Thread by @JefferyIrvinPhD

Reading a book right now and the writer used the word "recondite"--which I thought was an obscure way for them to get their point across. @adriandaub

Chapter two of "What Tech Calls Thinking" is all about platform building, the "medium becoming the message", and all the money to be made with just the delivery of "information". It makes me think of the modern oceanic carrying trade, and late nineteenth century railroads.

I'm a great admirer of the word "quotidian"--which is why I use it every day. 😁

Just finished chapter three and I'm reminded of this tweet I sent. Clearly, the idea of the "courageous" rogue from Silicon Valley has bled into the academy and has become part of the "culture wars" and #CancelCulture.

https://twitter.com/JefferyIrvinPhD/status/1332730349059596289?s=19

I also thought of this tweet while reading chapter three because we excessively reward the fusion of common technologies as if it's the product of genius.

https://twitter.com/JefferyIrvinPhD/status/1337138128465715200?s=19

Wow! Chapter five, focusing on the mimetic theories of René Girard, makes it sound like Silicon Valley leaders follow a hodge-podge of ideas that combine Buddha's view of desire, the game theories of John Nash, and what I've called "Grand Unified Bunk".
jefferyirvinphd.wordpress.com/2012/10/31/the…

Reading this chapter reminded me of the Christian "cargo cults" that developed around the world when Europeans began trading. These cults formed into various chiliastic movements, not all benign. There is clearly a type of utopianism at work at Stanford and in Silicon Valley.

Maybe Stanford should assign a bit of Neil Postman as a corrective to Girard?
amazon.com/Technopoly-Sur…

Chapter six sort of connects with the conflict suggested in Girard's mimeticism. Joseph Schumpeter proposed the idea of "disruption" to help explain why Marx's prediction of capitalism's end had not yet come. Disruption (competitors and "innovation") kept capitalism alive.

However, Schumpeter thought it only a temporary reprieve, that socialism would win out in the end. Of course, Schumpeter's idea of "disruption" sans the victory of socialism has become a shibboleth in Silicon Valley. It is now de rigueur to promote disruption always.

It is quite possible most of this "disruption" serves to distract from the normal exploitation of capitalism. In short, making us all believe that change=progress blinds us to how people are getting screwed. It's a bait and switch.

Good book. While reading the final chapter about the "celebration of failure as a means to success" I couldn't get the HBO show Silicon Valley out of my head. 😁 @adriandaub @logic_magazine

This book has prompted me to think again about American anti-intellectualism. I used to think anti-intellectualism was rooted in a laziness of the mind and the fear of encountering ideas one found disagreeable but I'm coming around to the idea that it's about "perceived utility".

In a religious society, which America has been and still is to a large extent, the pursuit of "truth"--especially moral truth--must seem like a pointless venture outside one's sacred scripture or religious fellowship.

If a society is pragmatic, if it prizes experience above any other type of learning, it must seem ludicrous to pursue a systematic understanding of any topic that one cannot "feel" their way through by the simple practice of doing. That too is an American conceit.

@adriandaub begins his book talking about people who have dropped out of Stanford and other schools, and who then go out into the world to "make their mark". This seems quintessentially part of the American narrative of anti-intellectualism and the myth of "rugged individualism".

Another aspect of this is that if utility--in the economic sense--determines our level of intellectual engagement then those who live a "life of the mind" must seek either marketable angles for their thought (the "public intellectual") or seek a sinecure. We all need an audience.

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