Tech Capitalists Don't Care About Humans | Hacker News Reader

Tech Capitalists Don't Care About Humans

jacobin.com

67 pointstablets26 comments

What's really messed up about this is that as designers of what AGI even means, these mostly self-taught or otherwise non-scientific clowns who think that being rich makes them smart will create the post-human life forms they think will outlive humanity. The problem is it will be inadequate like most of their products and we'll all die for nothing.

I've been thinking that industrialization at the end of the enlightenment was not the conclusion of the enlightenment but a stifling that led back into a new dark age where we replaced God and the church with money and business. I only hope we can recognize the system has supplanted the people again.

> What's really messed up about this is that as designers of what AGI even means

That is where all the problems started.

It's funny that these null nodes get so obsessed with declining birth rates whilst doing everything in their power to make people not afford to or not want to bring a child into the hellish world they're creating. But of course they're not worried about the birth rates in Africa or Asia... just that their employees and customers aren't reproducing fast enough to maintain that growth curve for their investments.

It'd be funny if it wasn't so horrible, how obvious all of this is. "Effective altruism" my ass. I can only hope I convey a fraction of the contempt for these people that they display for everyone else.

> The founder, Yudkowsky, posted an article ... in which he asked readers to choose between two options. One is that a single individual is tortured mercilessly for fifty years. The other is that some unfathomable number of people suffer the almost imperceptible discomfort of having a speck of dust briefly in their eye. So which of these is worse? His argument was that the second, the dust speck scenario, is much worse because if you do the math. . .

Does shitposting on Twitter count as eye irritation?

Newsflash: Powerful people never have (cared about humans).

I don't know if "tech capitalists" care about humans or not but I am certain that we should behave as if they do not.

I include myself in that.

I hope people find value in the things I have built and I assume that my literal skin in the game, in the form of my children and eventual grandchildren, will allow others to identify aligned interests ...

... but don't let your guard down just because that one guy did some nice things.

> Right now, with their billions and trillions of dollars, they are trying to create a new world run by post-humans without ever having inquired about the opinions and preferences of the rest of humanity. They’re doing this without our consent, and they don’t really care one bit about what the rest of us have to say.

Man this shit makes me so sad for our future. The money train has left the station and I don’t know if enough good people have the will or ability to shut this destructive speed run down.

> The money train has left the station and I don’t know if enough good people have the will or ability to shut this destructive speed run down.

The train has been running for centuries, it’s just that who is missing it has changed

Which do you lack, the will or ability to shut this destructive speed run down?

Ability. The resource barrier is too great.

Phew. Lucky for you or else you’d have to try to help.

What’s up with this attitude? I contribute in my own small ways.

I think it’s a terrible attitude to say, “The world stinks. Hope somebody else fixes it.”

They're building their own little world, a parallel reality where owning submarine garages and yachts and island hideouts is appropriate; but helping the rest of humanity isn't.

I hope we — the People — realise this faster and decide we don't want to help them out. Divest from their properties, stop using their tools, and keep being nice to other humans. The rift isn't our design, we just have to do what we can. We may lack the ability but not the will.

Teach your kids right, folks. Let them aim for a firm kindness and honesty rather than monetary success.

Elon Musk gleefully presided over the destruction of USAID which is estimated to kill 14,051,750 including 4,537,157 children by 2030. (https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...)

No matter what his companies builds or accomplishes, those numbers are his legacy.

Should we say that every other country that doesn't provide aid equivalent to what USAID did, is also killing those 14 million? E.g. China, Japan, India, Brazil, the UK, Saudi Arabia, France, Russia, Canada, Mexico..?

No because we established a program to protect those people and Elon destroyed it.

Thats not to say others shouldn’t contribute but he specifically axed this.

Many countries have their variation of the USAID. In fact the UK, France, Canada, etc. have such programs.

I'd argue that these are an investment in the future and end up being positive for the countries investing in them, in the form of the world being a better place, putting less pressure on immigration flows, and so on.

Per capita, other countries contribute more, so this wasn't such a wasteful use of American resources.

And absence of such a program elsewhere doesn't take away from Musk's DOGE wilfully destroying the program. Yes, that's in his legacy, the deaths that will be caused.

Examples: https://impactfunding.substack.com/p/beyond-usaid-alternativ...

Musk, who the article feature has been one of the most outspoken in favour of humans, re we need to do more about declining populations, funding OpenAI with the idea that it wouldn't be monopolised by a profit maxing corporation and so on.

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