Appendix to The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

My half-agreeing, half-disagreeing response to Marc Andreessen

Generally speaking, technology, progress, economic growth, and increased productivity rates are good for the world, for societies, and for human beings. Without those things, we’d be much worse off. To the extent that this is the main thesis of Marc Andreessen’s Techno-Optimist Manifesto, I agree with it.

I know some people disagree here, but their arguments usually conflate the question of how the world is — and whether it is now better than it was — with questions of how they wish it were or how it could have been had we taken a different path forward. Mixing both is a categorical mistake that must be avoided.

The world is better than it was at pretty much any earlier point in history, for virtually everyone (broadly speaking and setting aside circumstantial events, like the ongoing conflict between Palestina and Israel). Questions about how the world should be manifest an important conversation but one that is, I think, independent of the debate-starting piece that Andreessen published, which is more a draft of how we should continue building our civilization by looking back and applying what has worked for us so far.