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Founder Mode, hackers, and being bored by tech

ianbetteridge.com

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Re: Founder Mode, hackers, and being bored by tech

#161

Post by rglullis »

jessekv wrote: post #142
rglullis wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except of AIDS, none of the items on your list are things we really need but just a naive attempt of masking the problems of modern society life. Worse still: most of these problems were caused by the psychopaths who wanted nothing but money and power and found in the "techno-optimism" the perfect excuse to justify their actions.

> Robotic manipulation in unstructured situations I expect this one to be a big one. Food production is not yet a solved problem. Imagine if robotics could scale "food forest"-style organic farming to the size of our current mono-crop farms.

For grains, fruits, vegetables? I am not so sure. Is manual labor the limiting factor to have more diverse cultures?

It would be nice if we could get rid of factory farming though, but I doubt we are close to a point where we can have free range cattle being tended mostly by robots.

Re: Founder Mode, hackers, and being bored by tech

#162

Post by rglullis »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #157
rglullis wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except of AIDS, none of the items on your list are things we really need but just a naive attempt of masking the problems of modern society life. Worse still: most of these problems were caused by the psychopaths who wanted nothing but money and power and found in the "techno-optimism" the perfect excuse to justify their actions.

Who is the royal "we" here? Are you claiming there is no market or that there shouldn't be one? Techno optimism and opportunism go hand in hand, of course. But I don't see anyone else inventing the future. To paraphrase Alan Kay.

The latter. There is always a market for everything, no matter how deranged it is.

Re: Founder Mode, hackers, and being bored by tech

#163

Post by j4coh »

imiric wrote: post #121
j4coh wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s selling out. Trading in your idealism to work on spyware/ad tech or whatever.

Oh, please. "Selling out" is such an immature take. Andreessen was one of the first people who saw the potential of the web in the early days, worked on the first graphical web browsers and built a highly influential business around it. Then he went on to create one of the most powerful VC firms in the industry, which in turn funded some of the most successful companies. His impact wouldn't have been anywhere near wh…

Well, a capitalist success story isn’t necessarily incompatible with moving away from hacker beliefs like information should be free - in fact, you can probably make a lot of money by locking it up and selling access. And neither is getting rich intrinsically a hacker ideal.

Re: Founder Mode, hackers, and being bored by tech

#164

Post by j4coh »

imiric wrote: post #136
rpgbr wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Then he went on to create one of the most powerful VC firms in the industry, which in turn funded some of the most successful companies. Funding crypto nonsense, “apocalyptical” AI, and questionable politics. Meanwhile, writing “manifestos” that complain people don't recognize how great he and their peers are. I mean, thanks for Netscape and all, but Andreessen is as bad as the rotting VC culture can get.

So you only approve of VCs that fund companies you like? Or do you disapprove of the VC culture in general? It's kind of ironic we're discussing this here, considering YC is following the same model, and has made similar investments. And yet both firms have also funded many companies outside of the sectors you dislike. Invoking ad hominems doesn't change the impact that both YC and a16z have had on the industry.

I think they are just answering your question “why is a hacker turned businessman seen as a bad thing”. You don’t have to believe VC or YC are platonic forms of goodness to post here.

Re: Founder Mode, hackers, and being bored by tech

#165

Post by aDyslecticCrow »

rglullis wrote: post #161
jessekv wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Robotic manipulation in unstructured situations I expect this one to be a big one. Food production is not yet a solved problem. Imagine if robotics could scale "food forest"-style organic farming to the size of our current mono-crop farms.

For grains, fruits, vegetables? I am not so sure. Is manual labor the limiting factor to have more diverse cultures? It would be nice if we could get rid of factory farming though, but I doubt we are close to a point where we can have free range cattle being tended mostly by robots.

For fruits, manual labour is a large factor but not the only limiting factor. We Could see fragile fruits drop in price with good robotics, but not below other more mass-harvestable fruits such as oranges or nuts (that can be shaken from trees with tractors)

Robotics within farming is often more about improving what is already being done in a more sustainable way. The primary benefit of monocropping is easier automation and larger machines. Cheap and good robots that can manually look after individual plants allow a more dynamic growth environment and more control over pesticide and weedkilling applications.

But I think we are still a ways off before this starts to affect the market noticeably. Robots are still too slow and too expensive, or so I heard from asking a local strawberry producer who looked into what was commercially available.

Re: Founder Mode, hackers, and being bored by tech

#166

Post by pnathan »

privacymatters4 wrote: post #29

From a post I saw in another thread, I don't know how to link to the direct comment: > "Same year for me. My college experience was a mix of PCU, Animal House, Hackers and Real Genius (ok not quite). I first saw email in a Pine terminal client. Netscape had been freshly ripped off from NCSA Mosaic at my alma mater UIUC the year before. Hacks, warez, mods, music and even Photoshop were being shared in public folders o…

You can't separate tech from the rest of the world.

Millennials grew up. And we found that it cost a crap ton of money to just survive, let along thrive. Student loans were the first bodyslam, then figuring out owning a place to live. A ton of precarity is out there.

No kidding people get locked in on economic incentives.

Re: Founder Mode, hackers, and being bored by tech

#167

Post by aDyslecticCrow »

dennis_jeeves2 wrote: post #129
Animats wrote: post #24

The part of "tech" which is ad-driven has become both boring and seriously annoying. Unfortunately, that's where the money is. There are interesting things going on: * Self-driving cars finally work. San Francisco is full of them. Next step is to get the cost down and replace those rotating scanners with something cheaper. At least the ones that aren't on top. * Robotic manipulation in unstructured situations is just…

>Medical. AIDS drugs are in good shape. Diabetes may be next. There's been real progress on some kinds of cancer. Even obesity can be cured. Would disagree, we have possibly regressed. We have more gizmos (like diabetes monitors) and diagnostics, but no real cures and a significantly more sick people.

Counterpoint: " mRNA vaccines " took less than three years to adapt to a new pandemic and scale up to mass production to cover a whole planet's worth of people. The tech and progress within medicine are insane. CRISPR and genetic engineering allow modified bacteria, algae, and yeasts to produce any biological molecule we want in mass. Computer algorithms allow new medicines to be tested and perfected without real medical trials.

As for the public healthcare and hospital industry in a few key industrialized countries, going through a bit of a ... "downward spiral" is a separate issue from the technology itself. (USA)

As for more sick people... diabetes is going up, and people aren't exercising. I cannot refute that. Perhaps a healthier work culture where people have more time to cook proper food and take care of their health will do wonders, but "who is gonna pay for the loss of productivity" always gets in the way.

Re: Founder Mode, hackers, and being bored by tech

#168

Post by sirsinsalot »

alephnerd wrote: post #145
steveBK123 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One problem with ageism and youth bias in the industry is that we are still heavily populated with devs more interested in hopping on the latest framework they heard about at a conference than in actually solving users problems. The amount of "how do I justify a rewrite because our tech stack is bad" posts you see in your typical reddit/etc programmer forum would remind you of this.

> devs more interested in hopping on the latest framework they heard about at a conference than in actually solving users problems. The amount of "how do I justify a rewrite because our tech stack is bad" posts you see in your typical reddit/etc programmer forum would remind you of this. These are old complaints. My dad worked in the tech industry since the pre-Mosaic days, and even then you'd hear the same arguments…

I think the point wasn't against upgrading or refactoring to something better, it was about the youthful inclination to do that for its own sake.

Us older heads know how often it goes wrong, and know that without a tangible user benefit or commercially positive outcome... It's just busy work.

Re: Founder Mode, hackers, and being bored by tech

#169

Post by Der_Einzige »

rglullis wrote: post #134
Animats wrote: post #24

The part of "tech" which is ad-driven has become both boring and seriously annoying. Unfortunately, that's where the money is. There are interesting things going on: * Self-driving cars finally work. San Francisco is full of them. Next step is to get the cost down and replace those rotating scanners with something cheaper. At least the ones that aren't on top. * Robotic manipulation in unstructured situations is just…

Except of AIDS, none of the items on your list are things we really need but just a naive attempt of masking the problems of modern society life. Worse still: most of these problems were caused by the psychopaths who wanted nothing but money and power and found in the "techno-optimism" the perfect excuse to justify their actions.

You deserve mass downvotes for implying that a cure for diabetes or obesity isn’t “needed”.

Techno optimism will always refer to Star Trek (realistically the ds9 version), not whatever crap Anderson tried to make up with that term.

Re: Founder Mode, hackers, and being bored by tech

#170

Post by aDyslecticCrow »

Animats wrote: post #38
woodpanel wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Electric cars. For new car sales … 50% in China. This seems to be incorrect unless you lure in Plugin-Hybrids into the "electric cars" category. Also, the real driver of this "electric cars" market share growth in China seems to be PHEVs ("electric cars" with a combustion engine in it) while BEVs growth seems to be stalling. [1] [1] https://cleantechnica.com/2024/07/02/47-plugin-vehicle-marke...

OK, "Plug-in vehicles". I considered getting one of those, but it only has 22 miles of electric range. If they got to 50 miles, I could run on electricity almost all the time.

Plugin hybrids are great. Electric is used in daily commutes, but there is no range anxiety and no problem with a long trip.

Pure electric sales are actually stalling, and multiple car brands (Volvo, and Volkswagen) are backing down on their electric ambitions and pivoting towards plugin hybrids as a better intermediary.

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