These words from a talk by Marc Andreessen seem to summarise something about Silicon Valley and its core ideas of design.
That he thinks that reality is a failure, that lived and embodied reality is privileged.
It’s ghastly.
It’s Human Denying Design (HDD).
It’s ignores or obliterates the history of humanity. Humanity that has used augmented and virtual realities as part of the human experience of reality for all that time.
To ignore imagination, compassion, consciousness and community as parts of human centred reality and design is foolish.
His model of human reality is from the perspective of a sad and lonely figure. If design starts from this assumption of humanity, then AI and all its fabrications would seem good.
However, humanity and reality are so much more. We have used technologies to extend and better comprehend our personal and communal realities for centuries.
The paucity of Marc Andreesen’s beliefs cannot be the barrier to better futures.