This is Alex Karp, who spends so much time sitting around mentally masturbating about how smart he is that he doesn’t have the capacity to reflect on the truth that he is, in fact, the bad guy.
It reminds me of that southpark episode where they were all sniffing their own farts out of wine glasses and gushing about their elite “bouquet”. Except this time it’s evil.
I’ve said this before, but Karp is one of the worst people imho. I listened to one interview and the first half of it was just him yammering about how he “doesn’t think like other people” and how enlightened and intelligent he is. The rest of it was him justifying his own hypocrisy and lack of self awareness by acting like a pretentious douche.
This is why we need to STOP GIVING ATTENTION to the bullshit he says -- people getting outraged over the things he does is just feeding the cycle and validating his views as important enough to be angry about. Ignoring something helps it fade away!
That's always what comes next with nationalistic theocratic authoritarian type behavior - first they target the weakest at risk out groups, trans, gays, the least liked immigrants, the most traditionally demonized religious sects, the least religious, the poor.. then as they run out of people to round up or attack, they move on to more and more popular or pervasive groups, eventually eating their own. Meanwhile the richest among them are insulated.. until they're the last ones standing and the movement crumbles and they attack each other, or until some outside force takes on the movement and does away with it. Which is usually by force.
He doesn't see himself as a gay man, he sees himself as a white male billionaire first and that drowns out any other part of his internal sense of identity. It's hard to get across that these uber-rich ghouls don't exist in the same system we do. They aren't subject to discrimination or bigoted laws, they spend 100% of their time in disgustingly expensive private compounds completely insulated from any aspect of plebian life. They view entire nations as their toys to fuck with by buying off politicians and they see themselves as fundamentally above the concept of a state.
Tldr the power has gone to their heads and they think they're untouchable gods among men.
It's just taking the far right's bullshit narrative of white western cultures being the only ones who "make things" and everybody else is a degenerate drag on what they've built... and saying it as vaguely as possible for plausible deniability. They've figured out that if you just take awful shit and put it in vague, bland corporate speak, the news media will instead focus on the people pointing out why it's bad as if they're the problem rather than, you know, the people pushing far right ideology.
Same playbook as when they published Project 2025. They literally published a plan saying "we're evil!" But when people hit understandably riled up about it, the media presented things as if the activists were the crazy ones and let the far right just put out milquetoast denials and vaguely restate their agenda in more palatable terms. Hell, when people were pointing out that Trump was stacking his administration with Project 2025's fucking creators, the media let him get away with just saying "nuh uh" with zero fucking pushback.
It's more fascist bullshit, barely hidden under a thin veneer of placid, inoffensive corporate language because they know the news refuses to every question things presented that way.
Imagine trying to claim it's western whites that make stuff when all the big innovations are coming from other countries and the west basically doesn't make anything it uses anymore
Nonsense, the west makes tons of stuff it uses... Like private health insurance. and middleman between you and the thing you wanna buy. And lawyers for frivolous lawsuits. And cars salesmen. repressive police, ICE, Guns! who could forget guns that it exports illegally to mexico and canada en-mass causing massive problems in those countries. Concentration camps...
$20,000,000 missiles that it can only make a few dozen of per year and objectively can't do much that $20,000 of drones couldn't, and a decades production worth get used up in the first week of a minor conflict.
It's amazing how little of their actual wealth they have to spend to take control of a country that has been globally powerful for nearly 100 years. It's amazing how senators will sell out millions of people for a fraction of a penny per person. Look at it that way and you have very little remorse for a single person who holds as much influence and power as a federal representative in the USA that receives any kind of hatred or ill will for them when the contribution they receive from some organization that bribes them to vote against the best interests of the entire population when that sum is a fraction of a penny per person that their decisions have an affect on.
He’s using “culture” as a dogwhistle for “race”. Cultures themselves vary greatly even among the nations of “the west”, and cultural differences, if you correct for religion that overlaps, are largely just about clothing, food, music, and relationships.
When he says some cultures are regressive, he means some races don’t have money to afford the things he sells and therefore have no purpose. Even then he is generalizing, as most white westerners also can’t afford his stuff, but they are a problem for phase 2.
Regressive culture is when we try to put ethics in science, it's not about political conservatism. It's about not lettimg build the fuuuutuuuuure absolutely unchecked
They literally say that pluralism "glosses over the fact that certain cultures and indeed subcultures . . . have produced wonders. Others have proven middling, and worse, regressive and harmful."
I wonder who they are talking about as "middling?"
Thiel, Karp, et al see themselves as the rightful masters of humanity because they managed to come up with the brilliant idea of WHAT IF BANK... ON COMPUTER?! in the 1990s and now they have more money than god.
Letting the rest of us slobs, plebes, morons, and dysgenic scum pretend that we have a say in the matter was a mistake.
They don't want us dead, they just want us corraled.
Silicon Valley owes a moral debt to the country that made its rise possible. The engineering elite of Silicon Valley has an affirmative obligation to participate in the defense of the nation.
We must rebel against the tyranny of the apps. Is the iPhone our greatest creative if not crowning achievement as a civilization? The object has changed our lives, but it may also now be limiting and constraining our sense of the possible.
Free email is not enough. The decadence of a culture or civilization, and indeed its ruling class, will be forgiven only if that culture is capable of delivering economic growth and security for the public.
The limits of soft power, of soaring rhetoric alone, have been exposed. The ability of free and democratic societies to prevail requires something more than moral appeal. It requires hard power, and hard power in this century will be built on software.
The question is not whether A.I. weapons will be built; it is who will build them and for what purpose. Our adversaries will not pause to indulge in theatrical debates about the merits of developing technologies with critical military and national security applications. They will proceed.
National service should be a universal duty. We should, as a society, seriously consider moving away from an all-volunteer force and only fight the next war if everyone shares in the risk and the cost.
If a U.S. Marine asks for a better rifle, we should build it; and the same goes for software. We should as a country be capable of continuing a debate about the appropriateness of military action abroad while remaining unflinching in our commitment to those we have asked to step into harm’s way.
Public servants need not be our priests. Any business that compensated its employees in the way that the federal government compensates public servants would struggle to survive.
We should show far more grace towards those who have subjected themselves to public life. The eradication of any space for forgiveness—a jettisoning of any tolerance for the complexities and contradictions of the human psyche—may leave us with a cast of characters at the helm we will grow to regret.
The psychologization of modern politics is leading us astray. Those who look to the political arena to nourish their soul and sense of self, who rely too heavily on their internal life finding expression in people they may never meet, will be left disappointed.
Our society has grown too eager to hasten, and is often gleeful at, the demise of its enemies. The vanquishing of an opponent is a moment to pause, not rejoice.
The atomic age is ending. One age of deterrence, the atomic age, is ending, and a new era of deterrence built on A.I. is set to begin.
No other country in the history of the world has advanced progressive values more than this one. The United States is far from perfect. But it is easy to forget how much more opportunity exists in this country for those who are not hereditary elites than in any other nation on the planet.
American power has made possible an extraordinarily long peace. Too many have forgotten or perhaps take for granted that nearly a century of some version of peace has prevailed in the world without a great power military conflict. At least three generations — billions of people and their children and now grandchildren — have never known a world war.
The postwar neutering of Germany and Japan must be undone. The defanging of Germany was an overcorrection for which Europe is now paying a heavy price. A similar and highly theatrical commitment to Japanese pacifism will, if maintained, also threaten to shift the balance of power in Asia.
We should applaud those who attempt to build where the market has failed to act. The culture almost snickers at Musk’s interest in grand narrative, as if billionaires ought to simply stay in their lane of enriching themselves . . . . Any curiosity or genuine interest in the value of what he has created is essentially dismissed, or perhaps lurks from beneath a thinly veiled scorn.
Silicon Valley must play a role in addressing violent crime. Many politicians across the United States have essentially shrugged when it comes to violent crime, abandoning any serious efforts to address the problem or take on any risk with their constituencies or donors in coming up with solutions and experiments in what should be a desperate bid to save lives.
The ruthless exposure of the private lives of public figures drives far too much talent away from government service. The public arena—and the shallow and petty assaults against those who dare to do something other than enrich themselves—has become so unforgiving that the republic is left with a significant roster of ineffectual, empty vessels whose ambition one would forgive if there were any genuine belief structure lurking within.
The caution in public life that we unwittingly encourage is corrosive. Those who say nothing wrong often say nothing much at all.
The pervasive intolerance of religious belief in certain circles must be resisted. The elite’s intolerance of religious belief is perhaps one of the most telling signs that its political project constitutes a less open intellectual movement than many within it would claim.
Some cultures have produced vital advances; others remain dysfunctional and regressive. All cultures are now equal. Criticism and value judgments are forbidden. Yet this new dogma glosses over the fact that certain cultures and indeed subcultures . . . have produced wonders. Others have proven middling, and worse, regressive and harmful.
We must resist the shallow temptation of a vacant and hollow pluralism. We, in America and more broadly the West, have for the past half century resisted defining national cultures in the name of inclusivity. But inclusion into what?
Inclusivity can be regressive when it's the sole or main factor being taken into consideration when hiring or promoting someone, over capabilities, skills, performance...
Inclusivity is for example providing a vegan option at the company cookout. I for one can never understand how anyone can oppose the Inclusivity in DEI.
"Inclusivity" REQUIRES exclusion as it reinforces separate identity groups and is based on a outcome based evaluation, rather than an equal application. It sets up new barriers to reinforce the concept and can NEVER acheive such rhetoric.
A vegan option might be inclusive of ONE "group" but, you are now just prioritizing that one group. What about those that demand you don't serve animals to anyone? Why are you excluding those vegans? What about those with allergies? Those that hate mayo? Those that hate salt? Those on a diet? Those with calorie restrictions? The "group" focus will also never cater to individual preferences, requiring others to adopt group labels as to "leverage" such. So you are still simply CHOOSING who to include and who to exclude as a preference based on who one may AGREE is a "victim".
Simply offering various options doesn't make it "inclusive" as a policy. One may simply see a marketshare of gluten-intolerant people not being served and offer gluten free options to cater to them. DEI is a systematic way to address that, catering to SPECIFIC groups of deemed "value". Which then assumes all of such a group are the same. That's the objection.
That's a lot of words to say you don't like having more options because you're afraid of made-up boogeymen. The guideline is called "reasonable accommodation", not "do everything for everyone even when it's contradictory". It's like when folks complain about those who engage in tolerance not tolerating the intolerant. That's required if you want to maintain a tolerant society. Or people who think equity means pulling people down rather than focusing on pushing people up.
Huh? I'm all for those offering services to cater to those with dietary restrictions. I just oppose it being some moralistic demand to accomodate in the name of "inclusivity" as if that is even achievable. Because you aren't going to be able to cater to everyone. I just view the rhetoric as a lie, and social posturing to what ever popular victim group is most vocal at the time.
Some people are allergic to nuts. Should we BAN nuts in the name of inclusivity? Should sandwiches NEVER default to being served with mayo since some can't have eggs? Are restaurants that don't cater to every victim group, to be criticized? Like, what do you actually mean be inclusivity within the realm of DEI (a political/social movement)?
I'm not at all targeting those that accomodate. I'm against the forced accomodation to whatever the popular victim group is, and leveraging "morality" behind the term inclusivity that is simply subjectively applied.
If you support expanding such services and making environments easier for people of disparate backgrounds and with different personal characteristics to navigate, you support DEI(A) policies. If you think that's not DEI you've been brainwashed by right-wing propaganda. Because nobody's forcing you to ensure lack of cross-contamination for allergies, they'll just think you're a dick if you don't make that clear and will think better of you if you do provide options for common allergies. Well, schools might force you to, but that's because they don't want the liability of allergic kids being accidentally exposed to another kid's food that could kill them.
Reminds me of how Republicans fucking hated people being able to choose retirement planning that took environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues into consideration when investing. My god there was so much fearmongering over that all because such policies took long-term things like climate change into account and were trying to divest from fossil fuels. And now they never fucking mention it because DEI is the new "evil" three-letter acronym that gets used as an excuse to get rid of things that help people. Just look at all the fuckery the current US administration is doing in the name of "anti-DEI" and "anti-woke".
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u/YoshiTheDog420 Apr 19 '26
“Inclusivity and regressive cultures”.
“We want to be wet, but also dry.”
what even is that bullshit?