Pieces of Shit
geohot.github.io
geohot.github.io
As you can see, I don't search approval. I write from a big distance and react.
And seeing the individuals attacking the character of the messenger without getting the message makes me sad. Really sad.
When I started creating things for the web I had no idea that my web-browser in 2021 will look like Christmas Tree from installed plugins and I will modify countless settings in about:config. All of this to have somewhat private browsing experience.
All of this because, we as society cannot find a way to impose regulations and restrictions over a bunch of greedy advertising corporations.
https://geohot.github.io/blog/jekyll/update/2021/08/06/consu...
I don't see this as affecting his integrity on any level.
Edit: grammar
I love critics, I just wish they were smarter. HN used to be better than this. https://cheapeth.org/whalegate.html
My view is that the big AdTechs (mainly Google, Facebook, Twitter, Tiktoks and the likes) are one of the worst poisons that humanity has ever created.
They brainwash you, destroy democracies, create drama in order to shove ads down your throat.
And then they turn around and pat themselves on the back pretending to be good actors "making the world a better place". Leaders of those companies pretending to be good humanitarian beings drive me absolutely crazy.
I hope that we eventually all see them for that they are.
In my humble opinion they are worst than that. They are a gateway for ultimate mind control, on a scale and effectiveness never seen before in human history. Selling ads and making money is scratching the surface of this complex and ever expanding machines of power and deception.
My theory is that Governments and Old Perception Gatekeepers are realizing this in full scale, but instead of regulating or stopping, they want full access to the Perception Control Mainframes and Perception Spyware Receivers that we care around and keep alive 24/7. https://bit.ly/3nJmFTH
In the recent years the coordinated attacks from Governments on free speech and encryption increased drastically.
Recent example is Apple's attempt to normalize on device private user data processing and policing with Government approved criteria trough third party private corporation "partnership". Setting an example to be followed by others. https://bit.ly/3nFE2ox
This is the beginning of Big Tech and Big Government convergence that will form the future of mankind. One unified social system presented to the masses as an inevitable implementation for a common good.
The sad part is that we are now working not only for AdTech companies, we are working for the Global Surveillance Apparatus and accept that this is the only way forward.
>And then they turn around and pat themselves on the back pretending to be good actors "making the world a better place". Leaders of those companies pretending to be good humanitarian beings drive me absolutely crazy.
Sounds pretty political to me. To survive and protect their existence and profits FAANG invested tons of money in lobbing and now have Political partnerships and Politicized UX.
Users are like party members, they are not only using the tech, they participate in brand awareness exercises and protect whichever brand they are selected to belong.
For me FAANG are implementing Edward Bernays abusive psychology on steroids, without any remorse or ethical boundaries what so ever. They simply don't care. Some Men Just Want to Watch the World Burn. And taking big money from the process.
P.S. As I recently stated, down-voting only makes the message more relevant.
"Three policy proposals:
A 500% tax on advertising. It’s a zero sum game with no benefit to society. If you are paying for eyeballs, you pay a 500% tax. Force companies with these trash addictive business models to find a way to work for the average person, not pimp them out.
1% tax on the full amount of every trade. Fuck off worthless HFT mega brain drain. Fuck off short termism in markets.
Separation of church and state. And that includes Harvard, Yale, and all the others. No funding, no loans, no Title IX BS. Separate!"
I am now very interested in what event happened as well.
Aside from individual opportunities for unfairness, it turns out when schools have policies that can get you fired or expelled without a chance to defend yourself (let alone have an attorney) then this gives rise to abuses of the system — many of the same kinds of abuses with similar unfortunate racial impacts that we see when off-campus justice systems are abused.
Ironically, many of the successful lawsuits about unfair expulsions are themselves Title IX lawsuits.
For some introductory coverage see also: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/title-ix-sexual-misconduct-on-c...
Less likely, it could be some weird comparison of the Ivy League to some special priesthood that gets you extra privileges.
Crunchier still, it might be an attack on secret societies like Skull & Bones.
Whatever it is, it seems very confused.
In the UK, Eton, the most expensive, exclusive public school in the country, is a charity, largely because it was set up to educate the poor, something it hasn't done, modulo a few bursaries, for some time. That needs to end.
- Strict adherence to dogmas (_eg all whites are racist, not dating trans is transphobic_), under penalty of excommunication (_banished from academia and/or society_).
- Dissent is not permitted (_if you deny it, you must be racist/bigot/transphobic_).
- Cult of the leader as individual (_eg BLM founders, the Squad_), while at the same time arguing the group is paramount.
- Sacraments (eg _struggle sessions, street performances_).
- Colleges as main places of cult. Pilgrimages to holy places (_eg police brutality incidents_).
- Saints (eg _George Floyd_).
Academia is funded by the state via:
- Grants to projects not necessarily resulting in any benefit, apparent or not, to society. Projects lead by professors not teaching.
- Loans to students, knowing well many won't be able to pay in years, if at all, which end in the pockets of colleges.
+1 for calling FAANG ad companies
Wasn't a lot we could do about the others.
I don't think a tax is going to fix the underlying problem, which is that ad publishers have no responsibility for the ads they show.
The problem is that the scummiest advertisers can afford to pay the highest prices.
Someone who defrauds you can always afford to pay more for advertising than someone who actually provides a service.
The tax would get passed on to the entity paying for the advertisement. Then "advertising" would probably turn into a dirty word, we'll have "suggestions" and some sort of legal ducking and diving to avoid paying the tax at all.
Advertising plagues the web.
This is just demonstrably not true. Look at the biggest advertisers in the world - they're giant corporations that sell good/services.
I think a much better solution would be to mandate "slower" exchanges, i.e. exchanges would accumulate orders in a hidden queue and resolve them for example every 1 second, after that it would publicly publish all orders submitted to the last tick. For most market participants this change will be virtually unnoticeable, but it would eradicate HFT and all microseconds shavings associated with it.
Tick-based exchange would probably just increase the problem (better prediction for ~HFT..or better call them HF-prediction then), but hey i really don't know, both solutions are better then none, i guess.
HFTs are not a universal evil, they increase market efficiency and they pay for it.
Bank accounts, bonds, stocks, crypto are all in the perception category. The first three try to model a real world process but they are not the real world. The latter is perceived to be outside the bounds of the real world.
In fact, people try to abuse flaws in the simulation (the model). The real world decays but money does not. So during a recession people flood into the security of money, that money is supposed to be the perception of the real world, people are flooding into a perception of security that doesn't exist. Strangely enough, the real world keeps getting worse but its perception keeps getting better.
Wilfully deceitful people are rare, the rest of us are exceptionally good at justifying our actions to ourselves - Undiluted honest self judgement can be self destructive, but eating gobfuls of bluepills is also extremely dangerous to society - I believe there is a middle-ground, awareness of this "cognitive bias" is the first step.
Ultimately he is advocating for a political solution for what he believes is an economic problem.
The issue here is that the cause of the problems he wants to resolve is not an economic problem at all, but a political choice.
The proposal of preventing companies from purchasing property, for example is a clear cut example. I want to be clear here, any shortage of housing anywhere in the developed world is the direct result of government policy intended to drive that shortage, not due to physical space limitations, or limitations driven by corporate greed (beyond where that intersects with politics)
>Three policy proposals:
>A 500% tax on advertising. [...]
>1% tax on the full amount of every trade. [...]
How is that a "political solution to an economic problem"? What would a non political solution look like to you? Why is it bad that it's a political solution to an economic problem? If it works, it works.
It should be clear at this point that capitalism can tolerate a pretty broad spectrum of political arrangements, from 'socialist' countries to dictatorships, and especially everything in between.
You can change your frontend to be all kinds of ways, and that will create vastly different user experiences. But at the end of the day we are still tied to the backend, the infrastructure, the "business logic".
Its not clear, at this point, it will ever actually happen, but that doesn't itself speak to the main point, that there is a fundamental separation.
and either way, you will find history is full of events where people act outside of their current political world in order to change it!
And that government policy is a direct result of corporate lobbyists operating upon member of congress, while their advertising and news media partners spray the public mindset with some rational why whatever they are lobbying is good.
It is either a political solution or violent revolution, because any economic solution is operating on a rigged playing field they Capitalists control 100%.
I think the larger point he is making is that if someone doesn't do something about unbridled "Corporate Capitalism", there will be blood in the streets. Government might be the only actor capable of going toe to toe with such a behemoth.
The free market is an empty ideology because there is no such thing in the real world. When the law and order of governments no longer applies, then we don't fall back to a fair and just utopian world free of governments, we fall back to the law of the jungle. [0] The law of the jungle involves a lot of pain and from the perspective of those living lives sheltered from pain through law and order of governments, the primary source of pain is the government. After all, governments have vast police and military forces.
They have the monopoly of violence. Therefore people perceive governments = violence and no governments = no violence. If the amount of violence increases by decreasing the importance of the government then people will insist that it's the government that inflicted the violence and will want to keep decreasing the importance of the government. What they don't realize is that they will experience an even harsher reality.
Meh. If you can say that about "the free market" you could say that about just about anything. But in practice, people are able to recognize substantial free-market properties in markets that are substantially free, just as easily as they can recognize the properties of communism in systems which are substantially communist, even while Real Communism Has Never Been Tried™.
What is the PMC the author is referring to here?
aka Negative sum game.
Modern online ads are a tool for selling low-quality goods to impulsive people at high prices. Do we really need them?
I would advocate separating capitalism from goverment. But thats equally unrealistic as church/gov separation was 200 years ago.
Kinda hard to do in practice.
Afaik historic greek democracy was more like that. People got into goverment by lottery. If you were chosen, you had to attend a 2 year training and then your spent 4 years in goverment.
A way to limit this corruption is to ban government civil servants from being able to take private jobs after their service.
Please - take his money away till he finds to himself again.
What is he referring to here, out of curiosity? Does a company like Google own an apartment complex, or is it some sort of on-site housing programme?
I see why the confusion arose though, "actual" housing is also mentioned in the article in a different context.
The term "rent-seeking" has an even broader scope:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking
> Rent-seeking is the effort to increase one's share of existing wealth without creating new wealth. Rent-seeking results in reduced economic efficiency through misallocation of resources, reduced wealth-creation, lost government revenue, heightened income inequality, and potential national decline.
In the case of the razor manufacturers they can at least claim that it's completely natural (I'm not sure how far they go to prevent cheaper blades to be made available for their particular razors?), but often the regular payments are artificially forced through contract clauses, laws, patents, copyright (I guess?), and/or through technical means. In the case of printer manufacturers, they started adding electronics to the cartridges that force you to buy only cartridges made by that specific printer manufacturer.
Basically, it is a goal of many businesses to end up as a "rent-seeker". Have a wall that keeps out competition and a large number of customers forced to regularly buy from you ("regularly" is key, for constant predictable cash-flow and an easy life free of competitive pressure and uncertainty - for the rent-seeker).