It's funny I come at it from right of center and largely agree with your second to last paragraph on the politics of Silicon Valley. I would've talked more about the material factors of production; how Crypto and AI require more energy per marginal product than big software and thus align with other heavy industry GOP business interests for growing cheap base load electricity. That is more interesting to me than whether Ben personally is more selfish now versus in the past when he donated center-left. I suspect it's a wash.
But on the boring remark; more boring businessmen donating to Republicans is probably a good thing for the country. Elon Musk is not boring, and while I'm grateful for SpaceX, Tesla, and Neuralink, I wish he was more boring. It would be good if he spent more time on those projects to help people and hired some conventional PR agent and or funded some conservative magazine instead of amplifying extreme rightists with racist views on the internet.
You have utterly exceeded my expertise when it comes to the material factors of production vis a vis silicon valley politics, but I take your point about the boringness being a good thing relative to, say, Musk. I don't think anyone supporting Trump is a good thing, but better they do it in a boring way than in the way Musk has done it.
What I'd really like to see is more of these big money guys funding. more of an infrastructure to revitalize center right politics and push back against the atavistic populist turn in the party. I'm sure there's been some of that, but I suspect not as much as there should or could be. Andreesen and Horowitz, e.g, just seem to be spending their money on pro-crypto lobbying. Not the kind of effort, it seems to me, that's likely to enable their little tech agenda in the long term.
It's funny I come at it from right of center and largely agree with your second to last paragraph on the politics of Silicon Valley. I would've talked more about the material factors of production; how Crypto and AI require more energy per marginal product than big software and thus align with other heavy industry GOP business interests for growing cheap base load electricity. That is more interesting to me than whether Ben personally is more selfish now versus in the past when he donated center-left. I suspect it's a wash.
But on the boring remark; more boring businessmen donating to Republicans is probably a good thing for the country. Elon Musk is not boring, and while I'm grateful for SpaceX, Tesla, and Neuralink, I wish he was more boring. It would be good if he spent more time on those projects to help people and hired some conventional PR agent and or funded some conservative magazine instead of amplifying extreme rightists with racist views on the internet.
You have utterly exceeded my expertise when it comes to the material factors of production vis a vis silicon valley politics, but I take your point about the boringness being a good thing relative to, say, Musk. I don't think anyone supporting Trump is a good thing, but better they do it in a boring way than in the way Musk has done it.
What I'd really like to see is more of these big money guys funding. more of an infrastructure to revitalize center right politics and push back against the atavistic populist turn in the party. I'm sure there's been some of that, but I suspect not as much as there should or could be. Andreesen and Horowitz, e.g, just seem to be spending their money on pro-crypto lobbying. Not the kind of effort, it seems to me, that's likely to enable their little tech agenda in the long term.