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Why do people hate the tech industry? (2023)

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Re: Why do people hate the tech industry? (2023)

#171

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

muvlon wrote: post #58
disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, to be fair, basically the only way to raise the amount of capital required to keep growing LLMs was to sell a story at this scale. I think the real error was the notion that they could sell this story to investors without the rest of the population noticing.

Is it an error though? The general public has noticed, everyone hates their guts but investment is still flowing.

If they end up getting heavily regulated, then it's definitely an error. The Fable export controls kerfuffle was definitely downstream of all the hype so it seems to be having some impact.

Re: Why do people hate the tech industry? (2023)

#172

Post by rootonmainnet »

cwillu wrote: post #158
Legend2440 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I can't actually think of a single piece of tech made in the past ten years that has improved my life This is going to be controversial, but I feel that ChatGPT has improved my life. Also e-bikes, 3D printers, and wireless earbuds really took off in the last ten years. Some of these were invented more than 10 years ago but saw significant improvements that brought them into the mainstream.

Being able to use ChatGPT is useful, but it is significantly offset by how many business interactions are now mediated solely by chatgpt, and I'm not sure on balance my life has been improved.

[dead]

Re: Why do people hate the tech industry? (2023)

#173

Post by wolvesechoes »

pibaker wrote: post #147
mrweasel wrote: post #38

I can't actually think of a single piece of tech made in the past ten years that has improved my life, at least not without large downsides. There's some embedded stuff, like lane assist or adaptive cruise control in my car, that I like, but the package as a whole... not really much of an improvement. It's not really bad as such that the tech industry want to attempt to make a smart home, or add software to a product…

The voluntary adoption of modern tech products says otherwise. People aren't forced to wear Apple Watches, order food through doordash, look up things on ChatGPT, ride Waymos etc. And yet everything I listed above is very popular. Population wide revealed preferences speak volumes despite what loud critics who appointed themselves as the people's ambassadors may say.

People commonly voluntarily destroy their health and screw their lifes. So not very thought out argument.

Re: Why do people hate the tech industry? (2023)

#174

Post by wolvesechoes »

simianwords wrote: post #103
lopis wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a weirdly optimistic view of technology. Specially the comparison to homophobia and racism. Yes, tech has solved people's basic but real needs for communication, banking, entertainment, etc. Then after a certain level, without aggressive dark patterns, people's needs for tech were basically met. No one needed social media, we needed social networks . No one needed inescapable "algorithms"¹ besides the ones try…

I personally love social media because it brings different cultures together. Infinity immigration has been tried but not in a nice way. Next best thing is social media - bringing cultures together in a marketplace and having ideas beat eachother is important for a civilisation. Without social media you would have corners of culture getting stuck on whatever ideas they had from 2000 years ago. With social media these…

"I personally love social media because it brings different cultures together"

It doesn't bring people of different cultures together - it removes different cultures, and pumps people full of goo produced by culture industry.

Re: Why do people hate the tech industry? (2023)

#175

Post by _DeadFred_ »

Legend2440 wrote: post #132
mrweasel wrote: post #38

I can't actually think of a single piece of tech made in the past ten years that has improved my life, at least not without large downsides. There's some embedded stuff, like lane assist or adaptive cruise control in my car, that I like, but the package as a whole... not really much of an improvement. It's not really bad as such that the tech industry want to attempt to make a smart home, or add software to a product…

>I can't actually think of a single piece of tech made in the past ten years that has improved my life This is going to be controversial, but I feel that ChatGPT has improved my life. Also e-bikes, 3D printers, and wireless earbuds really took off in the last ten years. Some of these were invented more than 10 years ago but saw significant improvements that brought them into the mainstream.

e-bikes are a terror. Motorized vehicles operating in places where motorized vehicles aren't allowed (so like all modern tech, the benefit is the abuse/loophole they allow a small subset to benefit from). People treating them like toys and riding horribly resulting in lots of accidents. Nah, they aren't a plus.

Re: Why do people hate the tech industry? (2023)

#176

Post by throwawaytea »

lokar wrote: post #160
throwawaytea wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For sure drunk driving increases your odds of an accident. But people make it sound 3-4 beers and you're bound to have an accident. We should be more honest about it.

Most people would not describe the observable behavior of someone just over the legal limit as drunk.

The police sure would. And when people these days talk about drinking and driving, most of it IS the 4 beers after work they're talking about.

The crazy drunkard having stiff drinks at a bar and then driving home after almost falling over walking to his car is pretty rare.

But you're right, in the context of the OP I was responding to, he probably did mean real drunkards being more popular back then.

Re: Why do people hate the tech industry? (2023)

#177

Post by throwawaytea »

nradov wrote: post #146
pixl97 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Drivers need smart assists in cars because Na, drivers have always sucked. When I was growing up the amount of people that drove drunk was just insane. I have no idea how they survived, I guess a lot of them did not.

My optometrist told me that when he started clinical practice years ago he was shocked to discover how many people were driving around with severe visual impairments. The usual DMV eye exam is way too easy.

I sold cars for a living so I pay attention to randoms in cars more than most probably. The amount of people (mostly women) sitting WAYYY too low in their car is shocking. I don't know how they can even see most of what's near in front of them.

The way too close to the steering wheel also shocks me, but I guess with that one theyre going to just hurt themselves.

When id sell a car, or even on test drives, I'd try to help them adjust the seat to a sane position but most people that do it wrong seem to be pretty set in their ways and don't want to change it even with some friendly advice and showing them the seat goes way up. It's almost like they don't like looking bigger in their car or something.

Re: Why do people hate the tech industry? (2023)

#178

Post by firmretention »

grg0 wrote: post #152
firmretention wrote: post #30

On the list of extremely annoying things you can put on a webpage, a cat constantly running after my cursor is definitely a new one for me.

Clearly you were not on the web in the 90s. But agree it's very annoying.

I remember CometCursor and the like, but nothing that chased the cursor itself.

Re: Why do people hate the tech industry? (2023)

#179

Post by firmretention »

lopis wrote: post #39
firmretention wrote: post #30

On the list of extremely annoying things you can put on a webpage, a cat constantly running after my cursor is definitely a new one for me.

This is probably showing both our ages that this is new to you and very old for me.

I was on the web in the late 90s! I don't recall seeing anything like this, although it certainly may have existed. Animated cursors yes (CometCursor!), but not little animations chasing your cursor.

Re: Why do people hate the tech industry? (2023)

#180

Post by watwut »

_DeadFred_ wrote: post #175
Legend2440 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I can't actually think of a single piece of tech made in the past ten years that has improved my life This is going to be controversial, but I feel that ChatGPT has improved my life. Also e-bikes, 3D printers, and wireless earbuds really took off in the last ten years. Some of these were invented more than 10 years ago but saw significant improvements that brought them into the mainstream.

e-bikes are a terror. Motorized vehicles operating in places where motorized vehicles aren't allowed (so like all modern tech, the benefit is the abuse/loophole they allow a small subset to benefit from). People treating them like toys and riding horribly resulting in lots of accidents. Nah, they aren't a plus.

They are huge health plus for older people. It gives them the exercise they need without being mind numbingly boring.
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