Thread

1. delis-thumbs-7e · 1790681167 · focus · HN ↗

   In an old Simpsons episode Lisa gets to visit the Teachers room, where all the staff are making fun of the children. Groundskeeper Willie is pantomiming Milhouse “Oh I am Milhouse, I tell all my secrets to Willie since I have no friends!” and the teachers laugh. Later something embarrassing happens to Milhouse and he immediately runs away crying “I have to tell this to Willie!”.

   We have all become Milhouse now.

   1. Avicebron · 1790682164 · focus · HN ↗

      Inequality has eroded trust in society in ~50 years, a lot of the old models (heh) of how we see the world aren't relevant. It's hard to exist when everything around us is adversarial.

      1. kevin_thibedeau · 1790689226 · focus · HN ↗

         Data brokers were around 50 years ago. They just had more limited sources to draw from.

         1. buellerbueller · 1790689679 · focus · HN ↗

            That's like saying my 1980s casio calculator watch and an apple watch are the same. they're not the same.

            1. walt_grata · 1790691496 · focus · HN ↗

               I love how some people think the scale of a problem doesnt matter. Like yeah we has data brokerw 50 years ago, way less of them and the scope they could collect data about was significantly more limited. That matters a lot

               1. buellerbueller · 1790692001 · focus · HN ↗

                  Most of YC and VC (and the internet) is built on the math of network effects, but you are correct, so many people here don't think scale differentiates things. It might not always be a distinction with a difference, but in some cases, it clearly is. That's why we have the whole darn concept of network effects lol.
               2. dataflow · 1790692181 · focus · HN ↗

                  "A difference in degree becomes a difference in kind" seems to escape too many people when it comes to negative social impact, especially those making money in the scaling business.
            2. TeMPOraL · 1790691565 · focus · HN ↗

               Indeed. The Casio calculator watch was a reliable, ergonomic watch, with a reliable, ergonomic (for its size) calculator.
      2. gmd63 · 1790691167 · focus · HN ↗

         It's not inequality. It's who we've chosen to reward. Adversarial people have eaten a lot of the world and that's because we let them.

         People love inequality when it's a celebrity they adore living large. Someone who hasn't scammed them and has demonstrably improved their life and the lives of others in a tangible way. The deeper the con, like Trump and Elon, the more damage to trust.

         1. keybored · 1790691388 · focus · HN ↗

            Eating the world sounds like an, on the balance, unequal outcome.

            1. gmd63 · 1790691834 · focus · HN ↗

               Yes. So we should stop enriching people who do that.

               1. keybored · 1790952657 · focus · HN ↗

                  Good heavens yes. And lets instead enrich the Good People that we can then fawn over; the ones that have Made Our Lives Better.

                  We all have our illusions.

         2. coliveira · 1790691423 · focus · HN ↗

            Yes, the media has conditioned most of us to believe that anyone starting or investing in a tech company and at least a billion dollars in equity is "doing good" and should be emulated.

            1. indoordin0saur · 1790692901 · focus · HN ↗

               This just means they're "doing well". Whether or not they're also "doing good" depends on what exactly that company provides to society.
            2. consensus1 · 1790697473 · focus · HN ↗

               The media has been hyperventilating about how evil the tech industry is for the last decade.
         3. sssilver · 1790697665 · focus · HN ↗

            Isn't it more like "it's who capitalism rewards"?

            All we've chosen is free markets.

            1. gmd63 · 1790698771 · focus · HN ↗

               Capitalism is fine so long as capital is allocated on merit. It isn't, because we don't have capitalism, we have corporate socialism.

               1. sssilver · 1790699070 · focus · HN ↗

                  I guess I don't understand the term "corporate socialism". What does it mean, and how did it create the world of NVIDIA and AMD, Google and Microsoft, Anthropic and OpenAI?

                  Weren't Mr. Huang, his cofounders, and his peers, rewarded based on merit? Where did socialism step in?

                  1. gmd63 · 1790701753 · focus · HN ↗

                     Whether they were rewarded by actual merit isn't yet known. Their recent wealth is present-dated imaginary future gains paid by speculators. If by "merit", you mean the ability to perform skillfully to serve the whims of people with a lot of money, then yes.

                     Who is spending the kind of money that makes regular NVIDIA employees millionaires? You have to consider how those people attained it. And at the scale of NVIDIA's growing value downstream of a rapid investment in AI infrastructure, you can trace a good amount of it to Elon Musk, who has interfered illegally in an election to purchase favor with a party that ended several serious investigations into his companies. Now, the government is using Elon's AI which trails in several benchmarks. Elon's storied history of gaming systems to keep his companies alive only begins there.

                  2. buellerbueller · 1790712160 · focus · HN ↗

                     If an individual acted in a way consistent with the "rogue AI agents" that some of your name-checked companies claim their AIs acted, then that individual would be pursued by law enforcement. (For example, Aaron Swartz.) That these companies are allowed to misbehave without repercussion is a form of letting the gains belong to a few, while the risks are socialized among the many. Another example would be "Too Big to Fail" bailouts after 2008. Those bailed out companies should belong to the American populace now, paying us dividends, so that the employees could keep their livelihoods. Alternatively, but I think this is a more callous approach because of knock on effects, they could have been allowed to fail. That they were not is clear and convincing evidence to most people of what I think the prior commenter is referring to as "corporate socialism."
      3. keybored · 1790691309 · focus · HN ↗

         It’s just inequality full stop. Trust is a word by wannabe-Bernays polsci people who would just so dearly want the proles to trust their betters, but for some dastardly material reasons they don’t.

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