Like lots of other reactions, this is dominated by personal resentments/attacks on Andreesen, rather than any ideas & claims in the text.
The first tell is that it links to 2 pages about Andreesen's wealth before the essay it purports to address. Always gotta wind up that prejudicial framing before discussing anything substantive!
The next tell is that (again before mentioning the essay) it alleges another unsympathetic claim – that Andreesen "wants you to believe he’s a victim" – that isn't actually in the text.
In the 'manifesto', Andreesen never says 'I', nor refers to personal biography, nor claims individual harms/injustices, nor requests personal relief. He's speaking from a perspective larger than just him personally, and advancing a viewpoint that rejects the 'victim' role.
And so Zitron is really confessing more about himself & his particular pissy clique of agenda-driven journalists, and how he's trapped in a overpowering frame of class resentments and hierarchical-claims-of-victimization, than he's refuting Andreesen's text.
Zitron can't even see Andreesen's text, over all the extra ideological baggage & projections he's bringing.
At first, Andreesen is strategically vague such that 'we' may refer all his readers, or even all who'd be considered members of "our civilization".
But upon starting to speak of the label teased in the title, 'Techno-Optimists', he shifts to using 'we' to describe that group, via progressive definition with each successive "we".
The shift from "potentially everybody" to "those defined by this creed" invites the reader to consider: "am I part of this 'we'?"
What other possibilities for what 'we' means do you see in the text?
The first tell is that it links to 2 pages about Andreesen's wealth before the essay it purports to address. Always gotta wind up that prejudicial framing before discussing anything substantive!
The next tell is that (again before mentioning the essay) it alleges another unsympathetic claim – that Andreesen "wants you to believe he’s a victim" – that isn't actually in the text.
In the 'manifesto', Andreesen never says 'I', nor refers to personal biography, nor claims individual harms/injustices, nor requests personal relief. He's speaking from a perspective larger than just him personally, and advancing a viewpoint that rejects the 'victim' role.
And so Zitron is really confessing more about himself & his particular pissy clique of agenda-driven journalists, and how he's trapped in a overpowering frame of class resentments and hierarchical-claims-of-victimization, than he's refuting Andreesen's text.
Zitron can't even see Andreesen's text, over all the extra ideological baggage & projections he's bringing.