mindfulplay

It's nice to be able to take down people like Chamath in this way via the market itself.

Chamath is one of those popularity seeking stunt masters who are actually charlatans behind the scenes.

Haven't listened to the audio, but why is this dude chamath still 'popular'? He seems like a modern day hedge fund trader who successfully navigates twitter but hasn't produced much of any value?

Seems like he is riding the FB hate train like any good marketing/snakeoil sales professional would.

Really wish the new tech platforms provide a better soapbox and speakerphone than hacks such as this person. He is simply not worth listening to.

Well, they will probably continue ramming this through in other countries where they have a lot more users without having to worry about any privacy implications.

Isn't the better idea to simply remove the keyboard noise? I think a few services do this already...

Seems rather condescending doesn't it?

You don't need a PR agency to sugar coat four billion dollars... It's actually pretty generous and requires some level of good faith assumption on our part.

Did you max out your credit cards and have an VC walk out in the middle of a smoothie lunch? Because that's apparently the secret to success based on the AirBnBs of the world...

But still very laudable!

It makes no sense to colonize Mars or any other planet other than a pure show or an escapist mentality.

Human beings as a species have shown the inability to even cohabit a 5 square mile space peacefully let alone colonize other worlds.

Better to stay here and explore and study the wonders of nature. We have yet to even understand how a simple protein evolves to produce all this wonderful life and consciousness and brains....

Well not sure how to feel sorry for you: you rely on Chinese manufacturing and this is not something thats novel in the first place. Amazon is not a copyright or a trademark enforcer, so this speaks to your inability to sue one Chinese manufacturer (the copier) over another (your preferred manufacturer).

It seems like as a society we have given up on any manufacturing or making physical things outside of a few communist controlled territories. Seems very much like working as intended.... Play with fire, catch fire that's what you get.

This is a federally protected land, there are no special rules for art unless it was before when such laws were made.

FWIW, I find this piece of trash to be a showoff moment for some wannabe 'artist'. Mimicking a movie prop to me sounds like a low-effort, untalented mindset.

Wind is not consistent and the scaling of the plants is non-uniform/sublinear... Wind is also supplementary because of its inconsistencies and so will not directly power grids.

At some point, I hope such hidden heroes get their success outspoken more publicly: Dave cutler, Dianne hackborn are prime examples. I do like the fact John Carmack and Linus who are well-deserved to have a public following. But there are many more. And it doesn't have to be a showoff as much understanding the context in which Dave Cutler or Dianne Hackborn et al actually succeeded as engineers and the deep technical work they are lauded for.

Too close to home here.

How does one write so many words to communicate so little of value?

And the message? Quit some VC funded thing and start a blog?

The world is a strange place... Hedge fund sellouts now have finally found an alternative.

This seems on par or worse than what the Sacklers did.

But because this is a multiheaded beast with no clear villain to blame, nothing really happens. Congress are to blame.

This is fascinating and new to me. I thought it was designed by say the DNA or the rna to behave in that coordinated manner and to seek specific molecules. But if it's just a random walk and somehow this success at this scale and speed, it is even more simple yet incredible to think.

This is fascinating - similar to octopuses. But I am not sure if its arrogant of our species to assess intelligence in this way (absolutely no disrespect to these great scientists BTW) : surely there must be a better way; and perhaps our notion of "intelligence" / "consciousness" is primitive and our current assessment is backwards?

Also, if we were to make contact with an alien civilization, hopefully we have something better than "let's see how they open this tightly closed jar underwater?" or "flash them a few red/green cards and see what happens".

Why does that matter? Why are humans so special? I 'feel' like octopuses are the better candidate :) putting aside trivial human aspirations....

Octopuses are so fascinating. We scour other planets and galaxies for life / mystical aliens sending aimless signals in search of reciprocation or even acknowledgement.

I wonder how amazing it would be if we had a similar grand undertaking in our oceans... With just octopuses (without interfering with them)?

They are perfect aliens we are seemingly looking for in the skies but living right alongside us....

Actually not. Octopuses (female) breed their young for months without eating and then die off. Seems like they have perfected this system over millenia via evolution?

I find this amusing as this is an inherently human emotional evaluation. Perhaps that is not the point in the grand scheme of things?

Octopuses have survived for 500+ millions of years and I would say more intelligent and peaceful than humans who 'ruled' or savaged their own species for... what benefit actually?

I have often wondered about this aspect of lifespan. Octopuses are amazing.

Perhaps their relatively short lifespan and lifecycle after mating is somehow correlated with them being around for 500+ million years. Somehow I find that more fascinating.

I feel like humans are inherently lower on this scale: we definitely live longer but I wonder as a species if we would be better off with shorter lifespan (and life cycle) like octopuses that helps the entire human species survive (peacefully?) as opposed to an optimization around single individual lifespan.

One amazing snippet that is contradictory to human beings: octopuses are color-blind across their entire body (with their physical eyes as well as their "body" eyes) but they are excellent camouflage artists! How is that even possible. Don't you need to perceive color to be able to take it??

Fantastic article. Superb writing and makes me ponder about our species in general.

I do have a general take on how humans perceive or judge other organisms through a very human lens. We characterize organisms based on their social structure, longevity, 'cleverness' etc. While looking at how humans compare with octopuses at a meta level, octopuses seem to be not waging wars, more peaceful, seem to have survived for more than 600 millions years. I wonder if human beings would have a similar track record: looks like humans are well into destroying their own kind and the environment faster than most other creatures.

At the same time human beings seem ill equipped to judge or characterize 'alien' lives: we often want to 'make contact' or have a communication or social channel with aliens. As if a show of our mental power and social structure is the most important aspect..

Just looking at how octopuses are being measured by humans, it feels rather silly the kind of approaches humans use to evaluate other species let alone aliens.

Here are a few I just invented to mimic these pseudo philosophers (modern day VC charlatans):

Tomorrow is a mist. Today's the sunshine.

Make the world better by building something anything today.

Build shit. Ship shit. That's all there is to success.

----- I almost feel like these Twitter personalities like Balaji, Naval, Chamath are the VC equivalent of Shia Lebouf. They became popular by shouting out loud. I have no idea why they matter at all in the computer science industry.

The fact that they cannot disambiguate between a white truck and the sky color that killed an innocent driver is a starting point.

I realize the drivers probably should be paying attention etc: but when Tesla falsely advertises (or worse by the toddler antics of Elon, portrays the optics of L5 automation); and drivers believe such advertisements then of course they wouldn't know that the car is much worse than promised.

Great. I hope they bring charges against Tesla for causing deaths that were completely avoidable.

In fact we keep talking about AI ethics and so on. But we seem to have missed this very basic key ethical point: when Silicon Valley VC funded madness via AI/ML crap is pushed at breakneck speeds via these metal torpedoes, who is taking accountability?

It's really amazing that Elon is worried about AI overlords when a 'simple' autopilot is not engineered to ethical standards. (Same goes for people like Andrej Karpathy and co who should take the blame and publicly apologize/resign).

Shameful.

Glad Germany is ahead of the curve.

I would not use Silicon Valley technology to A/B test death rates by 'trying' arbitrary 'cool' things inside a fast moving metal torpedo. He can play with toys as he pleases but using real cars seems absolutely bonkers.

This person seems to generate a lot of noise disproportional to his talent/skills. He has a pinned tweet that is absurdly positioning himself to the likes of Berkshire Hathaway: sort of a megalomaniac complex. Reading his Annual Letter (which directly quotes/'competes' with Warren buffett) gives me a cringe feeling.

He got out of FB claiming the company is shit ( no arguments). But his new ventures and Twitter commentary is at odds with his position: Social Capital seems like a farcical take compared with the likes of Gates, Buffett who have actually proven with their actions not empty egocentric Twitter threads.

Classic VC turned Savior mentality: except underneath it all these people are regular 'get lucky' hedge fund greedy hacks.

Honestly, in a sea of internet cesspool, HN consistently shines.

Importantly, I have changed my opinions on certain aspects of technology or politics based on rational civilized discourse that happens here. Disagreement is actually an active and important part of such discussions.

That is indeed the scariest part. Given the number of vehicular fatalities this guy is personally responsible for at Tesla, I don't think this is a smart or important approach.

The callous nature in which people apply Silicon Valley mindset to critical infrastructure problems is scary: perhaps he should get off his self-driving high horse.