Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Andreessen Horowitz is investing billions into a bleak future

modelrepublic.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

371–380 of 459 posts

Re: Andreessen Horowitz is investing billions into a bleak future

#371

Post by CM30 »

ceejayoz wrote: post #147
akudha wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Setting ethical and moral questions aside for a second: Never pay a human again Every time I see stuff like this (along with other more serious shenanigans like wage theft, union busting etc) I only ask myself the same question again and again - what is the end game here? If much of the population is too poor to buy anything, too sick to consume much etc - who is left to buy anything at all? If all their power comes…

> If much of the population is too poor to buy anything, too sick to consume much etc - who is left to buy anything at all? No one. That's the idea. A low-population paradise. Venice without its pesky people to mess with Bezos's wedding. Bora Bora without the peasants.

But why wouldn't the rest of society kick them out before that point? Like at some point, there's going to be a lot of political pressure to fix things, especially if the majority of the population is going hungry or struggling to find work.

Feels like at some point, some 'rogue' political figure will win election by saying the elites need to be overthrown, and the latter's influence will burn to the ground. If even a percentage of the world's countries are still democracies by that point, then any sort of 'leave the population to suffer while we live in luxury' plan will fail.

Re: Andreessen Horowitz is investing billions into a bleak future

#372

Post by Dig1t »

Why isn’t Flock mentioned anywhere in this article? It should be first on the list. Frankly it’s the only one I really care about and the one that is the most destructive to liberty.

The gambling stuff is bad for society but the real problem is the Supreme Court ruling which enabled it.

Re: Andreessen Horowitz is investing billions into a bleak future

#373

Post by hattmall »

K0balt wrote: post #361
akudha wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Setting ethical and moral questions aside for a second: Never pay a human again Every time I see stuff like this (along with other more serious shenanigans like wage theft, union busting etc) I only ask myself the same question again and again - what is the end game here? If much of the population is too poor to buy anything, too sick to consume much etc - who is left to buy anything at all? If all their power comes…

I really wish that logic held. Automation doesn’t need customers. Automation just needs more automation, and access to energy and natural resources, both of which don’t require money if you have enough automation. Ultimately, Money is only used to pay wages, nothing else… so no wages to pay, no money required. In the post employment scenario, money is not needed by industry. You don’t pay the forest to cut the trees,…

Wouldn't everyone else just restart the same economy with what resources they do have?

Re: Andreessen Horowitz is investing billions into a bleak future

#374

Post by hattmall »

augment_me wrote: post #244
stackbutterflow wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still can't wrap my head around it. So we're all dead, robots take care of the infrastructure and healthcare, and there's maybe 50-100 billionaires left on the planet. Then what? They drive their sports car, do bungee jumping, sip cocktails and watch ai made movies. They don't have children? The human race dies with them? Or they have children, somehow avoid the trap of inbreeding and their children in turn have ch…

When you have everything, you want something new and different. The whole Epstein scandal is literally about this, you want to kill babies, r*pe the kids, do sacrifice rituals, etc because nothing gives you sensory satisfaction anymore. In the view of the commenters above, humanity will just be the final playtoy, let's have a little nuclear bomb in that town and film it in 4k, etc.

Nah, they were just fucked up, plenty of rich people not into that and plenty of poor people that are into pedo rings etc.

Re: Andreessen Horowitz is investing billions into a bleak future

#375

Post by itemize123 »

akudha wrote: post #129
pulkitsh1234 wrote: post #81

"A man who wishes to make a profession of goodness in everything must necessarily come to grief among so many who are not good. Therefore, it is necessary for a prince, who wishes to maintain himself, to learn how not to be good, and to use this knowledge and not use it, according to the necessity of the case" -- Niccolo Machiavelli It's a self fulfilling prophecy... while us commoners, or so called "activists" or et…

Setting ethical and moral questions aside for a second: Never pay a human again Every time I see stuff like this (along with other more serious shenanigans like wage theft, union busting etc) I only ask myself the same question again and again - what is the end game here? If much of the population is too poor to buy anything, too sick to consume much etc - who is left to buy anything at all? If all their power comes…

it's because it is a narrow set of never-pay-a-human. in that world, only certain task won't be done by human.

Re: Andreessen Horowitz is investing billions into a bleak future

#377

Post by theideaofcoffee »

guywithahat wrote: post #228
bambax wrote: post #34

Marc Andreessen is an evil man with the behavior (and appearance!) of a Bond villain.

[flagged]

Keep on lickin' that boot, Boot. Maybe if you swallow the entire thing, he'll look your way!

Re: Andreessen Horowitz is investing billions into a bleak future

#378

Post by sigmarule »

davidfekke wrote: post #304

Nice hit piece. ModelRepublic.org is run by Tyler Johnson and funded by Dustin Moskovitz. A16z funds small tech. This includes companies that do Crypto and AI. You may not like it, but these are products and services that consumers want to use.

> You may not like it, but these are products and services that consumers want to use.

The human brain's reward machinery is not and should not be the arbiter of what a healthy society allows to be advertised and sold. Truth becomes a liability when your competitors can deceive without consequence. We are sacrificing societal values for economic value and destroying the fabric of trust that a healthy society foundationally requires in the process. This article is a list of degeneracy bred by mindless and ideological deference to the flavor of unbridled capitalism sold to us by those who stand to benefit from it most.

Unbridled capitalism undoes itself, and those responsible for the undoing are the sole victors. Maybe then those cheering from the sidelines will come to the realization - moot, at that point - that the machiavellian ends were never for us, only the means.

Re: Andreessen Horowitz is investing billions into a bleak future

#379

Post by [deleted] »

webdoodle wrote: post #313
ryandrake wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Y Combinator's application still asks: "Please tell us about the time you most successfully hacked some (non-computer) system to your advantage." They don't actually use the word "cheat" but that's what they're asking for: Are you willing to cheat if it gives you an advantage?

Is it really cheating if the system is vulnerable? What about things like a filibuster or slow walking an order?

[deleted]

Re: Andreessen Horowitz is investing billions into a bleak future

#380

Post by robocat »

ryandrake wrote: post #240
vintermann wrote: post #33

> Lee's stated goal was to “desensitize everyone to the phrase ‘cheating.’” If you say it enough, he argues, “cheat begins to lose its meaning.” A16z praised Lee's approach as “rooted in deliberate strategy and intentionality.” Investors: but surely they won't cheat me !

Y Combinator's application still asks: "Please tell us about the time you most successfully hacked some (non-computer) system to your advantage." They don't actually use the word "cheat" but that's what they're asking for: Are you willing to cheat if it gives you an advantage?

Hacking and cheating are different things.

Hacking is looking at the rules and finding smart ways of following them. A lawyer or accountant finding legal loopholes is hacking.

The clearest place to see hacking is within games where one follows the rules and does not cheat.

Avoid thinking that hacking is unethical behaviour. A common mistake of people that don't understand the culture.

Like many great words, the meaning does depend on who uses the word. But the people who created the usage didn't use it for cheating.

Post reply on HN