I wonder why Andreesen doesn’t suggest public funding of higher education, instead of fighting DEI. If education was free for all Americans, it would achieve what he’s arguing for and it would undermine and make DEI efforts completely moot. As far as I can tell, we can afford to fund university for all entirely on the extra income taxes that people with degrees make above people without degrees, at least according to income data studies I’ve read from the Fed. (I’m honestly curious why our country hasn’t come to this conclusion already - it certainly looks today like funding higher education for all would increase GDP and reduce the tax burden.)
He also writes that the NSF should experience "the bureaucratic death penalty."
Andreesen doesn't actually give a shit about the university system whatsoever. He wants people like him to be at the top of society and everybody else to grovel at his feet.
That’s what the parent commenter is saying, if everyone has the same opportunity to go to college and get a degree, then colleges don’t need to pick and choose students. Right now, only people with means can do to college, and so universities wind up balancing the scales.
Yes, that’s definitely what I’m suggesting. Did I accidentally imply something else? I feel like taking the whether someone can afford college off the table would just immediately end this DEI argument and give Americans a boost. Why isn’t Adreesen fighting for that?
Most likely it’s because he doesn’t actually want what he claims. Billionaires become corrupted by their wealth. Like a junkie, they need their fix. And their fix is to see their wealth increase.
It's very simple in my opinion. The discrimination we have in the US is all about wealth, not diversity. If we shift all DEI to simply focus on those who don't come from wealth, we will have solved discrimination without resorting to subjective racial or ethnic or sexual qualifications.
A friend of mine involved with the Coast Guard lemented someone who was fired in Trump's DEI purge. She was hard working, and well respected by those who worked for her, but she was a woman so she was deemed "without merit".
The problem I have with the anti-DEI stuff is that they have no means of proving merit. They're just seeing someone who is a minority and imagining a more qualified white guy.
Andreesen says that its been 60 years of "discrimination" against white people. My alma mater didn't even admit women in 1965. He says that immigration is "discrimination." The world he pines for is a world of explicit and massive discrimination against women and non-whites.
Andreesen is calling for the NSF to be destroyed. What does that have to do with DEI? The Trump administration is demanding that universities expressly hire conservatives as faculty and admit conservatives as students. Where's Andreesen's concern about this?
If Andreesen gives a shit about merit, why'd a16z hire Daniel Penny when his entire "qualification" is killing somebody on the subway?
You have been misinformed about what DEI is and does. Folks like Andreessen are outright liars. It’s not reverse discrimination. It’s an attempt to level the playing field.
> At this point references to DEI and "woke" are signals
Quite the opposite: it’s a mark of low intelligence to pretend that people need to have perfectly articulated labels for a phenomenon they are expressing irritation with.
It’s okay to walk into the doctor saying “I’m feeling pains in my stomach” without the doctor yelling at you that it’s actually a kidney issue, idiot.
To continue your euphemism, the doctor then tells you to stop eating junk food, but you dismiss them and continue to yell about bad humors and black bile.
Sometimes you have to work on you and it's not some conspiratorial force against you.
This is all incredibly ironic coming from the party/side of self-sufficiency and bootstrapping.
Sometimes it actually is provably a conspiratorial force against you, 100%, and those who stand to benefit from the conspiracy will certainly not be honest about that.
They can only be held accountable by losing lawsuits- which has caused even Google to drop all DEI targets due to repeatedly illegal practices.
> those who stand to benefit from the conspiracy will certainly not be honest about that.
The same could be said about your position as well, you'd lie to get a leg up.
Nobody has to/or should believe that you are some benevolently honest being. If anything, it should be assumed that people are self interested and support the way their "bread is buttered".
That should make it even MORE clear that we should focus on improving ourselves rather than fighting foils.
> They can only be held accountable by losing lawsuits- which has caused even Google to drop all DEI targets due to repeatedly illegal practices.
Major companies are dropping DEI because it's en-vouge with the current admin. Nothing inherent to the policies. If you can't see that incentive, I personally think you're delusional.
I will happily work on myself, while suing the living daylights out of any company that dares to illegally discriminate against any race; White, Black, Asian, Hispanic, you name it. I will also do everything in my power to pierce the corporate veil on the individual people involved.
If you illegally discriminate, I don’t even care if I win, if I cost you $70K in legal bills before we settle. That’s punishment enough and I’m all for it.
>I will happily work on myself, while suing the living daylights out of any company that dares to illegally discriminate against any race; White, Black, Asian, Hispanic, you name it. I will also do everything in my power to pierce the corporate veil on the individual people involved.
Excuse me for not believing this.
>If you illegally discriminate, I don’t even care if I win, if I cost you $70K in legal bills before we settle. That’s punishment enough and I’m all for it.
And this is my point. Your purpose is to fight the foil. You just want to exact vengeance. You have no good will in any of this. You're openly saying that your goal isn't to affect any kind of positive change.
And no, they are indeed solely focused on improving diversity in a fair manner.
If you’re white and you think you are being discriminated against because of your skin color, did you ever stop to think that perhaps you are simply not receiving the benefit of your skin color as much as your parents did?
Or maybe consider: because you now have to compete against a wider pool, your skills just don’t measure up as well?
Andreesen doesn't actually give a shit about the university system whatsoever. He wants people like him to be at the top of society and everybody else to grovel at his feet.
https://bsky.app/profile/sifill.bsky.social/post/3ltrkbtyam2...
It has nothing to do with equality and it promotes helplessness
The problem I have with the anti-DEI stuff is that they have no means of proving merit. They're just seeing someone who is a minority and imagining a more qualified white guy.
Andreesen is calling for the NSF to be destroyed. What does that have to do with DEI? The Trump administration is demanding that universities expressly hire conservatives as faculty and admit conservatives as students. Where's Andreesen's concern about this?
If Andreesen gives a shit about merit, why'd a16z hire Daniel Penny when his entire "qualification" is killing somebody on the subway?
It was supposed to level the playing field for people who are just as/more capable, but did not even get considered.
Instead of that, they don’t consider others anymore, nor do they care about actual capabilities.
It’s very simple… politics set policies by rewarding and punishing with taxes. Companies will “game” anything to reach certain numbers.
based
Changing words doesn’t change practice. Inventing words like “unhoused” doesn’t fix “homeless.”
Quite the opposite: it’s a mark of low intelligence to pretend that people need to have perfectly articulated labels for a phenomenon they are expressing irritation with.
It’s okay to walk into the doctor saying “I’m feeling pains in my stomach” without the doctor yelling at you that it’s actually a kidney issue, idiot.
Sometimes you have to work on you and it's not some conspiratorial force against you.
This is all incredibly ironic coming from the party/side of self-sufficiency and bootstrapping.
They can only be held accountable by losing lawsuits- which has caused even Google to drop all DEI targets due to repeatedly illegal practices.
The same could be said about your position as well, you'd lie to get a leg up.
Nobody has to/or should believe that you are some benevolently honest being. If anything, it should be assumed that people are self interested and support the way their "bread is buttered".
That should make it even MORE clear that we should focus on improving ourselves rather than fighting foils.
> They can only be held accountable by losing lawsuits- which has caused even Google to drop all DEI targets due to repeatedly illegal practices.
Major companies are dropping DEI because it's en-vouge with the current admin. Nothing inherent to the policies. If you can't see that incentive, I personally think you're delusional.
I will happily work on myself, while suing the living daylights out of any company that dares to illegally discriminate against any race; White, Black, Asian, Hispanic, you name it. I will also do everything in my power to pierce the corporate veil on the individual people involved.
If you illegally discriminate, I don’t even care if I win, if I cost you $70K in legal bills before we settle. That’s punishment enough and I’m all for it.
Excuse me for not believing this.
>If you illegally discriminate, I don’t even care if I win, if I cost you $70K in legal bills before we settle. That’s punishment enough and I’m all for it.
And this is my point. Your purpose is to fight the foil. You just want to exact vengeance. You have no good will in any of this. You're openly saying that your goal isn't to affect any kind of positive change.
And no, they are indeed solely focused on improving diversity in a fair manner.
If you’re white and you think you are being discriminated against because of your skin color, did you ever stop to think that perhaps you are simply not receiving the benefit of your skin color as much as your parents did?
Or maybe consider: because you now have to compete against a wider pool, your skills just don’t measure up as well?