My response to the Techno-Optimist Manifesto
Or why Marc Andreessen is only 65.2% correct, and my manifesto is better
I know that I am behind the curve a little here. The initial wave of responses to Marc Andreessen’s The Techno-Optimist Manifesto has crested. In general, I feel no need to follow a “hot topic” on the internet. I will say, however, that Marc’s manifesto did provoke me to finally write my own manifesto a few days later:
To avoid turning this into a second version of my manifesto, I will assume that you have already read my version.
See also my other articles on Technology and Innovation:
My response to the Techno-Optimist Manifesto (this article)
Book review: "The Nature of Technology: What It Is and How It Evolves" by W. Brian Arthur (podcast)
Summary:
I agree with Marc 65.2% percent (or is it 73.1%?), but:
Human material progress is about far more than technological innovation.
No human, or group of humans, is smart enough to predict the long-term effects of a specific technology until long after its innovation.
Many emerging digital technologies can be used to create (or more likely unintentionally drift towards) a dystopic Totalitarian society.
Techno-optimism ignores the dark side of human psychology, which can be used to push society in that direction. Ideology is how opponents of progress do this.
I am much more interested in understanding the past and the present than in predicting the future.
At times the Manifesto feels like a mission statement (and moral statement) for Silicon Valley. It is a manifesto for an industry or a profession, not a society. As long as it stays that way, not many people are going to integrate it into their worldview.
Techno-optimism has very little appeal beyond the Silicon Valley techie crowd. To get real traction, we need to emphasize the short-term benefits of progress to the poor and the working class. This kind of manifesto is not going to do it.
The Manifesto has no action items, so in the end, it achieves little more than kick off an interesting discussion (which is worthwhile in itself).
A longer summary (that does contains additional points):
After reading the manifesto, I still do not know what a Techno-Optimist is (other than liking technological innovation and being optimistic about the future). A definition would be very useful.
Technological innovation is probably the single most important force in human material progress. Indeed, it is impossible to conceive of human material progress without technological innovation. But…
Technological innovation is not the same as human material progress. A specific technological innovation may lead to progress, and maybe it will not. In fact, the vast majority of technological innovations die in the prototyping process.
Technological innovation existed hundreds of thousands of years before modern progress started, so it is obviously not sufficient to create progress.
Technological innovation is, however, not the ultimate cause of human material progress. That is the Five Keys to Progress.
Much of the effects of technological innovation come from the interaction of six different human behaviors. That is How Progress Works.
The effect that emerging technologies have on our society will be to a large extent determined by which ideologies control our governments.
In particular, digital technologies, camera surveillance, social credit scores, and potentially virtual reality and artificial intelligence could create (or more likely unintentionally drift towards) a dystopic Totalitarian society that crushes progress.Because the United States has been a driving force in global progress since 1870, which ideology controls the U.S. federal government, will have a sizable influence on the history of the 21st century.
Techno-optimists focus far too much on bleeding edge technology and far too little on incremental improvement of “lesser technologies.”
A section-by-section parsing of the manifesto.
To reduce the word count, I will not go through each point separately unless necessary (You are welcome!). I will give my comments chunked in the same section headers in Marc’s manifesto.
I would recommend reading Marc’s manifesto and my comments below side-by-side so you understand the context of my comments.
Lies
No, we are not being lied to. These are the actual viewpoints of other people, though many of them have dark motivations.
Having said that I agree with Marc that the other people are wrong and are repeating the same prophecies of doom that we have heard for centuries. Virtually all turned out to be wrong, so we should treat them with a healthy skepticism.
Truth
Standing ovation! (with the qualifications that I list in the longer summary section above).
Technology
I am also quite supportive of this section, though I would have phrased some of the points differently. Let me focus on one:
“We believe that there is no material problem – whether created by nature or by technology – that cannot be solved with more technology.”
This statement is clearly incorrect. Most problems cannot be solved. Many can be mitigated or adjusted to, but not solved. Instead, I would write:
“We must understand that we are a biological species that is heavily constrained by the material world. Many problems cannot be solved in our lifetimes, and everything we do involves trade-offs. Most solutions create new and lesser problems.
We also must realize that all solutions involve the application of technologies, and inventing new technologies enlarges our toolkit to deal with more problems.”
Markets
Standing ovation! This is perhaps the best single explanation for why markets are morally superior to any other economic system.
Read it, and tell all your friends to read it.
The Techno-Capital Machine
I generally support each point, although I am a little nervous about the term “accelerationism.”
I believe that the Progress movement should be about rolling back government policies that undermine the foundations of Progress and Upward Mobility. Most other people in the Progress movement think more about how to accelerate technological innovation. I know that this is a subtle difference, but I think that it has a major impact on where the Progress movement focuses its efforts.
Let me put it this way: Rather than pressing harder on the accelerator pedal, we need to ease off on the pressure of the emergency brake that has been slowly being engaged over the last few generations by bad government policy.
Intelligence
This is where I begin to have serious differences of opinion. I see the importance of Intelligence to progress as highly exaggerated. I feel like this is jammed into the manifesto to pivot towards the topic of Artificial Intelligence. This may make the manifesto more relevant to current politics and technology, but it undermines the timelessness of the manifesto.
Quite honestly, when people start talking about AI, I tune out. I am not saying that they should not talk or think about it, but the discussion assumes a certain ability to predict the long-term societal outcomes of an emerging technology. As I mentioned in the summary, these people are seriously overestimating their abilities. If there is ever been a technology whose impact we cannot predict, it is AI.
Energy
Standing ovation! Energy is one of the keys to understanding progress and promoting it. That is why energy is the only factor that I include in both the Five Keys to Progress and How Progress Works. It is also why I write so many posts about energy and the dangers of Green energy policy.
Abundance
Standing ovation with the caveat that Marc is missing many other factors in the feedback loop that leads to abundance. I will skip the false modesty and state that my theories are more useful and accurate.
I also love how Marc connects Abundance and affordable prices. It is a key part of my concept of Upward Mobility, which I am writing about in my third book. One of my biggest complaints against Techno-Optimists is that they make very little attempt to reach beyond the Silicon Valley techie community.
The Progress movement has the potential to get a great deal of support from the working class, a very large constituency that does not feel represented by either the Democrats or the Republicans. Particularly with inflation back on the agenda, affordable prices should be a core appeal to regular, everyday working-class stiffs.
And I am not interested in trying to increase the human population. Decreased population seems almost inevitable, and modern societies are going to have to adapt to that decline. I would be happy with roughly the same population.
Not Utopia, But Close Enough
Standing ovation!
I would like to point out that Thomas Sowell would likely view the Techno-Optimist Manifesto as a Utopian vision. For example, Sowell is famous for saying “There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs.” If true, this undermines many of the statements made in this manifesto.
I think injecting more of Sowell’s thinking about the Constrained Vision would make this manifesto much stronger (although it will also reduce the number of potential followers in Silicon Valley).
Becoming Technological Supermen
Supermen? I think that we are getting a little scary here… and it clearly deviates from Sowell’s Constrained Vision.
This section is way too Affirmational for my tastes. The manifesto would be stronger with a deletion or complete rewrite of this entire section.
How about just a list of government policies that should be rolled back or implemented? That would make the manifesto far more practical.
Technological Values
Same for this section. I agree with most of it, but the tone makes me cringe.
The Meaning of Life
This is getting better. I am not sure that philosophy is the correct word, but I will let it go. I am generally nodding my head as I read.
The Enemy
I much prefer the term “opponents,” but given how dangerous to humanity they are, I can live with the term “enemy” used once in a while. I am glad that your enemies are concepts, not people.
That caveat aside, I will give it a standing ovation.
What is missing is an understanding of why opponents of progress believe what they believe. It is clearly not the facts. It is about non-rational impulses that drive much human thought, particularly in the realm of political ideology.
Far too many Techno-optimists and Progress supporters seem to think that we can just rationally explain the facts and our beliefs, and then the people will all rally to our side. I would like to see more focus on how human psychology and ideology interact to lead many (most?) people to be hostile to progress or at least skeptical of its existence. This is then used by ideologues to transform those non-rational impulses into public policy. Then that bad public policy undermines the foundations of progress and upward mobility.
These last few sentences should really have been a section in this manifesto.
The Future
This is a pretty tepid conclusion.
Where are the action points? Or more specifically, what do Techno-optimists do, rather than what they believe? What should a person do to support Techno-optimists?
I feel like the implication is that what he is really saying is “go back to your cubicle and continue hacking code!” That is fine for software developers, but what about the rest of us?
Do the rest of us just sit and wait for the blessing of software developers to rain down from heaven? If so, then why do you need to convert people to being Techno-optimists?
At times the Manifesto feels like a mission statement (and moral statement) for Silicon Valley. It is a manifesto for an industry, not a society. Perhaps if it were written by someone other than Marc Andreesen, it would not come across that way. As long as it stays that way, not many people are going to integrate the manifesto into their worldview.
The absence of a definition of what Techno-optimism is at its core (rather than a long list of “we believe…”) and no concrete actions to take are also big problems with this manifesto.
This section needs a complete rewrite.
Patron Saints of Techno-Optimism
I have an enormous amount of respect for many of the people on this list, but because of all the points that I mentioned above, I am not sure whether I would want to sign if asked.
One-third of the manifesto is stellar; one-third is good enough; one-third needs to be replaced by entirely different content to make it relevant to “normies.”
Sorry to have a big ego, but I think my Manifesto for the Progress-based Perspective is far superior. I hope that you and the signers of Marc’s manifesto will give it a read.
See also my other articles on Technology and Innovation:
My response to the Techno-Optimist Manifesto (this article)
Book review: "The Nature of Technology: What It Is and How It Evolves" by W. Brian Arthur (podcast)
I agreed with most of your assessments until Markets. Andreson is a financier. For him progress is growth in the size of his portfolio. And under SP culture this is the objective of American capitalism.
https://mikealexander.substack.com/p/the-capitalist-crisis
But a rising S&P 500 index is not the same thing as progress as I (or I believe you) see it. Market-based capitalism *can* be a major source of progress, but only if the capital it accumulates is the productive sort (i.e. that which when combined with labor produces higher productivity). Capital defined as "that which is valued by the stock market) produces nothing, does nothing, and cannot be a route to progress as you see it.
And this latter kind of capital is what SP culture accumulates.
https://mikealexander.substack.com/p/how-economic-culture-evolves