Neuralink 'Participant 1' says his life has changed • Hacker News Board

Re: Neuralink 'Participant 1' says his life has changed

#441

Post by AngryData » Thu, Aug 28, 2025, 3:12 AM UTC

freedomben wrote: post #405

xyst wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The reality is that it’s very hard to see a normal VC level return on the $100M+ Nobody gives a shit about the iNvEsToR rEtUrN on iNveStMeNt. This is a humanitarian project which should be owned by the people, not a select few billionaires or investors to license out and dangle yet another expense, subscription, or ad model.

Why aren't any humanitarian organizations doing it currently?

Maybe because so much of our capital is tied up in the hands of a handful of billionaires.

Re: Neuralink 'Participant 1' says his life has changed

#442

Post by ActorNightly » Thu, Aug 28, 2025, 3:41 AM UTC

homefree wrote: post #428

ActorNightly wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If Trump had lost Iran would probably have a nuclear weapon Random thing to be concerned about, and also very fringe evidence of "probably". > The democrat's failure on immigration broadly (both at the border and on policy) is also something driving people away from them. Immigration was never an issue - unemployment was at a record low especially after Covid, and crime was on its way down. Democrats had a bill that…

Iran having a nuclear weapon is not a random thing to be concerned about, it's an e-risk to our allies in the region and your dismissal of this says a lot more about you than it does about me when it comes to "thinking critically". Iran funds a massive amount of terrorism and is explicitly interested in the destruction of the west. Millions crossed the border illegally under Biden, that was reduced to near zero after…

> but a choice is forced between two options and I (and the majority of the voting public) thought Harris was worse

Glad you finally had the balls to say this. Dunno why you had to type all that up. Next time, just say you would rather have a dictator in charge who you align with ideologically, and that the most important thing to you.

Re: Neuralink 'Participant 1' says his life has changed

#443

Post by jibal » Thu, Aug 28, 2025, 4:13 AM UTC

fracus wrote: post #438

jibal wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's obviously not obvious, since the person you responded to thought otherwise.

"I" think was obvious

And you are wrong, as noted. If you mean "it was obvious to me", that's a different matter ... but it's also irrelevant.

Re: Neuralink 'Participant 1' says his life has changed

#444

Post by homefree » Thu, Aug 28, 2025, 4:29 AM UTC

ActorNightly wrote: post #442

homefree wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iran having a nuclear weapon is not a random thing to be concerned about, it's an e-risk to our allies in the region and your dismissal of this says a lot more about you than it does about me when it comes to "thinking critically". Iran funds a massive amount of terrorism and is explicitly interested in the destruction of the west. Millions crossed the border illegally under Biden, that was reduced to near zero after…

> but a choice is forced between two options and I (and the majority of the voting public) thought Harris was worse Glad you finally had the balls to say this. Dunno why you had to type all that up. Next time, just say you would rather have a dictator in charge who you align with ideologically, and that the most important thing to you.

You’re unable to engage substantively, so you fall back on moral posturing and dismissal.

The “dictator” framing also reveals your own unfalsifiable assumption - that Trump is inherently authoritarian regardless of policy outcomes or democratic processes. It’s the kind of tribal reasoning that makes genuine political discourse nearly impossible.

Pretty much proves my point about ideological capture better than any argument could.

So much for your “critical thinking”.

Re: Neuralink 'Participant 1' says his life has changed

#445

Post by lmm » Thu, Aug 28, 2025, 4:54 AM UTC

p_v_doom wrote: post #314

orbital-decay wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The supposedly cynical comment above talks about giving quadriplegic people a reliable way to control computers for <$100k, something that was science fiction before. Is this what you call exploitation of the poor and desperate by the wealthy? You have to finance things somehow, or they won't be done at all.

There are many ways to finance this without strapping a parasite to leech off of it on top

Are those many ways to finance it in the room with us right now?

Re: Neuralink 'Participant 1' says his life has changed

#446

Post by weregiraffe » Thu, Aug 28, 2025, 5:55 AM UTC

stavros wrote: post #318

weregiraffe wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As you typed these words, millions of animals out in the wild were being devoured alive by other animals. Torture was here before humans.

Given the billions of animals we torture for food, at least the ones tortured for the good of humanity are slightly less unjustified. However, "animals kill each other in nature all the time" is not a good argument, because I don't have to hold myself to the moral standards of a hyena.

The hyena can't and won't appreciate it. Why do you have moral standards that don't require reciprocity? Do you think god will reward you in heaven?

Re: Neuralink 'Participant 1' says his life has changed

#447

Post by weregiraffe » Thu, Aug 28, 2025, 5:56 AM UTC

mailund wrote: post #317

weregiraffe wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As you typed these words, millions of animals out in the wild were being devoured alive by other animals. Torture was here before humans.

I don't feel like it is unreasonable to put a different set of ethical standards to an animal out in the wild and a human.

Sure, as long as it concerns other humans.

Re: Neuralink 'Participant 1' says his life has changed

#448

Post by peterfirefly » Thu, Aug 28, 2025, 6:52 AM UTC

maxlin wrote: post #433

LunaSea wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> isn't really something I see likely as he doesn't function in the money-oriented ways pretty much almost all other billionaire-types do Is that why he sued to obtain his $29B package from Tesla shareholders?

What a crazy disinforming way to spin that story. I was one of those shareholders who voted FOR that pay package with power of six figures worth of stock. He didn't "sue the shareholders" Shareholders are strongly on Elon's side here, as they have always have been. The only reason there is a lawsuit is because some bent judge is trying to take the shareholder's power away from them and not grant the pay package. Abso…

Ostensibly for the benefit of a man who had 9 shares. And then that man's lawyers demanded billions from Tesla for their trouble.

Same judge who forced him to overpay for Twitter.

Re: Neuralink 'Participant 1' says his life has changed

#449

Post by goosejuice » Thu, Aug 28, 2025, 6:52 AM UTC

hobs wrote: post #400

goosejuice wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did not get a rational answer. If you're building a cheap mass market self driving vehicle that has to work everywhere you'll make completely different design decisions than a geo restricted taxi. Would you care to acknowledge that simple fact? The amount of hypotheticals you'd have to go through to compare these technologies in superiority up to this point is extensive. Go ahead, do the thought experiment. It woul…

I can acknowledge many facts, but since you seem to dodge that really big one I don't think we can have a productive discussion here. Talking about rationality in that context of what appears to be motivated thinking is ... interesting.

Do you think that you're sharing new information? That arguably the most hated man in America has consistently over promised and under delivered? It would be a little difficult to miss that over the last ten years.

I find it rather sad that the work of so many talented engineers is simply dismissed because they'd rather talk about that clown. You'd think HN could at least separate the two. There's a whole lot of people here working for a billionaire shit head.

Re: Neuralink 'Participant 1' says his life has changed

#450

Post by glenngillen » Thu, Aug 28, 2025, 7:32 AM UTC

cobbzilla wrote: post #360

fracus wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I've read, if you are blind from birth, but visual signals were suddenly restored, your brain wouldn't know how to process them. Blind from birth = blind forever. I'm not certain though.

Some part of this is true, but it’s complicated. I lack stereoscopic vision, due to eye surgery in infancy & wildly different focal lengths in each eye (one is very nearsighted, the other farsighted). I can still see in 3D because my brain uses tricks like relative object size, shadows, and sometimes I move my head laterally so my farsighted eye gets different angles on an object (“faking” stereoscopic vision with on…

This is fascinating! Did they ever discuss/consider taking incremental steps with the glasses from your current state to what perfect should be? I could make hypothesises for multiple outcomes here but don't actually understand any of the fundamental systems to know which outcome is most likely.