Sam Altman’s Manifest Destiny • Hacker News Board

Re: Sam Altman’s Manifest Destiny

#191

Post by rat87 » Mon, Oct 03, 2016, 6:02 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #170

pdog wrote: post #155

> Nothing came of Paul Graham’s plan for tech to stop Donald Trump, but Altman, after brooding about Trump for months, recently announced a nonpartisan project, called VotePlz, aimed at getting out the youth vote. Looking at the election as a tech problem—what’s the least code with the most payoff?—Altman and his three co-founders concentrated on helping young people in nine swing states to register, by providing the…

Get out the vote campaigns are always in favor of Democrats, because the young and poor tend to be the ones who don't vote and tend to vote Democrat. Back in the 90s MTV had "Rock the Vote" (actually it was a progressive non-profit who partnered with MTV) and their goal was the same.

Get out the vote campaigns can be broad and general or can be targeted at voters likely to vote for your candidate/issue(either right or left). As long as you're not discouraging the occasional person voting for the other side from registering I don't see anything wrong with that.

Re: Sam Altman’s Manifest Destiny

#192

Post by nathan_f77 » Mon, Oct 03, 2016, 6:03 PM UTC

wyldfire wrote: post #137

jonnathanson wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's completely wacky, but if you've got a few mil to drop on wacky ideas, it starts to seem a bit less wacky in the grand scheme of things. It's basically a wager: "There's a small, but perhaps nonzero chance I'm living in a simulation. I've got the throwaway cash to fund an escape attempt. This investment has a massive chance of being completely wasted, even if this is a simulation. But if there is even a tiny chan…

What would it even mean to 'escape' a simulation? In my mind I'm imagining when I write code to model a real process and even at some super high-fidelity simulation I can't imagine an 'escape'. Maybe if the simulation were so self-aware it could conduct local privilege-escalation attacks and replicate itself like a worm/virus? EDIT: aside -- "Microcosmic God" [1] was a great short story along these lines [1] https://…

When you find an exploit that lets you execute any code you want on a remote server, you can find out all the internal details of that server, and you can make that server do whatever you want.

That's actually a pretty cool idea for a movie. Scientists hacking the universe to achieve alchemy and time travel. Maybe it could be a sequel to the Matrix. It's strange how they only ever made that one Matrix movie.

Re: Sam Altman’s Manifest Destiny

#193

Post by rat87 » Mon, Oct 03, 2016, 6:03 PM UTC

daveguy wrote: post #183

pdog wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Get out the vote campaigns are always in favor of Democrats What? This is only true if you believe that get-out-the-vote (GOTV) operations are exclusive to Democrats.

That should have read: Non-targeted get out the vote campaigns are always in favor of Democrats.

Still wrong there are Republicans not registered / not voting. Its just a different demographic target.

Re: Sam Altman’s Manifest Destiny

#194

Post by baytrailcat » Mon, Oct 03, 2016, 6:07 PM UTC

wyldfire wrote: post #137

jonnathanson wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's completely wacky, but if you've got a few mil to drop on wacky ideas, it starts to seem a bit less wacky in the grand scheme of things. It's basically a wager: "There's a small, but perhaps nonzero chance I'm living in a simulation. I've got the throwaway cash to fund an escape attempt. This investment has a massive chance of being completely wasted, even if this is a simulation. But if there is even a tiny chan…

What would it even mean to 'escape' a simulation? In my mind I'm imagining when I write code to model a real process and even at some super high-fidelity simulation I can't imagine an 'escape'. Maybe if the simulation were so self-aware it could conduct local privilege-escalation attacks and replicate itself like a worm/virus? EDIT: aside -- "Microcosmic God" [1] was a great short story along these lines [1] https://…

Really.. It doesn't make sense. This is like the Star Trek episode where a holodeck character wants to live in the real world. (Spoiler alert..) Picard just traps him in a bigger simulation and makes him think that he escaped!

Re: Sam Altman’s Manifest Destiny

#195

Post by usefulcat » Mon, Oct 03, 2016, 6:18 PM UTC

Idontagree wrote: post #190

sulam wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could also say that laws that are aimed at reducing voter fraud (from zero) are a smokescreen for a favored candidate/party, because they tend to reduce voting among younger people (less likely to vote in a place that matches their home address) and the poor (less likely to have various types of identification, most importantly a driver's license). There are also people trying to pass laws to reduce the number of…

How do you get from reducing voter fraud to it being a bad thing for elections. If the problem is that some basic form of government I.D. is hard to come by then fix that, not make it so anyone can walk in and vote. The other stuff about making polling places close early and stuff, I agree, is riduculous, but I don't see how requiring proper identification is a bad thing.

As I understand it, in many (most?) places voter fraud was already pretty rare. If that's the case, then it's not hard to see how a "solution" to the problem of voter fraud could actually prevent more legitimate votes than illegitimate votes simply by making things slightly more difficult for some or all legitimate voters.

Re: Sam Altman’s Manifest Destiny

#196

Post by lprubin » Mon, Oct 03, 2016, 6:19 PM UTC

wyldfire wrote: post #137

jonnathanson wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's completely wacky, but if you've got a few mil to drop on wacky ideas, it starts to seem a bit less wacky in the grand scheme of things. It's basically a wager: "There's a small, but perhaps nonzero chance I'm living in a simulation. I've got the throwaway cash to fund an escape attempt. This investment has a massive chance of being completely wasted, even if this is a simulation. But if there is even a tiny chan…

What would it even mean to 'escape' a simulation? In my mind I'm imagining when I write code to model a real process and even at some super high-fidelity simulation I can't imagine an 'escape'. Maybe if the simulation were so self-aware it could conduct local privilege-escalation attacks and replicate itself like a worm/virus? EDIT: aside -- "Microcosmic God" [1] was a great short story along these lines [1] https://…

A pretty good movie based on a novel about this exact concept: 13th Floor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thirteenth_Floor

Re: Sam Altman’s Manifest Destiny

#197

Post by nerfhammer » Mon, Oct 03, 2016, 6:20 PM UTC

maxblackwood wrote: post #187

Artoemius wrote: post #13

> two tech billionaires have gone so far as to secretly engage scientists to work on breaking us out of the simulation I'm very curious who these two billionaires are and what exactly are they planning to do regarding this likely hopeless project.

Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, probably.

My guess as well

Re: Sam Altman’s Manifest Destiny

#198

Post by tempodox » Mon, Oct 03, 2016, 6:21 PM UTC

n72 wrote: post #54

"The missing circuit in my brain, the circuit that would make me care what people think about me, is a real gift." I think that circuit exists and is functioning quite well. It seems to me there's a lot of glory embedded in YC's plans.

I don't care what other people think of me either, but I can't afford to be seen as such. I'm just not rich and powerful enough to have people lick my boots no matter what. I would certainly find that convenient.

Re: Sam Altman’s Manifest Destiny

#199

Post by sidlls » Mon, Oct 03, 2016, 6:22 PM UTC

lincolnq wrote: post #29

pesenti wrote: post #19

This quote from a YC Partner: > It’s all about founders. Facebook had Mark Zuckerberg, and MySpace had a bunch of monkeys. The kind of ubermensch/Ayn Rand rhetoric that makes me cringe.

Do you think it's wrong?

Yes. It's the hacker/CS version of clique-based exclusionist and bullying.

Re: Sam Altman’s Manifest Destiny

#200

Post by jrowley » Mon, Oct 03, 2016, 6:30 PM UTC

Idontagree wrote: post #190

sulam wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could also say that laws that are aimed at reducing voter fraud (from zero) are a smokescreen for a favored candidate/party, because they tend to reduce voting among younger people (less likely to vote in a place that matches their home address) and the poor (less likely to have various types of identification, most importantly a driver's license). There are also people trying to pass laws to reduce the number of…

How do you get from reducing voter fraud to it being a bad thing for elections. If the problem is that some basic form of government I.D. is hard to come by then fix that, not make it so anyone can walk in and vote. The other stuff about making polling places close early and stuff, I agree, is riduculous, but I don't see how requiring proper identification is a bad thing.

Giving people government IDs is not a trivial problem to solve. Its costs a lot and is hard, while allowing anyone to vote really increases voter turn out (and generally the rates of this type of fraud are very low)