What Happens Next Will Amaze You • Hacker News Board

Re: What Happens Next Will Amaze You

#191

Post by drzaiusapelord » Wed, Sep 23, 2015, 4:43 PM UTC

gadders wrote: post #38

The big difference between VCs and state central planners is that VCs are voluntarily given the money that they use. In Poland it was taken under threat of force. And the homeless problem in San Francisco, and the other problems it faces, are mostly due to poor governance rather than Facebook or Google.

If you own a real or near monopoly on a service that I must use for work, school, my health, etc I'm not fucking voluntarily giving you money. There's this misconception in capitalism that everything is optional - just don't buy it if you don't like it. Its wrong. I buy a lot of things I prefer not to from companies that sicken me, but I have no choice in the matter. There's no green or ethical tablet or green or ethical car, for example.

Re: What Happens Next Will Amaze You

#192

Post by logfromblammo » Wed, Sep 23, 2015, 4:45 PM UTC

rl3 wrote: post #46

>I've also met people on the YouTube ads team, and they hate their lives and want to die. Maybe those informational widgets that pop up when you Google suicide-related terms didn't actually arise from a sense of humanity or civic duty, but from a desire to reduce employee turnover in their ad divisions. /s Macabre humor aside, I actually wonder if there's any organizations out there funding ads targeted at suicidal i…

It seems like anti-suicide ads would be mostly funded by the Ad Council, religious organizations, and non-profits.

When I switched my evil bit on, I came up with a company that helps you make your suicide look like an accident, so that your life insurance pays out, and no one perpetuates hateful memories of you for taking the easy exit.

The premium service makes your suicide look like a civil offense against you, so that your family may also win an additional settlement from a large corporation or government entity.

The extra-evil service matches you up with a demolitions engineer from a terrorist organization that most closely shares your values.

The morally questionable service matches you up with rich people awaiting organ transplants, who don't pay you to kill yourself, per se, but rather to enjoy the final moments of your life in the vicinity of a particular hospital, without being burdened by worry about the future financial needs of your loved ones.

And that's where I turned my evil bit off, because I was starting to creep myself out.

Re: What Happens Next Will Amaze You

#193

Post by vdnkh » Wed, Sep 23, 2015, 4:51 PM UTC

Advertisers will get their wish (crawlerbots don't have a pulse) when wearable tech becomes more mainstream. A quote from The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson:

You could get a phantascopic system planted directly on your retinas, just as Bud's sound system lived on his eardrums. You could even get telæsthetics patched into your spinal column at various key vertebrae. But this was said to have its drawbacks: some concerns about long-term nerve damage, plus it was rumored that hackers for big media companies had figured out a way to get through the defenses that were built into such systems, and run junk advertisements in your peripheral vision (or even spang in the fucking middle) all the time—even when your eyes were closed. Bud knew a guy like that who'd somehow gotten infected with a meme that ran advertisements for roach motels, in Hindi, superimposed on the bottom right-hand corner of his visual field, twenty-four hours a day, until the guy whacked himself

Re: What Happens Next Will Amaze You

#194

Post by TeMPOraL » Wed, Sep 23, 2015, 4:51 PM UTC

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #182

colordrops wrote: post #30

From the article: > In a television interview this week, Musk said: "I'm trying to do useful things." Then he outlined his plan to detonate nuclear weapons on Mars. > These people are the face of our industry. It's hard to take the rest of the article seriously when the author is purposely misquoting people to make them look bad. The comment in question was said on Late Night with Stephen Colbert, when asked what the…

The entire article is written to be humorous, but that's doesn't mean he doesn't have a point here. Namely, this mindless pursuit of space is hilariously culture-deaf because in the end, if all these miracles somehow come to pass, we'll just bring our stupid problems with us to our colonies. In a few generations we'll have homeless people on Mars and a tech bubble exploding there as well. If we can't fix these proble…

The article most definitly does not have a (valid) point here. Idlewords is painting Elon as a bored billionaire who wants to nuke Mars because he has nothing better to do. It's completely ignoring both the reasons (and context) of the quote, and the fact that said 'bored billionaire' makes good and impactful progress in three important big problems of humanity - namely, energy safety, transportation and access to space.

Even what you call "mindless pursuit of space" isn't so; SpaceX aims for space for known, well-thought and well-defined reasons. It's not just fueled by imagination.

Re: What Happens Next Will Amaze You

#195

Post by copsarebastards » Wed, Sep 23, 2015, 4:52 PM UTC

Fiahil wrote: post #63

The company I work for is going to pivot towards re-targeting (we're making recommendation engines, now). So, I've come to explore a bit this new industry, and I am under the impression that it's completely rotten to the core. The reason? I have been in meetings where no one would blinked an eye (even, sometimes, applaud the idea) when people would ask if we could turn on a laptop's webcam, and read if a visitor have…

> I don't think I can withstand working with that kind of people in the long term, this is really soul-destroying.

Why are you working with them now?

I realized before I was even in industry that I didn't ever want to work for a company that received their income from advertising, and I haven't worked for one in my entire career. It hasn't always been easy to find jobs, but the jobs I did find actually tended to be a bit higher-paying.

Ads are sucking up a lot of the intelligence in our society and the only people who can stop them from doing that are intelligent people. If we refuse to work with advertisers they will suffer from the incompetence of the people they do hire.

Re: What Happens Next Will Amaze You

#196

Post by copsarebastards » Wed, Sep 23, 2015, 4:55 PM UTC

sandworm101 wrote: post #3

Don't tell us here on hackernews or any other geek forum. Go to a RNC or DNC event. Go convince Trump and/or Hillary that corporations and rich people should pay 1950s-style tax rates. Go sit in front of wealthy old people and suggest socialism for the benefit of the young. Go tell the afraid and well-armed that they need to spend less money being so afraid and well-armed. Make sure to bring your running shoes.

You're forgetting that we do things that nobody understands and nobody else can do. We can't raise taxes on the rich, sure, but we're uniquely armed to provide technical feedback for legal decisions.

Re: What Happens Next Will Amaze You

#197

Post by x4m » Wed, Sep 23, 2015, 4:55 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #95

davedx wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well he also mentions Denmark quite a few times. You'll find that much of Europe is in some form of "socialism" by American standards. And we're doing quite well from it!

Heck America is Socialist by American standards. Sure, after the Great Depression we got half a dozen Socialist institutions, but I'm not talking about that. Every cooperative preschool; every farmers' coop; every social club in America operates on Socialist principle. In private we love Socialism; in public we resist. No idea why.

Cuz one do not operate a state as a farm?

In Soviet Russia we tried vice versa: to operate farm as a state.

Even today every business entity has to have specific person responsible for accounting, fire defence, labor health, energy efficiency etc even if you have just 1 employee and he is business owner.

If you write customer name and birday somewhere (or name + almost anything), you have to sign with him additional agreement about personal data. There you have to specify how you will use it. If you get blood type or any other health info - you will have to certify your datacenter, use open crypto and have specific responsible employees.

Re: What Happens Next Will Amaze You

#198

Post by copsarebastards » Wed, Sep 23, 2015, 4:56 PM UTC

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #121

Of all the recommendations in this piece, I think the right to be offline is by far the most necessary. I simply do not trust my devices not to track me without permission. I have no way of knowing whether or not my mic and webcam are on at any time and if someone in Maryland is staring at my bloodshot eyes staring at the New York Times. Every Internet-connected device should have a hardware off switch, same for came…

Tape a piece of tin foil over your webcam.

Re: What Happens Next Will Amaze You

#199

Post by drzaiusapelord » Wed, Sep 23, 2015, 5:02 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #194

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire article is written to be humorous, but that's doesn't mean he doesn't have a point here. Namely, this mindless pursuit of space is hilariously culture-deaf because in the end, if all these miracles somehow come to pass, we'll just bring our stupid problems with us to our colonies. In a few generations we'll have homeless people on Mars and a tech bubble exploding there as well. If we can't fix these proble…

The article most definitly does not have a (valid) point here. Idlewords is painting Elon as a bored billionaire who wants to nuke Mars because he has nothing better to do. It's completely ignoring both the reasons (and context) of the quote, and the fact that said 'bored billionaire' makes good and impactful progress in three important big problems of humanity - namely, energy safety, transportation and access to sp…

SpaceX is COTS welfare for LEO launches to the soon to be retired ISS. It is not on track for Mars colonization. Its utility is vastly exaggerated by the types of people who read HN and reddit. While it is impressive, it is just cheaper launches for certain edge cases. Colonization and terraforming other worlds is pure fiction right now and going on TV and yelling about dropping nukes to make Mars human safe looks absolutely crazy to even educated people.

The article paints Musk fairly, as an out of touch dreamer with crazy ideas. He steps over homeless people to rush to television producers to spout off the same canned futurism we've been hearing for decades. His version is slightly more plausible, but it, of course, ignores all social issues; issues that will only follow us into space. The same way futurists predicted a moon landing but never imagine women would get to vote, for example.

Criticizing Musk for putting the cart before the horse is valid. Futurist talk is cheap and historically wrong. Men like Musk are the face of tech and its a little embarrassing to see stuff like this. Not to mention his hysterical tirades about how AI will enslave humanity.

Lastly, whats my incentive to migrate to a new colony if its just going to have the same problems we have here on Earth?

Re: What Happens Next Will Amaze You

#200

Post by gjm11 » Wed, Sep 23, 2015, 5:05 PM UTC

jessaustin wrote: post #161

morgante wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, considering that many major European parties explicitly identify as "socialists," I'm not sure it's the US that's confused. It's the US that is confused with the notion that socialism == communism.

Perhaps 'gjm11 is caught on Pinker's euphemism treadmill? If "socialist" is no longer a word we can use in polite company, how will we signify that political and economic arrangement?

I don't think I'm caught on the euphemism treadmill; I have no problem describing some systems and some people as socialist. (And, for the avoidance of doubt, I don't regard it as an insult to do so.) I just don't think it applies accurately to Scandinavian-style social democracy.