of people have been red-pilled along with him. We are rationalizing animals not rational ones. I've seen so many people flip political alliances that I never thought would. It's because the lock-downs, in particular, derailed their careers or shattered their aspirations. Then they assign blame, and then assign reasons.

If people can't see that a lot of it comes from pain and not explicit malice, I think the Democrats in the USA will lose the next election. The consequences of this happening are horrifying given who it is that will take the seat of power.

 

[The Cat]

Fascinating, but Ive never seen any evidence of him being any different than he is now at any point. Except now more people are seeing through the illusion of cover they used to give him, and withhold that, so more people see what was always the case. I wish you luck getting through it.

 

[ygolo]

Sam Altman was fired today.

Also, Greg Brockman quit.

For not being "consistently candid in his communication".

There are things about him, I didn't know. My wife doesn't really follow tech even said she "thought he was a good guy".

Edit:
This is a lot less of a famous person:

Yet another former Silicon Valley darling is convicted of investor fraud

Roughly six months after Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes headed to jail for four counts of wire fraud, and just two weeks after Sam Bankman-Fried was found guilty on seven counts of fraud and conspiracy for his role in the collapse of his crypto exchange, another former high-flier in the...

finance.yahoo.com

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

Firstly, he is someone who is open about being bipolar and on the autism spectrum. This is something that makes me feel a certain kinship. If someone like me can be that successful, then just getting by with these conditions seems a lot more possible.

He is ambitious at a level that few people are willing to be. A reusable rocket system, whatever else you want to say about him, probably wouldn't exist at this point in time if it wasn't for his ambition. Certainly, there are loads of others who should share in the credit. But the naked ambition brings along with it funding and resources that speeds the timeline for results.

I still admire that about him, frankly. If he offloaded all his other companies and decided just to be chief engineer at SpaceX, I think it is possible I could admire him more generally too.

Also, this "warm-body" theory of history and technology is the other extreme of unrealism with the "great man" theory being the main myth(which Musk cultivates).

The process has actually been studied extensively.

https://www.amazon.com/Creativity-Science-Chance-Genius-Zeitgeist/dp/052154369X

There is such a thing as an idea whose time has come. Largely, these times come about from collaborations and correspondence with a group of people.

However, there are plenty of problems people have worked on for very long times without progress till someone comes along and solves it.

There are also more problems that few people even care about until someone comes along and makes people care about them.

The second part has been Elon Musk's role. He cultivates the reputation to be able to do that. It has always been largely marketing. But it was marketing that used to work pretty well for the parties involved.

I feel he's been "red-pilled" recently. Remember, this is the guy who openly declared himself a socialist, and was at one time, chummy with the Obama administration.

A lot of people have been red-pilled along with him. We are rationalizing animals not rational ones. I've seen so many people flip political alliances that I never thought would. It's because the lock-downs, in particular, derailed their careers or shattered their aspirations. Then they assign blame, and then assign reasons.

If people can't see that a lot of it comes from pain and not explicit malice, I think the Democrats in the USA will lose the next election. The consequences of this happening are horrifying given who it is that will take the seat of power.

Rogan, maybe. (Regarding the stuff about being a redpilled former left leaner). Not sure about Musk or if he’s just showing more of what have always been his true colors

 

[ygolo]

Sam Altman was fired today.

Also, Greg Brockman quit.

For not being "consistently candid in his communication".

There are things about him, I didn't know. My wife doesn't really follow tech even said she "thought he was a good guy".

Edit:
This is a lot less of a famous person:

Yet another former Silicon Valley darling is convicted of investor fraud

Roughly six months after Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes headed to jail for four counts of wire fraud, and just two weeks after Sam Bankman-Fried was found guilty on seven counts of fraud and conspiracy for his role in the collapse of his crypto exchange, another former high-flier in the...

finance.yahoo.com

Now the OpenAI board wants Sam Altman back.

I think at the end of all this there will be two entities where once there was one.

One entity backing Sam Altman. Another entity backing Ilya Sutskever.

 

[ygolo]

The "craziness" that showed the CEO of a large corporation had less power than the employees (and board) may actually be a good thing, maybe?

Imagine if, in every corporation, the employees held more power than the board who held more power than the CEO and the top investors.

Since it seems Sam Altman had the overwhelming support of his employees, as messy and dramatic as the whole affair was, it showed to me, at least, that we didn't have to think of OpenAI as a subsidiary of Microsoft.

Though, I think we may have to start thinking of OpenAI like that now.

 

[The Cat]

Ouroboros
All of this has happened before and all of it will happen again.

 

[ygolo]

There's a lot of speculation in the video, but we have no other options.

Imagine further that Microsoft owns this technology completely?

If anything, this gets us closer to "sky net" than an open source version getting there.

In addition, the value of whater is being built will be even more locked up in the shareholder class.

 

[ygolo]

More speculation.

I think signing on wholesale to a philosophy weather it is Effective Altruism or Effective Accelerationism is a problem.

Nevevetheless, right now, I will admit I am firmly in the E-acc camp of that split.

I just want to make sure the shareholders of only a small group are the only ones who benefit.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I think signing on wholesale to a philosophy weather it is Effective Altruism or Effective Accelerationism is a problem.

How can their be effective accelerationism? Apologies if you already posted it here. I just associate accelerationism with people who want things to get worse because they assume that at some point, that will cause people to become upset enough that everyone will force things to get better. I'm extremely skeptical of that.

 

[ygolo]

How can their be effective accelerationism? Apologies if you already posted it here. I just associate accelerationism with people who want things to get worse because they assume that at some point, that will cause people to become upset enough that everyone will force things to get better. I'm extremely skeptical of that.

Like I said, both ideologies are problematic.

Effective Acceleration is not about "worse," at least I don't think so.

I read it as life as a process. The second law of thermodynamics in strongly dissipative complex systems leads to increasing complexity and number ways to dissipate energy. It's messy, chaotic, hard to anticipate, and also ultimately what powers life.

Every spontaneous biochemical process decreases free energy, (as does any spontaneous chemical process). In order to drive processes that increase free energy, you'll need processes that decrease it even more.

Being careful with the state variables used, you can get a similar statement for every irreversible physical process. The kinetics of reversible processes tend to be incredibly slow.

Effective Accelerationism seems to embrace this as a fact and wants to let this chaos reign. The chaos is seen as ultimately life-affirming.

To see some of the effects in practical terms for economics, there's an old book called The Mystery of Capital, that came to mind when I read their manifesto.

To be clear, I am not an effective accelerationist. But compared to some of the stuff coming out of the Effective Altruism movement (like the fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried) I would have to choose e/acc over EA. A lot of it has to do with how they encode judgement under extreme uncertainty. This would make for another great philosophical discussion.

But, here, I wanted to highlight the problems of "merit" in very real terms.

We can see quite clearly, how who has the power determines who defines "merit."

I happen to agree a lot with how things shook out (though not everything), but the drama highlighted in real terms how power determines "merit".

 

[The Cat]

How can their be effective accelerationism? Apologies if you already posted it here. I just associate accelerationism with people who want things to get worse because they assume that at some point, that will cause people to become upset enough that everyone will force things to get better. I'm extremely skeptical of that.

As well you should be. Accelerationism is never helpful or altruistic ime, its about giving yourself an excuse to be the worst version of yourself while pretending to yourself you're a better person than you really are.

 

[ygolo]

As well you should be. Accelerationism is never helpful or altruistic ime, its about giving yourself an excuse to be the worst version of yourself while pretending to yourself you're a better person than you really are.

We're talking about a philosophy that seems very ill defined.

I chose a random manifesto; the thrust seemed some what in line with what I understood.

But there's plenty of evidence that people who sign e/acc on their social media don't really agree on their own movements ideals.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1682469794266722305

What do you think accelerationists believe and why that means that they can never be altruistic?

People are not usually villains in their own minds. That takes, imo, a self-loathing rarely seen outside of severe mental illness.

Put in other terms, how would you convince an accelerationist that their ideals are not altruistic?

I'm asking because the Democrats in the US are fighting to not vote in a candidate that could end all meaningful elections from now on.

If the Democrats lose young people of color from it's electorate, they will have a hard time winning the next election. A loss would be a catastrophe.

Want to have a good way to turn 0th, and 1st generation immigrants away from their party in droves? become the anti-tech party.

It was the Democrats' election to lose, and they found the perfect losing formula.
1) Be anti-affordable housing and pro-NIMBY.
2) Favor media over tech in their constituency (you need to compare sheer numbers of swing or stay-at-home voters)

 

[The Cat]

 

[ceecee]

Firstly, he is someone who is open about being bipolar and on the autism spectrum. This is something that makes me feel a certain kinship. If someone like me can be that successful, then just getting by with these conditions seems a lot more possible.

He is ambitious at a level that few people are willing to be. A reusable rocket system, whatever else you want to say about him, probably wouldn't exist at this point in time if it wasn't for his ambition. Certainly, there are loads of others who should share in the credit. But the naked ambition brings along with it funding and resources that speeds the timeline for results.

I still admire that about him, frankly. If he offloaded all his other companies and decided just to be chief engineer at SpaceX, I think it is possible I could admire him more generally too.

Also, this "warm-body" theory of history and technology is the other extreme of unrealism with the "great man" theory being the main myth(which Musk cultivates).

The process has actually been studied extensively.

https://www.amazon.com/Creativity-Science-Chance-Genius-Zeitgeist/dp/052154369X

There is such a thing as an idea whose time has come. Largely, these times come about from collaborations and correspondence with a group of people.

However, there are plenty of problems people have worked on for very long times without progress till someone comes along and solves it.

There are also more problems that few people even care about until someone comes along and makes people care about them.

The second part has been Elon Musk's role. He cultivates the reputation to be able to do that. It has always been largely marketing. But it was marketing that used to work pretty well for the parties involved.

I feel he's been "red-pilled" recently. Remember, this is the guy who openly declared himself a socialist, and was at one time, chummy with the Obama administration.

A lot of people have been red-pilled along with him. We are rationalizing animals not rational ones. I've seen so many people flip political alliances that I never thought would. It's because the lock-downs, in particular, derailed their careers or shattered their aspirations. Then they assign blame, and then assign reasons.

If people can't see that a lot of it comes from pain and not explicit malice, I think the Democrats in the USA will lose the next election. The consequences of this happening are horrifying given who it is that will take the seat of power.

Guy is also a eugenicist and sex selective IVF user. His first wife also has some interesting things to say and I think those years say far more about him than the present. The article below is 10 years old.

"I Was a Starter Wife": Inside America's Messiest Divorce

In the middle of her headline-grabbing divorce settlement from Elon Musk, Justine Musk reveals the truth about her marriage.

www.marieclaire.com

I want the leashes put on US business' by the US government to be short and tight. Especially the ones in business with the US govt (SpaceX, Starlink...) Don't care who got red pilled and frankly I'm tired of hearing only certain people getting away with crying how the lockdowns derailed <insert thing>. Lots of people got derailed and lots got dead and anyone not white collar in certain industries are simply told to fuck off.

One thing I have learned for certain, people don't really flip political alliances, unless they are already politicians. A "moderate centrist" that goes further right, for example, was already right. Someone like me who moves much further left was already left to begin with. Someone that claims to be fiscally conservative, is just conservative. I would think people may have learned a lot from watching the last 8 years or so. Apparently not. Get ready for all your rights, self-evident or otherwise, to be chiseled away. Especially if you aren't white, male and preferably Christian (although far right wing Zionists can apply until they go back to hating the Jews again, as all fascists do.)