Thread

1. dzink · 1791065932 · focus · HN ↗

   A huge chunk of humans are sedated with infinite supply of cortex-disabling short form video and games.

   Another huge chunk are too distracted by having to scrape by for a living and work multiple jobs or raise kids and survive financially until exhausted. That second group will keep increasing as the first flows into it.

   The rest are aging, disabled, or too young and pegging themselves majorly in the first category until they hit the second.

   The people aware enough to hold on to their brain and do something with it in their time available are trying to figure out AI and how to make money with it. The variable rewards of promoting AI are turning into an addiction with some of them, especially if grasping for straws with little inherent insights into the problems prompted.

   So if you are able to fly above the AI-generated addictions and have the privilege of time to do it, see what you can do.

   1. nradov · 1791071764 · focus · HN ↗

      It's disturbing how many arrogant elitists comment on HN essentially claiming that most other humans are NPCs. Do you ever actually talk to regular people outside the tech industry bubble? They're not as stupid or unaware as you seem to think.

      1. KronisLV · 1791110239 · focus · HN ↗

         That's a very uncharitable read!

         I just read it as people having different priorities and yes, some of those being online brainrot (that I also partake in), alongside various medical conditions, economic conditions and other outside factors decreasing the ability to get things done.

         We've all seen what brilliant people like John Carmack or Linus Torvalds can do, and if we turned this into a measuring game or something then most of us statistically would indeed be "NPCs", but I don't think we need such optics.

         Even without that, we can acknowledge that some people will have a really large impact on how the future goes and we can hope/demand that they do their best. I might not be smart/committed/lucky enough to change the world much, but so aren't most folks - I'll do what I can and I hope that the ones that will have larger impact will do good, too.

         1. password54321 · 1791110456 · focus · HN ↗

            How can someone "statistically be an NPC"??? You mean anyone who is not in the 99th percentile in tech is an NPC? Your take is braindead. Even having infinite intelligence and work ethic wouldn't allow you to accomplish the things that people in the 20th century were able to simply due to the field maturing significantly since then. We can't really ever have another Einstein or Von Neumann for their respective fields, that doesn't make the rest of the people in those fields NPCs.

            1. KronisLV · 1791127315 · focus · HN ↗

               > How can someone "statistically be an NPC"??? You mean anyone who is not in the 99th percentile in tech is an NPC? Your take is braindead.

               I don't care for your outrage because I don't buy into the culture that might be passionate about using the term "NPC" and attaching much additional meaning to it, I'm working with the vocabulary presented. You could substitute that for "normies" if you care for Internet slang, or in other words "average people" - everyone else. In this context, when not talking about some very committed and talented people who, by being in the right place and time, can advance entire areas of research or technology.

               > Even having infinite intelligence and work ethic wouldn't allow you to accomplish the things that people in the 20th century were able to simply due to the field maturing significantly since then.

               That is also an odd standard to set, just look at how much "Attention Is All You Need" changed things and where we are now. Same with what Carmack did for VR. What about WireGuard, PyTorch, Stable Diffusion, FlashAttention, LoRA? Even within the supposedly mature fields people are still making immensely useful new tech and research that benefits many and that they build upon.

               It might not always even be a single individual, but groups of people collaborating and through repeated failures eventually producing something really good!

               Again, I see nothing problematic with the original comment's conclusion:

               > So if you are able to fly above the AI-generated addictions and have the privilege of time to do it, see what you can do.

               I read the rest as commentary on how many won't really have the means/circumstances/capabilities to do so, but the ones that do, should.

               I don't get what other words you're trying to put in my mouth, I might not be a fan of the original phrasing, but the point itself isn't bad.

         2. coffeefirst · 1791115969 · focus · HN ↗

            This is just a more asinine version of Great Man Theory, but in this case the great men are some very confident futurist dudes writing comments on the internet.

            1. KronisLV · 1791127627 · focus · HN ↗

               > some very confident futurist dudes writing comments on the internet

               What an odd take, why would I suggest that? I meant that people who have the means to do meaningful work, especially high impact work, should do so.

               > Great Man Theory

               You can see the sibling comment, would you not agree that there's some software and research out there that's very useful to humanity as a whole? Where I and the other critical commenter seem to disagree is that I don't expect another Einstein, but still acknowledge that some people will just achieve much more than others due to a variety of factors.

               It doesn't make everyone else useless (like me paying my taxes and working on relatively boring software is still good, just low impact), just that those who have the means to do more, should!

               1. nradov · 1791140649 · focus · HN ↗

                  What a weird perspective. Other people have no particular obligation to spend their lives working on things that align with your narrow and subjective opinion on what benefits humanity.

                  1. KronisLV · 1791143287 · focus · HN ↗

                     > Other people have no particular obligation to spend their lives working on things that align with your narrow and subjective opinion on what benefits humanity.

                     The ones who care about AI research and developing software for that kinda stuff, should do that. The ones who can contribute to medicine, various engineering disciplines, or anything else that benefits humanity should do that too. The ones who'd rather squander their lives away when good things that'd benefit others are within reach... I mean sure they can do that but maybe shouldn't do that.

                     I don't think the readings of anything I've said here are at all charitable so I'm done engaging in this discussion.

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