What Actually Matters (re: Columbia Student Protests) - 4/19/2024

Yesterday, Columbia called police on students protesting Columbia investment in Israel. Seeing this happen in front of me made me realize how important activism is. Before this year, I generally saw activism as low impact. I generally ascribed to impact via becoming powerful and significantly undervalued protest and activism. I think I was severely wrong.

“Most developers are too preoccupied with their stupid apps to build something that actually matters” - Amir Taaki

I think this is generally true for the Valley. Most B2B SaaS, unfortunately, does not matter. If Hubspot disappeared tomorrow people would probably get a bit annoyed and some business workflows would get destroyed but finding other products to replace it would be trivial. There would be a financial impact but it would still be incosequential.

I believe there are a few companies and projects at any one point that actually matter. Of course, nothing actually matters because everything is impermanent, but there do seem to be movements that impact society in a way that strikes you when you get to see it up close. Yesterday was like that. When I first saw Swami Sarvapriyananda it was like that.

The things that actually matter tend to give a lot more to society than they take. The teachings of the Buddha didn’t have a membership fee. OG bitcoiners made no money yet developed core infrastucture that has led to significant social change. The boston tea party was certainly negative EV for the colonists. But yet the extreme ratio of give to get characterizes most things that last.

Current Silicon Valley and tech is missing this severely. The current mantra I hear from entrepreneurs is “I’m getting rich before it becomes impossible”. The Escape the Matrix narrative is actually the default one amongst the costal elite. This disgusts me because at one point tech believed we could actually improve the world. That feels absent now.

What doesn’t matter is becoming “post-economic”. It’s building an economy — a society that’s actually good. Modernity has made people individualistic but not individuated.