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Are we the baddies?

geohot.github.io

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Re: Are we the baddies?

#101

Post by afiodorov »

praptak wrote: post #85
afiodorov wrote: post #13

We should not underestimate the timeless human response to being manipulated: disengagement. This isn't theoretical, it's happening right now. The boom in digital detoxes, the dumbphone revival among young people, the shift from public feeds to private DMs, and the "Do Not Disturb" generation are all symptoms of the same thing. People are feeling the manipulation and are choosing to opt out, one notification at a tim…

You cannot disengage from capitalism. The tricks you describe are perhaps useful to not be the slowest antelope in the herd but that doesn't mean you are fully free from being exploited.

Let's be clear: it's entirely possible to leave the "herd". People can and do go completely off-grid and thus disengage from capitalism. The crucial point is that the vast majority of us choose not to. That choice is what makes your "slowest antelope" analogy so much more complex.

An antelope's greatest desire is to be in the herd, because while it may contain a lion, the world outside contains a thousand wolves.

We've built a herd—society—that is incredibly effective at holding those wolves at bay: famine, plague, and chaos. We willingly participate because it provides "shields" our ancestors could only dream of. The problem isn't the herd itself; it's the lion that we allow to stalk within it.

What I am suggesting isn't to abandon this safety and comfort brought by modern capitalism. It's to improve the herd—to enjoy its protections while finding ways to tame, cage, or evade the lion of exploitation. What we're discussing here aren't futile attempts to escape, but vital tactics for building a better, safer herd for everyone.

Re: Are we the baddies?

#102

Post by buran77 »

anonzzzies wrote: post #7
ggm wrote: post #2

For some people, paying the premium to jump the queue is the point. What they didn't forsee is what happens when everyone has wound up paying the premium, and the queue is now with you again. This is mostly Australian frequent flyers, when it was a high barrier to entry it conferred advantages and now Fly in Fly out work has commoditised club status, there is next to no boarding advantage, and no points flight availa…

> there is next to no boarding advantage Especially on the discounters here in EU (especially Ryanair / Easyjet), i'm the only one in the non-priority queue, everyone else is in the priority queue. This used to of course not be the case; you paid extra and was in first. Now i'm usually in before 2/3th of the prio queue. Which is just weird. > about surge pricing. I got boiled slowly. Not sure how it is in the US (I u…

> I never take them as they are also often rude and I cannot rate them

You should check if there are taxi apps where you live. In Europe a lot of these apps consolidated under bigger brands (e.g. FreeNow) so it's a good bet that you'll find one and then you have the same experience as Uber. Just check which gives you a better price.

When the service providers feel cheated by the app they have to use to reach any audience (Booking, Uber, etc.), they'll find ways to make more money. Hotel owners gave me hefty discounts just to cancel a Booking reservation and pay directly, Uber drivers did the same. And with taxis it's getting ever so slightly harder to cheat when people have a recording device in their pockets at all times. I know cases where friends used Strava to record a trip and could show it's impossible for the trip to cost that much at advertised prices. Driver complied.

Startup idea: Strava for taxi rides, disrupt the market of shady taxi drivers with an app dedicated to tracking the trip to calculate/estimate costs.

Re: Are we the baddies?

#103

Post by skocznymroczny »

Online dating websites are a waste of time unless you are in the top % of men. Sad reality of online dating is that a small % of men gets attention of most women, while the remaining % of men get little to no attention at all. The whole boosting system makes it even worse.

Re: Are we the baddies?

#104

Post by dontlaugh »

robin_reala wrote: post #87
delusional wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is what struck me as well. Hearing what I can only describe as radical anti-capitalism coming from George Hotz was not what I expected when I opened that link. That said I have felt the same feelings expressed by Hotz in this post. I commend him for saying it.

It’s not particularly radical is it? Maybe I’m in a bit of a bubble.

Exactly, it’s very mild first steps anti-capitalism. Nothing about class, for example.

Re: Are we the baddies?

#105

Post by SXX »

jagrsw wrote: post #41
anonzzzies wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there is next to no boarding advantage Especially on the discounters here in EU (especially Ryanair / Easyjet), i'm the only one in the non-priority queue, everyone else is in the priority queue. This used to of course not be the case; you paid extra and was in first. Now i'm usually in before 2/3th of the prio queue. Which is just weird. > about surge pricing. I got boiled slowly. Not sure how it is in the US (I u…

> but here prices jump heavily during surge Yup. The price jump isn't just a "surge." It's the algorithm calculating the highest price you'll tolerate without abandoning the app long-term, no matter availability of cars (which can be related, but from CFOs perspective that's not the metric to optimize) This personalized price discrimination is precisely the kind of manipulation geohot is describing. It's the same pri…

Booking is the worst of them. You can open two tabs of one account next to each other and since one is from Google Maps pricing gonna be. 20% different.

Also all kind of cashback or discount offers just bake even higher premium than Cashback they offer.

So yeah booking hotels is more and more like a whack-a-mole game if you don't want to pay 30% more.

Re: Are we the baddies?

#106

Post by TFYS »

xoralkindi wrote: post #94

> Someday, people will have to realize we live in a society. What will it take? Anarchism, socialism and communism can work perfect in a small village where everyone knows and trusts each other. But if you scale it up it does not work well because people can be corrupt. If you want to scale up to a Geo Global level that is trust-less the best way we know is to use Capitalism, but Capitalism ends up becoming more and…

I think we now have the technology to make decision-making and resource allocation systems that do not need to centralize power. If we can do that, then it wouldn't matter that people can be corrupt, because there would be no positions of power that people can abuse.

Re: Are we the baddies?

#107

Post by PartiallyTyped »

n2d4 wrote: post #86
PartiallyTyped wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is an allocation to the biggest companies at any time. ETFs need to rebalance, increase, decrease shares of a given stock and even evict them. Buying shares on SPY exposes you to the current companies but also any companies that will join. If a company gets evicted, then there is massive drop in their stock pricing as most movement is mechanistic and done by ETFs. Well massive is relative. For example last week we…

FYI this is not true and has been debunked in newer studies; the reason why it seems true is because companies that enter the SP500 tend to enter it because they're doing well which makes its stock go up. If you control for that factor, presence in the SP500 does not significantly affect the stock price. https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/media/research/staff...

It’s not about SPY per-se, but about ETFs in general. Addition to spy is likely an addition to many other big volume ETFs. Top stocks also join QQQ which is another highly liquid ETF.

Most market volume according to citi is done by ETFs, approximately 80%.

When said ETFs rebalance at start and end of any particular day, we end up with big movements, much wider than the sideways chop we observe during the day when movement is mostly performed MMs that deal with hedging or dropping options value.

So I don’t think it’s the presence to S&P per se, but presence in big ETFs.

Also that paper is from 2012. Market’s a lot different these days.

To be clear, I am not saying that getting in there implies stock go brr. I am saying that in the context of the whole comment chain, buying spy exposes one to all companies that will enter or be evicted from the ETF, which then theoretically funds the companies which then produce value, which returns back as dividends or growth of stock.

If we look deeper though, buying into ETFs likely means the shares that are exchanged are bought and sold by and to MMs, so a whole lot of value is lost to them.

Re: Are we the baddies?

#108

Post by wohoef »

delusional wrote: post #17
svnt wrote: post #3

I find these posts primarily interesting as a sort of demographic heatmap. Like now it has gotten to the point where instead of only chasing their interest of choice (geohot hacking, in this case), this person has become aware of the issue, and been sufficiently motivated to write a post about it. geohot is pretty deep into the center of the map afaict.

I think this is what struck me as well. Hearing what I can only describe as radical anti-capitalism coming from George Hotz was not what I expected when I opened that link. That said I have felt the same feelings expressed by Hotz in this post. I commend him for saying it.

Call me crazy, but I think capitalism can exist without mass manipulation.

Re: Are we the baddies?

#109

Post by Klonoar »

seydor wrote: post #66
protocolture wrote: post #46

>But eventually the market will fix this, right? People will feel sick of being manipulated and move elsewhere? You can literally go outside and talk to people. There's no moat around dating apps. Human beings continue to exist in meatspace. I am yet to see a dating app contract that prevents you from being casually approached by strangers. Heck matchmakers still exist.

> You can literally go outside and talk to people. You can't . If you talk to modern city people the way you casually said 'hi' to strangers in the 90s , at best you 'll end up in a tiktok branded as a creepy person

No? Just... don't be creepy.

I've done this a few times over the last few days alone (in Seattle no less, a city infamous for being antisocial - though I'm willing to accept some were tourists for the 4th).

IME, people are actually starved for human interaction.

Re: Are we the baddies?

#110

Post by ansc »

seydor wrote: post #66
protocolture wrote: post #46

>But eventually the market will fix this, right? People will feel sick of being manipulated and move elsewhere? You can literally go outside and talk to people. There's no moat around dating apps. Human beings continue to exist in meatspace. I am yet to see a dating app contract that prevents you from being casually approached by strangers. Heck matchmakers still exist.

> You can literally go outside and talk to people. You can't . If you talk to modern city people the way you casually said 'hi' to strangers in the 90s , at best you 'll end up in a tiktok branded as a creepy person

Come on.

I agree with the premise that it is really difficult and sucks to "just go out and talk to people". Depends on where you live I guess though. I think thinking you'll end up on a TikTok because you talk to a person in a queue is just a far off excuse.

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