But is he not gonna take it?
Ed Zitron is mad as hell
31–40 of 64 posts
Re: Ed Zitron is mad as hell
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've said this many times but I'll say it again. The FT is not some single opinion org. It has many writers and many editors of various opinions. The FT itself does not take any angle, only it's writers and editors, who can have contradictory views and still publish articles in the same media org.
> FT is not one single opinion This holds for most newspapers and makes that whole fake news argument so infuriating. As if journalists had even 15 minutes in a day to coordinate how to present an issue.
Journalists don't have to spend 15 minutes to coordinate how to present an issue. The phenomenon has been described as journalists writing for other journalists as their audience, rather than the general public. It's about sending a signal that you're part of the in-group.
Re: Ed Zitron is mad as hell
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've said this many times but I'll say it again. The FT is not some single opinion org. It has many writers and many editors of various opinions. The FT itself does not take any angle, only it's writers and editors, who can have contradictory views and still publish articles in the same media org.
What are the chances of reading an FT article stating that the financial sector, and financialization, are creating some of society’s core problems?
They do occasionally, with reservation. Though obviously pro-finance they also don’t want total financial collapse.
Re: Ed Zitron is mad as hell
#34I can’t read the linked FT article but I wanted to mention that Ed Zitron’s podcast Better Offline is interesting for me because he has a contrarian view of tech that is often different from my own. Some of his recent podcasts on the funky economics of excessive AI investments and data center investments vs. any real payoffs for society. I feel my own views slightly shifting when I listen to him. I value material tha…
Interesting if he really is more convincing in speech than in writing. His writing is certainly flamboyant, but the aggression and expletives seem more targeted at hyping up people who already believe the things he writes, not for making people change their minds. He found a niche in anti-tech grift, and is now exploiting the niche for all he can.
But you might want to actually fact-check a few of the things he says that convince you, because at least for his written articles basically everything is made up or misrepresented. There's plenty of links to sources, sure, but if you follow them down to the primary source what they're saying is very different from what Zitron is implying. It seems hard to believe that he's better at this in spoken form where citing a source is even harder.
Re: Ed Zitron is mad as hell
#35[flagged]
> this is being driven entirely by spite not insight Zitron is a PR dude who runs a PR company and has never had any experience, training, or meaningful contributions to technology. He found twitter success posting shittakes about AI, ran that into a podcast, and now he's in the FT. Zitron is a professional contrarian and PR man, saying "AI sucks" has found him fame and success.
Meanwhile, he's done deeper analysis than anyone else I've seen on financial statements and actual costs from AI for the large players and I absolutely don't think he's wrong.
Unfortunately, this seems to strike a chord for you.
Re: Ed Zitron is mad as hell
#36I tried listening to a few episodes of his podcast a while back. I stopped because he was spending more time on how mad he is about some problem with big tech than he was on the problem itself.
I'd like to hear stories about big tech abuses, but I don't care much about some random podcaster's anger.
Re: Ed Zitron is mad as hell
#37I can’t read the linked FT article but I wanted to mention that Ed Zitron’s podcast Better Offline is interesting for me because he has a contrarian view of tech that is often different from my own. Some of his recent podcasts on the funky economics of excessive AI investments and data center investments vs. any real payoffs for society. I feel my own views slightly shifting when I listen to him. I value material tha…
I found "Better Offline" through "Tech Won't Save Us" where Ed is occasionally a guest. It also has some critical takes on technology if you are looking for more of that content.
I found him in the same way, and thought he was interesting and insightful.
But I tried listening to some of his podcasts and read his articles, but just could not suffer them at all. Tech Wont Save Us is worth people's time though - great work there.
Re: Ed Zitron is mad as hell
#38I can’t read the linked FT article but I wanted to mention that Ed Zitron’s podcast Better Offline is interesting for me because he has a contrarian view of tech that is often different from my own. Some of his recent podcasts on the funky economics of excessive AI investments and data center investments vs. any real payoffs for society. I feel my own views slightly shifting when I listen to him. I value material tha…
Interesting if he really is more convincing in speech than in writing. His writing is certainly flamboyant, but the aggression and expletives seem more targeted at hyping up people who already believe the things he writes, not for making people change their minds. He found a niche in anti-tech grift, and is now exploiting the niche for all he can. But you might want to actually fact-check a few of the things he says…
Yeah, I have no doubt that he's got some good insights, but its crystal clear that he's just hyping it all up as part of a grift. I get serious Alex Jones vibes from him
I've tried to listen to a few podcasts and read some articles, and its just unbearable. Moreover, I find the main point that he harps on about - that none of the AI stuff is financially sustainable - to be largely unimportant. Like, if they want to burn their money, go for it.
The real issues - intellectual property, implications for the future workforce, environmental costs, or even that the money really ought to be invested in something else, whether public funds are going towards it, if taxes are being avoided etc - seem to be, at best, tertiary concerns for him. He only seems to be "mad as hell" that they're wasting money and no one else is talking about it.
He's also just plainly wrong when he keeps saying things like there's been zero discernable benefit to AI, as if it is just a creepto scam.
Re: Ed Zitron is mad as hell
#39I started reading and listening to Ed after "The Man Who Killed Google Search" but grew tired of him ranting on and on about a technology that "brings no value to the world" while I use it to great effect many times every single day (LLMs).
Re: Ed Zitron is mad as hell
#40Most HN criticism of Zitron appears to fall into one of two categories:
1) He uses expletives and is “too angry” 2) He runs a PR firm and has no experience working with LLMs
Which I think says a lot more about his detractors than it does about him. Time will tell all, and I think he will be remembered as a prescient individual. It’s undeniable that these financial games that OpenAI, Oracle, and now Nvidia are playing are unsustainable and indicative of a large upcoming crash.