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Ex-OpenAI board member reveals what led to Sam Altman's brief ousting

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Re: Ex-OpenAI board member reveals what led to Sam Altman's brief ousting

#701

Post by CPLX »

WalterBright wrote: post #673
CPLX wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unfortunately, history provides us with examples of societies that confiscated the wealth of the wealthy Get out of here with this melodrama. We’re in a society that had higher more progressive tax rates as recently as the 1960’s. This isn’t some science fiction dystopia people are advocating for, just a return to the slightly fairer system we had before organized PR campaigns of the elites brought us the increasin…

> We’re in a society that had higher more progressive tax rates as recently as the 1960’s. That's only superficially true. There were a lot more deductible things in those days, like company cars and 3 martini lunches. Tax shelter investing was de rigueur then. (Tax shelter investing is an inefficient diversion of resources into unproductive investments.) Reagan traded away the tax shelters and tax deductions for low…

Sure, and we also didn't have the fucking insanity of step-up-basis and our current approach of literally not taxing the accumulation of wealth, ever, for those at the top of the pyramid. We also had unions.

We can trade examples all day but the fact is that the tax burden on the very wealthy has plummeted and income inequality has skyrocketed. Those are broad measurable facts.

Things suck more as a result. I'm not a young guy, I've watched the change.

Re: Ex-OpenAI board member reveals what led to Sam Altman's brief ousting

#702

Post by Kbelicius »

WalterBright wrote: post #692
Kbelicius wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the most compelling argument for "natural rights" is observing how well societies work that enforce them, and how well they work when other systems of rights are tried. The evidence is pretty clear. We did not evolve with private property rights thus, by your reasoning, those are not "natural rights". I am at a loss in trying to understand what you are saying. It seem like you are trying to argue for capitalism…

> We did not evolve with private property rights Yeah, we did. The concept of "mine" appears very early in children. Attempts to raise children from birth as good communists have never worked. Nobody has ever managed to indoctrinate people into communal behavior. Even the die hard communists in the USSR still participated in the black market - this was tolerated because even the elites used it. It turns out that huma…

> Yeah, we did.

No we did not.

> The concept of "mine" appears very early in children.

The concept of "mine" also exists in socialism. How have you come to the conclusion that when a child says "mine" that it is referring to the capitalist notion of private property?

> Nobody has ever managed to indoctrinate people into communal behavior.

Are you denying the existence of families now? Humans evolved and spread in small familial groups which practiced communal behavior.

> Even the die hard communists in the USSR still participated in the black market - this was tolerated because even the elites used it.

What point are you trying to make whit this?

> It turns out that human nature is not very malleable.

If it wasn't malleable we wouldn't have capitalism as evidenced by early human history. While you at it why don't you tell us what human nature is, because there doesn't seem to be any consensus on it and you seem so confident in using it that you must have a ready definition of it.

Re: Ex-OpenAI board member reveals what led to Sam Altman's brief ousting

#703

Post by imperfect_light »

zooq_ai wrote: post #361
imperfect_light wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't lying about product philosophy, lying about your financial stake in an OpenAI VC group would be grounds for dismissal from any company.

[flagged]

It should determine your adherence to traffic laws based on your social score. Musk, Thiel, Altman, Andreessen? Do whatever the hell you want, laws don't apply to you. /s

Re: Ex-OpenAI board member reveals what led to Sam Altman's brief ousting

#704

Post by trogdor »

jeffrallen wrote: post #610
huevosabio wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From A Song of Ice and Fire: ``` Varys smiled. “Here, then. Power resides where men believe it resides. No more and no less.” “So power is a mummer’s trick?” “A shadow on the wall,” Varys murmured, “yet shadows can kill. And ofttimes a very small man can cast a very large shadow.” ```

If you have ever been responsible for managing the security of your team in the face of rumors, this conversation rings of truth. The humanitarian organization I worked for eradicated every last small-head US dollar from circulation in our salary payments in 24 hours because the staff brought us a rumour that was circulating in the market that small-head dollars would not be accepted by the banks anymore. Rumors can…

What humanitarian organization did you work for that pays its employees in cash?

Re: Ex-OpenAI board member reveals what led to Sam Altman's brief ousting

#705

Post by zaat »

sudosysgen wrote: post #679
zaat wrote: post #666

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rights is well developed subject in modern ethics, and it doesn't require God or morality in the sense of "Doing X is bad and therefore immoral". But any discussion of rights is discussion of moral theory. Modern ethical philosophers have developed ethic theories that propose secular basis for universal rights, moral theory that doesn't rely on God (Rawls is a famous example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Theory_of…

Nothing I am saying is at odds with modern ethics. I am literally presenting what is basically hetheredoxy. Rights can be natural or artifical (social, legal, etc...). For rights to be natural, you need to appeal to a God, or to natural morality. If you are looking for rights that aren't necessarily natural, you can derive them from a moral theory. There are moral theories that are not derived from an appeal to divin…

We seem to disagree on the definition of natural rights. For a right to be natural you require that it will be granted by God or that it will be based on human nature, and by human nature you mean to say that it is a direct product of the evolution biology that have created our species. While I would grant you that it's a definition that you can find in many philosophers, following Moore, but in the current context I think that the natural/artificial distinction isn't useful for defining natural rights.

I would argue that this definition is very narrow and limiting, it introduce weird dependency on our current scientific knowledge, and isn't very useful. For instance, when Hobbes proposed the social contract theory he was discussing natural rights but today we know that his natural science knowledge was incorrect and therefore he was actually describing artificial rights. To me this makes no sense. Instead, I will propose, that rights that are derived by reason, that are universal, and that do not depend on a specific state law or the social norms of a specific society are natural rights. They are natural in the sense that they are not dependent on any state or law but are inherent. Those rights are not granted by god, and they are not artificial law propositions. They are based on universal principals of reason and the reality of human existence.

This view and this definition of natural rights is not my invention. It's reflected in the language of the universal declaration of human rights - which recognizes a set of universal rights. The declaration isn't a legal document that legislate a binding law. It recognize rights that are not (let's hope, are not yet) generally accepted by all nations. Nevertheless those rights are not based on God or born by the act of composing and publishing the declaration, those are natural rights. They are natural despite being in opposition to humans natural behavior, despite their consistent violation. It is because those rights are natural that they can serve as basis and justification for international law and justice.

Rawls theory of rights is universal, it isn't about specific social norms, it discuss human society in principle. One might say that his ethics are based on theory of the human nature.

Re: Ex-OpenAI board member reveals what led to Sam Altman's brief ousting

#706

Post by elefanten »

komali2 wrote: post #568
elefanten wrote: post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it would be very strange for someone to argue that Israel is not attempting to destroy, in whole or in part, Palestinians This line alone proves all my points on the topic. That you find it _unfathomable_ that Israel has goals other than the destruction of Palestine shows how one-sided your view on the subject is. There's nothing I can write in this forum that will change such a deeply warped perception, but I'll st…

I didn't say Israel doesn't have goals other than genocide. I said they're doing a genocide. > no serious international observer believes that claim Well, some would call this "appeal to authority fallacy," but, I'm not sure, would you call these people "unserious international observers?" * Damien Short, professor of human rights at the School of Advanced Study, University of London, and co-director of the Human Rig…

[flagged]

Re: Ex-OpenAI board member reveals what led to Sam Altman's brief ousting

#707

Post by int_19h »

WalterBright wrote: post #690
int_19h wrote: post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SpaceX, naturally. But being run better than NASA is not exactly a high bar. I would actually amend it to most US federal agencies, even. It's just that Americans, for some reason, assume that the way their government works is exemplar of governments in general. That is not true, to put it mildly - US is just particularly dysfunctional in that regard. I should also note that my original point was not about a public/p…

There are countries that have discouraged big business and encouraged small business instead. The result is low levels of prosperity, because big business drives the wealth creation in the economy. Small businesses are needed, too, as they fill in the gaps and are the future big businesses. An economy made up of cottage businesses and local artisans handweaving baskets just cannot produce the kind of wealth that is p…

There is a very large scale in between "artisan" and a megacorp with a budget larger than many countries.

Re: Ex-OpenAI board member reveals what led to Sam Altman's brief ousting

#708

Post by Havoc »

dragonwriter wrote: post #19
Havoc wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once again he was GP of the startup fund, not an LP. (At least not to my knowledge) Unless there was some sort of carry or other compensation I’d say it’s pretty fair to describe that as not owned. A bit like a trustee wouldn’t claim to own the trust fund. The beneficiaries do

A GP is a partner and as such has an financial interest in the success of the fund. In fact, they have a greater financial exposure than LPs, since they have unlimited liability for the partnership’s obligations (how much upside they have depends on the partnership agreement, its possible that LPs have all of that and a GP that's not also an LP would not — but just having downside exposure is still a serious financia…

>GP is a partner and as such has an financial interest in the success of the fund

Sure there will be some stake attached to GP, that may be a national dollar or it may be more depending on structuring. We don't know either way. My point is based on knowing nothing more than he is a GP we can't conclude "he owned the OpenAI startup fund" which is verbatim what is being claimed in the article and what I objected to.

>how much upside they have depends on the partnership agreemen

...right which is what I meant with "some sort of carry or other compensation".

Re: Ex-OpenAI board member reveals what led to Sam Altman's brief ousting

#709

Post by Havoc »

FireBeyond wrote: post #84
Havoc wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once again he was GP of the startup fund, not an LP. (At least not to my knowledge) Unless there was some sort of carry or other compensation I’d say it’s pretty fair to describe that as not owned. A bit like a trustee wouldn’t claim to own the trust fund. The beneficiaries do

> I’d say it’s pretty fair to describe that as not owned. I'd agree with that. But you also ignored the very next statement. > even though he constantly was claiming to be an independent board member with no financial interest in the company Are you going to claim that a GP of a fund has no financial interest in the fund, too?

>Are you going to claim that a GP of a fund has no financial interest in the fund, too?

We don't know either way. I've seen GP shares in the 100s of millions and I've seen GP shares that are notional $100. Just depends on the structuring. So from knowing he's GP the article can't reasonably conclude "he owned the OpenAI startup fund".

Re: Ex-OpenAI board member reveals what led to Sam Altman's brief ousting

#710

Post by bergen »

zaat wrote: post #556
bergen wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Marriage without children is an issue of morality, not rights. It was historically an issue of rights And children rights are a fairly new thing. And no, you are wrong - your right not be attacked is based on morality, you say "attacking someone is wrong" - there is no law in nature preventing this. But you made no point for your argument - just stepping through mine with comments.

> And no, you are wrong - your right not be attacked is based on morality, you say "attacking someone is wrong" You are mixing morality with justice, which (in the modern world) is based on rights. "Attacking someone is wrong" is a moral statement, it puts the focus and the obligation of individuals to keep moral behavior. My right not to be attacked is not based on moral and not dependent on the morality or the beli…

And this societal rights are based on a shared understanding of what is moral and amoral, often dictated by works of religion or historically stemming from such.
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