Richardcyoung.com

The Online Home of Author and Investor, Dick Young

  • Home
  • How We Are Different
  • About Us
    • Foundation Principles
    • Contributors
  • Investing
    • You’ve Read The Last Issue of Intelligence Report, Now What?
  • Your Survival Guy
  • The Great Reset
  • COVID-19
  • My Rifles
  • Dividends and Compounding
  • Your Security
  • The Swiss Way
  • Dick Young
  • Debbie Young
  • Key West
  • Paris
  • Dick’s R&B Top 100
  • Liberty & Freedom Map
  • Bank Credit & Money
  • Your Survival Guy’s Super States
  • NNT & Cholesterol
  • Work to Make Money/Invest to Save Money
  • Your Health
  • Ron Paul
  • US Treasury Yield Curve: My Favorite Investor Tool

OVER OPTIMISM: Can Tech Solve All the Problems?

December 8, 2022 By The Editors

Theranos CEO and founder Elizabeth Holmes listens along with other attendees as Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton B. Carter delivers remarks at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, April 17, 2013. (DoD Photo By Glenn Fawcett) (Released)

In WIRED, Lauren Goode discusses the case of Sam Bankman-Fried and the collapse of FTX. She wonders why these things keep happening and comes to rest on the answer provided by Margaret O’Mara, a professor of history at the University of Washington, that people are too optimistic when it comes to technology.  Goode writes:

In the case of Sam Bankman-Fried or the recently sentenced fraudster Elizabeth Holmes, the collective and generally positive fascination with them may have stemmed from old-fashioned solutionism. “They were both fixing a failure, right?” O’Mara says. “Holmes enters the scene at a time when people are asking, ‘Where are the women in tech? Also, all you guys are doing in the Valley is making apps. She’s making medical devices that are going to change health care.’”

More recently, the world of crypto has also been seen as imperfect and even downright sketchy. Then along came SBF, and the familiar cycle began again. “He’s the stereotype, the nerdy guy in the cargo shorts with a pedigreed background,” O’Mara says. “He’s a quant. And then he’s talking about politics and altruism. He’s not just talking about the tech he’s heads-down in, he’s talking about the world and how he can deploy what he’s doing more broadly.”

Basically, O’Mara’s diagnosis of the underlying problem is a persistent case of techno-optimism. Despite the fact that technology hasn’t lived up to all its promises to turn us into a smarter, more efficient, more productive society over the past 20 years—a point that was made in another lengthy conversation I had this week—we still wonder if tech itself can solve the complexities tech hath wrought. “There’s this hopefulness that technology will save us, even though we have abundant evidence that it can be problematic,” O’Mara says.

It’s an arguably simplistic explanation for why so many people hastily put SBF on a pedestal, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong. We’re human, after all. (I am reminded of another Giridharadas gem on tech founder hero worship: “They are as limited at humanity as I am at coding. But therefore I stay away from coding, and they refuse to stay away from lording over humanity.”)

Maybe that’s what I was looking for when I tuned into that Zoom event with SBF back in April: some evidence of humanity, in addition to a better understanding of exactly how an unregulated exchange for digital coins could be worth the equivalent of billions of US dollars. Now, after a spectacular downfall, at least one of those is crystal clear.

If you’re willing to fight for Main Street America, click here to sign up for the Richardcyoung.com free weekly email.

Related Posts

  • Is Force the Way to Solve America’s Problems?
  • The Invisible Manipulation of Big Tech
  • The Mood in America Is Anti-Big-Tech
  • Highest Small Business Optimism Since Reagan
  • Author
  • Recent Posts
The Editors
Latest posts by The Editors (see all)
  • The Man Who Tried to Prevent the Challenger Space Shuttle Disaster - January 30, 2023
  • Ukraine Front Lines Increasingly Bloody - January 30, 2023
  • Is Diesel Fuel About to Become Even More Expensive? - January 30, 2023

Dick Young’s Must Reads

  • Are You Prepared to Run Out of Water?
  • 751 “No-Go” Zones in France
  • What’s the Best Survival Currency?
  • Rich States, Poor States this State is Dominant Once Again
  • Conflict Between Democratic Sovereignty and Transnational Progressivism (Globalism)
  • The Four Most Important Words in Investing
  • The Worst President in American History, Part I
  • U.S. Survival AR-7
  • Thanks to America’s Worst President
  • Warning! Your Survival Guy’s on a Boil Water Advisory

Our Most Popular Posts

  • Pfizer CEO Terrified of Real Questions About His Vaccines
  • Give Me Clean, Efficient Gas
  • America's Super States and Stocks that Respect YOU
  • How the Biden Administration Is Destroying Our Energy Infrastructure
  • The Rich Seek More from Bank Accounts
  • Artificial Intelligence Is Coming, But It's Not Quite There
  • Is Kevin McCarthy’s GOP Willing to Do What It Takes on Debt?
  • The Sound of Silence
  • Forty Years Ago, Jogging a Mile a Day and Still Going
  • Strengthen Your Defenses Against Stroke

Disclosure

RSS Youngresearch.com

  • Warren Miller: If You Don’t Do It This Year, You’ll Be…
  • Are the Realists Winning the Debate over the Future of EVs?
  • CATO: Global Freedom Is in Sharp Decline
  • Biden Administration Destroying Retiree Fiduciary Protections
  • 4 Life Changing Words for Your Survival Guy: “You Should Try This”
  • Suddenly, Holding Cash Looks Good Again to Many
  • Anti-Carbon Crusaders in Davos Talk ESG and OPM
  • Is Passive Investing Already Passé?
  • Welcome to Hotel California, Where You Can Never Leave
  • What You’re Telling Me Matters

RSS Yoursurvivalguy.com

  • Warren Miller: If You Don’t Do It This Year, You’ll Be…
  • CATO: Global Freedom Is in Sharp Decline
  • TIME FOR A GONDOLA? Little Cottonwood Canyon Jammed with Traffic
  • Biden Administration Destroying Retiree Fiduciary Protections
  • 4 Life Changing Words for Your Survival Guy: “You Should Try This”
  • Anti-Carbon Crusaders in Davos Talk ESG and OPM
  • Welcome to Hotel California, Where You Can Never Leave
  • What You’re Telling Me Matters
  • The Rich Seek More from Bank Accounts
  • California’s Wealth Tax Will Drive Out Remaining Rich Residents

How to Fight Wokism Idiocy

Despite Western Aid the Russians Are Slowly Taking Ukraine’s Territory

Warren Miller: If You Don’t Do It This Year, You’ll Be…

The Man Who Tried to Prevent the Challenger Space Shuttle Disaster

Ukraine Front Lines Increasingly Bloody

Is Diesel Fuel About to Become Even More Expensive?

Copyright © 2023 | Terms & Conditions | About Us | Dick Young | Archives