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The whole thing was a scam

garymarcus.substack.com

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Re: The whole thing was a scam

#91

Post by danielparsons »

mentalgear wrote: post #3

PS: If openly bribing a crony gov to cancel your competitor is now the de-facto standard of making business in the US, I don't see how any rational investor could still see US companies as a secure investment. When the rule of law degrades into pay-to-play politics, the inevitable result is a mass exodus of both capital and top-tier talent.

Bit melodramatic. The US still has the most talent, most capital, and best property protections of anywhere in the world. Name a country that (1) doesn't have any quid-pro-quo system with the govt, and (2) has pro-growth pro-capitalist policies.

Re: The whole thing was a scam

#93

Post by lm28469 »

jeremyjh wrote: post #21
dist-epoch wrote: post #5

> but after Brockman had donated 25M to Trump’s PAC > In capitalism, the market decides. > In oligarchy, connections and donations decide. Author is confused about what Capitalism is. It worked exactly as expected, Capital used itself to advance it's own needs - maximizing (own) growth. Capitalism is not about markets, it's about Capital. There is a reason why lobbying is an accepted practice in one of the most Capit…

Which prominent economist has argued that bribes are an essential part of Capitalism?

Someone came up with the "invisible hand of the free market" theory and become quite famous so I'd say we can add our own crackpot theories on top, apparently they don't have to be very well researched to stick around

Re: The whole thing was a scam

#95

Post by tombert »

juleiie wrote: post #75

In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity. This HST quote seems severely outdated by now. They have already been caught, committed all the sins of stupidity and some more. All of it to the clapping mob of people who yearn for some kind of social revenge. And it’s happening everywhere these last years. Who could possibly know…

I've said it a million times, but I'll repeat it.

There are a lot of conspiracy nuts like Alex Jones, and the amusing thing to me is that there is a conspiracy of elites who are exerting large amounts of unelected control of the government, and who are actively working to keep you down to enrich themselves, and it's not even a secret.

We call these people "billionaires", and at this point they don't even bother hiding it. Trump had a streamlined bribery system with his stupid cryptocurrency and being in charge of a publicly traded company while in office, Musk bought his way in so he could be in charge of a new department and start defunding any organization that has ever tried to investigate him, and there are hundreds of examples.

Instead morons like Alex Jones will go on the radio and blame lizards or something, and then his listeners will take that and then start blaming Jews or Mexicans, while cheering on the actual conspiracy that's making their lives terrible.

Re: The whole thing was a scam

#98

Post by pton_xd »

beej71 wrote: post #55
pton_xd wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Agree 2. Agree > The problem is that the Pentagon is trying to bury Anthropic as a company, calling it a danger to the United States because it exerted its non-controversial right in (1). My take is that the DoD very much wanted to continue using Claude. However, Amodei refused to budge on relinquishing final say over Claude usage. The DoD took this as a personal offense (how dare this guy, does he know who we are…

> However, Amodei refused to budge on relinquishing final say over Claude usage. And that's 100% acceptable and legal. They have the right to do that. And DoW can then turn around and say "no deal". And that's 100% acceptable and legal. So Hegseth going above and beyond and lashing out on the People's behalf like a butthurt child is unwarranted at best, and should definitely be illegal if it's not already.

I agree, my point is simply that Hegseth lashing out over Amodei's refusal is more plausible than a grand conspiracy to move to OpenAI (while simultaneously locking themselves out from Claude).

Re: The whole thing was a scam

#99

Post by codechicago277 »

isoprophlex wrote: post #85
juleiie wrote: post #75

In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity. This HST quote seems severely outdated by now. They have already been caught, committed all the sins of stupidity and some more. All of it to the clapping mob of people who yearn for some kind of social revenge. And it’s happening everywhere these last years. Who could possibly know…

Not a week goes by without me thinking "what would HST have made of THIS fresh bullshit, if he were alive today"

The only human to authorize a nuclear attack…

Re: The whole thing was a scam

#100

Post by knollimar »

atmosx wrote: post #84
Cyphase wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite tangential, but this reminded me of a line from Human Target: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6tqvzt?start=872&mute=fal... "I'm sorry, you... You think I'm a prostitute?" looks at offered cash "A $40 prostitute?"

Cheap or not doesn’t matter. Sir Winston Churchill supposedly asked Lady Astor whether she would sleep with him for five million pounds. She said she supposed she would. Then he asked whether she would sleep with him for only five pounds. She answered,"What do you think I am?" His response was, "We've already established that; we're merely haggling over price."- Marcus Felson, Crime and Everyday Life, Second Edition,…

I think it does matter and this quote is always flaunted like it's some deep insight but it intentionally ignored nuance. An amount you can comfortably retire on is way different than $5.

We love to pretend humans have unflinching morals but they don't

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