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Are we the baddies?

geohot.github.io

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Re: Are we the baddies?

#211

Post by blincoln »

ctxc wrote: post #175
afiodorov wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, they can try to manipulate you on a thousand tiny things. My counter-argument is that at a certain point, it's not worth the mental energy to fight over what amounts to pennies on the dollar. Anecdotally, when I bought my car recently, they forgot to even offer me the extended warranty they'd planned to push. I find it funny to think it was so minor, even they forgot to care.

Tangential, but I think most extended warranties I've noticed are beneficial. Even last month I was kicking myself for forgetting to extend a 2 year warranty which costs 1/4th the one time repair cost I had to cough up.

Are you sure the extended warranty would have covered it?

I paid for an extended warranty on the first car I ever bought. Turned out it didn't cover any of the things the salesperson cited as good reasons to pay for it, and to maintain the warranty, I'd have to pay the dealer for all maintenance - even oil changes.

That car never needed any repairs, but seeing the list of exclusions convinced me to never pay for an extended warranty again.

Re: Are we the baddies?

#212

Post by anonzzzies »

javitury wrote: post #47
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…

Regarding Uber, I agree that their price transparency is very much appreciated. However it's not rare to find bad drivers on Uber. On Christmas this year I took an uber from the airport, the driver had supposely arrived but he was nowhere to be seen. We called each other and I could hardly hear anything. After wasting about 30 minutes (and battery almost depleted) we finally found each other. It turns out he didn't k…

I had very bad drivers on Uber, but I do give them low ratings, complain to Uber, ask for refunds or refuse to go depending on the level of bad. I had a driver a few months ago on saturday morning: 'don't get in on the left, someone vomited out of the window last night'. Yeah that's shit and can happen but it's the next day, you went out without cleaning. Didn't get in and complained. Come on people.

Generally I still had much nicer uber drivers than taxi drivers. What do I do if a normal cabby is a shit? With uber I get to vote 1 star AND I will get my money back the same day. That's not happening here with the normal taxis: you can complain, fill forms, and maybe, after you expire of old age, your family will enjoy that 10 euros refund.

Re: Are we the baddies?

#213

Post by matthewdgreen »

chii wrote: post #71
jagrsw wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

and you reinforce it every time you accept the price. So you have to vote with your wallet. If you can't, or won't, then it just proves that their pricing algorithm has found "your" price, and so you don't get to keep your surplus value as it gets transfered to uber. This is why i, even if i can afford it, go for lowest price, most economically valuable buys. Always, without exception. Cannot allow them to win.

And this generally fails because Uber has more market power, given that there are only a few alternative options and many people will defect in order to get where they’re going. If customers could organize somehow and apply this principle collectively they could achieve some parity with Uber and it would affect that organization’s behavior more. But we’ve decided that regulation is bad, and the tech world hasn’t figured out how to build an Uber-bargaining collective app (which wouldn’t instantly itself defect and take a payoff from Uber.)

Re: Are we the baddies?

#214

Post by xoralkindi »

boudin wrote: post #172
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…

What are the benefits of capitalism?

It can scale economies and can run on the global level, it also brings about rapid advances in Science and Technology. It also provides more options for individuals than in Socialism, in this regard Capitalism is more decentralized than Socialism.

Re: Are we the baddies?

#215

Post by vdupras »

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.

Of course you can disengage, and very effectively: spend less, work less. Touch grass. It's called Asceticism and is as old as Philosophy.

Re: Are we the baddies?

#216

Post by coldpie »

octo888 wrote: post #195
sureglymop wrote: post #134

How could it take a smart person until July 5 2025 to realize this? I think that's the most concerning part. Long overdue realization.

Is that a slight against the author? If so, how does publishing an article imply they only just realised something?

George Hotz has spent his career[1] being a "useful idiot" for a series of hypercapitalist techbros, including Zuckerberg in the 2010s and Musk as recently as 2022, so it's somewhat notable that the scales may be falling from his eyes.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Hotz

Re: Are we the baddies?

#217

Post by LeafItAlone »

I generally avoid George’s non-technical posts because they are… let’s say uninspired.

But here is one that actually makes sense. Of course the self-reflection with who he otherwise praises and spends his time with will never set in, but at least others may take the time to look inward and do something differently.

Something has to change. Even HN seems to have had an increase in sentiment like this in the past few years. Maybe I’m just noticing it more myself. Maybe it’s not just the existence of the Grape, but rather where it came from.

Re: Are we the baddies?

#218

Post by zkmon »

anon7000 wrote: post #55

Today I visited the shit website known as Fandom, and within a second of scrolling the page, the entire page was ads. Not joking: https://imgur.com/a/8QzBZGM — and it’s not a contrived example, this is the first thing that happened after reaching the page via a search for some character in a show. This is the default new user experience for Fandom, at least some portion of the time. How is this acceptable to the empl…

Oh, same thing is happening with the regular TV and almost any media that needs attention. Every single channel is shit. News channels are just curated selection of horror stories from all around the globe. Ads are competing be weirder and weirder. Every single channel wants to grab your attention by dishing out concentrated weirdest stuff. I'm terrified to switch on TV.

Re: Are we the baddies?

#219

Post by zbentley »

afiodorov wrote: post #101
praptak wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'…

Sure, a choice to opt out technically exists. But that common argument ignores two things:

First, the massive asymmetry of power involved in making people choose opting in (again and again, to greater and greater degrees).

Second, the fact that unrelated penalties—severe ones—are attached to choosing to opt out, by people and systems who want to discourage this behavior. It’s not like saying “choosing to not eat means you might be hungry”. That’s an intrinsic consequence; it has to happen. It’s not even like “choosing not to eat again and again means you might stunt your growth.” That’s intrinsic too, whether or not it’s intuitive.

No, the penalties we’ve attached to opting out are more like “choosing not to eat means you might go hungry, and also the people with hammers that specifically go after people that don’t eat will break your fingers.”

Re: Are we the baddies?

#220

Post by lmm »

al_borland wrote: post #186
tossandthrow wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> make you comfortable while you exist I don't think there are many proponents of that type of ubi. The way, at least I, see ubi is absolute subsistence - with a right to earn above that without affecting your subsistence. IMHO something along UBI is needed for a democratized market economy - and I think the Scandinavian countries are the support for this claim.

If everyone gets an equal raise (whatever the UBI is), wouldn’t the entire market simply adjust to price that in, leaving everyone in the same relative position?

Even at first order, it makes the people at the bottom relatively better off. If we go from Alice having 600, Bob having 0, and Carol having 0, to Alice having 700, Bob having 100, and Carol having 100, then Bob and Carol are still more able to buy things than they were before even if prices now increase by 50%.
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