"Silicon Valley pontificators like Balaji Srinivasan, Marc Andreessen and David Sacks enthuse about a world where cryptocurrency undermines the power of the state. But in practice, like Ulbricht, they’re willing to get into bed with the Hells Angels if that allows them to get their way and to make money."
I am wondering: Is mafia where libertarianism ends when taken to its logical conclusion?
Libertarianism: a perfect philosophy for 100 highly intelligent people to use in establishing a society. Until the first one discovers how easy it is to get over on the other 99.
I think the problem really starts with bigger organizations. For markets to work in large societies, we need to be able to trust strangers. But where does the trust come from? Governments can at least in principle be controlled, we can set up elections, transparency rules, separation of powers, etc. Nobody can control corporations. By design, they are (legal) persons with anti-social personality disorder.
Great description of it all from crypto to the sleazy ethics of libertarianism. People forget, or try to obsfucate, that the democratic state exists to facilitate safe commerce, and Silk Road shows the contrary.
Actually, the Hells Angels are probably much better people than most of the people you write about in this - particularly the escapees from mommie's basement currently pretending to be Big Cheeses in Silly Con Valley. I was friends at separate times with the Vice President of the Oakland, California, chapter, and the retired President of the Erie, Pennsylvania chapter. So long as I was straight with them, they were absolutely straight with me. Interesting people (one of them was the most amazing plastic scale model maker I ever met), and I always felt completely safe going anywhere so long as I was in their company. I wouldn't say that about any libertarian moron I have ever met.
My experience working for the Vandals in Detroit long ago. Thing is, if you're accepted you're reasonably safe (know your place, you're not a brother). If not, you're prey. Very Mafia-like, and that's no accident. Humans revert to tribal identity for hierarchy if no other authority has power. Libertarians are no different, there's always a hierarchy with humans.
I’m guessing if Marc Andreesen and Peter Thiel took you out for the sea urchin ceviche at Dorsia, you’d be raving about what great friends they are too
SV has always been about monopolization of whatever space a new venture occupies...and once that "Big Idea" hits market scale, innovation drops away, to be replaced by buying out smaller competitors with even better ideas. To listen to the whining hypocrisy of "unfettered by government regulation" whilst concurrently stifling innovative competition by monopolistic practices, even by enlisting the hated government to assist, leaves a sour taste in one's mouth.
The "deal" was the standard posture of a democratic government to a new technology/business model, once they notice it. Watch it and see what happens. There was never any agreement SV was free to violate laws to make money in perpetuity. Normally billionaires simply buy the right to violate laws, but Andreesen's megalomaina leads him to a divine right in the name of Techology.
Libertarianism -- which is essentially the fantasy that the government will go on doing the same things it's doing for me now even if I gut and kneecap it -- is the ultimate privileged white-boy wet dream.
When I was seven I couldn't understand why we needed money -- couldn't everybody just go on doing what they were doing, just without this thing that seemed so irksome to so many people? Then I grew up.
As Ulbricht is pardoned for enabling (and dealing?) in drugs, shouldn't that mean that all [non-violent] drug dealers should be released from jail and pardoned too?
Cowen's growing willingness in recent years to engage with some truly awful actors like Richard Hanania is pretty disheartening for someone who has read him for a long time.
He also seems to champion some terrible people like Curtis Yarvin, Jordan Peterson and the aforementioned Hanania in the years leading up to their full emergence…usually in the plausibly deniable way of a link in one of his interesting links posts.
That was a very interesting article, professor! The disconnect between the Tech-Bros vision of their master intellects, and the amount of sheer banality and ignorance coming out of them is striking. I sure hope that a wider understanding on the part of the young men wanting to emulate what they think these folks are gets out into the world and is understood more widely.
I think the claim that the US academy, and the woke employees whom he hates are "Communists." When I was still on Twitter in 2020-2021 or so, I would see him quote long chunks from people in the James Burnham-Whittaker Chambers axis verbatim, and wondered what the hell was going on. There's some interesting people and work amidst the paranoia - The Managerial Revolution is an important book. But it appears to have curdled his brain into Reds-under-Beds Feindprinzip.
Thank you for the insight into this sordid corner of the dark web. The libertarians are over the moon at the pardon from their favorite liable for sexual assault president. The Ross and Marc interview was like junior high - those bad dark Harvard Marxists! were too mean for Marc - the entire 'I grew up on a farm' bit leading to Trump loves us and he won't give us curfews? Who knew Thomas Massie, the Kentucky kid who got rich on MITs federally funded research and grew up to be a libertarian, would be a Ulbricht fanboy? Six over-dose deaths known - five attempted contract hits - maybe a little kid porn on the side - If the president can launder cartel cash in Panama and his daughter relies on Russian gangsters for franchise deals, why not?
To me "liberaltarian" refers most directly to the Niskanen Institute. How closely is that related to the techbros? I think that Will Wilkinson may have moved to something related to crypto but that's the only link of which I'm aware
It's just a label. Labels can be conveniently recycled - sometimes even to something diametrically opposite to their original meaning. That's the power of propaganda.
I don’t think there was anything sinister here. The same portmanteau word occurred to two different people/groups, who used it to mean different, though related things.
The underlying reason for this coincidence is the collapse of US-style libertarianism as a coherent intellectual or political movement. Most of the base went over to Trump and the techbros (liberaltarians in the meaning of the OP), and all the best shifted left (liberaltarians in the sense of my comment)>
I agree with all of your points here. Whether or not their intent was nefarious or innocuous is something I doubt we can ever know. Nevertheless, when a group usurps a label that originally meant something quite different from what they stand for, the end result is an unreconcilable cognitive dissonance.
"Silicon Valley pontificators like Balaji Srinivasan, Marc Andreessen and David Sacks enthuse about a world where cryptocurrency undermines the power of the state. But in practice, like Ulbricht, they’re willing to get into bed with the Hells Angels if that allows them to get their way and to make money."
I am wondering: Is mafia where libertarianism ends when taken to its logical conclusion?
Libertarianism: a perfect philosophy for 100 highly intelligent people to use in establishing a society. Until the first one discovers how easy it is to get over on the other 99.
I think the problem really starts with bigger organizations. For markets to work in large societies, we need to be able to trust strangers. But where does the trust come from? Governments can at least in principle be controlled, we can set up elections, transparency rules, separation of powers, etc. Nobody can control corporations. By design, they are (legal) persons with anti-social personality disorder.
Great description of it all from crypto to the sleazy ethics of libertarianism. People forget, or try to obsfucate, that the democratic state exists to facilitate safe commerce, and Silk Road shows the contrary.
Actually, the Hells Angels are probably much better people than most of the people you write about in this - particularly the escapees from mommie's basement currently pretending to be Big Cheeses in Silly Con Valley. I was friends at separate times with the Vice President of the Oakland, California, chapter, and the retired President of the Erie, Pennsylvania chapter. So long as I was straight with them, they were absolutely straight with me. Interesting people (one of them was the most amazing plastic scale model maker I ever met), and I always felt completely safe going anywhere so long as I was in their company. I wouldn't say that about any libertarian moron I have ever met.
My experience working for the Vandals in Detroit long ago. Thing is, if you're accepted you're reasonably safe (know your place, you're not a brother). If not, you're prey. Very Mafia-like, and that's no accident. Humans revert to tribal identity for hierarchy if no other authority has power. Libertarians are no different, there's always a hierarchy with humans.
I’m guessing if Marc Andreesen and Peter Thiel took you out for the sea urchin ceviche at Dorsia, you’d be raving about what great friends they are too
SV has always been about monopolization of whatever space a new venture occupies...and once that "Big Idea" hits market scale, innovation drops away, to be replaced by buying out smaller competitors with even better ideas. To listen to the whining hypocrisy of "unfettered by government regulation" whilst concurrently stifling innovative competition by monopolistic practices, even by enlisting the hated government to assist, leaves a sour taste in one's mouth.
What did you think of "the deal" Andreesen outlined between government and Silicon Valley in the Douthat interview?
I think what the deal shows is that we need to be at least as afraid of corporate power than of government power.
Moreso. At least the people in government can be ultimately held responsible by voters. That never happens with the corporate scum.
The "deal" was the standard posture of a democratic government to a new technology/business model, once they notice it. Watch it and see what happens. There was never any agreement SV was free to violate laws to make money in perpetuity. Normally billionaires simply buy the right to violate laws, but Andreesen's megalomaina leads him to a divine right in the name of Techology.
Also want to give a shoutout to the American affairs article linked in the essay. It’s very good.
Desire for a life decoupled from responsibility will naturally lead one to Balaji's Network State and Ulbricht's MurderNet.
Libertarianism -- which is essentially the fantasy that the government will go on doing the same things it's doing for me now even if I gut and kneecap it -- is the ultimate privileged white-boy wet dream.
When I was seven I couldn't understand why we needed money -- couldn't everybody just go on doing what they were doing, just without this thing that seemed so irksome to so many people? Then I grew up.
As Ulbricht is pardoned for enabling (and dealing?) in drugs, shouldn't that mean that all [non-violent] drug dealers should be released from jail and pardoned too?
Cowen's growing willingness in recent years to engage with some truly awful actors like Richard Hanania is pretty disheartening for someone who has read him for a long time.
He also seems to champion some terrible people like Curtis Yarvin, Jordan Peterson and the aforementioned Hanania in the years leading up to their full emergence…usually in the plausibly deniable way of a link in one of his interesting links posts.
That was a very interesting article, professor! The disconnect between the Tech-Bros vision of their master intellects, and the amount of sheer banality and ignorance coming out of them is striking. I sure hope that a wider understanding on the part of the young men wanting to emulate what they think these folks are gets out into the world and is understood more widely.
Apparently, unbridled greed can lead to brain rot.
Henry, what were the most alarming things in the Andreesen interview to you?
I think the claim that the US academy, and the woke employees whom he hates are "Communists." When I was still on Twitter in 2020-2021 or so, I would see him quote long chunks from people in the James Burnham-Whittaker Chambers axis verbatim, and wondered what the hell was going on. There's some interesting people and work amidst the paranoia - The Managerial Revolution is an important book. But it appears to have curdled his brain into Reds-under-Beds Feindprinzip.
Thank you for the insight into this sordid corner of the dark web. The libertarians are over the moon at the pardon from their favorite liable for sexual assault president. The Ross and Marc interview was like junior high - those bad dark Harvard Marxists! were too mean for Marc - the entire 'I grew up on a farm' bit leading to Trump loves us and he won't give us curfews? Who knew Thomas Massie, the Kentucky kid who got rich on MITs federally funded research and grew up to be a libertarian, would be a Ulbricht fanboy? Six over-dose deaths known - five attempted contract hits - maybe a little kid porn on the side - If the president can launder cartel cash in Panama and his daughter relies on Russian gangsters for franchise deals, why not?
An extremely good documentary on crypto / NFT & the crass lies of the libertarian, utopian grift can be found here. TLDR - it’s just another casino:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ_xWvX1n9g
Brilliant article!
Sometimes, drug dealers get pardoned.
To me "liberaltarian" refers most directly to the Niskanen Institute. How closely is that related to the techbros? I think that Will Wilkinson may have moved to something related to crypto but that's the only link of which I'm aware
It's a reference to this - https://crookedtimber.org/2023/11/07/silicon-valley-liberal-tarians/
Not just different meanings then, but different directions of travel, with the Niskanen liberaltarians moving left and the tech-bros moving right.
It's just a label. Labels can be conveniently recycled - sometimes even to something diametrically opposite to their original meaning. That's the power of propaganda.
I don’t think there was anything sinister here. The same portmanteau word occurred to two different people/groups, who used it to mean different, though related things.
The underlying reason for this coincidence is the collapse of US-style libertarianism as a coherent intellectual or political movement. Most of the base went over to Trump and the techbros (liberaltarians in the meaning of the OP), and all the best shifted left (liberaltarians in the sense of my comment)>
I agree with all of your points here. Whether or not their intent was nefarious or innocuous is something I doubt we can ever know. Nevertheless, when a group usurps a label that originally meant something quite different from what they stand for, the end result is an unreconcilable cognitive dissonance.