Live data from Hacker News

It looks like I’m moving to Mastodon

simonwillison.net

341–350 of 472 posts

Re: It looks like I’m moving to Mastodon

#342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Project Veritas is one...sure there was a hidden camera but some of the employees were quite candid with their beliefs. I don't mean to paint a broad stroke, but from the interviews, it seems like the culture of the company leaned a certain political direction.

Project Veritas has a long history of deceptive editing and outright manufactured reporting, so I wouldn't trust any report you see out of them.

[deleted]

Re: It looks like I’m moving to Mastodon

#343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If Twitter becomes interoperable with other services, this is literally the opposite of tech neofeudalism. It's not interoperable. It's controlled by one person. Like Facebook. When that changes we can discuss it. But until then, it's just an empty promise.

It is a promise. Its value will be established sooner or later. It is too early to call any Twitter-related promise "empty". Even new governments traditionally have 100 days before it is considered fair to rip into them.

> Even new governments traditionally have 100 days

But companies do not. Buy a company and start making big mistakes and there will be consequences. The competition for users is fierce. If you want 100 days, get elected instead of being forced into buying a company you didn't really want in the first place.

Re: It looks like I’m moving to Mastodon

#344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Project Veritas is one...sure there was a hidden camera but some of the employees were quite candid with their beliefs. I don't mean to paint a broad stroke, but from the interviews, it seems like the culture of the company leaned a certain political direction.

Project Veritas has a long history of deceptive editing and outright manufactured reporting, so I wouldn't trust any report you see out of them.

Commentary aside, the video does not lie. Also the entire unedited interview is available.

Re: It looks like I’m moving to Mastodon

#345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Project Veritas has a long history of deceptive editing and outright manufactured reporting, so I wouldn't trust any report you see out of them.

This is a tired and often parroted talking point used to dismiss literal hours of continuous footage of execs rambling on and on about enacting their political agendas in the workplace.

It's another form of gaslighting people into not believing their own eyes & ears...

Re: It looks like I’m moving to Mastodon

#346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see a problem with this, except being born into an ideology. Most people these days have chosen one and cultivated it according to their life. I think my ideology is good, if it wasn't I would change it to be the good version. So why would I not work with someone who shares mine? Billionaire or not.

You don't choose your ideology, it's assigned by the tooth fairy when you lose your first tooth. Alternatively, it seems to have a significant genetic component, and most of the rest will depend on the environment you grow up in. Choice isn't part of it, you don't evaluate all the possibilities and then pick the best one, you think the one you're part of is the best one because it intuitively made sense to you. The r…

Most people I know have the opposite ideology from their parents, who had the opposite ideology of their own. Many people change their ideologies throughout life, as incentives and personal experience pushes them (e.g. having a bad experience with a certain political party can often sour you to their whole ideology).

It's true that I don't live in America, so maybe there is a difference, but you definitely are not describing a human truth.

Re: It looks like I’m moving to Mastodon

#347
post #49

> I can’t see myself putting the same work in to help the world’s richest man pay the loans he took out So Twitter was “really good” (while it was helping the many rich shareholders of a random public company) but it’s suddenly “work” a couple of days after the owner changed? Nothing wrong for not using it because of ideological reasons, but the product’s accessibility (or anything else really) hasn’t changed yet.

The main difference isn't really who but how much money. One uses a lot of goods and services in ordinary life. Generally speaking one hopes that the provider of these goods and services uses their resources efficiently to provide them for a reasonable price including reasonable profit. When a leveraged buyout happens (this is true for most leveraged buyouts) a large cost is put into the business that wasn't there be…

Twitter was losing $360 million per year before Musk. These layoffs were going to happen whether Musk bought the company, or not.

Re: It looks like I’m moving to Mastodon

#349
post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’m afraid I don’t understand how Twitter can end up with debt from Musk buying it. How does that even work? This article explains: (a) how leveraged buyouts work, (b) how Musk's acquisition is different from a regular LBO, and (c) what debt Twitter now has due to the deal. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/elon-musks-twitter-d...

Thanks! I’ll give it a read. Edit: I must say that even after I read it I have trouble understanding how any of that happens except through well connected people moving money around to their own benefit. The banks are on the hook, but it’s not really the banks because it’s not their money they are lending out.

I worked on Wall Street for years, a long time ago when leveraged buy-outs first really got going.

So I really understand them.

And I agree with you. "Leverage" means multiplying both risk and reward. Given a system where losses are socialized, and wins are privatized, it makes complete sense to do LBOs as much as possible - the people with money win, and everyone else loses.

Re: It looks like I’m moving to Mastodon

#350
post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Musk is eminently hatable. He's also a competent businessman. The odds of him turning Twitter into Stormfront are very low, yet many are acting like it's already happened. What is the point of calling for a boycott of a company that hasn't yet done the thing you don't like?

Maybe people just don't want to use a company run by someone they abhor. Does there need to be a point other than that?

Not at all, but that's not what they say they care about. "Fuck Elon Musk, boycott twitter" is an entirely valid position. "Elon Musk has turned twitter into 8chan" is an absurd falsehood.
Post reply on HN