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cbtacy

806 karma · joined May 24, 2012

building internet sh*t since 1992. left Hacker News in May of 2023 due to the rampant bigotry and hate that has consumed this site, and this community.
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cbtacy··on I was laid off in retaliation for anti-discrimination whistleblowing
That's it. I'm done.

Been a Hacker News user since this launched, but have been feeling increasingly like I'm not part of this culture and don't want to be part of this culture anymore. So I'm out.

It's sad and kind of tragic to see what was once a thriving, diverse community that embraced all types of marginalized people (nerds, engineers, geeks, and so on) become a cesspool of bigotry and hate speech.

And the real tragedy, of course, is that Hacker News is just a microcosm of the developer culture -- which has become disgusting and hateful.

I hope those of you who are not bigots manage to fix this place. I hope the developer culture becomes healthier and less toxic. But I'm not going to be around to help or see it. Y'all are too exhausting and depressing.

Peace out.

cbtacy··on I was laid off in retaliation for anti-discrimination whistleblowing
Bingo
cbtacy··on I was laid off in retaliation for anti-discrimination whistleblowing
Reforming "flagging" to make it less open to abuse and brigading is obviously overdue.
cbtacy··on I was laid off in retaliation for anti-discrimination whistleblowing
I love that this is being downvoted. Nothing validates my point better.
cbtacy··on I was laid off in retaliation for anti-discrimination whistleblowing
sadly, very common. See: anything critical about Elon Musk. See: anything about LGBTQ+ issues.
cbtacy··on Presentations and pitch decks by failures and frauds
I don't know if anyone has done the deep analysis to determine if fraud is more frequent and severe and agree this seems like a doubtful statement, but I suspect it's likely that corporate collapses have in fact become more common and more frequent -- but due simply to the fact that the global total number of corporations has increased exponentially since the mid 20th century.
cbtacy··on Why I'm not worried about AI causing mass unemployment
1) AI is Software. Marc was just a little off on market timing, and the eating starts for real right now.

2) I worked for a large private equity company on contract for a bit. The team I worked on was doing analysis about what the likely impact of AI, robotics, and automation on true unemployment in the US was likely to be as of 2030. Largely due to the impact on food service, retail, agriculture, customer support, and entry level corporate jobs the conclusion was that we'll see true unemployment in the 40% range at that time.

cbtacy··on Twitter Circle tweets are not that private anymore
This is bad. This should result in more EU fines, and the Consent Decree is obviously in play. SMH.
cbtacy··on Sam Altman didn’t take any equity in OpenAI, report says
Investors include Y Combinator, Reid Hoffman, Peter Thiel, Khosla Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Microsoft, Amazon, Infosys, Tiger Global, Elevation Capital, Bedrock Capital, Wikus Ventures, Social Discovery Ventures, Pre IPO Club, Matthew Brown Companies, Change.org, and Fenrir.
cbtacy··on Shutdown: Agora (YC S19)
I was talking about how their rejection of this post is a bad look for YC, not about how their lack of support for the entrepreneur is a bad look.
cbtacy··on Shutdown: Agora (YC S19)
Definitely not a good look for YC.
cbtacy··on Startup Bank Had a Startup Bank Run
"But if all of your depositors are startups with the same handful of venture capitalists on their boards, and all those venture capitalists are competing with each other to Add Value and Be Influencers and Do The Current Thing by calling all their portfolio companies to say “hey, did you hear, everyone’s taking money out of Silicon Valley Bank, you should too,” then all of your depositors will take their money out at the same time."
cbtacy··on [dead]
"My guess is that some continue to feel that Musk’s cruelty reflects his ability to see the world as it “really is”, where useless people like designers and disabled people drain energy from the engineers who really build things."
cbtacy··on A single engineer brought down Twitter on Monday
"The one remaining site reliability engineer attached to the project"
cbtacy··on The reasons developers love open source
Would developers love open source if personal visibility in open source was comparable to personal visibility in closed source?
cbtacy··on Social media is a cause, not a correlate, of mental illness in teen girls
One boarding school has gone as far as to ban smartphones for students AND teachers due to this issue.

ABC story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSUrE4-zYzg

cbtacy··on McKinsey Plans to Eliminate About 2000 Jobs in One of Its Biggest Rounds of Cuts
1) they're taking advantage of market conditions to top grade 2) they need to protect partner payouts 3) they will replace these folks over the coming 18 months with cheaper, younger versions (but won't get anywhere near the absurdly low average annual comp of Accenture)
cbtacy··on Elon Musk keeps laying off Twitter employees after saying cuts were done
The layoffs are honestly less shocking than the demand that engineers "make twitter ad targeting work like Google's.... in a week."
cbtacy··on Staff, reportedly under threat of firing, break Twitter for Musk
“He bought the company, made a point of showcasing what he believed was broken and manipulated under previous management, then turns around and manipulates the platform to force engagement on all users to hear only his voice. I think we’re past the point of believing that he actually wants what’s best for everyone here.”
cbtacy··on Elon Musk fires a top Twitter engineer over his declining view count
Nice fan fiction. Well done.
cbtacy··on Elon Musk fires a top Twitter engineer over his declining view count
"One of the company’s two remaining principal engineers..."

Says it all.

cbtacy··on “In roughly two hours, 1647 devices are about to be wiped”
Ironically, one of the first things I learned working in software businesses (a long, long time ago now) was the following:

Human problems require human solutions. Tooling problems require tooling solutions.

cbtacy··on Celsius Used New Customer Funds to Pay for Withdrawals
Yup. Quite the business plan. Makes you wonder about Cianna Capital, WestCap, Alpha Sigma Capital, gumi Cryptos Capital, Fabric Ventures, and all the others who dumped $998M into what is so obviously a criminal enterprise.
cbtacy··on Ask HN: Do you hate software engineering but love programming?
This is what we used to call a "code artist"

A good job tends to be one not in software

cbtacy··on Ask HN: Do you hate software engineering but love programming?
This is what we used to call a "code artist"
cbtacy··on Sam Bankman-Fried Asks Judge to Keep His Bail Guarantors Secret
"Rigged game"
cbtacy··on EU threatens Elon Musk with sanctions after Twitter’s suspension of journalists
"Free Speech"
cbtacy··on Trump NFTs Offer Adoring 45,000 Views of Former President
And here I was thinking nothing could further damage the reputation of NFTs....
cbtacy··on ElonJet Is Now Suspended
Again, take this s*t to Truth Social where fact free conspiracy BS belongs.
cbtacy··on ElonJet Is Now Suspended
Anyone who still believes anything the man says needs help.
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