Comment by pulkitsh1234
11 hours ago
"A man who wishes to make a profession of goodness in everything must necessarily come to grief among so many who are not good. Therefore, it is necessary for a prince, who wishes to maintain himself, to learn how not to be good, and to use this knowledge and not use it, according to the necessity of the case" -- Niccolo Machiavelli
It's a self fulfilling prophecy... while us commoners, or so called "activists" or ethicists ponder and debate on culture, morality, law and ethics... The powerful are just living an alternate life devoid of all these moral qualms and are have clearly distanced themselves from the mundane, have distanced themselves from the guilt or any kind of accountability. In their eyes, they are just capitalising on the human tendencies which have been always existed (the seven deadly sins), so the "absolve" themselves pretty quickly by saying that they are not creating new "sins", just leveraging, or allowing the people to go along those sins.
They think, why should they be the ones to not capitalise on them, if someone else might and will. It's a coordination problem of our society. No one wants to let go. They want to hedge, they invest in ozempic and invest in fast-food at the same time, there is no moral compass guiding them. It's for us commoners to debate and think about.
Setting ethical and moral questions aside for a second:
Never pay a human again
Every time I see stuff like this (along with other more serious shenanigans like wage theft, union busting etc) I only ask myself the same question again and again - what is the end game here? If much of the population is too poor to buy anything, too sick to consume much etc - who is left to buy anything at all? If all their power comes from their wealth and if that wealth is threatened because consumers are too poor to buy, then what happens? Someone has to buy for the system to work, no?
> If much of the population is too poor to buy anything, too sick to consume much etc - who is left to buy anything at all?
No one. That's the idea.
A low-population paradise. Venice without its pesky people to mess with Bezos's wedding. Bora Bora without the peasants.
There's been plenty of good sci-fi written about this, but surely they know that any any display of power is meaningless without someone to have power over? The wedding in Venice only means anything because people live in Venice and you're still able to "take over". Any "paradise" built like this will never be paradise, it'll be just chasing the next extreme until there's nowhere left to go
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We’re already heading into a certain demographics crisis. It’s not only about the pyramidal system that retirement is but also about who will be your nurse when you’re old, make your car, be your doctor, etc if there aren’t enough people anymore? Every developed country is well below replacement rate with no real plans from the powers that be to address it because it’s so far in the future that it’s the next best guy problem (30 years horizon)
Eh, you see too many of these guys complaining about declining populations for this to be a thing.
I don't think you need Machiavellianism to explain their actions. These people have everything they could need, but death comes for all of us and they aren't getting any younger.
Purely speculating, but if you had everything in the world (except time) wouldn't you put everything you have into building a future with a 10% chance of living as long as you wanted? What would you sacrifice for that?
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And who is going to maintain this low-population paradise of elites, if there is no one left but the elites ?
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how's Bezos going to fund his wedding if there's no population of proles buying from Amazon, nor anyone putting their retirement into a fund that buys Amazon stock? does he just plan to use force rather than money at this point?
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There is no end game. Short term profits are by definition not a long-term view. The family's future will be secured if I invest in plastics and robot payment mechanisms now. I won't live forever, so I won't get to rest under the shade of the trees I plant for my family. With money and influence, they will be best set up to conquer whatever comes in the future.
Wasn't much of the population too poor to buy most stuff, back in the day? It seems to have worked out fine for, say, European Aristocrats c. 1400s-1700s.
The people who advocate this expect to be part of a very small group of humans who own literally everything, so they don’t share your concern.
> Someone has to buy for the system to work, no?
Well yeah, but not human consumers. Businesses can buy from other businesses and that can be the only surviving part of the economy. Even further, maybe those businesses are fully autonomous. There's no reason this wouldn't work, as far as I can tell.
The economy would be much more focused. It would be mostly energy, materials, and tech.
Exactly, it seems many if not most people are trapped in an 1800s ideal of how an economy works. "You do work, you get money, you spend money, you do work" In fact the entire "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it." statement is in full force here.
It's impossible for most people to envision an economy without them even though there are economic systems that will work without them.
I really wish that logic held.
Automation doesn’t need customers.
Automation just needs more automation, and access to energy and natural resources, both of which don’t require money if you have enough automation.
Ultimately, Money is only used to pay wages, nothing else… so no wages to pay, no money required. In the post employment scenario, money is not needed by industry. You don’t pay the forest to cut the trees, you don’t pay the dirt to mine the iron, and you don’t pay the sun to grow the crops.
Capital doesn’t need to produce goods for customers. It just needs coercive power to gain and maintain access to resources and energy. You know what gives you that power? An army of 20 million self manufacturering robots.
It’s the grey-goo scenario, only with a few humans nominally involved, and on a macroscopic scale instead of nanotechnology.
Humans are the main impediment to unchecked capital growth. Soon, that impediment could be largely removed. So long, and thanks for all the fish.
With automation, there is no need for the rest of us to exist in order to support the capital class. Ai enabled robotics won’t just eliminate employment, it will make money (and increasingly, people) irrelevant to capitalism. The new capital is automation capability, and you only need energy and raw materials beyond that.
You don’t buy a yacht, you build a one-yacht factory and build it from raw materials. With a few million self manufacturing robots, you don’t need money to have enormous wealth and power.
When they want money, they will mine it. Gold, bitcoin, whatever doesn’t involve hiring people. The rest of us outside the gilded walls will be increasingly irrelevant scavenging over the scraps and trying to maintain some kind of agrarian society since manufacturing will be largely pointless.
If a small group of people fully automated all production and controlled it, they wouldn't need anyone to buy anything anymore; they could live off of it indefinitely and produce whatever they needed to in order to protect themselves from the masses. I don't see any obvious reason why this outcome would be prevented by a purely capitalist economic system (assuming that this sort of automation ends up being possible), which in my mind is an argument in favor of some sort of upper bound for wealth consolidation.
I think the end game is to only do interesting things and automate all the mundane parts of life.
We used to have to wash clothes by hand and it took all day. Now we have a washing machine and it takes 2 hours.
People used to spend time washing clothes and now we have more members of the household working.
I think the future from scifi that I remember (eg, Star Trek) is that humans are just being creative. Usually some sort of post scarcity where there’s no more need for money.
If everything is automated away, you won't see a Star Trek style post scarcity utopia because everyone on UBI will have lost basically all of their political power. They aren't employable so they can't threaten to withhold their labor in order to get any sort of leverage. The most they could do is withhold consumption to some extent. If you have a dependent population being managed by the same state that's already allowed wealth to accumulate to its current levels, what incentive does the state have to do any more than the bare minimum?
You actually believe this is what these people want to create?
Why then are they directly attacking many forms of creativity (writing, photography, art, filmmaking, even programming)?
Why do they resist all forms of social programs if these technologies are supposed to create untold wealth (ala Star Trek)?
That's not what the tech bros are saying the end goal is.
> what is the end game here?
They don't have one, outside of trying to hoard as much wealth and power as possible if it all falls apart. I firmly believe that greed is an addiction just like any other.
Why does the raging alcoholic drink themselves to death? Can they not see that they're careening towards the end? The powerful worship one concept at the expense of all others, and that is the endless accumulation of more.
From AZ's perspective that's someone else's problem (i.e., governments step in with UBI or whatever)
No one has to buy anything for the system to work. You buy because you beneficially contributed to the system or the system gifted you some credit. Otherwise, you buying is actually "inflating" consumption for others (ie: the rich). There are billions of people in the world buying nothing and yet the "system" still work. They just want you to be lined up to them next. (or line them up next to you).
there is nothing magically good about economic activity, it has merely been necessary thus far.
once it's no longer necessary and once they can have robot security they will decouple from the rest of society.
they would also require military grade deterrence. eventually they will either steal, buy or make nukes.
https://www.wkms.org/energy/2025-07-25/billionaire-peter-thi...
> A California-based company with ties to billionaire investor and Trump ally Peter Thiel announced plans Friday to build America’s first U.S.-owned, privately developed facility to enrich uranium in far western Kentucky.
The end game is that we're all dead, and they live off their robot slave army in a world of abundance, no poors, and no governments to tell them no. I wish that were hyperbole, but it's what they want more than anything if you really pay close attention to what thy're doing, which as you say doesn't make sense given an end game where you and I are part of the system. When then say "everyone in the future will be rich" they don't mean that poor people will be made rich; they mean poor people will all be dead, or don't count as people, thus trivially leaving only rich people.
I still can't wrap my head around it.
So we're all dead, robots take care of the infrastructure and healthcare, and there's maybe 50-100 billionaires left on the planet. Then what? They drive their sports car, do bungee jumping, sip cocktails and watch ai made movies. They don't have children? The human race dies with them? Or they have children, somehow avoid the trap of inbreeding and their children in turn have children and in no time there's again a billion of "us".
We're talking about a level of control over the remaining humans, them and their friends, that require absolute totalitarianism. Of course billionaire A won't accept to live their life according to billionaire B so it'll be a mess in no time.
This thing makes no sense to me when they can already enjoy everything the world has to offer and on top of that they're for all practical purposes above the law.
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It becomes sort of like the dystopian future imagined in William Gibson's "The Peripheral" - most of the human race has died off, but technology has advanced so that the elites can self-sustain anyhow. Big cities are haunted with holograms running scripts of people going about their day to make them feel lived in.
> what is the end game here?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elysium_(film)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ready_Player_One_(film)
A tale as old as time, power and control, over the means of production and (what those seeking this power and control consider lesser) humans.
If you think they're doing this for "the betterment of humanity," I would ask you strongly re-examine the evidence. "Watch what people do, not what they say."
"The wealth of the top-400 Americans surpassed 20% of GDP at the start of Trump's second term."
https://www.ft.com/content/2472ef5a-798d-4e7b-b4be-020855cf3... | https://archive.today/8X9dw
Comparing GDP to net worths isn’t very meaningful
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These guys have already all but built Elysium--just not in space.
They live their lives completely insulated and apart from the masses. They go to different events, they have other people shop for them and transport them around. They don't really interact with us at all. When was the last time you even saw a billionaire in person, let alone talked to one? They have private security to keep us away from them. They only interact with each other.
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> what is the end game here?
You are asking the wrong question.
There's no end game. They just really hate life and the living. They want you to suffer.
that sort of crappy movie with Matt Damon and Jodie Foster that is supposedly dystopian but far more utopian than the reality would be.
wonder if the overlords will allow meat or only gruel or bug bars like that Bong Ho movie to the survivors. heh but serious.
I think you're arguing against something that is made up by doomers. They truly believe (evidence by the comments below yours) that the billionaire class are all a of one mind and want to eradicate other humans, live in cloud cities, and have robots cater to their every need.
I don't even really know how to start refuting this. It seems to absurd to even start.
I think people think this because many billionaires outright say it. We can’t pretend they aren’t salivating at the idea of eradicating labor when they literally talk about how excited they are to eradicate labor.
Ok fine, I guess not all billionaires. But the other ones are reaaaal quiet.
We have an entire history of rich elites abusing their wealth and power at the expense of everyone else. It's lead to various conflicts and social upheavals. And we currently have tech elites selling the idea of full automation, machine godhood, and opposition being the antichrist. Also they like talking about replacing democracy with some sort of digital feudalism.
How it all plays out remains to be seen (predicting the future is hard), but calling people who point this out doomers is very dismissive and one sided.
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Look at how they fantasize about humanoid robots and you will understand.
Why the humanoid form, with all of its engineering inefficiencies and difficulties? Because it is a thing which can be dominated.
The whole purpose is domination. Ever seen Apocalypse now or read Heart of Darkness? They are little colonel Kurtzes. The will to dominate for these people goes to the depths of their soul.
Nietzsche also described it well when noting there are those who deem themselves nobles and feel they are righteously above the laws and those who derive their identity from suffering under the same laws.
It's interesting if you think of Solidarity in these terms.
There is a kind of solidarity of persistence under harsh natural conditions. And another kind of solidarity of persistence under laws.
So it might follow that the former group, those who feel above laws, also lack in a feeling of Solidarity. That would suggest a strong adherence to Individualism as a key component to their identity.
> Nietzsche
You have used a bent interpretation: "exploitation" is not involved in that framework.
Nietzsche died broke and insane. Was that from following his own advice or failing to do so?
Newton put needles in his eye's and probably suffered greatly from self inflicted lead and mercury poisoning; Why do you trust his laws of motion?
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Being successful or not in your wealth doesn't make you right or wrong about anything with the exception of maybe running the business that generated your wealth.
Nietzsche presented two prototypical sets of human who interface with laws and ethics. He described why those believes exists and are self-reaffirming even if they are puzzling from the other side.
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My uncle told me not to smoke, but he's a smoker so I didn't listen.
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Is there a name for this style of non-argument? I guess it’s an attack on credibility due to the inability to attack the content of the argument?
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> Nietzsche died broke and insane
If he was alive today he’d probably have a YouTube channel and be making bank shilling dietary supplements.
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So did Tesla and Vincent Van Gogh, but how much did he create?
Faraday was poor, etc.
Lenin deteriorated, and Marx was always poor.
Anyway...
> who wishes to maintain himself
This is the key. Everyone wants stability in their circumstances, but you have to go to extreme lengths to sustain an extreme lifestyle, particularly if it is based on preserving a high rate of accumulation instead of accumulation itself.
Researched some companies and their founders, many are YC alumni: LendUp W12, uBiome S14, Zenefits W13, Kalshi W19.
The halo effect is real: https://medium.com/@trendguardian/rigged-networks-1d5ad5c6f8...
I think you are interpreting the quote incorrectly. It is not that the prince should be immoral, but rather that he must understand political reality is often filled with perfidious actions and motives. He must recognize that within his principality, there will be those ready to backstab him to gain power. His duty is to the continuation of his principality and the preservation of his own power.
This is not merely selfish ambition; it becomes a duty. People depend on him to defend their city and owe him for the stability of their affairs. Therefore, he must dedicate himself to his principality and, by extension, his power, rather than acting morally like the common man who must navigate political reality.
What is incredible about the current state of the western world is that Andreessen Horowitz seem more like common men. They believe they can simply continue their profession, they are the prince's of are time and are the pinnacle of power in the west. They seem to think there are good guys and bad guys, viewing those who dislike them as bad, while those who accept their power are good. They believe people should never conspire against them.
Precisely because they are dedicated to a particular set of morals, they are unlike the prince. These are morals both of us dislike, yet they believe in them dare I say, naively and idealistically. They view capitalism and profit as an immutable moral truth that others must accept as righteous power.
This is a luxury only afforded in most times to the common man, who can maintain false notions of morality despite his profession depending on the political stability of some sovereign. I don't hate these people; I am just perplexed by their lack of understanding that history is littered with men who worried about politics, yet still fellto fellow members of their class, mercenaries, and scions seeking more than money.
I don't think there is much good in the common people, as bitter resentment is always their. They would do well to know that money does not protect them from it. Most of what is called morality and ethics are cheap, self-serving philosophies. The only exception is true mystagogy, a beautiful flower that cannot grow in the barren American mind. It grows only through the blood of the martyrs.
> Precisely because they are dedicated to a particular set of morals, they are unlike the prince. These are morals both of us dislike, yet they believe in them dare I say, naively and idealistically. They view capitalism and profit as an immutable moral truth that others must accept as righteous power.
They actually don't believe in capitalism and profit, because if they did, they'd recognize that extreme concentration of wealth is actually detrimental to capitalism (the system's) performance. Ricardo, Mill, and Smith all saw this dynamic, but "capitalists" like Andreessen have shown zero interest in combatting it for the health of the capitalist system as a whole.
They also wouldn't, for example, try to use government to prevent the market from building housing near their mansions: https://therealdeal.com/san-francisco/2022/08/08/marc-andree...
You're ascribing way, way too much intellectual consistency to these people. They have no moral system.
I concede partially to your point about not believing in capitalism, the issue is I think though Smith sincere I do not think that Smith's moral positions are based on a need to ascribe moral value to the budding industrialists and the moral scorn on the aristocracy and Tory power. The adoption of these ideas by the British empire is that they are the best way to exploit and the talk of free markets by empires both British, American and Chinese? (later no doubt) is that they are to be promoted when it is useful to do so. The best capitalists therefore are the ones who understand subconsciously or consciously that the ability manipulate the market by some means or to have the market already pre-figured in your favor is the purpose of the talk of the good of the free market. It is true how ever that free market no doubt turns against all empires and the economic, political, military reality shifts in a way that is outside the control of the empire.
That is all to say that the cynical attitude of Andreesen or Thiel is what I think it's always been about. I probably sound a little Marxist or just cynical but I am not a Marxist and I do right and wrong, I do think that the modern theories of morality should be understood cynically as their purpose is primarily a political attempt to change or preserve something and in some sense when one examines them deeply we see self interest usually hidden and diffused by moralising prose and sentiments in these modern theories of morality. So techno optimism manifesto is a more brash, bold and crass version of these works of moral theory indeed a making a sort of unintentional parody. None of this is to say that political economy is only moralising (which techno optimism is).
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Machiabelli was a big Florence patriot and was writing his advice specifically to help a prince better govern Florence and hence increase the chance that Florence will not be annihilated in the constant wars that raged on the Italian Peninsula at the time.
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TLDR: "Don't hate the player, hate the game".
No, we really should hate the players. They are keeping the game from changing.
A small number of players set the rules of the game.
No sarcasm: play a different game. If you play their game, of course you'll suffer. But if you play a game they're repulsed by, you can win a life they'll never have access to: one filled with people who love and respect you and an environment where your best self and life can emerge.
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Yes this is their reasoning, it doesn't mean we shouldn't hate the players and the game alike
That is like hating a hacker who hacks into your vulnerable server that is outdated and allows ssh password login. If there is vulnerabilities in the system someone will eventually exploit them, sure not you or me but there is always someone out there that will.
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It’s not the players we should hate but the ones who make the rules of the game. Specifically not the ones who make the rules for the greater good but for themselves.
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That’s a cop-out. It’s the most powerful “players” who are making the “game” what it is, and they make the rules be whatever benefits them.
It would be pretty reasonable to hate the player who brings a machine gun to a stadium, kills every opponent to start scoring and when people complain says “Nothing in the rules says we can’t kill other players to score. If I didn’t gun everyone down, the opposing team would’ve. Don’t hate the player, hate the game”.
What game has David Ellison been playing? The same as yours or perhaps slightly different? Does that difference matter?
That's what thiefs say
“Also, I have no intention of acknowledging that not all people have an equal chance at winning the game, nor doing anything about it for that matter.”
> The powerful are just living an alternate life...
So, you consider anyone with a job "powerful"? Personal ethics are arbitrary enough to poo-poo any job. It's just as easy to call everyone else "useful idiots".
> So, you consider anyone with a job "powerful"?
That is not what OP said, so you may want to re-read what they said.
What did I misunderstand?
"Us commoners" ponder and debate on culture, morality, law and ethics, and then go out and buy whatever stock we think will go up without a second thought to any of that idle chatter.
We commoners also requested laws and regulations to play fair, which are being superceded by those in leadership seeking only more power. Stocks aren't the problem.