ElProlactin

> This is a common problem with all dating apps. Specifically, interests, hobbies, daily routines, objectives, etc. have nothing to do with compatibility.

You're assuming that the people on dating apps want to form long-lasting relationships.

A lot of people (both men and women) use them for hookups, validation, entertainment, free meals, etc. Most of the people using them for these purposes care far less about compatibility because they don't plan on spending the rest of their lives with anyone they interact with.

By this guy's account, his attorneys sent and responded to a number of letters and arranged for a meeting with NVIDIA counsel. So you have to put it in context: this didn't demand a whole lot of time and effort, and they never actually filed a lawsuit.

From the looks of it, this firm primarily works on contingency, so it's not like they were doing anything out of the ordinary. They took a flyer on his "case" on the off chance that some correspondence might lead NVIDIA to throw a few bucks at this guy.

Yes, his possession of all the agreements for 30+ is what makes this so difficult.

But here's a hypothetical situation (unrealistic) that could change things. Let's say he came into possession of an internal document showing that someone at NVIDIA knew the grant said one year and chose to state 4 years to him anyway. Now he has an argument for fraud, and in California, the statute of limitations for fraud is 3 years from the date when you discover the fraud.

This type of thing could get him past a motion to dismiss provided that he brings the action within the 3 years after discovering the evidence of fraud. But nothing in the post claims this type of evidence. It just seems like a mistake was made and the guy, not knowing what NVIDIA would become, didn't even bother to check the documents he had at the time.

Cool story for the bar or grandkids.

So "intellectuals" are all megalomaniacs now?

Intelligent people can be wrong. Massive revelation here.

What's interesting is that the author apparently never considers the possibility that some of the people he holds up as case studies didn't actually believe their "models" were right but had other motivations for their actions.

McNamara is the perfect example of this. It's pretty well established now that he knew the US was never going to "win" in Vietnam but he kept going for other reasons, such as a deep sense of loyalty to President Johnson.

From this perspective, the numbers (picking the "right" ones and manipulating them) were used to support a narrative. They weren't evidence that McNamara actually believed his "model" was working.

Applying this to Blue Zones: intellectuals can be opportunists. They might realize the data is bad and the conclusion is not as well supported by it, but that there's a story ("model") that is appealing and can be packaged and sold.

Edit: I should also add that there's a semantic dimension to this post. Robert McNamara was not an "intellectual"; he was a technocrat. So it seems like the author is defining "intellectual" as any person who is considered "intelligent", but I guess "Intelligent People Are Fucking Idiots" wasn't as good a headline.

> And the process of discovery would be very costly for NVIDIA with depositions from many executives who have better things to do.

You're almost certainly either misrepresenting or misunderstanding what your attorneys told you.

You would never get to discovery with your complaint. If you sued, NVIDIA would win a motion to dismiss in federal court based on your claim being time-barred.

You have no basis to support decades-long tolling. The possibility that, say, NVIDIA knew what it told you was wrong 30 years ago is not good enough under federal pleading standards to get you to discovery. You would need sufficient evidence to support a claim that NVIDIA intentionally lied, which you obviously don't have otherwise you would have mentioned it in your post.

State court (California) has a few wrinkles but the result ends up being the same.

Basically the legal system is designed to prevent fishing expeditions on decades-old claims. You cannot have possession of an agreement and then run to the courts asking for a billion dollars because you failed for three decades to read it carefully.

If you are past the statute of limitations, the bar is intentionally virtually impossibly high.

> In this case a 1% chance of $1bn represents an expected value of $10m.

This case has a 0% chance of anything because of the statute of limitations and no legitimate claim that would allow for decades-long tolling. He'd file suit, NVIDIA would file a motion to dismiss, the court would probably give him one chance to amend (to make an argument about tolling) and then it would be dismissed with prejudice.

If the full agreement had a prevailing-party attorney fee clause, this guy could end up paying NVIDIA's legal fees.

It's not just about storage. It's about fairness and creating an environment where people can transact in a relatively stable and predictable manner.

It is inherently unfair and destabilizing if people can sit on alleged wrongs, violations of agreements, etc. indefinitely, either intentionally or because they were ignorant or negligent, and then raise those wrongs in the court system any time they choose to.

A statute of limitations basically says "take your rights and obligations seriously and when you have a dispute over them with another party, raise it in a reasonable amount of time or forever hold your peace".

This does not apply because he was in possession of the agreement (grant document) the whole time. You don't get a decades long extension of the statute of limitations because you neglected to check what an agreement in your possession actually said.

> And I (quite reasonably) replied on them rather than checking the original documents.

Putting aside the fact that any claims here are almost certainly time barred after 30 years, ostensibly, your attorney explained to you that because you had the grant in your possession, claiming that you reasonably relied on the company's statement about what the grant said would weigh heavily against any misrepresentation or fraud causes of action in a lawsuit.

> We'd need some way for you to go into government early in your career with assurances that you can stay there for the rest of your career.

Prior to the current administration at least, staying in government work for an entire career was more than possible and let's be clear: tons of people do stay in these jobs. Not every government lawyer, SEC employee, etc. goes over to the "dark side".

The problem is not that there is no ability to stay in public service; it's that the financial rewards of going to the other side can be massive and for the most ambitious and money and power-driven, this is a problem because the system isn't nearly as resistant to corruption as Americans would like to believe.

People with intelligence, skill and drive can use public service as a path to lucrative opportunities working for companies and organizations that are diametrically opposed to the public interest.

> Major law firms often take cases from both plaintiffs and defendants in whatever fields their specialize in.

This actually isn't really true in the way you're suggesting. For example, you won't find firms that handle consumer class action defense filing class action lawsuits on behalf of consumers, you won't find firms that sue employers over wage and hour violations also representing employers, etc.

That's why firms in these markets are known as "plaintiff-side" or "defense-side" firms.

> The people in charge of these machines (that built them, release them in the wild or give them access to the general public or resources), these people are and will be held responsible.

Held responsible? They're already being rewarded with vast fortunes and influence.

> The point is, regulation is required, and is coming.

The regulation will be written at the behest of these companies and by the nation-state interests that have already decided this technology is too important geopolitically and militarily to not control.

This is a very Western take though.

The problem with "ignorance" in Western countries (particularly the US right now) is that it's very common for people who don't know to believe they know and form ignorant opinions that they often want to be applied society-wide in some way. You can see this with everything from climate change to vaccines.

In much of the world, even in middle income countries, people are comparatively poor and, in my experience living abroad in such countries for many years, much less concerned with "understanding" and forming opinions about everything under the sun. It doesn't mean they don't value education and are opposed to development/progress, but it does mean that they don't question whether the vaccine they're taking is the product of a conspiracy, think too deeply about why the river is flooding more often, etc.

They just deal with life the best they can and are more focused on supporting their families, enjoying what they can, etc.

Culture and religion play into this. The way secular and Judeo-Christian people look at the world is very different than, say, Buddhists, Muslims, Fulani tribespeople, and so on.

This is how most people already live.

The average person doesn't know how the medication they take works, the mechanics of climate and climate change, how the energy they consume is generated, etc.

If you read my comment carefully, I didn't argue for less regulation. I did suggest that more regulation wasn't the solution.

The quantity isn't the problem here; it's the quality. When the system has been completely corrupted, regulation stops doing what laypeople expect it to do.

Virtually none of the regulation people genuinely concerned about consumers, children, etc. would reasonably ask for will ever be enacted and enforced the way they'd want in today's broken system. The law isn't working for the masses; it's working for the asses.

Because the incel/manosphere narrative is that women are inherently dishonest and always looking to go after men for profit and/or spite.

These people simply do not want to believe that sexual harassment and assault really happen.

BREAKING NEWS: it's widely-discussed that the revolving door creates potential conflicts of interest and helps facilitate regulatory capture, which is why many observers argue that it has a corrupting influence and is a corrosive threat to democratic society.

And then people wonder why a whole swath of society is for tearing down public institutions, buys into conspiracy theories and is willing to elect the most unqualified people.

> ...what's inconvenient about it?

Putting aside the fact that a huge amount of regulation is designed by the most powerful companies to promote and defend their interests, the issue is that regulation, when not enforced, provides a way for corporations to inflict massive harm on individuals and discharge it for pennies on the dollar.

$18 billion was a paltry sum and represents about a month's worth of Meta's revenue. Let that sink in: a month's worth of revenue to discharge liabilities associated with years of massive harm to young people that some legal experts concluded could have reasonably resulted in damages in the high hundreds of billions of dollars, and possibly exceeding $1 trillion.

And as part of the settlement, Meta didn't even have to acknowledge any wrongdoing.

> Man, I love people on Internet making predictions that will be impossible to disprove for decades, and by that point nobody would care anyhow.

You're acting as if there's no precedent for what I stated when the evidence is overwhelming.

A handful of examples for you:

1. Eric Holder, former federal prosecutor, U.S. Attorney for D.C. and Deputy AG. He was a partner at Covington & Burling, where he represented Chiquita Brands in the case over its payments to a Colombian paramilitary group and also represented Uber and Airbnb.

2. Lanny Breuer, head of the DOJ's Criminal Division from 2009 to 2013. He didn't prosecute senior bank executives after the financial crisis and then went on to do white collar defense work as vice chair at Covington & Burling.

3. James Comey, U.S. Attorney for SDNY and Deputy AG. He became general counsel for Lockheed Martin and then Bridgewater Associates before he became FBI Director.

4. Mary Jo White, U.S. Attorney for SDNY. She defended financial institutions at Debevoise & Plimpton afterwards, then chaired the SEC between 2013 and 2017, and then went back to Debevoise.

5. Louis Freeh, federal prosecutor for SDNY, federal judge and FBI Director from 1993 to 2001. He went on to become general counsel credit card company MBNA and later represented Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan, who was alleged to have received over £1 billion in bribes from BAE Systems for arms deals. In his defense, Freeh argued that the money was actually going into official Saudi government accounts so they weren't bribes. BAE later pleaded guilty to US charges related to false statements and export violations.

Revolving doors in the US have gold handles.

The data wasn't "scraped." Here's the part you left out describing what really happened:

> Aleksandr Kogan, a data scientist at the University of Cambridge, was hired by Cambridge Analytica, an offshoot of SCL Group, to develop an app called "This Is Your Digital Life" (sometimes stylized as "thisisyourdigitallife").[15][16] Cambridge Analytica then arranged an informed consent process for research in which several hundred thousand Facebook users would agree to complete a survey for payment that was only for academic use.[15][17] However, Facebook allowed this app not only to collect personal information from survey respondents but also from respondents' Facebook friends.[15] In this way, Cambridge Analytica acquired data from millions of Facebook users.[15]

> Meta agreed in August to pay up to $18 billion to settle the multistate lawsuit surrounding child safety issues. Buried in the 130-page settlement was an agreement to release Meta from future liability related to the Cambridge Analytica privacy breach, making New Mexico the only state to pursue a case. Florida was the only other state that did not sign the settlement, saying it was not tough enough on Meta.

This is an inconvenient reminder for people who want more "regulation" and who believe states with high levels of paper regulation like California really care about protecting consumers.

Years down the line, you'll find that a bunch of the people who worked on these cases have cush jobs working on the other side.

Why don't you apply this attitude to the people you do seem to care about?

If someone is accused of sexual harassment, sexual assault, etc. and they believe it's defamation, they can always take it to the courts.

See how this works?

Sure, dude. "Women get bitten by the vagueness of their own rules, since they want to keep all options open" sounds like a completely detached, "I have no skin in this game" argument. Eyeroll.

> Women get bitten by the vagueness of their own rules, since they want to keep all options open.

What does this even mean? Do you know how ridiculous you sound?

> If it was a strict 'no workplace dating ever' it would have been easier for everyone.

News flash: most companies have rules around relationships between superiors and subordinates. Such rules are only effective when they're respected and enforced.

And what's your solution for "investors" who prey on female founders, tech millionaires and billionaires who use their reputations and influence to befriend women they later pounce on, etc.?

> Also feels like something that could be life ruining if someone innocent finds themselves on the list by mistake/fluke.

Not as likely as you think. The reason a list like this feels necessary to many (presumably mostly) women is that in SV culture there's a presumption that these sorts of claims are almost always baseless. That these women engaged in consensual activities and either regretted it after the fact or were trying to make a buck.

The author is not wrong, but telling a group of tech bros, autists and weirdos who are worth 8-11 figures that they need to develop skills to "address real user needs" just isn't going to convince any of them.

Depending on your environment (outdoors/bright sunlight and angle to the wearer) it can be pretty difficult to notice the light. And not everyone knows what the light is if they even notice it.

That functionality that is supposed to stop the recording if the light is covered is not perfect. You can find lots of "hacks" being offered online and apparently some of them work.

It's pretty obvious Meta did the bare minimum here. It could have made these much more conspicuous or decided, wisely, not to unleash this crap on society given the privacy and abuse concerns that clearly outweigh the benefits.

> Israel dragging us further into Iran during the first ~third of the conflict when the US was trying to find a clean place to stop the escalation is a pretty good example of that.

This is like the guy who claims that he wanted to stop beating his wife but his brother just wouldn't let him stop.

Let's be clear: nobody forced the US to attack Iran in the first place. There is a reason no president before Trump did what Trump did: defense and intelligence officials have known for a very long time how such an attack was likely to play out and how disastrous it would be for the region, the US and the global economy.

Trump was warned by senior intelligence and defense officials and he chose to ignore their advice because he's a very stable genius who knows better than anyone else.

You keep referring repeatedly to fines and how easy they are to collect in California, but a quick search indicates that, to date, Facebook has paid $0 in fines to California for CCPA violations.

The biggest fine ever recorded for CCPA violations was against Disney, and it was for a paltry $2.75 million. Disney pulls in $2.75 million in revenue every ~10 mintues.

The potential fines for these types of laws are basically considered a cost of doing business if they ever need to be paid, and pale in comparison to the revenue earned by monetizing user data.

> ...but at what point does Article 5 get invoked

Probably not as likely as you think.

First, these things intentionally fall short of clear "armed attacks" and are designed around plausible deniability.

Second, Europe/NATO are not looking for a fight. Russia is in a bad spot right now, but NATO is not in a great spot for a kinetic conflict with Russia either.

Lastly, I don't think NATO countries are eager to test America's willingness to defend Europe under the Trump administration because they already know the likely answer when they call for help.

And? This wasn't in Germany.

But you raise an interesting point: if this would be against the law in Germany, why is Facebook waiting for these glasses to be banned? It never should have made these available in Germany, and should be using technical means to ensure that they cannot function inside of Germany's borders.

So it's just more proof of the hypocrisy. Meta doesn't care about the privacy of the plebs.