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George Hotz against the institutions

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Re: George Hotz against the institutions

#11

Post by mach1ne »

moab wrote: post #5

"During our conversation, I was continually struck by the degree to which Hotz and his company are anti-mimetic. Like many founders of tech startups—thanks to the influence of Peter Thiel – Hotz has a passing familiarity with René Girard’s theory of mimetic desire. The theory, now supported by a trove of empirical evidence, posits that our desires do not originate in us but are always learned from models." Perhaps no…

Certainly not all desires are learned from models, some are a combination of biological mechanisms combined with exposure. Food is an obvious example from the far end.

Re: George Hotz against the institutions

#12

Post by LudwigNagasena »

mach1ne wrote: post #11
moab wrote: post #5

"During our conversation, I was continually struck by the degree to which Hotz and his company are anti-mimetic. Like many founders of tech startups—thanks to the influence of Peter Thiel – Hotz has a passing familiarity with René Girard’s theory of mimetic desire. The theory, now supported by a trove of empirical evidence, posits that our desires do not originate in us but are always learned from models." Perhaps no…

Certainly not all desires are learned from models, some are a combination of biological mechanisms combined with exposure. Food is an obvious example from the far end.

It’s one of those vague motte-and-bailey things that can either mean something true but unremarkable or something fascinating but utterly wrong.

Re: George Hotz against the institutions

#13

Post by octoberfranklin »

moab wrote: post #5

"During our conversation, I was continually struck by the degree to which Hotz and his company are anti-mimetic. Like many founders of tech startups—thanks to the influence of Peter Thiel – Hotz has a passing familiarity with René Girard’s theory of mimetic desire. The theory, now supported by a trove of empirical evidence, posits that our desires do not originate in us but are always learned from models." Perhaps no…

For those who've never heard of Girard's theories, this is a better (and more concise) starting point:

http://www.imitatio.org/brief-intro

Then you can read the link above, which assumes you're familiar with this stuff and pokes fun at it in the in the most verbose way possible.

Re: George Hotz against the institutions

#14

Post by xiphias2 »

marcan_42 wrote: post #8

Reminder that geohot wasn't the first person to jailbreak an iPhone; that's an oft repeated myth. He was the first person to publicly carrier unlock an iPhone, which he did using information and methods he mostly learned from others.

That may be true, but during the coding videos on YouTube he's extremely smart.

My favorite saying of him is that they don't have a cone guy because a self driving system shouldn't contain the knowledge of a cone explicitly. Guess what happened in the last Tesla update: the car went into a cone because it wasn't the usual color.

Re: George Hotz against the institutions

#15

Post by thowaway673y »

marcan_42 wrote: post #8

Reminder that geohot wasn't the first person to jailbreak an iPhone; that's an oft repeated myth. He was the first person to publicly carrier unlock an iPhone, which he did using information and methods he mostly learned from others.

Also don't forget he was just 16 at the time and most importantly got the balls to live code when he has so much to lose.

Re: George Hotz against the institutions

#16

Post by thowaway673y »

CyberRabbi wrote: post #9

Interesting discussion of AI and the decline of civilization. His allergies to power are a bit naive though not completely unfounded, at least Stallman comes to mind as an example of someone who was able to change the course of history without much personal power, instead he crafted ideas that had power. Some ideas are powerful enough to compel enough people to act in line with them. Ultimately accomplishing anything…

RMS is no normal human, he can match with 5 or 6 100x programmers from symbolic company which they have admitted.

Re: George Hotz against the institutions

#17

Post by [deleted] »

CyberRabbi wrote: post #9

Interesting discussion of AI and the decline of civilization. His allergies to power are a bit naive though not completely unfounded, at least Stallman comes to mind as an example of someone who was able to change the course of history without much personal power, instead he crafted ideas that had power. Some ideas are powerful enough to compel enough people to act in line with them. Ultimately accomplishing anything…

[deleted]

Re: George Hotz against the institutions

#18

Post by Terry_Roll »

thowaway673y wrote: post #15
marcan_42 wrote: post #8

Reminder that geohot wasn't the first person to jailbreak an iPhone; that's an oft repeated myth. He was the first person to publicly carrier unlock an iPhone, which he did using information and methods he mostly learned from others.

Also don't forget he was just 16 at the time and most importantly got the balls to live code when he has so much to lose.

At 16, you are highly unlikely to know the law or even be able to working out the ramifications of your actions and most 16yr old have next to nothing to lose.

Re: George Hotz against the institutions

#19

Post by ehsankia »

xiphias2 wrote: post #14
marcan_42 wrote: post #8

Reminder that geohot wasn't the first person to jailbreak an iPhone; that's an oft repeated myth. He was the first person to publicly carrier unlock an iPhone, which he did using information and methods he mostly learned from others.

That may be true, but during the coding videos on YouTube he's extremely smart. My favorite saying of him is that they don't have a cone guy because a self driving system shouldn't contain the knowledge of a cone explicitly. Guess what happened in the last Tesla update: the car went into a cone because it wasn't the usual color.

I think he's a bit out of his depth with the self-driving startup and bigger projects he's undertaken, but when it comes to CTFs and hacking competition, he's pretty damn good. Idk if he still does, but for a while he competed until tomcr00se and he'd always be at the top of the leaderboards for nearly every competition. I don't think that's just luck or plagiarism.

You can see him in top10 of US [0] during 2013-2015 when he was most active, that's not a trivial feat.

[0] https://ctftime.org/stats/2014/US

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