Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Playing in the Creek

hgreer.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 122 posts

Re: Playing in the Creek

#81

Post by chipsrafferty »

doctoboggan wrote: post #5

This is an excellent essay, and I feel similar to the author but couldn't express it as nicely. However if we are counting on AI researchers to take the advice and slow down then I wouldn't hold my breath waiting. The author indicated they stepped away from a high paying finance job for moral reasons, which is admirable. But wallstreet continues on and does not lack for people willing to play the "make as much money…

A finance job is a zero-sum game. Most tech jobs are negative sum, in that they make the world worse. You have the wrong takeaway here. Companies like Amazon and Google and OpenAI and the like are not-so-slowly destroying our planet and companies like Citadel just move money around.

Re: Playing in the Creek

#82

Post by FollowingTheDao »

sepositus wrote: post #75
FollowingTheDao wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Do you think this style of argumentation is constructive and beneficial for the broader good of society? I can't think of a single person I've met who would respond positively to being labeled a (partial) sociopath after being able to only express a couple of paragraphs of thought.

Yes, I do, because I’m never going to change his mind, maybe I will, but probably not, but other people reading this can take sides and think about it in a non-direct way.

Jesus turned over tables when they were trying to profit inside the church. His movement seemed to turn out pretty good.

Re: Playing in the Creek

#83

Post by JKCalhoun »

chipsrafferty wrote: post #76
JKCalhoun wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're trying to convince me that I was somehow part of the problem, it's not reaching me. I was as low(ly) as you can get in the "tech industry stack". While I still had some measure of agency as an engineer I added a crayon color picker to MacOS, added most of the PDF features people like in MacOS Preview. That was as much "driving the ship" as I was allowed — until I wasn't even allowed that. I could have skipp…

I don't think they're blaming you per se, they're saying the reason you didnt enjoy it is because you did it for money.

Hmmm... Is it because I came to tolerate it for the paycheck that it sucked or is it possible it began to suck first?

I get it that money coming into the industry made the whole industry suck. Honestly, Apple was a much more fun to place to work at when there was no money to be made there (no more than a paycheck anyway). Others may disagree, but I found its success made it increasingly a shittier place to work. (Others though, as I say, may have enjoyed the wider reach the platform enjoyed with its success.)

Re: Playing in the Creek

#84

Post by sepositus »

FollowingTheDao wrote: post #82
sepositus wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think this style of argumentation is constructive and beneficial for the broader good of society? I can't think of a single person I've met who would respond positively to being labeled a (partial) sociopath after being able to only express a couple of paragraphs of thought.

Yes, I do, because I’m never going to change his mind, maybe I will, but probably not, but other people reading this can take sides and think about it in a non-direct way. Jesus turned over tables when they were trying to profit inside the church. His movement seemed to turn out pretty good.

Fair enough, but I would be concerned about the people who think that making (offensive) psychiatric diagnoses over the internet is a good thing that should be promoted. In the best case, it only confirms people's biases and does nothing to move the needle towards unity rather than continued division.

> Jesus turned over tables when they were trying to profit inside the church. His movement seemed to turn out pretty good.

Applying this story to posting anonymous comments on an internet forum seems like a stretch. There are hardly any meaningful consequences for your decision to write in this way, whereas Jesus very much became a target after that demonstration.

Re: Playing in the Creek

#86

Post by munificent »

bombcar wrote: post #50
noduerme wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've got a particularly strong view on this, because I've got a brother who tried to get wildly rich in some seriously unethical ways to impress our father, and still never got a single word of praise from him. And who's miserable and unloved and been betrayed by the women he married... who married him for his money. He's so desperate for someone to come admire his cars and his TVs, to just come hang out with him. He…

One of the things I’ve heard, and found to be true, is that if you don’t love yourself it’s going to be terribly hard for others to love you

It tickles me that this quote came from a YA novel of all places, but in The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Chbosky writes "We accept the love we think we deserve".

If that isn't one of the deepest aphorisms on psychology out there, I don't know what is.

Re: Playing in the Creek

#87

Post by criddell »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #74
criddell wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can argue whatever you want to argue. I make my living with my brain so I do worry about the downsides of removing boredom and mental struggle from my days.

It's almost certainly going to be bad, and almost certainly going to be unavoidable. I can't spell for shit anymore. Ever since auto correct became omnipresent in pretty much all writing fields, my brain just kinda ditched remembering how to spell words. buuuttt Manual labor has been obsolete for at least 100 years now for certain classes of people, and fitness is still an enormous recreational activity people partak…

We aren't talking about something like spelling or digging a hole. We're talking about a fundamental cognitive skill: reading eight short paragraphs of text and extracting meaning from it.

Re: Playing in the Creek

#88

Post by ToucanLoucan »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #68
FollowingTheDao wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It went sour for the same reason that you were "satisfied that I had done enough to secure a home, tools for my hobbies, and had raised three girls — paid for their college"; Money and selfishness. You were looking out for you and your little group. You got yours. Now what?

If you're trying to convince me that I was somehow part of the problem, it's not reaching me. I was as low(ly) as you can get in the "tech industry stack". While I still had some measure of agency as an engineer I added a crayon color picker to MacOS, added most of the PDF features people like in MacOS Preview. That was as much "driving the ship" as I was allowed — until I wasn't even allowed that. I could have skipp…

> added most of the PDF features people like in MacOS Preview.

I'm not religious, but for this alone you deserve a life of blessings and happiness. The fact that I never ever have to fuck around with Adobe PDF apps to juggle PDFs is one of the load-bearing things keeping me sane in an insane world.

Re: Playing in the Creek

#89

Post by Thorrez »

broabprobe wrote: post #62
migueldeicaza wrote: post #58

Vonnegut said it best: https://richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2017/11/18/we-are-here-...

huh, I wonder if he has relayed this story multiple times, I’m only familiar with this version, https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/12020560-talking-about-when... “(talking about when he tells his wife he’s going out to buy an envelope) Oh, she says well, you’re not a poor man. You know, why don’t you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet? And so I pretend not to hear her. And go out to get an…

He ignores his wife's suggestion because, among other things, he wants to see some great looking babes. Maybe this isn't a guy whose philosophy I want to follow.

Re: Playing in the Creek

#90

Post by appleorchard46 »

ido wrote: post #65
appleorchard46 wrote: post #55

Could someone explain the metaphor? I'm struggling to see the connection between AI and the rest of the post.

That AI is dangerous and the closer we get to the danger zone the better it would be if the companies developing these technologies understand it might be better to slow down and make sure it's safe vs pushing ahead at maximum speed.

Thank you.
Post reply on HN