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Are we the baddies?

geohot.github.io

381–390 of 554 posts

Re: Are we the baddies?

#381
post #36

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…

> disengagement. That disengagement metric is valuable, I'm not gonna give it away for free anymore. I'll engage and disengage randomly, so no one knows what works. > The boom in digital detoxes, the dumbphone revival among young people That's a market now. It doesn't mean shit. It's a "lifestyle". > People are feeling the manipulation They don't. Even manipulation awareness is a market now. I'm sure there are YouTub…

> The boom in digital detoxes, the dumbphone revival among young people

>> That's a market now. It doesn't mean shit. It's a "lifestyle".

The fact that there's such a market now, means something on it's own I believe. Regardless if it's a "lifestyle", it's a lifestyle people are choosing now. I know more and more people who either don't own a smartphone or have it on DnD at all times.

It's the same for "manipulation awareness" or whatever. You can't will a market into existence, the market has to already exist because people are drawn to it.

I am not saying that it will matter in the end, but I can say for a fact that there are people consciously disengaging from social media.

Re: Are we the baddies?

#382
post #315
post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now that tips are tax free in the USA, they are unlikely to be going away.

If tips are no longer taxed, does that mean that they no longer count towards medicare, sick pay, pensions and such?

[deleted]

Re: Are we the baddies?

#383
post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you buy a game on steam, you own it for real. How so? If Steam goes away, then so does your game. That's not ownership. Just because they have carefully and honestly fostered a lot of trust in their game rental service, doesn't make it not a game rental service.

If Steam itself goes bankrupt, Gabe himself said you'll still retain access to your games.1 Yes its a non-legally binding promise, but Steam has earned that trust. Also Steam isn't going away, so for these reasons that is "how so". 1. https://web.archive.org/web/20100605062932/http://forums.ste...

If Steam itself goes bankrupt, that decision is not up to Steam, it's up to its creditors and the bankruptcy court. It's not a credible promise for any US corporation to make, regardless of its trustworthiness.

Re: Are we the baddies?

#384
post #361
post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My fellow Australians all feel a bit shit about the introduction of tipping in paywave and food service. That's unaustralian. We have legally enforced minimum wages and penalty rates. Turn that feature off. I think non-Americans need to take a stand against this. Refuse all tipping. Its a slippery slope - I know these guys are underpaid but if you start tipping the wages will just drop and we're all worse off.

I'm American. This is how capitalism is supposed to work. It's supposed to seep into every crevice of society and pull money out of the poorest, weakest people and into the hands of the richest and strongest. This isn't a coincidence, it is in fact the most important aspect of the system. Tipping went from some generous gesture to recognize exceptional service and it's turned into a mandatory, arm-twisting shakedown…

As an American who agrees with you that this is a perennial failure mode for our culture and that this is by far the worst I've seen it in decades (I was a kid for "...government is the problem"), I still always remind everyone that it doesn't have to be this way, it wasn't this way 20 years ago, it was trending bad but not like this ten years ago, and that old proverb (Chinese I think and I'm probably butchering it) is spot on: "every step into a dark forest is a step you'll have to take to see the sun, but you have counted your steps".

Markets are great when they are well administered by competent and uncorrupted authority. And this is not an oxymoron! Brooksley Born should win the Nobel Peace Prize or something, she saw the road ahead and gave everything in a bitter battle against Clinton's goons and if we hadn't kneecapped her we wouldn't be here today.

More recently Lina Khan was a one-woman nightmare calamity for scammers, thieves, and other assorted bottom dwellers, and if Trump's goons hadn't had their way she'be ramming data privacy laws so far up FAANG's ass that Lt Colonel Boz would think he actually had been through legit basic.

The system can work, we get excellent people in charge of the important stuff with some frequency, but we have got to drop this red/blue crap and get behind leaders like the ones I mentioned or this goes one fucking way.

And there's a pretty optimistic message not in what George wrote, but that people like George are starting to ask if they're the baddies. He's always been brilliant but I was starting to wonder if he had gone TESCREAL on us, and I think we can see he (metaphorically) sobered up off the kool aid. If he can, idk, maybe Lex can, maybe pmarca can. If those guys took a cold shower? The world changes that day.

Re: Are we the baddies?

#385
post #244
post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My fellow Australians all feel a bit shit about the introduction of tipping in paywave and food service. That's unaustralian. We have legally enforced minimum wages and penalty rates. Turn that feature off. I think non-Americans need to take a stand against this. Refuse all tipping. Its a slippery slope - I know these guys are underpaid but if you start tipping the wages will just drop and we're all worse off.

Now that tips are tax free in the USA, they are unlikely to be going away.

I’m going to start tipping 10% now, if I get yelled at by waitstaff I’ll mention the tax break and explain they’re receiving the same tip as they would’ve received prior to the tax break. I’m sick of being shaken down everywhere I go for tip money. I suspect I’m not the only one who will be modifying my tipping behavior.

Re: Are we the baddies?

#386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

as someone who survived on tips for 2 1/2 years while studying comp sci, you're missing one key detail. tips introduce a situation where harder/faster-paced workers get a higher pay per hour than workers with average productivity. a pizza driver that optimizes their routes and memorizes stop light patterns in their delivery zone will get more deliveries per hour than that of a new hire. so even though they work the s…

1. Tips are not a reliable source of income (I am an American who also survived on tips). 2. Only people working front get tips. If you have a lazy busboy working front for the most talented chef in the world, the chef pockets $0.00/hr in tips. 3. If any computer science job ever contemplated adding tipping to my compensation package, I'd go get my pink slip within the hour.

> 2. Only people working front get tips. If you have a lazy busboy working front for the most talented chef in the world, the chef pockets $0.00/hr in tips.

im not saying that the current tipping system is a good design - your example is one of the most glaring flaws. to put it another way, my point is that the current system will stay in existence due to the lack of other incentives that reward harder working individuals. in order to get rid of tipping culture, you can't simply appeal to morality/shame tippers; you have to replace it with a new system that also incentivizes harder work.

Re: Are we the baddies?

#387
post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmmm. I'll just leave this here https://x.com/ns123abc/status/1940980667455836578

I don’t use Twitter. I believe it plays a big part in the degradation of society that geohot hot refers to in this article. Can you share that that post is about and the significance of it in relation to this link?

If you change the domain to xcancel.com, you can see twitter stuff without being on twitter.

The tweet claims a startup built an ai cheating tool, another ripped them off, then a YC backed start up ripped the second group off. The YC backed guy claims he isn't worried about legal because he got the license from gpt.

(Wouldn't that be killer evidence in a lawsuit that the defendant didn't even attempt due diligence?)

https://xcancel.com/ns123abc/status/1940980667455836578

Re: Are we the baddies?

#388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How far can you game a profiling algorithm? I think pretty far. I expect the future involves nonsense layer full of AI slop being read and written by AI's. Mapping it onto the actual humans will be difficult unless you have a preexisting trust relationship with those humans such that they can decrypt the slop into your actual communications.

I think it's more difficult than it seems. If I were an algorithm-profiling company I would try to anchor my profilings in the real world (what kinds of people I talk to, about what, what kinds of places I visit, what are the opinions of others on me, etc). LLM garbage would be just to draw voluntary participation in potential surveys. It takes a particularly paranoid and stubborn individual to make the necessary eff…

I agree that it's currently paranoid to hide your activities so that the algorithm profiling companies see you as several different people, or see the activities of millions as if they're just one... Automated misdirection on the part of the users is, so far, minimal.

But the point of such a company is to sell data on individuals, and a problematic use case for such data is to kill the ones who say things that you don't like. As that becomes cheaper and easier to do I think we'll find that it's not so paranoid to hide.

Re: Are we the baddies?

#389
post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

as someone who survived on tips for 2 1/2 years while studying comp sci, you're missing one key detail. tips introduce a situation where harder/faster-paced workers get a higher pay per hour than workers with average productivity. a pizza driver that optimizes their routes and memorizes stop light patterns in their delivery zone will get more deliveries per hour than that of a new hire. so even though they work the s…

If more pizzas per hour is important then who ever is running the pizza place should be the one incentivizing that, not customers.

there's been attempts to do just that, but it doesnt work because tipping is engrained in the surrounding culture, which exists outside of the pizza place's control. a single store cannot fix the tipping problem on their own; it has to be a cultural shift towards a better system that similarly rewards harder working individuals.

Re: Are we the baddies?

#390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is the core problem laid out: 1.) Owner needs workers and wants to make the position attractive. 2.) Owner is given the option to enable tips, and entice works with "Pay, plus tips!" 3.) Owner doesn't pay tips, patrons do. 4.) Workers blame patrons, not owner, for not tipping. 5.) Patrons feel guilty and tip. Workers make pretty good money from this, and enjoy the job more. In a way it's kind of like a social mi…

as someone who survived on tips for 2 1/2 years while studying comp sci, you're missing one key detail. tips introduce a situation where harder/faster-paced workers get a higher pay per hour than workers with average productivity. a pizza driver that optimizes their routes and memorizes stop light patterns in their delivery zone will get more deliveries per hour than that of a new hire. so even though they work the s…

There is nothing I would like more than seeing tipping implemented in retail. And then the more you think about it the more you realise everything should have a tipping option.
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