White: EA and e/acc rebrand Silicon Valley wealth accumulation as heroic
Molly White · Silicon Valley's Effective Altruist vs. Accelerationist Religious War · Dec 4, 2023 · at 18:40
Molly White, a tech critic and crypto researcher, discusses the philosophical framing tech leaders use around Effective Altruism and Effective Accelerationism on Big Technology Podcast.
0:00 / 0:33exact quote · 33.8s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“Effective accelerationism and to an extent effective altruism are really just sort of a rebranding of a lot of the same philosophies that have existed in Silicon Valley for a long time where people really want to feel good about themselves. Like they're, you know, pursuing a higher cause, not just the pursuit of massive wealth. And these philosophies are very convenient because they allow people to define themselves as these hero figures. Who are, you know, accumulating wealth, but not because they're greedy, not for their own purposes. It's for a higher cause.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Molly White
a16z Should Be Embarrassed By Their 'Blatant Hucksterism' in Web3
“I think the reputational Aspect of it, you know, I think they should be embarrassed by this, and I think people should view them negatively for this pretty blatant tuxterism that they were involved in, because, you know, they, this evangelism that they were do…”
Crypto VC Model Lets Firms Like a16z Dump Tokens on Retail
“Well, I mean, I think sadly Andreessen Horowitz probably came out of this financially kind of okay because with the, well, the crypto venture capital model is very slanted towards the venture capitalists where they can invest money in a firm. They receive thes…”
White: Both EA and e/acc share a mythology about imminent godlike AI
“They both have this sort of mythology in their heads about this, you know, godlike AI being that is just around the corner.”
White: Effective Accelerationism just rebrands 'move fast and break things'
“I think it is mostly a rebrand of, you know, move fast, break things, which has been Silicon Valley's, you know, mantra since early Facebook. But with the added sort of religious, almost philosophy behind it, and the very effective altruist style of speaking a…”
SBF Funneled Anthropic Investment Through Alameda to Obscure His Name
“A lot of it went to venture investments. So Sam Bankman Freed was investing in a bunch of different companies, Anthropic being one of them and he decided to do so through Alameda for a lot of them just to avoid having his name associated with it.”
Emails Show SBF's Mother Advised Him on Straw Political Donations
“And then there were also emails from his mother, who was a very active political, ah, sort of philanthropist. She ran a fund to try to donate to progressive causes, and she was effectively making, you know, giving advice in these emails about making straw dona…”