Great exploration of what feels like (from a distance) symptoms of a collective nervous breakdown within Silicon Valley—all these obsessions read like explicit and implicit manifestations of anxiety about the ongoing deskilling of coding jobs, the general oversupply of coders, diminishing labor share/power in the industry, diminishing returns to scale in A.I., the total failure of Trump administration, plus all the contradictions already inherent to the industry. At least to me the main thing all this stuff reeks of is total sweaty desperation. Look at my leading industry dawg were all going to die.
Huh. Is it an omnicrisis too? The more themes you tie in, the less convincing I find the analysis.
To me, this sounds a lot like the dot com, mobile, and pandemic booms. Lots of people are acquiring status and money, and it does cause anxiety, but the anxiety is primarily about whether you're keeping up with your peers. Tech is booming yet again, and it does make people a little crazy.
reporting to you from a social circle of southerners and luddites, very spiritually and geographically far from the bay --
feels like many of us have also accepted the logic of a permanent underclass, and are reacting by learning to garden. accepting that (very happy that?) we can not and will not ascend. finding new (actually, very old) ways to be rich
related: frugal hedonism/soft living/the biggest communist you know converting to catholicism
I think anyone who hits mid-career must come to terms with the fact that a pyramid doesn't have many top slots and most of us aren't going to be great. But there is more to life. I'm glad I have more to my life than ambition.
Yea. I've deliberately passed up promotion opportunities because it'd take me away from doing podcasts that almost no one listens to. And even just wanting more time to consume miscellaneous media.
I went on a four-hour bike ride today, and the lingering high reminds me that I prefer Vermont autumns over ruminating about whether I'm appropriately locked in for the gentle singularity.
Hey, so much fun. Your interview with me & Tianyu comes out tonight, Beijing time! Meanwhile, NPC actually has deeper roots than video games: It's from Dungeons & Dragons, if I'm not mistaken, and goes back to the mid-late 70s. Terrific essay!!
oh interesting I didn't realize! and this essay was partly inspired by your question (adapted from from Lei Gong) about whether 996 was orientalist. I figured to make it fair, might as well dissect the internet lingo in SF too
I inhabit such a different world in SF. But my friends are all crusty queer gen x’ers trying to keep the weird SF we found when we moved here in the 90s still going. It’s possible to live here and avoid a lot of this nonsense. They’re all NPCs to me in my dnd playing world. 🤷🏻♀️
This is great. I've tired of all the taste talk. Much of it seems like a new way to talk about the increasing importance of brand in the context of commoditized, hyper-saturated software markets.
I feel as if you've tapped into some deeper level of analysis here, going beyond even what I much admired in your earlier essays.
Can I nudge you to think and write more about gender in these tribes? In ways, for all its differences from what I have observed in other subcultures in my 80 years, in many ways this all seems like just-one-more male pissing contest, one more way men compete to dominate each other and try to impress women. Do you see something like that happening in these groups too? "Sure they may destroy the world, but it's just men flexing on other men, like it has long been."
And they don't care about politics because they are men--they assume it will all work out for them!
good point! I do think there's a lot of gender stuff going on, but it's hard to describe exactly... on one hand SV feels (and is) very "male," on the other I've very rarely experienced overt sexism
My _guess_ is that the mid-twenties men of SV (guys my age) are trying to figure out what being a man entails, after the 2010s 4chan-tumblr Internet Wars blasted apart all established formulae.
Thank you as ever, my genius pet, for keeping me up-to-date on all the things I can now confidently continue to ignore--which is of course a matter of taste.
I live in Chile, so I appreciate your writing on the zeitgeist in SF , I haven´t found observations like these or in China with such sensibility or sharp eye. Great posts!
Fascinating as always. My sense is that there was something missing from your NPC description.
Imo the NPCs might not quite be “unaware” of things. In fact, they often gravitate towards the “smart person meme view”. In the instance of AI, that would be “AI is just a confabulation machine that uses a cup of water for every query” or something.
They value status, and so unthinkingly adopt the “high status” view, which often tends to be wrong, particularly in areas where elites are completely off the ball.
Anyway, thanks a lot for writing such an interesting piece!
Great exploration of what feels like (from a distance) symptoms of a collective nervous breakdown within Silicon Valley—all these obsessions read like explicit and implicit manifestations of anxiety about the ongoing deskilling of coding jobs, the general oversupply of coders, diminishing labor share/power in the industry, diminishing returns to scale in A.I., the total failure of Trump administration, plus all the contradictions already inherent to the industry. At least to me the main thing all this stuff reeks of is total sweaty desperation. Look at my leading industry dawg were all going to die.
Huh. Is it an omnicrisis too? The more themes you tie in, the less convincing I find the analysis.
To me, this sounds a lot like the dot com, mobile, and pandemic booms. Lots of people are acquiring status and money, and it does cause anxiety, but the anxiety is primarily about whether you're keeping up with your peers. Tech is booming yet again, and it does make people a little crazy.
I’m a high agency NPC
reporting to you from a social circle of southerners and luddites, very spiritually and geographically far from the bay --
feels like many of us have also accepted the logic of a permanent underclass, and are reacting by learning to garden. accepting that (very happy that?) we can not and will not ascend. finding new (actually, very old) ways to be rich
related: frugal hedonism/soft living/the biggest communist you know converting to catholicism
I think anyone who hits mid-career must come to terms with the fact that a pyramid doesn't have many top slots and most of us aren't going to be great. But there is more to life. I'm glad I have more to my life than ambition.
Yea. I've deliberately passed up promotion opportunities because it'd take me away from doing podcasts that almost no one listens to. And even just wanting more time to consume miscellaneous media.
Reading this, I'm reminded why I'm not on X 😂 Thanks for the summary!
holy moly. this is such a great snapshot of the overall state of the silicon bay area - still, I'm a bit bummed that you're right about it all
Seconded.
I went on a four-hour bike ride today, and the lingering high reminds me that I prefer Vermont autumns over ruminating about whether I'm appropriately locked in for the gentle singularity.
Hey, so much fun. Your interview with me & Tianyu comes out tonight, Beijing time! Meanwhile, NPC actually has deeper roots than video games: It's from Dungeons & Dragons, if I'm not mistaken, and goes back to the mid-late 70s. Terrific essay!!
oh interesting I didn't realize! and this essay was partly inspired by your question (adapted from from Lei Gong) about whether 996 was orientalist. I figured to make it fair, might as well dissect the internet lingo in SF too
I inhabit such a different world in SF. But my friends are all crusty queer gen x’ers trying to keep the weird SF we found when we moved here in the 90s still going. It’s possible to live here and avoid a lot of this nonsense. They’re all NPCs to me in my dnd playing world. 🤷🏻♀️
I love that for you
I just published an NPC essay and your analysis makes me feel like a grade-school scribbler.
Your description of the Silicon Valley vibe is dark, dense and very involution-like, a culture folding in on itself and becoming more extreme.
This is one of the few Substacks that I will go back and re-read. It's a bit intense to take in all at once.
learning about Chinese involution actually really made me recognize it in SV too — I do think innovation and extreme competition go hand in hand
I will check out your NPC post!
This is great. I've tired of all the taste talk. Much of it seems like a new way to talk about the increasing importance of brand in the context of commoditized, hyper-saturated software markets.
I feel as if you've tapped into some deeper level of analysis here, going beyond even what I much admired in your earlier essays.
Can I nudge you to think and write more about gender in these tribes? In ways, for all its differences from what I have observed in other subcultures in my 80 years, in many ways this all seems like just-one-more male pissing contest, one more way men compete to dominate each other and try to impress women. Do you see something like that happening in these groups too? "Sure they may destroy the world, but it's just men flexing on other men, like it has long been."
And they don't care about politics because they are men--they assume it will all work out for them!
good point! I do think there's a lot of gender stuff going on, but it's hard to describe exactly... on one hand SV feels (and is) very "male," on the other I've very rarely experienced overt sexism
I am sure your completed anthropology of SV will explore the layers of this. (Pressure!)
My _guess_ is that the mid-twenties men of SV (guys my age) are trying to figure out what being a man entails, after the 2010s 4chan-tumblr Internet Wars blasted apart all established formulae.
Source: I, too, read David Buss
Thank you as ever, my genius pet, for keeping me up-to-date on all the things I can now confidently continue to ignore--which is of course a matter of taste.
<3
Can I appropriate the name "My Genius Pet" for a new Substack about . . . don't know yet--but the title will sell itself :)
this was sooooo interesting jasmine. made me realize how geographically close yet culturally very distant i am from the silicon valley/AI scene
hahah probably for the better!!! glad u enjoyed
I live in Chile, so I appreciate your writing on the zeitgeist in SF , I haven´t found observations like these or in China with such sensibility or sharp eye. Great posts!
oh, what a time to be alive
Fascinating as always. My sense is that there was something missing from your NPC description.
Imo the NPCs might not quite be “unaware” of things. In fact, they often gravitate towards the “smart person meme view”. In the instance of AI, that would be “AI is just a confabulation machine that uses a cup of water for every query” or something.
They value status, and so unthinkingly adopt the “high status” view, which often tends to be wrong, particularly in areas where elites are completely off the ball.
Anyway, thanks a lot for writing such an interesting piece!
mmm yeah I think thats right / a good elaboration!