I know, right? And very often I have the notion that that these things are obvious concerns for all sensible people. Except that lately I've been noticing how for some reason I only get that notion as long as I'm regularly consuming one information-containing product or another.
When I turn off my browser, video player, and ebook reader, outside it's a bit of a hellscape really, I really can't wait to get back online where people care about the real things, such as systemic collapse. But while I'm disconnected I do notice how the only thing that people seem to actually be enjoying right now are those self-same glass beads and plague blankets of Big Tech that we're dissing while trapped within them.
I am not criticizing anyone. Just explaining the dynamics that led to the dramatic reduction in value of the legacy businesses that produced professional video content, and the inevitable repercussions.
I think certain games dont even bother to optimize the install size so that you cant fit other games on the hard drive, I think COD games are regularly hundreds of gigs
Having a humongous game might be a competitive advantage in the era of live-service games.
Users might be more hesitant to switch to another game if it means uninstalling yours and reinstalling is a big pain in the backside due to long download times.
I've often seen people mention that one reason for games like Call of Duty being so enormous is optimising for performance over storage. You'd rather decompress textures/audio files at install-time rather than during run-time, because you download/install so infrequently.
AI people are like "HAHAHAHAH were gods! Were gods and you PEASANTS are going to be jobless once my machine can fire you!" and then wonder why people have negative feelings about it. The Ipod wasnt coming for my livelihood it just let me listen to music even more!
The iTunes music store sold music for your iPod, but we'd be ignoring history if we didn't at least acknowledge that was also the era of Napster, Limewire, Kazaa, and DCC. Pirate Bay, and later, Waffles.fm. Metallica sued Napster in 2000, the first ipod was released in 2001. iPod people laughed at the end of record companies and the RIAA while pretending to work with them. We all know that's not how it ended though.
It's weird. It went up and down and up and down. Controversial POV. But thanks for the support. Sam Altman's just too dishonest. It's been said time and time again by so many people, by Paul Graham, Ilya Sutskeve, everybody's telling everybody he's dishonest. When are we going to wake up and get this guy out of there?
> there is a certain sense in which Mark Zuckerberg has been cast as 'the spokesman' for the Millennial generation — as the single person who gives voice to the hopes and fears and the unique experiences of this generation, at least in the USA
Fucks sake... that is an absolutely bananas read of Zuck's place in American culture.
It is also (and it surprises me that this ancient observation is so little cited), a highly visible example of
"Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely".
Watching at these people accumulate and hoard hundreds of billions of wealth, in a capitalist society where wealth equals power, and become ever more corrupt as they do so, simply demonstrates the point yet again. And we must suffer the consequences as they choose to corrupt the govt so they can accumulate more power instead of doing works to benefit all.
Just for some perspective, I once calculated what it means to be rich. I called it at spending at a constant average of USD$2500/day. With 'only' $20million yielding 5%, you have $2700/day without even touching principle. There is no level of basic and even luxury needs that cannot be met with that kind of spending. OK, you want more, how about spending $25,000 per day, EVERY day for the rest of your life? That takes 'only' $200 million.
Those people have hundreds of times the amount of money that could ever make a difference in their standard of living.
The point is that once you reach past these levels, more money literally makes no material difference in your standard of living. Hoarding more money is only about one thing, power.
As a society, we need to be doing something different.
We must understand that all of our industries leaders are deeply mentally ill and dangerous people.
Whether that is from not ever being told no once they got rich enough or whether it's pathological to even seek out that dimension of wealth is not clear, but the result is worrying either way.
Understanding isn't going far enough (though it's a nescessary first step), We should all be demanding that our governments reign these idiots in before they do something we can't undo.
That Clegg is in these emails is particularly onerous.
What the fuck is the "public sphere" and who decides who does or does not get a membership card?
Like, call Thiel an idiot with stupid ideas that are dumb, fine, but trying to cancel someone from the "public sphere" just reeks of passive aggression.
If it was not a guy who regularly engages with and thus gives platform to neo-Nazi accounts on X I might've considered giving him the benefit of doubt.
It is very easy to find specific accounts that Musk brings readers to (or you can just be on X and follow him):
