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OpenAI and Elon Musk

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Re: OpenAI and Elon Musk

#931

Post by kortilla »

lovich wrote: post #772
kortilla wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Collectivism involves deciding for others. If it’s fully voluntary it’s individualism. Working together is not collectivism.

Ah so my family was collectivist as I just ate what my family served. I’ll be sure to tell my mother of her evil collectivist policies for giving me a peanut butter sandwich for dinner when I was five instead of letting me self actualize and choose my own meals.

You weren’t required to eat it. I’m not sure what is so difficult to grasp here.

Re: OpenAI and Elon Musk

#932

Post by qarl »

layer8 wrote: post #919
qarl wrote: post #861

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I don't think it's a maybe. From the emails it seems clear that even Elon thought the project would flop without a ton of money. It seems pretty clear that they felt they had to choose between chasing money and shutting down. I'm guessing you'd prefer they went with the latter, but I can entirely understand why they didn't.

I don’t really care what they do. But since they’re now chasing money, they should be honest about it and say they had to give up on the original aspirations and have now become a normal tech company without any noble goals of doing R&D for the most benefit of humanity unconstrained by financial obligations.

I think they're being extremely honest and transparent about needing money to continue to advance their work. I mean, that's the entire message of these emails they quote... right?

Re: OpenAI and Elon Musk

#933

Post by lovich »

kortilla wrote: post #931
lovich wrote: post #772

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah so my family was collectivist as I just ate what my family served. I’ll be sure to tell my mother of her evil collectivist policies for giving me a peanut butter sandwich for dinner when I was five instead of letting me self actualize and choose my own meals.

You weren’t required to eat it. I’m not sure what is so difficult to grasp here.

I was required by biology to eat and had no choice over the available food. The requirement for energy might be discountable as a fact of reality to just deal with, but my parents decided what food I got to eat.

To be clear I don’t think this arrangement is a problem, and if you were describing this in academic terms I mig even agree with you and have been too harsh. Unfortunately the word “collectivism” is used as a perjorative dog whistle and so I was pointing out how common behaviors most people would think are fine or even ideal can be cast in a “collectivist” light to point out that it’s not bad.

I’m assuming by the vote difference in our two comments that multiple people had the same assumption

Re: OpenAI and Elon Musk

#934

Post by WalterBright »

20after4 wrote: post #730
WalterBright wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was using collective in the sense of being a commune. Sorry about not being clear.

https://www.eastwind.org/ is just a few miles from me. It's quite successful, they even operate a business that grosses ~$2M/year and they provide their members with health insurance. I'm not keen on giving up my possessions to join the collective but I can think of a lot of worse ways to live. Most definitely not a failure.

East Wind has high turnover:

https://rootstalk.grinnell.edu/past-issues/volume-vii-issue-...

https://www.linkedin.com/company/east-wind-community

I couldn't find out how high that was, but I've seen another "successful" commune with an average stay of 2 years. It takes people an average of 2 years to discover they don't particularly care for communes.

Re: OpenAI and Elon Musk

#935

Post by WalterBright »

lupire wrote: post #626
WalterBright wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I _voluntarily_ decide to join a "collective", am I individualist or collectivist? An individualist, if you are free to leave it at any time. There's nothing wrong with forming a collective in the US, I think like 20,000 of them have been formed over the last 240 years. You don't hear about them much because they all failed. You're free to start a collective anytime in the US and try to make it work. Isn't freed…

Has China failed?

If you count mass starvation with collective farms?

It's a good thing China switched to free markets.

Re: OpenAI and Elon Musk

#936

Post by WalterBright »

hef19898 wrote: post #491
WalterBright wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Britain would have lost WW1 and WW2 without massive US support. The WW1 Germans were not amazed by British soldiers' supplies and health. They were amazed by the US soldiers' supplies and health. > Finally, the US war economy of WW2 was decidedly not free FDR mobilized existing free market businesses to convert to war production. It was not a collective, nor was it forced labor. For example, Ford switched from produc…

This is basically all wrong, except the Ford switching to planes and tanks bit. And you are aware, that France was a major biligerent in WW1, stopped Germany at Verdun and held more than half the Western Front, sucessfully after the race to the sea ended, together with Britain, for years before the US showed up? Or that the Ententene, without significant US participation, won the strategic victory that defeated Germa…

> Just read the first half of FDRs 1945 State of the Union during my lunch break. Not sure how you can consider a national service obligation, in parallel to the normal recruiting of workers, to be equal to forced labour...

Forced labor is exactly what it is. "You go work at this job we assigned you or you go to prison" is forced labor.

> "friend of Stalin"

I didn't write that. It's your strawman.

> being impressed by something doesn't mean being defeated by it

They knew the war was over when they encountered the well-fed, tall, and well-supplied US soldiers.

> that France was a major biligerent in WW1

Yup. I also know that France was bled white at Verdun. The slaughter was so bad that the average height of French soldiers in WW2 was an inch and a half shorter than in WW1.

It is not unreasonable to say that France lost WW1.

Re: OpenAI and Elon Musk

#937

Post by WalterBright »

lupire wrote: post #624
WalterBright wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US became a superpower long before WW2. The US was the deciding factor in WW1, and the Germans were shocked at how well-fed and well-equipped the US soldiers were, even with having to ship everything across the ocean. The US saw the most spectacular rise in the standard of living from 1800 up to WW2 the world had ever seen. This was all due to the free market, not collectivism. During WW2, the US supplied its all…

The primary source of superiority in a war is "not being within reach of a enemy munitions". US does great in European wars for that reason, and is historically mostly free from North American wars because US dominates the whole continent.

The US dominates the whole continent because it is more free market.

Re: OpenAI and Elon Musk

#938

Post by WalterBright »

throw4847285 wrote: post #679
WalterBright wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US became a superpower long before WW2. The US was the deciding factor in WW1, and the Germans were shocked at how well-fed and well-equipped the US soldiers were, even with having to ship everything across the ocean. The US saw the most spectacular rise in the standard of living from 1800 up to WW2 the world had ever seen. This was all due to the free market, not collectivism. During WW2, the US supplied its all…

There are other free market economies. And America reached the apex of its power under the New Deal and during wartime, when the "free market" was carefully constrained to meet the needs of the state. It's funny to watch people try and analyze what made the US the world's dominant global empire when in reality it was a series of complex and contingent factors that can't be replicated because they could have only occu…

The New Deal was a welfare system. Welfare has never made a country prosperous.

The success of free markets has been replicated many times:

1. the US

2. Japan after WW2

3. Germany after WW2

4. Hong Kong

5. China after it abandoned the cultural revolution

It has nothing to do with geography.

> America is at the top and that can't be replicated

It can be replicated.

> It might be collectivism!

Yet collectivism always fails. No country has managed to feed itself with collective farms, for example. And it isn't for lack of trying.

Re: OpenAI and Elon Musk

#939

Post by grecy »

gamblor956 wrote: post #908
grecy wrote: post #837

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you be happy if you donated tens of millions to a non profit entity which then changed their mission and suddenly started making a profit?

1) OpenAI did not change their mission. They are still pursuing AI. They are simply making more money doing it now than they did when they started. 2) Lots of non-profits make a profit. A non-profit is not defined by losing money , it is defined by the nature of what it does with its money, and what parts of its revenue are subject to taxation and what parts are tax-free. For example: the Microsoft contract would hav…

I like the part where you didn't answer the question, but did a lot of whataboutism.

Re: OpenAI and Elon Musk

#940

Post by danans »

WalterBright wrote: post #938
throw4847285 wrote: post #679

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are other free market economies. And America reached the apex of its power under the New Deal and during wartime, when the "free market" was carefully constrained to meet the needs of the state. It's funny to watch people try and analyze what made the US the world's dominant global empire when in reality it was a series of complex and contingent factors that can't be replicated because they could have only occu…

The New Deal was a welfare system. Welfare has never made a country prosperous. The success of free markets has been replicated many times: 1. the US 2. Japan after WW2 3. Germany after WW2 4. Hong Kong 5. China after it abandoned the cultural revolution It has nothing to do with geography. > America is at the top and that can't be replicated It can be replicated. > It might be collectivism! Yet collectivism always f…

> The New Deal was a welfare system. Welfare has never made a country prosperous.

> The success of free markets has been replicated many times:

> 1. the US

> 2. Japan after WW2

> 3. Germany after WW2

> 4. Hong Kong

> 5. China after it abandoned the cultural revolution

4 of those 5 countries have significant welfare programs (Japan and Germany being the most generous among those on your list).

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