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I Met Paul Graham Once

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Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#611

Post by tomlockwood »

iaseiadit wrote: post #547
jhp123 wrote: post #282

I'm not a target of tech's fascist turn, but my head is still spinning from the change of direction. When I entered this industry it was for hackers, nonconformists, weirdos, nerds, people who don't care about titles or clothes or what your genitals are. What particularly stings is that the vipers at the top tricked people into giving away an enormous amount of intellectual property. Zuck is removing tampons from the…

What “fascism” are we talking about here? A company pulling tampons from men’s rooms? Companies scaling down DEI departments that advocated (probably illegally) in favor of gender and race-based discrimination? Or are you speaking more broadly about the U.S.? Is it fascist to revert to a sane border policy that’s aligned with what most U.S. citizens and legal immigrants want? Or an executive branch that’s actually ru…

Is it fascist to vilify immigrants? Is the republican party full of bright young twenty year olds? Can you post "cis" on twitter?

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#612

Post by mgraczyk »

jmcgough wrote: post #605
mgraczyk wrote: post #600

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And polio is largely cured from this generation, and vaccines now exist that prevent diseases that once killed infants, and we have cheap and fast internet everywhere, ... This generation of "robber barons" has very clearly done more good for society than any other group of people of the same size, and I can't imagine how anybody who works in tech can not know of the specific good things they have done or be so confu…

> This generation of "robber barons" has very clearly done more good for society than any other group of people of the same size I'd take Jonas Salk, Norman Borlaug, and Marie Curie over Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Benzos.

Well i meant "group" as in an actual group of people who are all doing roughly the same thing at the same time, like the previous generation of robber barons.

But even in this case, I could make a pretty strong case that Salk was less important for the eradication of Polio than Gates, and that Curie will likely be less important in the long run than Zuckerberg on healthcare and biosciences, and a weaker but reasonable case that Borlaug will be less impactful on human survivability with increasing population than Musk.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#613

Post by mgraczyk »

gooosle wrote: post #607
mgraczyk wrote: post #600

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And polio is largely cured from this generation, and vaccines now exist that prevent diseases that once killed infants, and we have cheap and fast internet everywhere, ... This generation of "robber barons" has very clearly done more good for society than any other group of people of the same size, and I can't imagine how anybody who works in tech can not know of the specific good things they have done or be so confu…

> This generation of "robber barons" has very clearly done more good for society than any other group of people By what metric?

Almost any? Counterfactual human suffering if they didn't exist, number of lives saved, GDP, mean happiness, mean of bottom 5% happiness, etc

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#614

Post by energy123 »

snowwrestler wrote: post #58

Once upon a time, not that long ago, within my lifetime in fact, being gay was targeted for public abuse the way that transgender people are being targeting now. That has declined as people came to understand that being gay, lesbian, bi is part of how a person is made. Under public pressure, a gay person can act straight or at least act not gay. But it doesn't change who they are, doesn't help anyone around them, and…

The author sums it up well: "It’s mean, and unkind. It’s malicious."

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#615

Post by bryanrasmussen »

musicale wrote: post #361
kps wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And 2509 libraries.

Indeed – Carnegie Libraries may be one of the best results. I would like to see our modern robber barons and philanthropists (and society in general) put some effort into creating a usable digital library system; we actually have things like Google Books, which scanned many university collections, but it will likely remain unusable as an actual digital library unless some sort of copyright reform can be enacted.

>Indeed – Carnegie Libraries may be one of the best results.

how much of this "the 19th century Robber barons at least did one thing right" idea is all down to Andrew Carnegie, I sometimes wonder.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#616

Post by nradov »

YZF wrote: post #589
cycrutchfield wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can track Russia’s stockpiles through open source satellite imagery, here’s a recent video overview: https://youtu.be/TzR8BacYS6U Ukraine benefits from being on defense, as the attrition rates are significantly in their favor. I’m not sure what will happen after Trump does whatever it is he’s going to do, but it is clear that Russia’s current trajectory is not sustainable beyond a year or so

I agree Ukraine benefits from being on the defense. The question is what are their chances of retaking their lost territory where they need to be on the offense? Russia has higher attrition rates but also has a larger population to recruit from. I'm not seeing Russia just crumble away under Ukrainian assault. If that's the case how does Ukraine benefit from the continuation of the war? I would love to see Ukraine kic…

Ukraine can't achieve a battlefield victory but with foreign military aid they might be able to slow down the Russian advance long enough for the Russian economy to collapse. Russia is only able to keep their economy somewhat functional through fossil fuel exports. We can give Ukraine long-range missiles/drones and targeting assistance to wreck Russia's key export infrastructure (ports, pipelines, refineries, storage depots). And we can choke off much of Russia's shipping through sanctions and interference with their tanker "shadow fleet". There are also still billions in assets owned by Russian government entities, corporations, and citizens but held in Western countries so we can just straight up steal it all and hand everything over to Ukraine. There are no guarantees but as long as Ukraine is willing to keep fighting it's worth a try.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#617

Post by bryanrasmussen »

intended wrote: post #583
sien wrote: post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making these things make money is hard and it's really valuable. Without that people won't get to use them. There is a list of defunct spaceflight companies : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Defunct_spaceflight_c... Here is a very small list of just a few of the defunct internet companies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Defunct_online_compan... It's also worth considering how many millionaires were made…

I was going to grant this, but then thought of how VC hit rations work. Is it really ‘hard’ to make tech firms profitable, or is it more a function of survival? Many of the companies which enter are bought out, or acqui-hired, adding to the leaders. Tech often rewards those who survive long enough to consolidate. And finally, enshittification is a way to make MORE money, but it’s not hard.

>And finally, enshittification is a way to make MORE money, but it’s not hard.

maybe it's medium difficulty? There must be some enshittification that makes significantly less money, up to shutting down companies.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#618

Post by fzeroracer »

strken wrote: post #510
djur wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How was the campaign "woke" unless you define "trans people exist and should be supported" as woke? If Graham dislikes prigs, shouldn't he be criticizing the censorious social conservatives that led the boycott?

I define "trying to market a beer that's commonly drunk by Republicans using a trans influencer" as woke because it's: A) ineffective at marketing the beer, because it prioritises a social justice objective instead (making it a political stance) B) ineffective at changing any Bud drinker's mind on trans people, because it prioritises aggressive performance (making it woke) The problem is not "oh, trans people exist,…

> B) ineffective at changing any Bud drinker's mind on trans people, because it prioritises aggressive performance (making it woke)

Really? Like seriously, this is your argument? I just watched the commercial and it was the most bland safe commercial possible.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#620

Post by bryanrasmussen »

chrisweekly wrote: post #451
dgfitz wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The idea that elite universities produce elite university graduates is probably not controversial… Isn’t it?

No, it's a statement of fact, akin to "universities produce graduates".

well this

{elite universities} produce {elite university} graduates

is of course tautological

but this

elite universities produce university graduates who are elite (meaning better than others)

is debatable.

Most people who say "elite universities produce elite university graduates" mean the second and then don't provide any especially great arguments for the opinion.

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