4 Comments

Holbo's snark is amusing but Dave Karpf cut to the vitals. It's not just that Andreesen is a "techno-optimist" who doesn't create technology. His libertarian ideological precepts are inimical to the creation of technology by others - inimical even to his own career. He is willfully oblivious to the degree his forune has depended on government support. Just like every other Silicon Valley Jeff Reardon wannabe.

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Andreesen's paper is indeed quite bad. He does mention Professor DeLong as one of the "Patron Saints of Techno-Optimism." Not sure that Brad really channels John Galt.

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Accelerated global warming: I marginally raise the hex value of my curse upon all who have contributed to the failure to enact a tax on net emissions of CO2 and continue to do so. The hex value is greater on "environmentalists" who should know better and do not than for relatively innocent owners of fossil fuel resources and specialized technology and expertise to exploit them.

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Mike Konczal might have cited Claudia Goldin. She was just honored for having made that point for many, many years, if not decades. In her interview at Harvard after the Nobel Prize was announced, she said the one silver lining that became clear during the pandemic was that people/governments finally saw how important care -- childcare and care for the elderly -- is to the functioning of the economy.

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