Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit | Invictus0's commentslogin

it's not 1999 anymore. you can't create malicious sites and then cry "I'm just a nerdy teeeeen" afterwards

Devil’s Advocate: I would expect a dumb teen to not understand the history and blast radius of social media like a former teen that grew up on that trash did.

Devil’s devil’s advocate.

He had several rounds of warnings before things escalated (not counting the local bully).


The author explained that he had watched (and quoted) The Social Network, in which Zuckerberg gets in academic trouble for doing exactly this.

Huh? This is not a "dumb teen" smoking weed in the parking lot, this is a student at IIT Delhi, which has a sub 1% acceptance rate and is one of the most elite schools in the world, that is smart enough to make a social media app.

> this is a student at IIT Delhi, which has a sub 1% acceptance rate and is one of the most elite schools in the world

Elite schools are full of dumb people. Being good at math doesn't automatically give you emotional intelligence.

> that is smart enough to make a social media app

What, like it's hard? I could've sworn making a Twitter clone was in plenty of "Programming for Dummies" books during the 2010s - and they didn't even have access to LLMs!


making the website is not the hard part. Making all the right design decisions, understanding people and virality is the hard part

You can in fact do that. Kids do stupid things all the time. We need to teach them, not ostracize them.


> Ideally, we would have preferred to avoid this post. However, the articles and comments published in response to Collabora’s and Michael Meeks’ biased posts compel us to provide this background information on the events that led to the current situation.

> Unfortunately, we have to start from the very beginning, but we’ll try to keep it brief. The launch of the LibreOffice project and The Document Foundation was handled with great enthusiasm by the founding group. They were driven by a noble goal, but also by a bit of healthy recklessness. After all, it was impossible to imagine what would happen after September 28, 2010, the date of the announcement.

Seems to be a common theme with open source projects that the maintainers think people care about them and their drama way more than they actually do. Sort of the same way that dealing with open source always ends up being a waste of time. This intro is a disaster; completely unclear, gives 0 context, assumes the user knows all the drama, and signals that what follows is going to be a long, drawn out and pointless mess.

Get. to. the. point.


I had the same impression. The introduction reads really unprofessionally.

she agreed to it to get a severance payment

That should be illegal, too. Or the permissible scope of such an agreement heavily limited.

“Sign this or starve” isn’t much of a stretch when you think about it

As if Meta employees live on the cusp of starving.

I agree with you there, but I think that may be the only reason this app isn’t cast in a darker light.

I can also imagine that with SF living expenses that there are a lot of people without a big safety net

I don’t really mean for this to be related to any one person. The general population doesn’t have a choice but to sign terms and get the severance , in general, in America


https://www.npr.org/2020/05/12/854998616/in-settlement-faceb...

> Some of the content moderators were earning $28,800 a year, the technology news site The Verge found last year.

In this particular case, the legal costs are probably pretty ruinous.


I think you'll find the person in question's title is quite far from content moderator.

I think you'll find that's why the "in this particular case" line is there.

Nobody forced her to break her contract and thus come up against that. She would have been perfectly fine on the leftovers from ~$500k/y while searching for her next job. The parent makes out like she simply had to get the extra money, lest she starve to death. Which is patently ridiculous.

It's called a Hobson's choice.

[flagged]



[flagged]


It's Hacker News, not I'm Thirteen And Just Discovered Anarchism And It Sounds Cool Because Now My Parents Can't Tell Me To Brush My Teeth Before Bed News.

[flagged]


Hackers should absolutely oppose unconscionable contracts, yes.

As we should and do oppose unconscionable punishments like jail for marijuana or the current copyright setup. Because they're wrong.


You understand that this is an entirely different form of argument than just linking to statute or case law.

I have consistently said "should be illegal", not "is currently illegal".

I'm entirely aware that these sorts of contracts are legal in US law. They should not be.


But your glib response above was just to quote "the law", like this was a sufficient justification. If merely quoting the law is enough, then great, we already justified perfectly the copyright and jailing weed smokers stuff. It's only now that you changed tack to make a different argument, which... I mean I might disagree with or not, but it's not what I took issue with above.

> But your glib response above was just to quote "the law", like this was a sufficient justification.

And this is not true for your (false!) cite of "Hacker News"?

At least my quote from the law was accurate.


She had serious debilitating medical issues from pregnancy where she lost a ton of blood and was in a coma for several days and nearly died. Of course she's going to take her severance to help care for her family given the atrocious state of our healthcare system.

I hate seeing this down-voted. It is such an important warning to people here. Severance agreements are pretty strong. Also, be very careful of snap settlement offers.

So many of the greatest tragedies I've seen inflicted on people come from accepting an expedient way to get what is really a small amount of money quickly. So often the drive is paying the rent/mortgage or fear of losing health benefits. If you are in a bad situation and offered a settlement and you really feel like something isn't right please talk to an employment lawyer. Most US States have expedited processes for quickly resolving these cases, and the lawyer can help you a lot when you feel like your only choice is to take the severance.


To say we've been studying the brain for millennia is an extreme exaggeration. Modern neuroscience is only about 50 years old.

I hate to "umm, akshually" but apparently we have been studying the brain for thousands of years. I wasn't talking about purely modern neuroscience (which ironically for our topic of emergence, (often till recently/still in most places) treats the brain as the sum of its parts - be them neurons or neurotransmitters).

> The earliest reference to the brain occurs in the Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus, written in the 17th century BC.

I was actually thinking of ancient greeks when writing my comment, but I suppose Egyptians have even older records than them.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_neuroscience


None of that counts as studying the brain. It's like saying rubbing sticks together to make fire counts as studying atomic energy. Those early "researchers" were hopelessly far away from even the most tangential understanding of the workings of the brain.

But fundamentally speaking, they were trying to understand the brain, right? IMO that counts as science/study in my books. They understood parts/basics of intracranial pressure so long back.

And if we say it's not science if it's not correct, well, (modern) physics isn't a science then, right? ;) As we haven't unified relativity with quantum mechanics?


I came here to say this :)

Don't worry, EU companies never become that successful


Weird, I've worked for multiple that got acquired by US companies


Foolish blunder


so its a webhook


i dont like this class of criticism. mostly because i find myself do it alot. it doesnt matter if the tool used is simple, if it generates value then its a good idea

what should this fallacy be called? ad implementum? ad modum?


What do you call it when someone takes offense to calling a spade a spade?


It's not just a spade, it's a spade as a service


It isn't a fallacy and nothing should ever be above criticism.


[flagged]


Much talk, less say, probably AI


its a description of the opportunity, i think.

webhooks have been very powerful, and you can start feeding the same stuff into claude as the orchestrator


the truth?


Yes, and Dropbox is "just rsync" and Tailscale is "just wireguard"


it's a webhook ... as MCP!


why can't we have a law that just caps your gambling losses? Everyone gets a federally issued gambling license tied to your ID, if you lose more than X amount the casino is no longer legally allowed to let you play. Casual gamblers can still enjoy, problem gamblers get cut off; just like with alcohol at the bar.


For the same reason it isn't outlawed to begin with. It makes some wealthy, influential people even wealthier. They, not we, control our government.


Someone could create a market where problem gamblers can buy wagering power (the ability to risk more after reaching their own loss cap) from non-gamblers unless you force physical in person gambling with ID checks.

Gambling should return to being legal in Vegas and on reservations, 24/7 gambling anywhere is very problematic.


Alcohol should only be legal in pubs and bars; alcohol in Disney World, on planes, and in grocery stores is very problematic.


You probably meant it as a quip but alcohol in every grocery store and definitely on planes is problematic.


It genuinely is, and I’d sooner see regulation targeting it than someone’s multileg parlay. There’s a much clearer line between alcohol on demand and public misconduct or injuries from DUI, than gambling and a more nebulous societal harm.


I think you're being a bit dramatic


A lot of jurisdictions restrict alcohol sales to liquor stores for this very reason.


They can but most non gamblers wouldn't partictpate. Many non gomblers won't particitate because they might go to vegas this year and so want the chance.


> Many non gomblers won't particitate because they might go to vegas this year

I’m pretty sure you would see so many people selling their quotas that the price would be dirt cheap.

At the most basic level: how many can afford to go to Vegas? This would be sure money. They’d take it when they need it.


vegas is cheap. Not free, but cheap to get to compared to most other tourist traps. There are a fair amout of free trips to vegas those hopes will keep a lot away.

and most people have ethics and so would not sell. Maybe to someone in the family, but strangers.


your market idea makes no sense, and it could be outlawed easily.


I like it in principle, but the pathologically addicted already make additional accounts and pay other people to acquire them.

So it may help by stopping some people from getting to that point, but as a safety net, an important chunk of the victims will still punch right through it.


Adding friction helps


Interesting approach but crack is illegal and still people are addicted to it.


your point is not clear to me. alcohol is legal and people are addicted to it


That effectively destroys the industry, since 90% of revenue comes from 10% of customers.


Some gambling companies may die, but that is a sacrifice I am willing to make.


yeah, good. okay.


Yeah, I mean I just don't see the point of a roundabout rule like that if the goal is to kill the companies - which it should be - just kill the companies directly.


It was a supreme court decision that started this whole thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murphy_v._National_Collegiate_...


FWIW, I'm not American, and wasn't replying to a thread in context of the legal specifics around gambling in America.


Sounds like a worthwhile use of the taxpayer's dollar.


you can even make gamblers pay to apply for the license


I was being sarcastic. Bitterly, sourly, saltily sarcastic.


For anyone that hasn't seen it, or just wants to reminisce, here's Hindenburg's report on Nikola, Milton's previous scheme. It is a truly hilarious read.

https://hindenburgresearch.com/nikola/


That's fundamentally wrong


>That's fundamentally wrong

If you have an argument, please share it. If you don't, please don't waste everyone's time.


if you can't tell the difference between a game of pure chance and predicting real world events then there is simply nothing to say



Predicting real events is significantly random which makes it like gambling, but the ability to influence events makes it unlike gambling.

Just calling it gambling emphasizes the former problem while dismissing the latter problem.


any game with a positive expected value is also not gambling, it's mining


Any system that is a zero-sum game with an effectively uncertain outcome is effectively gambling.

Investing at least positive sum in theory. Prediction markets are not.


When you say "effectively uncertain outcome", do you include situations where the events are random but the odds are predictable?

Let me give you an example. On average, there are 14 storms big enough to be named in the 6 month long Atlantic hurricane season. If a prediction market was saying 30% odds of a storm big enough to be named every day for all 183 days, betting against that would be free money. Would you call it gambling to make the same bet on all 183 days? The day-by-day outcome is uncertain, but the overall outcome is extremely certain.


Yes, I would call it gambling simply because someone has to take the other side of the bet and lose.

The entire point of there being a gambling "line" is because two parties have to agree on a wager that they both think has positive EV. That's effectively gambling. Somebody has to lose for the other party to win.

Obviously if the counter-party is an institution with a legitimate need to hedge, it becomes an insurance policy, but that is a world of difference than just two counterparties wanting to make bets for fun.


I think you're close to a good metric, but you need to consider the situations where one person doesn't have a positive EV expectation, or where that expectation is provably wrong. I think those situations can empower a winning non-gambling actor.

One participant in a market can be gambling while another participant isn't gambling. In particular, casinos don't gamble.

Also for many things there exists a scale from fully random to fully skill-based. So in my opinion things can be semi-gambling with a lot of gray area.


> In particular, casinos don't gamble.

I completely agree. I'm not trying to equate "casino gambling" to "gambling." Casino gambling is trivially stupid and should basically be illegal for large sums of money (again > $100 in expected losses/hour). I still think "gambling" is also bad for society, and I especially think it's bad when the payout structure is bar-belled where a lifetime gambling can somehow convince gamblers that they are "due."

>you need to consider the situations where one person doesn't have a positive EV expectation, or where that expectation is provably wrong.

I mean, this is de facto a discussion of the past. My point about "prediction market" is that their externalities start to spiral rapidly. Market reflexivity, where the gamblers starts effecting the outcome, or at least the oracle, is a very obvious and predictable result such that it's literally cliche to talk about athletes taking a dive for the money.

When it's sports, it's not really a huge deal because -- outside of gambling spaces -- we are ultimately just talking about entertainment. The problem with prediction market gambling, is that it starts affecting peoples lives. The price of oil, the leaders of countries, the results of elections. When you create legal avenues that incentivize organized crime to manipulate the outcome to future events, you've basically created a machine that fights back against pro-social, cooperative outcomes in politics and the economy that everyone benefits from. It's a horrible idea.


I agree that the externalities get pretty bad. My first comment in this chain was saying that makes it worse than games of chance.


I can tell the difference (at least I think) but I have no idea what your point is.


prediction markets are not pure gambling just as investing in stocks is not gambling.


I don't follow. What's the definition of "pure" gambling here? Do you consider for example poker to be pure? Sports betting?

Personally I consider any monetary wager where the individual isn't personally invested in corresponding productive events to constitute gambling. By that logic poker, horse races, prediction markets, futures, and even the vast majority of day trading all constitute forms of gambling.


Betting on which card will be on top of a freshly shuffled deck is pure gambling. It is a game of pure chance.

Betting on sports is not pure chance. If I play a game of tennis against roger federer, I am sure to lose. I can predict this event with 100% certainty.

https://polymarket.com/event/btc-updown-5m-1773764400

Bitcoin up or down is another non-chance event. I can easily sway the price of bitcoin by just buying some.

Recently there was a market to predict how long the US government shutdown would last. This is not gambling--you can look at historical data of shutdown durations and form a prediction based on researching each politician's views.

Sure, an idiot might gamble by just picking an option at random, but the game itself isn't gambling because it's not a game of pure chance.


Okay. So by that logic poker is gambling but not "pure" gambling. Fair enough.

So as previously stated I can tell the difference but still have no idea what point you were originally trying to make. Prediction markets are still a form of gambling however impure, no? Just as betting on a horse race is.


Is the bookie gambling on the race? Is Jim Simons? Gambling is not innate to the games themselves, it's only gambling if the player chooses to treat it like a game of pure chance.


Lotteries are pure gambling because you can't influence things, I guess that is what he meant. The examples you mentioned are then "impure gambling" since its inherently possible to influence the outcome without breaking the rules. It isn't illegal to bet on a hose that you gave extra good shoes and so on.


Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: