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Andreessen Horowitz is investing billions into a bleak future

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Re: Andreessen Horowitz is investing billions into a bleak future

#441

Post by happymellon »

andriy_koval wrote: post #440
happymellon wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you are far removed from everything, your logic doesn't always make sense. The problem with local workforce is that you have less threats hanging over their heads. Ones you can threaten with deportation, separation from their children, or just shoot in the streets, are just more controllable. Imported labour has less rights and will be more open to grovelling.

you still need local country to be attractive enough to make people come and fear of deportation, meaning locals will be Ok too.

Either:

1. These people are detached from reality.

They would never see water that can be ignited because of the contamination so don't know the scale of their actions. Or

2. They think they have enough power to make the other countries worse, pressure on the EU, bombing the middle east, that making life worse for locals is offset.

Re: Andreessen Horowitz is investing billions into a bleak future

#442

Post by CM30 »

Timon3 wrote: post #438
CM30 wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that assumes the population can't vote for someone else who will kick them out. As far as I know, there are no plans to stop third parties from being created, independents from running for political roles, or people voting for whoever they want to vote for. If a large percentage of the population is going hungry or can't find jobs, then they'll vote for people that (at least say) they'll change that. If any of th…

Today, the working class already have a miniscule influence compared to the rich and powerful. What makes you think the people could vote them out once they have an automatic army...? Why would they care about any kind of vote? Seriously, imagine SV had produced 1 million autonomous robots, and a US government like today's was in power. How long do you think a strike would last? Many of these people are already openl…

I think there are a few things missing here.

First, the assumption seems to be that the US is the only country on Earth, or that every other country will follow their lead. There are plenty of places (especially in Europe) which are a lot more... left leaning in their political philosophies. As crazy as the US government may be, I doubt they'll literally attack Europe or Canada or wherever else even if under the thrall of Musk or Thiel.

2. Even in the US, the vote still has a pretty big effect on the government and how it's run. The person in the White House right now only got in because a percentage of people in certain swing states voted for him/the Republican Party, and it could have easily gone the other way. The whole 'billionaires get to do anything, law and order is a farce, ignore the constitution for the sake of it' system in play right now was only possible because Trump won the election.

Re: Andreessen Horowitz is investing billions into a bleak future

#443

Post by voakbasda »

Timon3 wrote: post #427
voakbasda wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there any robots that can withstand a 50 caliber rifle slug? Don’t rule out ‘muricans just yet!

Unfortunately, even if a unified resistance formed by all gun-owning Americans were to march against them, it would buy the labor class a few months at most. Once enough capacity has been established (either production or troops) our only possible recourse would be to hijack/destroy their control, and that's unlikely to be possible if e.g. communication & compute originate from satellites.

I am increasingly disappointed by how sci-fi dystopias are moving from implausibility to inevitabilities.

Re: Andreessen Horowitz is investing billions into a bleak future

#444

Post by Timon3 »

CM30 wrote: post #442
Timon3 wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Today, the working class already have a miniscule influence compared to the rich and powerful. What makes you think the people could vote them out once they have an automatic army...? Why would they care about any kind of vote? Seriously, imagine SV had produced 1 million autonomous robots, and a US government like today's was in power. How long do you think a strike would last? Many of these people are already openl…

I think there are a few things missing here. First, the assumption seems to be that the US is the only country on Earth, or that every other country will follow their lead. There are plenty of places (especially in Europe) which are a lot more... left leaning in their political philosophies. As crazy as the US government may be, I doubt they'll literally attack Europe or Canada or wherever else even if under the thra…

> First, the assumption seems to be that the US is the only country on Earth, or that every other country will follow their lead.

How so? The elite class acts & collaborates on a global scale, as we've seen demonstrated time and time again, especially over the last decade. But even if there is no collaboration, all that's needed is for the US to develop an advantage in this field. Once heads of other countries get the choice between either possibly being targeted militarily or taking a leadership role managing a vassal state, how many of them would stick up for their country instead of selling their people out? They're already doing so without any real personal risk, purely for profit.

> 2. Even in the US, the vote still has a pretty big effect on the government and how it's run.

Maybe I'm thinking about this from a completely different perspective, but how would this scenario play out in your mind? Say it's 2030, the US government is centrist instead of far-right, and autonomous production of military robots is rapidly scaling, slowly rivaling even the military.

Then the SV elite decides to take over, with backing from at least half the government. Any governmental resistance can decide between playing along or likely being hunted down by said autonomous robots, and the military can't take over control since this takeover was prepared on the hardware side.

What does your vote do?

You may think this scenario is unlikely, but IMO given the current direction of the world it sounds far more realistic than stuff like Project 2025 did, yet here we are.

Re: Andreessen Horowitz is investing billions into a bleak future

#445

Post by esseph »

thunspa wrote: post #413
stackbutterflow wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still can't wrap my head around it. So we're all dead, robots take care of the infrastructure and healthcare, and there's maybe 50-100 billionaires left on the planet. Then what? They drive their sports car, do bungee jumping, sip cocktails and watch ai made movies. They don't have children? The human race dies with them? Or they have children, somehow avoid the trap of inbreeding and their children in turn have ch…

You are right and all these people replying to you are living in some kind of fantasy world. I forget what it's called, but there's this fallacy of ordinary people, that states that we attribute superhuman abilities to people far enough from us on the social scale. In reality, rich people are far from movie villains, life is much more mundane. It is scary for me to see how many well-educated people here on HN are so…

> It is scary for me to see how many well-educated people here on HN are so conspiracy-theory minded.

The basis of so much of the era of computing I come from was basically based on a 70s Berkeley hacker mindset, which had a strong hippie crossover of that era that largely later became the basis for the Open Source movement.

I don't know how you mentally separate or understand the modern computing era without that era.

Re: Andreessen Horowitz is investing billions into a bleak future

#446

Post by port11 »

pulkitsh1234 wrote: post #81

"A man who wishes to make a profession of goodness in everything must necessarily come to grief among so many who are not good. Therefore, it is necessary for a prince, who wishes to maintain himself, to learn how not to be good, and to use this knowledge and not use it, according to the necessity of the case" -- Niccolo Machiavelli It's a self fulfilling prophecy... while us commoners, or so called "activists" or et…

The man has repeatedly invested in shady, unethical businesses. We don’t have to make a debate out of why, since plenty of rich and/or powerful people DON’T do those things.

My (over-simplified) conclusion is that he’s not a decent person. End of story.

Re: Andreessen Horowitz is investing billions into a bleak future

#447

Post by DrScientist »

DrScientist wrote: post #126
MattGaiser wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The results of startups flouting laws though have been such that even when faced with determined opposition, in the end they are defeated. Airbnb and Uber ran roughshod over the law and faced determined taxi commissions and groups that usually beat real estate developers.

The latest and largest Uber fine - 825 million. https://www.reuters.com/world/dutch-regulator-fines-uber-966... Also, in the UK, lost their 5 year battle about whether drivers are self-employed or workers for Uber. https://www.taxiplus.co.uk/news/new-rules-for-uber-drivers-w... Or AirBnB versus Barcelona - https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2026/06/10/barcelona-is-shutti... The US is not the only jurisdiction - and that c…

And of course the 18 billion recent Meta settlement - agreed to potentially stop a law suit that could have unravelled the whole company.

Re: Andreessen Horowitz is investing billions into a bleak future

#448

Post by foobiekr »

akudha wrote: post #129
pulkitsh1234 wrote: post #81

"A man who wishes to make a profession of goodness in everything must necessarily come to grief among so many who are not good. Therefore, it is necessary for a prince, who wishes to maintain himself, to learn how not to be good, and to use this knowledge and not use it, according to the necessity of the case" -- Niccolo Machiavelli It's a self fulfilling prophecy... while us commoners, or so called "activists" or et…

Setting ethical and moral questions aside for a second: Never pay a human again Every time I see stuff like this (along with other more serious shenanigans like wage theft, union busting etc) I only ask myself the same question again and again - what is the end game here? If much of the population is too poor to buy anything, too sick to consume much etc - who is left to buy anything at all? If all their power comes…

For this system. Their fantasy is effectively automated luxury palaces and the poor exist primarily for exploitation (mostly sexual and gladiatorial).

Re: Andreessen Horowitz is investing billions into a bleak future

#449

Post by foobiekr »

bamboozled wrote: post #257
smallmancontrov wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Servants. Yes, robots eventually, but servants are the classical answer. The terrible truth is that palace economies are stable -- we see them in "resource-cursed" countries around the world and through time. When a single easily-owned fountain of wealth dominates the economy, a small group of people consolidate ownership and everyone else polarizes around them, forming into concentric rings of gatekeepers and masses…

The robots would have to be intelligent enough to be fully self sufficient, at which point they don’t care about people.

You’re thinking the servants exist primarily to execute tasks. Servants exist primarily to abuse.

Re: Andreessen Horowitz is investing billions into a bleak future

#450

Post by foobiekr »

prepend wrote: post #200
akudha wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Setting ethical and moral questions aside for a second: Never pay a human again Every time I see stuff like this (along with other more serious shenanigans like wage theft, union busting etc) I only ask myself the same question again and again - what is the end game here? If much of the population is too poor to buy anything, too sick to consume much etc - who is left to buy anything at all? If all their power comes…

I think the end game is to only do interesting things and automate all the mundane parts of life. We used to have to wash clothes by hand and it took all day. Now we have a washing machine and it takes 2 hours. People used to spend time washing clothes and now we have more members of the household working. I think the future from scifi that I remember (eg, Star Trek) is that humans are just being creative. Usually so…

In universe the society of earth and the federation only happened because there was a devestating global thermonuclear war that left the survivors being highly selected for collectivist impulses and then on top of that the eugenics wars where there was another filter (even the common people).
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