6 ms·
If you invert your sentences, they become true: The law is not for entrepreneurs, they just see it as a signpost that you have to be aware of. It invariably en
by sillysaurusx 3y ago
If you invert your sentences, they become true:
The law is not for entrepreneurs, they just see it as a signpost that you have to be aware of. It invariably ends ok in the long run and in the short term everybody calls them tech bros.
Raise your hands if you’d rather go back to a world without Airbnb. Yes, there’s a negative externality aspect — if your neighbors are suddenly renting out their place to random people, that can get painfully annoying for you. But I bet if you did a methodical poll, most people would choose not to un-invent Airbnb.
Self driving cars, ditto. Cruise’s fleet is finally deployed all around SF, according to pg. It’s about to become as ubiquitous as electricity. And in the beginning, so many people argued that it’s against the law and therefore shouldn’t be developed. Then it quietly shifted to well, maybe the law should change.
It’s good to obey the law. I certainly try. But treating it as some kind of holy grail of ethics is fraught with peril. You’re outsourcing your thinking to the lowest common denominator: it’s what people in positions of power feel is justice. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn’t. And when it isn’t, do you really want to be the kind of person that believes it should be obeyed no matter the tradeoffs?
This isn’t a hypothetical for me. People have asked many times if I was worried that someone will try to come after me for making books3 available. Till one week ago, I wasn’t. But if the world really wants to say that I’m causing suffering by making books available to machine learning researchers, I have very little leverage to argue that I am not in fact doing that… except ethics. Because without books3, only OpenAI is able to train powerful large models, because they’re the only ones that can get away with it. Is that justice?
You’re an inspiration to me in many ways. I still remember you showing me your workshop, and how friggin cool it was. I’ve tried to channel your maker spirit over the years to be even half as talented. But I just don’t understand where this bitterness comes from against “tech bros”; it’s a fairly common theme in your writing. Sweeping generalizations are such dangerous territory, in terms of history proving that you were mistaken.
Now, maybe this Kenya business is terrible. I think it’s pretty dystopian. But that’s a separate question: evaluate each startup on its merits, and crucify the Theranos frauds. This can be done on an individual basis.
- rubiquity 3y ago> Raise your hands if you’d rather go back to a world without Airbnb Step outside of the software bubble we’re in and I’d guess 80% or more people would prefer a world without Airbnb. A significant part of the population does not use Airbnb and is also experiencing negative impacts of a housing shortage and affordability problems.
- fallingknife 3y agoThe number of housing units has not kept up with population growth. There's your housing shortage. Blaming Airbnb for this is laughable.
- phone8675309 3y agoIt’s not laughable if it’s exacerbating the problem
- ska 3y agoThe lack of builds is the primary cause, sure. But parent is not wrong that in a lot of places airbnb is clearly making the rental market worse.
- jdminhbg 3y ago> Step outside of the software bubble we’re in and I’d guess 80% or more people would prefer a world without Airbnb This is delusional. Here's one survey, by YouGov, pegging their liked-to-dislike ratio at 3.4: https://today.yougov.com/topics/travel/explore/website/Airbnb-Website?content=all https://today.yougov.com/topics/travel/explore/website/Airbn... The software bubble is nothing compared to a political bubble.
- jacquesm 3y agoI suggest looking across the US border for a bit.
- harperlee 3y agoSure, there’s no bias whatsoever in that survey, surely the old grandma living on an unspecified european city center that is against airbnb is as likely to respond as the young FAANG-salaried international US traveller that wants to travel cheap and authentic.
- jdminhbg 3y agoOn the one hand, we have survey data, with which we can quibble on methodology. On the other hand, we have an HN poster who just really doesn't like Airbnb and pulls a number from his nether regions guessing that everyone actually agrees with him. Truly a conundrum as to which might be closer to the truth.
- jacquesm 3y agoThat's pretty simple: I can't stand it that people with such an opportunity for improving the world around them would squander it and wreck it. That makes me bitter. As for whether if you invert it it becomes true: there are exceptions but for the most part the lawbreakers sooner or later end up running into the limits, be they SBF, Thiel, Musk or any other of the ethically challenged individuals that the tech world puts on a pedestal. Money seems to have structurally perverted our world and the rule of law is just about the last barrier that helps keep society functioning. Tear that down and you lose a lot more than just some 'minor inconveniences'. The law is the ultimate representation of the rules by which we play. Starting off by throwing out the rulebook in a way that will result in net negatives is a clear example of externalization: profits for the owners and investors and the damage for everybody else. That is not how we're going to get to a nicer and more sustainable future. There is a lot of fuss about the kleptocrats in Russia and how they rape their country and their fellow men. Rightly so. But the tech bros aren't that much better, they just sell it better. As for AirBnB disappearing: yes, please. > Now, maybe this Kenya business is terrible. Maybe? No, seriously: it is terrible, there is absolutely no way in hell that this is justifiable, it is with distance the worst thing Sam Altman has ever done and that plus OpenAi's blatant attempts at regulatory capture are enough to make me regret ever defending him on HN before because I thought that he was different. So, that leaves pc and his brother for now, the rest of the tech bro billionaires can go jump in a lake.
- fallingknife 3y ago> the lawbreakers sooner or later end up running into the limits, be they SBF, Thiel, Musk or any other of the ethically challenged individuals that the tech world puts on a pedestal. That's quite the accusation. What laws have Musk and Thiel broken?
- jacquesm 3y agoJust one for each then: https://www.reuters.com/legal/elon-musks-2018-tweet-tesla-union-campaign-illegal-us-court-rules-2023-03-31/ https://www.reuters.com/legal/elon-musks-2018-tweet-tesla-un... https://www.reuters.com/article/gawker-lawsuit-frankel-idUSL2N18M26V https://www.reuters.com/article/gawker-lawsuit-frankel-idUSL... Or maybe you like tax evasion better: https://prospect.org/economy/one-weird-trick-force-billionaires-pay-taxes-economic-substance-doctrine/ https://prospect.org/economy/one-weird-trick-force-billionai... And no, Thiel wasn't convicted of anything. But in my view this was a complete perversion of the law. And that's taking into account that I think everybody associated with Gawker is scum. Billionaires should pay their taxes rather than avoid them (what a term, it's just a spin on having enough money to be able to buy your way out of paying tax like everybody else) and they should not be able to use the law as their personal attack dog.
- hnhg 3y agoThat question is so loaded because it begs for a loss of knowledge about Airbnb, and that’s not something I would not want to lose. However, do I think Airbnb is a net gain for humans? No. But I wouldn’t “uninvent it”, in the literal sense.
- candiddevmike 3y agoI would like a world without Airbnb, yes. They ruin communities, and swindle tourists.
- manuelabeledo 3y ago> It’s good to obey the law. I certainly try. But treating it as some kind of holy grail of ethics is fraught with peril. You’re outsourcing your thinking to the lowest common denominator: it’s what people in positions of power feel is justice. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn’t. And when it isn’t, do you really want to be the kind of person that believes it should be obeyed no matter the tradeoffs? Nice, so we should be allowed to break the law if we feel that something is not right? Yes, laws may be unethical or immoral. There is a system in place to change them, though, at least in a democratic government. Self-driving cars are allowed to be in the streets because laws have changed. AirBnB is allowed to operate because the laws have changed. And I would rather have that, a slow process of adaptation, than a random guy letting their crazy inventions roam free just because he feels like he's "right".
- EnergyAmy 3y ago> Nice, so we should be allowed to break the law if we feel that something is not right? I mean... yes? That's the whole point of things like jury nullification and giving judges leeway in their sentencing. The law is not ethics. There's some correlation, but it's up to us as a society to apply it in an ethical way, and try to keep them aligned as much as possible.
- manuelabeledo 3y agoI don’t think you have considered the slippery slope that comes after.
- JohnFen 3y agoBreaking the law as a means of agitating for change isn't necessarily unethical. But an important part of that is accepting the legal consequences for the lawbreaking -- that's the part that accelerates change. Breaking the law in order to enhance your profit is an entirely different thing, and there is no high ground there.
- username332211 3y agoSo, breaking the law in and of itself doesn't accelerate change? I guess the corn laws are still a thing, alcohol is still illegal in America as is marijuana. A few years back the United states had the highest corporate taxes in the OECD, yet nobody was actually paying them in full. What happened? Congress lowered taxes. I have a question. Are you an altruist? If so, how can you square that with obeying laws that bring misery to others? Aren't others entitled to joy and happiness?
- jjoonathan 3y ago> Raise your hands if you’d rather go back to a world without Airbnb. Hand raised.
- boringg 3y ago> Raise your hands if you’d rather go back to a world without Airbnb. Two hands raised!
- balaji1 3y agoThere has to be survivor bias when we look at law breakers who made it. Tho when they do make it, they become huge... ie Airbnb is an exception.
- boh 3y agoThough we can appreciate the intense faith of Silicon Valley lore, this interpretation of the law is bizarrely narrow. The somewhat religious belief in progress is non-representative of the human experience. The function of the human race isn't to secure commercial services of convenience at any cost. It is possible that your beliefs don't correspond to the goals of local or global communities. For instance all you have to do is actually use a self-driving, slow/jerky/annoying Cruise car to know it'll be about as ubiquitous as a Segway, uses way more resources than is justifiable and that more public transit would do a better, and more environmental friendly job of getting people places. In summary, we have laws because other people exist and we live in a modern economy. Syria/Iraq/Russia operate more in line with your thinking and bend the laws for the rich (you know, for "progress").
- sillysaurusx 3y ago> The somewhat religious belief in progress is non-representative of the human experience. It seems the other way around. You'd have to be willfully blind to ignore that the human experience consists of technological progress. > The function of the human race isn't to secure commercial services of convenience at any cost. Who can say what the function of the human race is? I worry that we in software are becoming detached from reality in a strange way. I suspect your sentiment is common among the tech industry, and yet it seems the opposite of empirical observation -- the basis of science. > It is possible that your beliefs don't correspond to the goals of local or global communities. Sodomy, for example. To ram the point home, suppose you were born a few hundred years prior. Are you sure it would be unethical to engage in buttsex in the privacy of your own home with a consenting adult? Everyone's fine with that now, but it would quite literally get you executed not so long ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buggery_Act_1533 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buggery_Act_1533 > This meant that a convicted sodomite’s possessions could be confiscated by the government, rather than going to their next of kin, and that even priests and monks could be executed for the offence—even though they could not be executed for murder. In moving what had previously been an offence tried by ecclesiastical courts into the secular ones, Henry may have intended it as a simple expression of political power along with other contemporary acts such as Submission of the Clergy Act 1533 and one year before the Act of Supremacy 1534. However Henry later used the law to execute monks and nuns (thanks to information his spies had gathered) and take their monastery lands—the same tactics had been used 200 years before by Philip IV of France against the Knights Templar. The Knights Templar were a powerful organization, yet many of them were sentenced to death on the basis of buttsex being unjust. I fear we live in an era where, metaphorically speaking, the buttsex corporations engage in is being framed as unjust, even though it seems pretty fair to me. Coinbase, Uber, Airbnb... It's hard to find anyone here that actually thinks startups are a good idea anymore. Or at least, if people speak up and say that they're fine, they tend to be shouted down. > In summary, we have laws because other people exist and we live in a modern economy. Our views don't seem so modern. I think history may look back on us the way we look at the people in the 1500s.
- alexb_ 3y agoYes, actually, I absolutely would love to go back to a world without Airbnb.
- sillysaurusx 3y agoHow about Uber? Are we so insular that we won’t agree it was a good thing that drunk people can call for a driver at 2am?
- input_sh 3y agoWhat kind of false equivalence is this? It's Uber or drunk driving, literally no other option? There is no Uber in my country (nor Lyft, nor anything similar), yet I always make it back home when I'm drunk, alive and without a need to sit behind the wheel. So does everyone else.
- mola 3y agoAre we so insular as to think that lobbying for the destruction of workers rights world wide is much worse than waiting more time for a cab?
- jacquesm 3y agoThe 'gig economy' has eroded about 100 years of progress in workers rights. The price of that erosion will not be visible for another 30 years or so, but when the bill is presented I suspect it won't be pretty.
- alexb_ 3y agoYes, absolutely. Uber poured a shitload of money they will never make back and now convince people that they should be able to get a driver on demand for cheap. If you need a ride, call a friend/family member/anyone who can trust you to spot them for gas.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- mola 3y agoDisrupting the law as an ideal is not the same as "It’s good to obey the law. I certainly try. But treating it as some kind of holy grail of ethics is fraught with peril" Idealizing being indifferent to the law is pulling the rug under the whole idea of democracy and rule of law. It has dire consequences. Much dire than a less than perfect taxi cab experience.
- JeremyNT 3y ago> Raise your hands if you’d rather go back to a world without Airbnb. I'm here, raising my hand! Zoning requirements exist for a reason. In this AirBNB hellscape, we now have entirely unregulated hotels in my nominally residential neighborhood. I live in a tourist town and it gets the worst kind of tourists, there to drink and play loud music to all hours of the morning. These companies can fuck right off. Sometimes they accidentally improve things on one axis by ignoring regulations that are no longer relevant or overly burdensome, only to make something much worse on another. They're blunt instruments of criminality - they indiscriminately tear through both the useless red tape as well as the proper regulations that exist for entirely good reasons.
- optimalsolver 3y agoJust keep a look out for those hidden cameras on your next Air BnB stay: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/03/what-happens-when-you-find-cameras-your-airbnb/585007/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/03/what-...