
Silicon Valley’s Technolibertarian Dream Was Invented By Timothy Leary - dpflan
https://theoutline.com/post/1030/timothy-leary-silicon-valley-technolibertarian
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EthanHeilman
Leary was tapping into an existing techno-utopian dream in that part of the
world.

FTA: >First published in his book Terra II (1974), it’s a neat summary of
Leary’s vision of the future of the human species, the next step in human
evolution.

Yet we have poems like 'All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace'[0] by
Richard Brautigan written in 1967. The same year Brautigan was made Poet-in-
Residence at CalTech.

This isn't to say that Leary didn't help shape the modern and stable form of
west coast techno-utopianism we see today. I think he did, however he did this
by amplifying a subset of the already existing techno-utopian ideas into the
greater sphere of American culture.

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Watched_Over_by_Machines_o...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Watched_Over_by_Machines_of_Loving_Grace)

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Alex3917
"There are two major products that came out of Berkeley: LSD and UNIX. We
don't believe this to be a coincidence."

~~~
mc32
Do they mean to say BSD?

~~~
haldean
BSD is one of the first Unices (probably second only to AT&T UNIX), so both
would be correct, although "LSD and BSD" might make for a punchier joke :)

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xherberta
_"... In the 1980s, [Leary's] vision could be summed up in one word: SMI2LE.

A neat summary of Leary’s vision of the future of the human species, SMI2LE
stands for Space Migration, Intelligence Increase, and Life Extension. (First
published in his book Terra II (1974))

... [Leary] came to this conclusion while rotting away in prison."_

\----

My 2 cents:

Space migration: an obscenely expensive way to sideline earth's environmental
problems

Increased Intelligence: Not that helpful in an era when humans are going to
have to re-articulate their raison d'etre in the face of superhuman machine
intelligence. I would expect an LSD guy like Leary to have a better grasp on
the purpose of being human than that. See also Superintelligence by Nick
Bostrom

Life Extension: One of the key features of being human is being mortal. It's
not just an inconvenience to be done away with. (That's a personal view;
disagreement is welcome.) I sort of wonder if LE is a screwball project for
people who secretly are afraid of a judeo-christian afterlife? Again, it
boggles me that Leary failed to make peace with death? Maybe drugs are not as
awesome as I thought.

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Tenhundfeld
> Space migration: an obscenely expensive way to sideline earth's
> environmental problems

What‽‽‽ There are so, so many reasons for space migration that have nothing to
do with earth's environmental problems – assuming you mean global
warming/dimming/<things humans are affecting>. Asteroid. Super volcano. Gamma
ray burst. Magnetic field reversal. Pandemic. Super fungus. Artificial super
intelligence. Nuclear war.

Our understanding of life, geology, climatology, astronomy, etc., has improved
much in the last 6000 years, but at a fundamental level, we are extremely
rudimentary. We don't really know what's normal on a galactic/universal scale.

It's like saying having a failover server is just an expensive way to sideline
taking good care of your primary server. Huh? No, having a backup plan is what
you do when something is important, because shit happens. On a long enough
timeline, shit that you can't predict _always_ happens.

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arohner
> There are so, so many reasons for space migration that have nothing to do
> with earth's environmental problems. Asteroid. Super volcano. Gamma ray
> burst. Magnetic field reversal. Pandemic. Super fungus. Artificial super
> intelligence. Nuclear war.

I understand everything on that list with the exception of magnetic field
reversal. Can you explain why it's so bad?

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JCzynski
When Earth's magnetic field reverses (it's periodic and we're overdue), it
does not protect from solar radiation for a while, making the outdoors toxic
and destroying most electronics as a result.

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gonerill
See: Fred Turner (2006), _From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand,
the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism_.
[http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/F/bo3773600...](http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/F/bo3773600.html)

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api
I highly recommend finding a bunch of Leary's out of print material. A lot of
it's been scanned and uploaded to various places. It's both fascinating and
culturally very significant, not to mention stylized and weird to the point of
being a work of art.

I also highly recommend his biography _Flashbacks_.

~~~
dpflan
Thanks for the recommendations. Can you provide any links to resources?

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superkuh
Nothing exists in total vacuum. Check out early 20th century Russian cosmism:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_cosmism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_cosmism)

>The Earth is the Cradle of the Mind—but one cannot eternally live in a
cradle.

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alexilliamson
I would be curious to hear some opinions from people here on The Outline, both
in terms of design and content. I was really pumped for its launch, which
happened in late 2016 (maybe November?), but in the time since I've only
occasionally used it (less than weekly). This is in contrast to NPR, Hacker
News, and news-twitter, all of which I check several times per day.

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bananaoomarang
Pretty much my exact experience with it. I think I just haven't found many of
the articles I _have_ read very interesting, and I find the site a little hard
to navigate.

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RichardHeart
What about the cypherpunks?

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d--b
The author does not understand the term libertarian. Certainly Silicon Valley
is chasing utopian dreams, but not necessarily libertarians. Thiel is a
libertarian, but it's not obvious that Musk is. Musk doesn't seem to have a
big opinion about fat or lean government (for instance). And some very
prominent people in the Valley (starting with y combinator guys), are very far
from libertarianism.

70s technology-inspired utopias are really interesting though.

Buckminster Fuller and Superstudio have been very influencial too

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magicmu
This was my thought as well, but for somewhat different reasons. I think Musk
does fit this modern definition of libertarian -- a lack of faith in
government progress is a necessary logical foundation for attempting to
pioneer space travel privately. I definitely agree, though, that many YC guys
don't seem to be libertarian at all. It's also definitely worth noting that
this modern definition of "libertarian" is so divorced from it's original
anti-capitalist meaning that it's almost a different word. Leary's vision was
"libertarian" in the sense that it was wholly at odds with capitalism as it
currently exists, and put the onus of human progress on people instead of
government. It was not "libertarian" in the sense of advocating for
exploitative private companies like those we see in the Valley.

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sixQuarks
The author lost credibility with this paragraph

 _Musk is very typical of the Silicon Valley technolibertarian mold. He was
happy to take a $465 million government loan for Tesla Motors, then soon after
paying it off, he was more than happy to speak out against government
subsidies like the one he just paid back. This has been Silicon Valley’s modus
operandi for years, of course: promoting the tech sector’s independence from
and superiority to mundane governance, while relying on it. In a nutshell,
this is the reality behind the myth of the “free market.”_

The author doesn't understand the hidden subsidies on fossil fuels. If we were
to bake in the cost of climate change and pollution into the price, solar
energy would have never needed subsidies. And what is Musk supposed to do?
Ignore and reject subsidies that are available? The author is grasping at
straws here and should have done more research.

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lend000
Not to mention the lack of sufficient pollution taxes that would exist in a
'libertarian society' to counter the inherent infringements on individual
liberty.

~~~
snrplfth
Libertarians tend, by and large, to be amenable to taxing externalities like
pollution.

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kefka

        It is not true that the map of freedom will be complete
        with the erasure of the of the last invidious boarder
        when it remains for us to chart the attractors of thunder
        and delinate the arrhythmias of drought
        to reveal the molecular dialects of forest and savana
        as rich as a thousand human tongues
        and to comprehend the deepest history of our passions
        ancient beyond mythology's reach
    
        So I declare that no corporation holds a monopoly on numbers
        no patent can encompass zero and one
        no nation has sovereignty over adenine and guanine
        no empire rules the quantum waves
    
        And there must be room for all at the celebration of
        understanding
        for there is a truth which cannot be bought or sold
        imposed by force, resisted
        or escaped
    

~~ Greg Egan, forward of the novel Distress

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arca_vorago
I think it's worth remembering/noting that Leary was heavily manipulated by
the intelligence agencies, not just in their search for knowledge of mind
control ala MKULTRA/ARTICHOKE/BLUEBIRD, but also as a general informant and
counter-culture insider and influencer. For example, many of his space ideas
were pushed through L-5 Society, but L-5 society was on the brink of collapse
when rescued by huge donations from military intelligence people.

I don't necessarily think all the things they were aiming for were bad, even
though I have major issues with the type of domestic experimentation they were
(and probably still are) performing (Sirhan Sirhan anyone?), but in the case
of the space focus, they were very much wanting to be on the edge of science
for the betterment of humanity with a side effect of keeping American genuis
at the head of the game for national pride reasons.

Just goes to show you that the motivations inside the dark recesses of the
three letters can sometimes be at odds morally, but let's not paint people
manipulated by that system with too white a brush, or forget their connections
to the darkside.

