kevmo

This is clearly heading in a direction where the USA is going to elect a huge number of socialists, who in turn are going to enact massive taxes on billionaires and break up the monopolies.[1]

This is why I think the billionaire oligarchs are literally mentally ill. They've won the entire game. They control everything. They live like gods, they twitch a pinky and millions dance.

But their response to all of this power is to seek even more of it, destabilizing the very system that has them on top. You would think self-preservation would kick in. The fact that it is not and that their greed knows apparently no bounds is going to lead to their extinction.

For a long time I thought it was hyperbolic to say so, but no longer -- the billionaires are mentally ill.

[1] https://work.news/post/project-2031/

That's an incredibly nice story.

Are you taking better care of yourself?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs

They aren't going to do a thing to Altman except extract more bribes.

Government investment works. That's why America's billionaires are mostly just people stealing as much of it as they can.

You're right, but that GitHub is dead.

Also, the former stewards of that open source goodness sold it to Microsoft for a cheap buck.

Any goodwill they earned has been spent.

Get rid of their highest-paid employees, replace them with off-shoring and AI.

Eventually the fact that the US military and government is getting tech support from overseas will catch up. Microsoft is a walking national security disaster.

But all they care about is "line go up next quarter". Their monopoly has made them lazy.

This would have been obvious to anyone following the war in Vietnam, even.

The Iranians have explicitly tweeted:

"For years, we've been awaiting the Americans' entry into the designated points, and for over two decades, we've been training with the asymmetric warfare strategy for this very moment. Now, we have just one message for the American soldiers: Come closer."

Also the war games from a quarter century ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002

I suspect every generation has multiple Einsteins, but they're probably getting killed in war zones or crushed under oligarchy.

The US intentionally created the ATC shortage. From Wikipedia:

The PATCO Strike of 1981 was a union-organized work stoppage by air traffic controllers (ATCs) in the United States. The Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) declared a strike on August 3, 1981, after years of tension between controllers and the federal government over long hours, chronic understaffing, outdated equipment, and rising workplace stress. Despite 13,000 ATCs striking, the strike ultimately failed, as the Reagan administration was able to replace the striking ATCs, resulting in PATCO's decertification.

The failure of the PATCO strike impacted the American labor movement, accelerating the decline in labor unions in the country, and initiating a much more aggressive anti-union policy by the federal government and private sector employers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_Professional_Air_Traffic_...

Microsoft needs to be broken up.

That's basically Bernie Sanders modus operandus. Burlington was running budget surpluses when he was in charge.

It's not hard, you just have to make rich people pay taxes. This is an enormously popular idea.

Mods are going to boot this off the front page.

I was getting a haircut last week and chatting about our kids with the stylist, who said (basically): "I just started letting my 7 year old on Roblox. I know its full of pedophiles. I told him to come to me or his older brother if anyone tries to talk to him."

If the million reports of Mark Zuckerberg enabling pedophiles and scam artists haven't made it clear, the executives of these tech companies just don't care. They will sell children into sexual slavery if it improves next quarter's numbers.

I killed a book deal I had for this book I mostly finished:

https://kevmo.io/zero-to-code/

I inked the deal in 2023, but shortly after felt like the market was too dead for newbies. When I initially removed the website for the book, I got a small wave of complaints, so I guess some folks still found it helpful.

I wonder why they don't...

We are feeding children to the wolves to boost quarterly Big Tech numbers.

Society is breaking down in part because of it.

America would be a nicer place if Mark Zuckerberg went to prison.

It's not about fads. It's just collusion.

American markets have largely consolidated into oligopolies, where just a handful of very large companies operate. It's extremely easy for them to wink at each other and then raise prices/layoff workers, etc.

This is also being accelerated by the unregulated software market that lets the corporations hide behind algorithms, as we recently saw with realty. https://www.npr.org/2024/08/23/nx-s1-5087586/realpage-rent-l...

The end of ZIRP was the bat signal to corporate America to begin layoffs.

You'd be better off just activating a real landline and not using an app.

Does Peter Thiel still get a piece of all the YC startups?

The cost to post is trivial, especially if you don't fill the position. It's about looking prestigious and maintaining the impression that you're hiring.

Also seems necessary for all the H-1B fraud.

    Turning and turning in the widening gyre
    The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
    Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
    The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
    The best lack all conviction, while the worst
    Are full of passionate intensity.

    Surely some revelation is at hand;
    Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
    The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
    When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
    Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert
    A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
    A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
    Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
    Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
    The darkness drops again; but now I know
    That twenty centuries of stony sleep
    Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
    And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
    Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

PRISMGPT

Another Trump quote taken totally out of context. He was encouraging people who don't normally vote to get out and vote this time.

People who oppose Trump don't do themselves any favors by misrepresenting this stuff. The guy is a ghoul and says plenty of terrible things that don't need misrepresentation to make him look bad.

The DNC's #1 goal is to stop socialism in the primaries. A distant #2 is winning general elections.

Billionaire philanthropy is just another tax-free way oligarchs manipulate our society.

Because at some point, you need domestically-owned manufacturing as a matter of national security.

Billionaires should not exist.

I'm not that far gone, but I am very selective about when I buy ice cream, because my fat ass will just eat it all within 2-3 days. Cannot have it around regularly.

If you just make a post about healthcare in the USA being awful, it's highly likely to be removed/booted off the front page. Call it a "right to repair", though, and you're hitting the sweet spot for HN.