Enterprise capital large Andreessen Horowitz has introduced its intent to start lobbying the U.S. authorities, and their plan is as tone-deaf and obtuse as this summer season’s dreadful “Techno-Optimist Manifesto.” Primarily, they may give to anybody — literally anyone — who “supports an optimistic technology-enabled future.”
That is what’s known as being a single-issue voter, and whereas co-founder Ben Horowitz (who penned the weblog submit) appears to suppose asserting themselves as such provides their lobbying a child-like purity, it’s fairly the other.
The actual fact is that they’re wealthy ideologues asserting their intent to pay any politician who will advance their agenda, no matter that politician’s different views. It truly is that easy!
That tech is extra essential than individuals is key to their method. They’d argue that they’re pro-people by the use of being pro-tech, for instance as they write, “Artificial Intelligence has the potential to uplift all of humanity to an unprecedented quality of living.”
Due to this fact, being pro-AI is being pro-people, proper? And in reality, if you concentrate on it, if AI may result in a 100x enchancment within the human situation long run, it justifies taking actions that produce worse outcomes within the quick time period. As an example, supporting politicians who oppose fundamental civil rights simply because they’ve a extra hands-off tech regulation proposal.
Would Andreessen and Horowitz assist a politician proposing a nationwide abortion ban, as an illustration, or widespread banning of “woke agenda” books, if that particular person mentioned they’d belief AI corporations to do what’s finest for everybody? Effectively, in line with a16z’s assertion of objective right here, that abortion stuff is none of their enterprise! They’re “non-partisan, one issue voters.”
However that’s simply bullshit, proper?
Within the first place, the concept that this one situation is non-partisan is risible. Pressured-birth advocates would most likely say they’re non-partisan, one-issue voters too. It’s not about politics, it’s about the suitable to life, in any case. That just one political occasion has cynically tied this and different “traditional values” to each different coverage proposal for many years is irrelevant!
No, no — you don’t get to only declare non-partisanship in a weblog submit. Tech regulation has turn into a partisan situation like every part else. The debates on internet neutrality, on Part 230, on TikTok, on disinformation in social media, and on a16z’s pet techs AI, cryptocurrency and biotech — all partisan! That’s merely the character of politics now. Even not taking part in lobbying is in a approach a partisan determination as a result of it alerts that you’re not keen to take a aspect.
However that non-partisan language is simply the same old dressing for this type of announcement. Everybody claims it as a result of it’s a meaningless high quality and may’t be proved or disproved. The issue with a16z’s philosophy right here is that it’s a wolf in sheep’s clothes: a nakedly deregulatory and pro-capital agenda superficially draped with the language of empowerment.
It’s important to think about that some cigarette business govt wrote an identical weblog submit within the ’60s: We’re a non-partisan, single-issue voter on the misguided regulatory regime unfairly stopping People from having fun with the good style and well being advantages of our all-natural tobacco merchandise.
Similar for plastics, meals components, leaded gasoline, every part else. All they cared about, and all Andreessen Horowitz cares about, is clearing the board of a hard impediment to enrichment.
If they really cared in any respect about individuals and the way politics or this lobbying effort may have an effect on them, “people” most likely would have been talked about as greater than summary ideas that may theoretically get “uplifted” or harmed in an imaginary future.
It’s unrealistic to suppose that by donating to a politician who helps their deregulatory imaginative and prescient, a16z won’t even be supporting the opposite insurance policies that individuals truly vote on proper now. Issues like voting rights, reproductive care, training. This apparent battle of pursuits is conveniently averted. Is any place, any proposal vile sufficient for them to withdraw assist, or will they stick by their rules, if they are often described as such?
They will’t count on us to imagine that their understanding of lobbying and politics is that this naive. There are good individuals at that agency. We should take their assertion at face worth that they really don’t care about something however rising the sector they put money into. However what they’re declaring shouldn’t be, as they recommend, an idealistic pro-humanity stance, however a cynical self-interested stance that’s essentially anti-people.
However a16z doesn’t care about individuals — it cares about humanity.
And humanity will certainly be grateful when, as we enter this golden age of know-how, we enter a darkish age of civil and social coverage, proper? Women like Kate Cox may not have bodily autonomy, however no less than they may have the blockchain.
