[palmotea]

> Like Sam Altman's abrupt Face-Heel turn from staunch and eloquent Trump critic into gushing bootlicker [0],

Didn't the OpenAI drama (and the other stories about Altman that came out of that) already make it clear he is not a trustworthy person?

> it is a shocking wakeup call that Silicon Valley monied interests either lack principles entirely, or else adhere to principles fundamentally at odds with liberal democracy [1].

I'd take it farther: it's testament to a fundamental terribleness of computer geeks. I remember when people would say we'd make better leaders (and we'd say things like that to ourselves). It turns out our kind is way worse.

[archagon]

In fairness, most of these Trump lickers are not "computer geeks." They're venture capitalists and businessmen working in tech who pretend to be geeks.

[palmotea]

> In fairness, most of these Trump lickers are not "computer geeks." They're venture capitalists and businessmen working in tech who pretend to be geeks.

I'm not so sure. For instance Marc Andreessen coded as a kid (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Marc-Andreessen) and worked as a software developer employee (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Andreessen#Early_life_and...). Elon Musk also coded as a kid (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk#Early_life) and was doing development for his earliest startup (at least). They started as computer geeks and became "venture capitalists and businessmen" later.