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phil
@phil
Welcome @henryfarrell! Henry is a professor of international affairs and author of several books, including the award winning Of Privacy and Power. He has agreed to do an AMA for the /books channel. Reply with your questions (please make sure to tag him so he can easily find them)
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FluffheadChaser
@fluffheadchaser
@henryfarrell How do you think the venture capital-driven "growth at all costs" mentality affects the ethical considerations of startups and tech giants in Silicon Valley?
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Henry Farrell
@henryfarrell
It's an interesting question that I haven't thought about properly. My off-the-cuff reaction would be that there may be some _specific_ ethical pathologies associated with the blitzscaling mentality, but I don't know if they are specifically better or worse than the pathologies associated with other profit models, or predatory politics. I think what is more visibly different is the focus on optimization as a means to get things done (which is incredibly powerful - but has sharp limits in its appreciation of politics) and the blurring together of connectivity and community that e.g. Andrew Bosworth used to defend Facebook's approach - https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/growth-at-any-cost-top-facebook-executive-defended-data
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Henry Farrell
@henryfarrell
Also - the kind of reduced form reasoning. I would really recommend Dan Davies' The Unaccountability Machine as an alternative way of thinking about tech; also Marion Fourcade and Kieran Healy's recent book, The Ordinal Society. Also Maria Farrell and Robin Berjon's Rewilding the Internet - but she's my sister so I'm biased - https://www.noemamag.com/we-need-to-rewild-the-internet/
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