Not exactly on topic, but somewhat related: my mostly true 2002 essay in Salon, "How I Destroyed the New Economy" about how my work on the construction of CMGI billionaire David Wetherell's trophy house on sacred land on Martha's Vineyard unleashed ancient forces that destroyed 'New Economy' darling CMGI — and with it the entire New Economy house of cards: https://www.salon.com/2002/10/23/wetherell/
Just pledged to yours & recommended in notes. I'm not insinuating quid pro quo, but I do hope you'll check out some of the essays if you get a free moment whenever -- and if you find anything to like, thanks in advance for any help spreading the word. Here's a post from a last November that touches on, inter alia, Marc Andreseen's silly little techno-optimist bluebook composition. https://johnsundman.substack.com/p/marc-andreesen-was-going-to-debug
I really appreciate the perspective that these early WIRED articles give on current trends, it's really sobering and I think a good way to step outside the hype narratives for a moment to assess things more dispassionately.
I wonder if technological innovators in the agricultural space were similarly bullish - claiming they'd someday produce enough food to feed the world many times over and that surely, as a result of that innovation alone, people would never go hungry again. The reality today is that we produce enough food to ensure that outcome, but we don't distribute the benefits of such technologies equally, so people still starve to death. Whenever I hear folks preaching the imminent, inevitable prosperity-for-all in their imagined AGI utopias, I think about folks with empty bellies.
There's an interesting conceptual crossover here with another project I'm working on... The problem in the ag space was, basically, "yes, except capitalism." And also, at least if we're focused back on mid-20th century advances, the socially-enforced conceptual boundaries of the Cold War meant that no one with a pragmatic agenda saw space to go there.
It's really only been in the past 20-30 years that critiquing capitalism, or even specific strains of capitalism, has come back within the overton window.
As far as I know, we have eradicated much of starvation thanks to the 'green revolution' of the 19[6-8]0's, but a price is being paid in a total collapse of the biome through nitrogen / poison overload. We can already see production crashes in the making (Argentinian pampas for instance, that need ever more fertiliser and poison (like glyphosate) to remain productive). In the meantime, the farmers are stuck because they have no alternative, so they fight for their livelihoods when we try to solve the problem.
"We do not, today, live in a world where innovation is more important than mass production. Apple and Amazon aren’t trillion dollar companies because of how innovative they are, or how good they are at creating “new concepts” ... They captured market share and gained control of multiple segments of their supply chains."
The new Prometheus just sits around and collects rents. Somehow, this possibility escaped the prognosticators at Wired, despite the whole edifice being predicated on "first mover advantage".
Yes. The term I've started to use a few years back for these people is "the accidental billionaires" because of all the luck involved. Part is skill (though one can ask: what skill exactly?) and part was dumb luck driven by dumb money.
As one of the ones that wrote skeptically in the 90's and having seen a repeat of these boom-stories (real estate/MBS for one, bitcoin for another, and the current ChatGPT-fever has aspects of it) I think the question is not so much what we *should* learn, but why — time and again — we do not *do* learn. Not even from well thought out and well written analyses like the ones you write. That subject has to do with the limits of (the way) human intelligence (works). The key subject is that it is all driven by 'convictions' and these are such fundamental (biological) elements of human psychology, that one may suspect we never *will* learn. Because we're unable to.
“Fast-forward to 2020. After two decades of ultraprosperity, the average American household's income is $150,000, but milk still costs only about $2.50 a gallon...."
Close, but you're WAY off. Think smaller. Think more debt!
Yes. We've seen the top grow and the rest not (or even shrink massively, if you valuate — like portfolio managers do — all the security they have lost).
Honestly, the more I read of this newsletter the less interesting it gets. The jist of it is "Kevin Kelly, George Gilder, and Wired Magazine, and the boosters of the 'New Economy' in the 90s were hucksters". No shit. Profound! The stock market went up and people were adopting a new technology - amazing! The future didn't turn out how younger Gen X and old Millennials read in Wired and in on random blogs. Crazy!
I wish the internet had turned out the way that I wanted it to, but it didn't. We have to deal with it for what it actually became rather than what we hoped. I work in meatspace these days and don't have a whole lot of interest in the internet as such anymore, but I hope someone has an answer.
I mean, that’s fair I guess. I *did* mention in my end-of-year post that these six months were going to be very book-project focused, meaning the newsletter/blog was going to take a pretty heavy turn toward lessons-from-the-past that I’m tinkering with for the book.
I get that’s not for everyone. And there will still be a chunk of contemporary posts that will likely be more your speed. But, fair warning, it’s gonna stay heavy on Dave-talks-about-old-WIRED-magazine-episodes for the next few months. I’ve gotta get the book written, and I’m operating from the assumption that it’ll be a better book if I share what I’m working on as I go.
My comment was stupidly harsh. Every assertion in it has to be documented! Someone needs to write this history and obviously you have the background and are doing the hard, necessary work of researching and writing it, which I am looking forward to reading!
I have some personal knowledge of this time (elder millennial, from Seattle, dad left his job for a start up during the dot com boom, didn't work out). My family and I have recovered and been fine since then but I've been permanently soured on the techno utopianism that started in the late 2000s. Every micro generation seems like more of the same shit to me.
Thanks, and it wasn't *that* harsh. (Also, you've been reading and commenting here long enough that "Dave, uh, this is getting pretty repetitive" is useful feedback in its own right.)
Move fast! Break [other people's] things!
Not exactly on topic, but somewhat related: my mostly true 2002 essay in Salon, "How I Destroyed the New Economy" about how my work on the construction of CMGI billionaire David Wetherell's trophy house on sacred land on Martha's Vineyard unleashed ancient forces that destroyed 'New Economy' darling CMGI — and with it the entire New Economy house of cards: https://www.salon.com/2002/10/23/wetherell/
Amazing.
If you were to check out my substack you might find that there are many areas where our interests are congruent.
Just signed up for it. Nice to meet you!
Just pledged to yours & recommended in notes. I'm not insinuating quid pro quo, but I do hope you'll check out some of the essays if you get a free moment whenever -- and if you find anything to like, thanks in advance for any help spreading the word. Here's a post from a last November that touches on, inter alia, Marc Andreseen's silly little techno-optimist bluebook composition. https://johnsundman.substack.com/p/marc-andreesen-was-going-to-debug
Holy false dichotomy. Optimization *is* innovation.
Tell that to the New Economy evangelists back in 1998 though!
I really appreciate the perspective that these early WIRED articles give on current trends, it's really sobering and I think a good way to step outside the hype narratives for a moment to assess things more dispassionately.
I wonder if technological innovators in the agricultural space were similarly bullish - claiming they'd someday produce enough food to feed the world many times over and that surely, as a result of that innovation alone, people would never go hungry again. The reality today is that we produce enough food to ensure that outcome, but we don't distribute the benefits of such technologies equally, so people still starve to death. Whenever I hear folks preaching the imminent, inevitable prosperity-for-all in their imagined AGI utopias, I think about folks with empty bellies.
Pretty sure they did, yes.
There's an interesting conceptual crossover here with another project I'm working on... The problem in the ag space was, basically, "yes, except capitalism." And also, at least if we're focused back on mid-20th century advances, the socially-enforced conceptual boundaries of the Cold War meant that no one with a pragmatic agenda saw space to go there.
It's really only been in the past 20-30 years that critiquing capitalism, or even specific strains of capitalism, has come back within the overton window.
As far as I know, we have eradicated much of starvation thanks to the 'green revolution' of the 19[6-8]0's, but a price is being paid in a total collapse of the biome through nitrogen / poison overload. We can already see production crashes in the making (Argentinian pampas for instance, that need ever more fertiliser and poison (like glyphosate) to remain productive). In the meantime, the farmers are stuck because they have no alternative, so they fight for their livelihoods when we try to solve the problem.
Very well put. Clear and concise writing with a dash of excitement makes for great reading. Looking forward to the book.
Great archive meets extraordinary analysis. Thanks for giving us a window in the project as it unfolds.
"We do not, today, live in a world where innovation is more important than mass production. Apple and Amazon aren’t trillion dollar companies because of how innovative they are, or how good they are at creating “new concepts” ... They captured market share and gained control of multiple segments of their supply chains."
The new Prometheus just sits around and collects rents. Somehow, this possibility escaped the prognosticators at Wired, despite the whole edifice being predicated on "first mover advantage".
Yes. The term I've started to use a few years back for these people is "the accidental billionaires" because of all the luck involved. Part is skill (though one can ask: what skill exactly?) and part was dumb luck driven by dumb money.
As one of the ones that wrote skeptically in the 90's and having seen a repeat of these boom-stories (real estate/MBS for one, bitcoin for another, and the current ChatGPT-fever has aspects of it) I think the question is not so much what we *should* learn, but why — time and again — we do not *do* learn. Not even from well thought out and well written analyses like the ones you write. That subject has to do with the limits of (the way) human intelligence (works). The key subject is that it is all driven by 'convictions' and these are such fundamental (biological) elements of human psychology, that one may suspect we never *will* learn. Because we're unable to.
“Fast-forward to 2020. After two decades of ultraprosperity, the average American household's income is $150,000, but milk still costs only about $2.50 a gallon...."
Close, but you're WAY off. Think smaller. Think more debt!
Yes. We've seen the top grow and the rest not (or even shrink massively, if you valuate — like portfolio managers do — all the security they have lost).
nice share via the desk of
Dave Karpf
always keep some powder dry
Honestly, the more I read of this newsletter the less interesting it gets. The jist of it is "Kevin Kelly, George Gilder, and Wired Magazine, and the boosters of the 'New Economy' in the 90s were hucksters". No shit. Profound! The stock market went up and people were adopting a new technology - amazing! The future didn't turn out how younger Gen X and old Millennials read in Wired and in on random blogs. Crazy!
I wish the internet had turned out the way that I wanted it to, but it didn't. We have to deal with it for what it actually became rather than what we hoped. I work in meatspace these days and don't have a whole lot of interest in the internet as such anymore, but I hope someone has an answer.
I mean, that’s fair I guess. I *did* mention in my end-of-year post that these six months were going to be very book-project focused, meaning the newsletter/blog was going to take a pretty heavy turn toward lessons-from-the-past that I’m tinkering with for the book.
I get that’s not for everyone. And there will still be a chunk of contemporary posts that will likely be more your speed. But, fair warning, it’s gonna stay heavy on Dave-talks-about-old-WIRED-magazine-episodes for the next few months. I’ve gotta get the book written, and I’m operating from the assumption that it’ll be a better book if I share what I’m working on as I go.
My comment was stupidly harsh. Every assertion in it has to be documented! Someone needs to write this history and obviously you have the background and are doing the hard, necessary work of researching and writing it, which I am looking forward to reading!
I have some personal knowledge of this time (elder millennial, from Seattle, dad left his job for a start up during the dot com boom, didn't work out). My family and I have recovered and been fine since then but I've been permanently soured on the techno utopianism that started in the late 2000s. Every micro generation seems like more of the same shit to me.
Thanks, and it wasn't *that* harsh. (Also, you've been reading and commenting here long enough that "Dave, uh, this is getting pretty repetitive" is useful feedback in its own right.)