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Create value for others and don’t worry about the returns

geohot.github.io

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Re: Create value for others and don’t worry about the returns

#41
post #3

Just join the right "communities" or else it might have very different results. A toxic community can exploit you (even if you make more value than you consume).

"just"

As you know, you can just just do it. It's just that simple.

Fix: Forgot to add /s switch.

This comment uses conventional commits.

Re: Create value for others and don’t worry about the returns

#42
post #19
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it? If "others with AI" deliver what you consume, it should also make it easier to deliver more than you consume because what you consume becomes cheaper. Maybe a part of the anxiety is the realization that much if what was delivered by well-paid people before AI is actually not something the very same people want to consume?

Problem is that "others with AI" aren't producing what I consume, i.e food, heat, clothing, housing and health care. They're just producing what I produce, i.e software.

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Re: Create value for others and don’t worry about the returns

#43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Building tools and services to reduce hassle and friction for others is great. However, what often happens is that you end up creating and building a moat around that hassle. Think about how companies like TurboTax lobby the government to not build electronic tax filing stuff. Cory Doctorow explains the dynamics well in Enshittification. First they turn against their users, then their business partners, then their em…

i'm fairly certain Cory Doctorow does not understand the economics of Enshittification. companies subsidise their products so that exploration of these products is more feasible due to lower initial costs for the end consumers. the initial consumers don't pay the full price but they are borne by the later consumers once the exploration is done and they have knowledge about that market and business. Cory Doctorow also…

What are you talking about. Cory literally coined the term to describe this phenomena. He is not confused by the idea of cheaper products with wider appeal. He takes issue with vendor lock-in that is weaponized first against the end-user, then against paying customers, and finally against investors themselves. This is first and foremost a criticism of online products and platforms, not mass-produced gadgets from China.

Re: Create value for others and don’t worry about the returns

#44

There are zero-sum games you can't realistically escape. They're really common. Credentials is a zero-sum game. Political power, influence of all sorts, are zero sum games: if you have more of it, someone else has less. Land ownership is basically zero sum, too.

All of those are only zero-sum if you pick a conserved metric. Land ownership is zero-sum if measured in square meters. But say someone buys up land that is parched, dead, and empty. They use it by planting moisture-retaining crops and windbreaks and growing food, or running a business of benefit to the community. Now overall everyone is a little better off, despite 0 square meters being created.

Influence is even more so -- it's common to have situations where nobody is truly paying attention to anyone else. The people with good ideas can't get any traction, and the whole organization just spins in circles, lurching from one externally-imposed crisis to the next. If the people who gain influence use that influence to promote others who are worth paying attention to (and thus they gain influence), everyone benefits. But if you measure that in terms of how many minutes each person gets to speak at the All Hands, it's zero-sum.

Re: Create value for others and don’t worry about the returns

#45

There are zero-sum games you can't realistically escape. They're really common. Credentials is a zero-sum game. Political power, influence of all sorts, are zero sum games: if you have more of it, someone else has less. Land ownership is basically zero sum, too.

Most games are either negative-sum or positive-sum. Very few are zero-sum.

Well, that's not what I said anyway. I just said that zero sum games are common and there are some important ones you're not escaping.

Re: Create value for others and don’t worry about the returns

#46
post #10

Even if your goal is to go out and create value for others, your contribution is proportional to what everyone else can offer. If others with AI will deliver that value cheaper, or if what I am good at can be easily automated, it's getting harder and harder to deliver more value than I consume.

>> If others with AI will deliver that value cheaper...

That's the most interesting thing - in 99.9% they don't. All their value is negated by lowering code base quality, pushing slop to prod ("but code reviews..." - don't help sorry, unless you spent a long time getting to understand a problem - simply reading a solution gives only false confidence that you understood it - you didn't, not fully). E.g. see all the outages at amazon, cloudflare, etc.

Quick short term wins lead to big longer term losses - and this is already happening.

The issue is - its basically impossible to make decision makers see this as this requires many years of expertise in tech, and it is very not obvious, and sounds like you just don't want to rely on AI to replace you etc etc.

While selling AI is easy - "look! it did this feature in 5 minutes! so much productivity".

Re: Create value for others and don’t worry about the returns

#48

There are zero-sum games you can't realistically escape. They're really common. Credentials is a zero-sum game. Political power, influence of all sorts, are zero sum games: if you have more of it, someone else has less. Land ownership is basically zero sum, too.

[flagged]

Then there are situations where someone for inexplicable reasons make dickish comments.

Re: Create value for others and don’t worry about the returns

#49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think e.g. the AI/LLM boom is all rent seeking? Do you think there's no positive value for the world on the recently announced e.g. MacBook Neo and that it's purely a monopolistic activity? Those are 2 clear recent examples of big players making massive benefits for the world, and I'm okay if they get X% of that value as company valuation.

Wait what's a new laptop doing to push the needle exactly? Genuinely curious

In general, it's kind of the difference between having a sharp axe vs a dull axe.

Though in the particular case of the MacBook Neo, I'm not sure whether we're talking about sharper or duller. Depends on the metric you're using, I guess.

Re: Create value for others and don’t worry about the returns

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to understand the context. The quote in Gita was to motivate the best warrior of the time at the battlefront facing opponents who were mainly his cousins and uncles. In that context the quote is about performing the duties you were born to do without overthinking the consequences.

the context makes it even worse. its a strange kind of tribalism that is being promoted here. "do what you are asked to without understanding the real consequences". btw war is actual zero sum usually.

War is often times even negative sum game.
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