Builders, Solvers and Cynics

The three-player game of online tech sentiment

Reactionary anti-tech sentiment is a real and important force in the world, and possibly an under-discussed topic. Not in the sense that it should get more airtime (it shouldn’t); but in the sense that it’s interesting. Part of being a good citizen is being genuinely open-minded about your opposition: where are they coming from? What value systems or psychological drives are running the show over there?

A classic answer would be, “There is a perfect book for this. It’s called A Conflict of Visions by Thomas Sowell, and it’s one of our favorite books we recommend at a16z.” Sowell compares two distinct kinds of people, which I call “Builders” and “Solvers” shorthand, with completely different value systems, patterns of action, and concepts of virtue. And he explains why “Solvers” (Planners, regulators, social architects, economic dirigistes…) are the natural opposition to “Builders” (Founders, engineers, and constraint-respecters), and always have been.

However, forty years after Sowell wrote A Conflict of Visions, I think a third belief system in society is rising to prominence, driving a big share of anti-progress reaction. We are now in a three-player game, with a new “nonaligned group” in society and on the internet. That group is Cynics.

• Cynics and Solvers both contribute to anti-tech sentiment, but in different ways.

• Cynics are motivated by two things. First, to “Not Fall For It”, and avoid appearing gullible at all cost. And second, to stamp out inauthenticity, particularly anything new or unresolved in the world. These motives are classic projection (as Freud defined it a century ago), and once you realize this, their behaviour makes more sense.

• The cynics have a rich cultural canon: from Diogenes and the Greek cynics, to smart pieces of culture like South Park and The Sopranos that have recently contributed to the belief system.

• The three groups have different concepts of what it means to act honestly. To builders, honesty means fidelity. To solvers, honesty means sincerity. To cynics, honesty means authenticity. These diverging concepts of honesty matter a lot, because they’re how culture hardens into social values.

• Cynics are close to technologists, because they’re both very online. But they’re also enemies of technologists, because of how much they hate progress-in-flight.

• Cynicism is dangerous. And a worrisome trend right now is the Solvers and Cynics finding shared resentment towards the builders, and therefore common cause.

• The silver lining to the rise of Cynics is it reveals some non-obvious common ground between Sowell’s two ideological camps: the main thing that matters today is whether you can tolerate uncertainty.

What does it mean to be wise?

To appreciate the Cynics as a contemporary force, let’s first recap Sowell’s book, to fully appreciate how they became the “Nonaligned movement” of the internet.

Sowell’s 1987 book defines two mindsets, which may initially feel non-obvious: the “Constrained Vision” and the “Unconstrained Vision”. The “Constrained Vision” is the mindset of the builders, and it’s named that way because core to this mindset is appreciating the constraints that have evolved in the world over repeated iterations of evolutionary trial and failure. “Wisdom” is something we accumulate over time: like family norms, property rights, or engineering practices, which invisibly guide us through a complex world.

Andreessen Horowitz unreservedly endorses this “Constrained” vision. This can surprise outsiders, who think of startups’ mission as disrupting existing systems. But the way we build companies and technology is deeply respectful of the embedded wisdom of engineering practices, Silicon Valley company building norms, and the belief that progress comes at the margin.

The Unconstrained Vision is a different idea of progress, which is, “Someone really ought to solve all of the problems.” This idea of wisdom puts much less stock into the way things have worked; and more weight on the judgement of anointed individuals who can gather the context and understanding they need to take sweeping action that remakes the world. This version of “Wisdom” is something we attain by casting as wide a net as possible, obtaining a mandate for action, and making the most enlightened decisions possible.

Sowell is a great read, because even though (like us) he personally is on the side of the Builders, the book invites genuine curiosity into how the other side might perceive the world, and think about virtue. In his time, Sowell’s categorization was a compact and useful way to understand the two kinds of people who were the “live players” that really impacted the world.

But we need to talk about a third, distinct value system has come of age recently. In today’s world of uncertain and ambiguous change, where uncertainty tolerance has become a precondition for agency, cynicism has emerged as the reactionary “non-aligned movement” of the internet.

The virtue of “Don’t fall for it.”

Cynicism is obviously not a new concept. You could describe Diogenes, when he mocked Plato by plucking a chicken (“Here is Plato’s man!”), as the first great shitposter. The word “Cynic” comes from the Greek kunikos, or “Like a dog”: to live freely and authentically, unencumbered by any stake in the system.

To cynics, wisdom simply means, “Don’t fall for it.” Cynics reject the builders’ concept of wisdom as blind cargo culting, while rejecting the solvers’ concept of wisdom as arrogant delusion. What cynics cannot tolerate - which is why they’ve become a core part of the anti-tech movement - is unresolved ambiguity, particularly at the horizon of our ambition where progress is fuzzy and aspirational.

Cynicism has richly featured in the history of philosophy, and there’s a through line of thinkers since the ancient Greeks who admired Diogenes’ approach explicitly (like Nietzsche), or more tacitly (e.g. Ralph Waldo Emerson). But cynics punched below their weight when it came to actual influence and steering of society. Great leaders are rarely cynics by definition, nor did cynicism reach mass popularity here.

But in our lifetime, the cynical worldview has stepped out from its corner. You can find plenty of rootstock in the 1990s, from popular novels like American Psycho, Infinite Jest and Fight Club; or the genre of grunge music. But I think the two breakout pieces of cynical culture - and probably the two most important TV shows of my lifetime - were South Park and The Sopranos.

South Park continues its remarkable run as the last culturally relevant traditional TV show. South Park is razor sharp, almost always funny, and praised for seeing the world and describing it accurately, even as trends and perceptions come and go.

The problem I have always had with South Park is how much the “Don’t fall for it” ethos runs through the core of the show. The main message you learn from watching South Park is, “If you really care about something new, you’re an idiot.” Not because you have dumb values necessary, but because you fell for it again. And that’s the cardinal sin, in their world: to be gullible.

Part of South Park’s lasting success is its reputation for being non-partisan. But that’s only true on a tired left-right political spectrum, or equivalently, on Sowell’s Builders / Solvers axis: South Park will skewer both, with its reputation intact. But that’s a mirage. South Park is absolutely on a side; it defined a side, which is the “don’t fall for it” movement.

Projection: a guilt-coping mechanism

And then there’s The Sopranos. The Sopranos is a show about violent mobsters, but more importantly it’s a show about projection. Tony and everybody else in the crime family all carry guilt of various kinds around with them; and the show is about how they cope with that guilt, and pursue freedom from their guilt.

Projection - very briefly - is when you feel subconsciously guilty of something, you accuse other people of being guilty of that thing, as a psychic defence mechanism. You act out towards those people as a soothing mechanism (to redirect your own guilt) and in pursuit of pleasure (the guilt-free state). Freud describes this mechanic insightfully in Beyond the Pleasure Principle, and articulates the ultimate form of the projection defence mechanism, which he calls the Death Drive.

The Death Drive is a compulsion to want to restore things in the world and in ourselves to a previous state. We replay destructive fantasies over and over, trying to master our burden of unresolved tension or feelings of inauthenticity, whatever their origin. And we try to destroy any kind of “open tension” in the world - even if it’s constructive. The Death Drive is why we maladaptively learn to find pleasure in releasing tension - even the good kinds of ambiguity, like the current frontiers of progress in the world.

The Sopranos presented a collection of hero characters, each projecting their own particular guilt onto everyone else. And it presents them romantically, in the honorable styling of crime family chivalry. They all succumb to various self-destructive urges, in a way that is very proto-online (particularly Christopher, a true poster), and show the appeal, and the organizing pleasure principle, behind their cynical worldview and self-destructive behaviour. And they did it so successfully that every antihero-led prestige TV show since has unconsciously copied them in some way, steadily associating that kind of cynicism with “I am smart for enjoying and identifying with this content.”

Nowadays, the leading edge of culture isn’t on TV; it’s all online. And the source of most of online culture comes from the forums, the posting, and the online humour that extends the South Park “don’t fall for it” mantra, and the romanticized projection-defence of the Sopranos. And culture eventually starts to shape our value system, if you give it enough time.

Three kinds of honesty: Fidelity, Sincerity, and Authenticity

We will get to anti-tech sentiment itself in a second, I promise. But there is one more critical concept we need to introduce, which is our social concept of honesty.

The main way that Cynical culture has started changing our value system is through its distinct take on honesty, which is different from the way that Builders or Solvers think of it. In our complex world where individuals do not have complete knowledge of everything, the concept of honesty matters: it’s how you show people you can be trusted, and how you get them to buy into your heuristics or follow your maps.

Builders think honesty is about fidelity. Solvers think honesty is about sincerity. And cynics think honesty is about authenticity.

Builders see the world as full of constraints, and their job being to build incremental progress within the wisdom of the established playbook. To builders, honesty means fidelity. What matters is, “are you acting faithfully to the embedded wisdom that we’ve learned over generations of gameplay”?

Solvers, on the other hand, see the world in terms of problems that can be solved, and progress that can be made by just getting everybody together and working out a solution. Solvers care a lot about intent: you live a virtuous life by having your heart in the right place, and by wanting to help. Solvers think honesty means sincerity; what matters is if your motives are good.

Cynics have a third concept of honesty. They think honesty means authenticity. And that means neither of the above. You can be faithful but not authentic (blindly cargo culting instruction or tradition), or you can be sincere but not authentic (being full woke, for example.) Authenticity is an entirely different thing. It means never get caught being someone you’re not.

In a tradition going back to Diogenes and the original reaction to Platonic idealism, Cynics think “Falling for it” is a hallmark sign of inauthenticity. Moreover, they think that any unresolved ambiguity in a person or idea means they are inauthentic, and therefore dishonest. Fundamentally, this is coming from a projection motive of some sort. Perhaps these people, for whatever reason, feel inauthentic themselves in some way; or sense they cannot cope with unresolved tension in their life. And just like the Sopranos, they’ve been captured by their internal need to soothe their guilt, and instead accuse others of inauthenticity.

Conversely, to act honestly for these people means to celebrate the release of tension, and recognizing shared pleasure among a peer group with the same motive. Honesty is a simple pursuit: trying to restore the world to a previous state. In that upside-down warped view of the world, it is the only way to act honestly. If Freud spent ten minutes on X, he’d immediately recognize his Death Drive thesis as having fully played out on the timeline.

This is why Cynicism is so dangerous and anti-progress: because it translates so naturally into a mimetic multiplayer game. Anyone who’s ever participated in dragging someone online, or sneakily celebrating when some idea fails to materialize, or generally getting off on any sort of bad news, has that instinct in them. And the way it spreads through society is through positive appreciation and celebration of “authenticity”, this new kind of sly, modern-day chivalry. Its appeal is equal part romance and fear: you want to be “in on the joke” with these people, and you’re afraid of feeling like an idiot in front of them.

Cynics: the “Nonaligned Movement” of the internet

Neither Builders nor Solvers are especially inclined to like Cynics. Builders ought not to care for them, because they don’t build anything. Solvers ought not to like cynics either, because cynics don’t care enough about virtuous causes in the right way. And yet, both groups do find a way to get along with Cynics most of the time, and welcome them into their fold.

Cynics can be really charming. They’re very online, so they know all the references and they make the funniest jokes. As a group, their superpower is their naturally occurring “reality distortion fields”. When you’re near them or in conversation with them, it’s very easy to slide into the romanticism around their kind of “authenticity”.

Furthermore, Builders appreciate the fact that Cynics often know a lot about technology and its history. This may seem strange, but it makes sense if you remember that Cynics aren’t against technology per se, they’re against unresolved tension - that is to say, the current frontier of tech development. Talk to any Cynic and they’re probably big fans of some previous flavour of tech, and they can really articulate what’s good about it - and therefore, they can speak persuasively against whatever is currently happening. They sound smart and sophisticated; you don’t want to look like a fool around them by admitting, “well I’ve taken a leap of faith on this new thing.”

Cynicism has found a resonant anti-tech message in recent years, which effortlessly fits its Death Drive mandate: to restore the world to its previous state. It’s hit a resonant frequency in AI Doomerism, and “I’m so glad we’re draining every freshwater lake so we can serve AI slop ads.” For every one articulate Cynic who will persuasively tell you about the “enshittification” of everything (their words, not mine), you get a hundred resonant voices agreeing, both out of fear of looking gullible, and out of the joy of participating in Death Drive release.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

The big problem we have to contend with right now is that there is a natural alliance forming between the Solvers and the Cynics, and that doesn’t take us to a good place.

The irony here is that the Cynic movement is a long-run reaction to the Solvers. “I have no stake in this system; nothing matters” is a long-term consequence of the Solvers’ well-intentioned promises, but disastrous follow-through effort, to try and solve all of the world’s problems. A decade or two ago, Cynics would’ve found the Solvers’ concept of honesty-as-sincerity, where good intentions are the main thing that matters, far more ridiculous than the Builders’ concept. (This is why, back in the day, South Park would’ve been much more aligned with Builders than with Solvers, all things considered.)

But the thing is, Cynics today are more resentful of the Builders than they are of the Solvers - because Builders threaten the Cynical worldview and reasoning more than the Solvers do. Therefore, you have the potential for a bad setup here, where the Solvers essentially “capture” the resentment of the Cynics and direct it towards their shared target of resentment.

One of the classic narrative structures in life, that often works out in a self-fulfilling way, is The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. It’s a universal story structure: The Good (or whoever self-identifies as “The Good” in the protagonists’ frame of reference) cannot defeat The Bad alone; they need to team up with The Ugly to get it done. And so The Good and The Ugly must find common ground; and sure enough, they do.

Now, put yourself in the frame of reference of Solvers today: the well-intentioned regulators, social architects, and economic dirigistes. If you’re in this group, you see AI progress and techno-capitalism running away from your grasp with fresh legs; what do you do? How do you stop it? Well, you make friends with The Ugly - that is to say, the Cynics.

The surest sign of a Solver-Cynic alliance is when the Solvers start assigning their concept of honesty and authenticity to Cynics’ motives. Which is to say, sincerity: as in, when Luigi Mangione killed Brian Thompson, the United Health CEO: “Well, his motives came from somewhere sincere, at least.” This is the bad scenario: a joint alliance between Solvers and Cynics where our societal definition of honesty becomes accepted in the genpop moral structure as equal parts sincerity and authenticity, and zero part fidelity. That’s how you end up in a really bad situation.

The main thing that matters today is whether you can tolerate uncertainty

The silver lining to the rise of Cynics is that Builders and Solvers now have something important in common. Both groups, in their own way, are able to tolerate uncertainty. As that trait becomes increasingly important, we may discover a surprising, and genuinely optimistic, common ground between Sowell’s two camps.

The challenge for Builders, if you want to win over some Solvers onto Team Progress, is that appealing to Solvers requires leaning into sincerity and intent. (Which doesn’t come naturally to Builders in the first place.) And the more you stretch into that direction, the more inauthentic you come across to the Cynics, because those kinds of pledges and promises open up a lot more unresolved tension. It backfires badly: they will come after you more, because it feeds their projection impulse, and makes them double down on you as a target. The source of the problem is their feelings of inauthenticity, deep down in their subconscious.

The only way to win over the cynics is for them to develop their own self-confidence in using new technology, and feeling a personal sense of accomplishment and mastery over it. That’s how you actually win these people over. So the only thing you can do with them is just give them the product and walk away. The good news is, that’s exactly what consumer AI adoption is accomplishing. We don’t need to help it along with any powers of persuasion; let the products do their thing.

Therefore, the conclusion you should take away is: for any given person opposes tech for some reason, the critical test for how to approach them is, “Can they tolerate uncertainty?” If the answer is yes, then you have important common ground with them, even if you’re on ideologically different continents. And that’s cause for optimism, so let’s capitalize on it.

More reading: How much water does AI really consume? This Week in Charts, from a16z

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