The author is skeptical that the canon actually existed before pc posted about it, but I had read a lot of them, and I don't think any would be too surprising to people who read HN or SSC. And there's plenty of influence from Slashdot before that, and the Whole Earth Catalog before that.
I suppose it is antithetical for a tech bro to value virtue and wisdom, for that path is less profitable (monetarily) than the unjust path, and so never shall the two meet. Having money as the standard of the good life, and lacking in equal proportion any merit of virtue and wisdom, what is left for them but to aim wanderingly off the cliff?
The article is correct to call them children, for that is what our modern education makes of us. So bleak and inhospitable is the modern education that it likely does us more harm than good, for it abstracts the world of meaning away and replaces it with lifeless mind-numbing facts. And in that gloomy room they are fed to the wolves, or made to become a wolf themselves. Most adults are still traumatized from their educations, they still dream about it, they still carry on their childish behaviors; few ever mature and become wise.
There's nothing simple about this vast interconnected mess we find ourselves in, and even for one seeking to better themselves, they are, lacking good judgment, more likely to select the bad thing over the good thing. As it's no easy task to determine the middle way, to re-evaluate ones values, and find harmony with oneself and their environment, we can forgive them for having no idea what they're doing. They're kids with too much money, a poor education, and a withering spirit, and their attempts to exert their will on the world will send us further into our dark ages. All that one can do is educate themselves, and see the light themselves, and live by example I suppose.
ai_critic•1h ago
The author then goes on to observe that these folks are all right-leaning or working with the Republicans.
The reason for this--and the beatings will continue until the progressives, liberals, and Democrats figure this out--is that the right is not fundamentally opposed to economic and technological progress.
If you keep rigging the game, you lose good players, and they'll stop playing for you--and the fans will stop coming.