Personally, I'd prefer a dinner with real you over techno-centric you any day.
Though I do wonder if YC at this point could even select for authenticity, empathy, and genuine pro-social goodness if they even tried. We all know that you need to keep your audience in mind when writing. How many applicants sincerely view the YC audience they would be writing here for as anything other than mega-capitalists with a fetish for "disruption"? (I know I'm being unkind to some decent people who work there, but this stereotype isn't too far off base).
A system that only filters on "who is most likely to be able to disrupt industries and seize income for themselves and investors" will never be able to differentiate between good and bad people. At best, the bad ones will only be selfish, at worst, they will abuse their power and make the world a worse place because it is profitable to them.
I agree with your concerns completely on the issues with technocracy. I'm going to focus on making my own community stronger and building out my networks with people that would have been missed by the VC meat grinder. I may still fail at fixing big problems like I want - but at least my conscience will be clean knowing I wasn't complicit in making things worse.
Though I do wonder if YC at this point could even select for authenticity, empathy, and genuine pro-social goodness if they even tried. We all know that you need to keep your audience in mind when writing. How many applicants sincerely view the YC audience they would be writing here for as anything other than mega-capitalists with a fetish for "disruption"? (I know I'm being unkind to some decent people who work there, but this stereotype isn't too far off base).
A system that only filters on "who is most likely to be able to disrupt industries and seize income for themselves and investors" will never be able to differentiate between good and bad people. At best, the bad ones will only be selfish, at worst, they will abuse their power and make the world a worse place because it is profitable to them.
I agree with your concerns completely on the issues with technocracy. I'm going to focus on making my own community stronger and building out my networks with people that would have been missed by the VC meat grinder. I may still fail at fixing big problems like I want - but at least my conscience will be clean knowing I wasn't complicit in making things worse.