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Elon Musk alone disproves your theory. I wish I agreed with you, I'm sure I'd be happier. But there's just too many successful sociopaths. Hell there was a popu

Elon Musk alone disproves your theory. I wish I agreed with you, I'm sure I'd be happier. But there's just too many successful sociopaths. Hell there was a popular book about it.

npinsker 2y ago
Sociopathy isn’t the same thing as duplicity.
- greenthrow 2y ago
  Of course. I never said they were. But sociopaths do tend to be very comfortable lying and backstabbing.
cynicalpeace 2y ago
Musk kicks butt and is taking us to space. He proves my theory.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- ben_w 2y ago
  Space Musk, Tesla Musk, and Everything Else Musk, act as though they're three different people. Space Musk promises a lot, has a grand vision, and gets stuff delivered. The price may be higher than he says and delivered later, but it's orders of magnitude better than the competition. Tesla Musk makes and sells cars. They're ok. Not bad, not amazing, glad they precipitated the EV market, but way too pricey now that it's getting mature. Still, the showmanship is still useful for the brand. Everything Else Musk could genuinely be improved by replacing him with an LLM: it would be just as overconfident and wrong, but cost less to get there.
  - cynicalpeace 2y ago
    I don't think what you're saying is true, but even if it's true, it means Elon is doing a great service solely via Space Musk.
    - ben_w 2y ago
      Unfortunately for those of us who like space (the idea of being an early Martian seller is appealing to me), Everything Else Musk is hurting the reputation of the other two. Not enough to totally prevent success, but enough to be concerned about investments.
- sgdfhijfgsdfgds 2y ago
  Ehhh though he does seem to think that taking the USA to fascism is a prerequisite. (This is, I think, an apolitical observation: whatever you think about Trump, he is arguing for a pretty major restructuring of political power in a manner that is identifiable in fascism. And Musk is, pretty unarguably, bankrolling this.)
  - chasd00 2y ago
    Both political parties in the US have adopted a “you’re either with us or you’re the enemy” position.
    - sgdfhijfgsdfgds 2y ago
      1) not really, only one of them talks about opponents as enemies 2) the leader of only one of them is threatening to lock up journalists, shut down broadcasters, and use the military against his enemies. 3) only one of them led an attempted autogolpe that was condemned at the time by all sides 4) Musk is only backing the one described in 1, 2 and 3 above. It's not really arguable, all this stuff. The guy who thinks the USA should go to Mars clearly thinks he's better throwing in his lot with the whiny strongman dude who is on record -- via his own social media platform -- as saying that the giant imaginary fraud he projected to explain his humiliating loss was a reason to terminate the Constitution. And he's putting a lot of money into it, and co-running the ground game. But sure, he wants to go to Mars. So it's all good.
- greenthrow 2y ago
  Your crediting the work of thousands of talented people to him while similtaneously dismissing the lies that are solely his is very weird to me. Especially for someone saying trustworthiness in CEOs is so important. (I am not a Sam Altman fan either, so don't read me as defending him.)
paulryanrogers 2y ago
Still depends on the definition of success. Money and companies with high stock prices? Healthy family relationships and rich circle of diverse friends?
- cynicalpeace 2y ago
  I would argue this is not subjective. "Healthy family relationships and rich circle of diverse friends" is an objectively better definition than "Money and companies with high stock prices". I await with arms crossed all the lost souls arguing it's subjective.
  - genrilz 2y ago
    While I personally also consider my relationships to be more important than my earnings, I am still going to argue that it's subjective. Case in point, both you and I disagree with Altman about what success means. We are all human beings, and I don't see any objective way to argue one definition is better than another. In case you are going to make an argument about how happiness or some related factor objectively determines success, let me head that off. Altman thinks that power rather than happiness determines success, and is also a human being. Why objectively is his opinion wrong and yours right? Both of your definitions just look like people's opinions to me.
    - cynicalpeace 2y ago
      Arms crossed Was not going to argue happiness at all. In fact, happiness seems a very hedonistic and selfish way to measure it too. My position is more mother goose-like. We simply have basic morals that we teach children but don't apply to ourselves. Be honest. Be generous. Be fair. Be strong. Don't be greedy. Be humble. That these are objectively moral is unprovable but true. It's religious and stoic in nature. It's anathema to HN, I know.
      - genrilz 2y ago
        Sorry about the delay. I got sidetracked. That... is actually a pretty interesting argument. I have to admit that if an objective morality existed floating in the Aether, there would be no way to logically prove or disprove that one's beliefs matched it. Since I can't argue it logically, let me make an emotional appeal by explaining how my beliefs are tied to my life: I chose to be a utilitarian when I was 12 or so, though I didn't know it had that name yet. The reason I chose this is that I wanted my beliefs to be consistent and kind. Utilitarianism has only one basic rule, so it can't really conflict with itself. Kindness wise, you can technically weigh others however you like, but I think most utilitarians just assume that all people have equal worth. This choice means that I doubted that my emotions captured any truth about morality. Over the years, my emotions did further effect my beliefs. For instance, I tweaked the rules to avoid "Tyranny of the Majority" type things. However, my beliefs also changed my emotions. One fruit of this is that I started to mediate conflicts more often instead of choosing a side. Sometimes it does make more sense to choose a side, but often people will all behave well if you just hear them out. Another fruit of these beliefs is that rather than thinking of things in terms of "good" or "bad", I now tend to compare states of the world as being better or worse than each other. This means that no matter how little capacity I have, I can still get myself to make things a little better for others. All this to say, I feel like deciding to doubt my own feelings very much did what young me wanted it to do. I wouldn't be able to grow as a person if I thought I was right in the beginning. I'd be interested to hear how you came to your beliefs. Given how firmly you've argued in this thread, it sounds like you probably have a story behind your beliefs too.
015a 2y ago
You should really read the OP's theory as: clearly untrustworthy people lose out. Trustworthy people, and unclearly untrustworthy people, win. OAI's problem isn't that Sam is untrustworthy; he's just too obviously untrustworthy.
- cynicalpeace 2y ago
  Yes correct. And hopefully untrustworthy people become clearly untrustworthy people eventually. Elon is not "untrustworthy" because of some ambitious deadlines or some stupid statements. He's plucking rockets out of the air and doing it super cheap whereas all competitors are lining their pockets with taxpayer money. You add in everything else (free speech, speaking his mind at great personal risk, tesla), he reads as basically trustworthy to me. When he says he's going to do something and he explains why, I basically believe him, knowing deadlines are ambitious.
  - hobs 2y ago
    There's so many demos where Elon has faked and lied its very surprising to have him read as "basically trustworthy" even if he has done other stuff - have dancing people as robots with fake robot demos, the fake solar roof, fake full self driving, really fake promises about cyber taxis and teslas paying for themselves (like 7 years ago?). The free speech part also reads completely hollow when the guy's first actions were to ban his critics on the platform and bring back self avowed nazis - you could argue one of those things are in favor of free speech, but generally doing both just implies you are into the nazi stuff.
    - cynicalpeace 2y ago
      Would you trust Elon or ULA to take you to the ISS? Even though ULA has tweeted pretty much no falsehoods (that I know of) You're complaining about tweets and meanwhile he's saving astronauts and getting us to the moon. Wake up man.
      - hobs 2y ago

Elon Musk alone disproves your theory. I wish I agreed with you, I'm sure I'd be happier. But there's just too many successful sociopaths. Hell there was a popular book about it.

npinsker 2y ago

Sociopathy isn’t the same thing as duplicity.

greenthrow 2y ago
Of course. I never said they were. But sociopaths do tend to be very comfortable lying and backstabbing.

cynicalpeace 2y ago

Musk kicks butt and is taking us to space. He proves my theory.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
ben_w 2y ago
Space Musk, Tesla Musk, and Everything Else Musk, act as though they're three different people. Space Musk promises a lot, has a grand vision, and gets stuff delivered. The price may be higher than he says and delivered later, but it's orders of magnitude better than the competition. Tesla Musk makes and sells cars. They're ok. Not bad, not amazing, glad they precipitated the EV market, but way too pricey now that it's getting mature. Still, the showmanship is still useful for the brand. Everything Else Musk could genuinely be improved by replacing him with an LLM: it would be just as overconfident and wrong, but cost less to get there.
- cynicalpeace 2y ago
  I don't think what you're saying is true, but even if it's true, it means Elon is doing a great service solely via Space Musk.
  - ben_w 2y ago
    Unfortunately for those of us who like space (the idea of being an early Martian seller is appealing to me), Everything Else Musk is hurting the reputation of the other two. Not enough to totally prevent success, but enough to be concerned about investments.
sgdfhijfgsdfgds 2y ago
Ehhh though he does seem to think that taking the USA to fascism is a prerequisite. (This is, I think, an apolitical observation: whatever you think about Trump, he is arguing for a pretty major restructuring of political power in a manner that is identifiable in fascism. And Musk is, pretty unarguably, bankrolling this.)
- chasd00 2y ago
  Both political parties in the US have adopted a “you’re either with us or you’re the enemy” position.
  - sgdfhijfgsdfgds 2y ago
    1) not really, only one of them talks about opponents as enemies 2) the leader of only one of them is threatening to lock up journalists, shut down broadcasters, and use the military against his enemies. 3) only one of them led an attempted autogolpe that was condemned at the time by all sides 4) Musk is only backing the one described in 1, 2 and 3 above. It's not really arguable, all this stuff. The guy who thinks the USA should go to Mars clearly thinks he's better throwing in his lot with the whiny strongman dude who is on record -- via his own social media platform -- as saying that the giant imaginary fraud he projected to explain his humiliating loss was a reason to terminate the Constitution. And he's putting a lot of money into it, and co-running the ground game. But sure, he wants to go to Mars. So it's all good.
greenthrow 2y ago
Your crediting the work of thousands of talented people to him while similtaneously dismissing the lies that are solely his is very weird to me. Especially for someone saying trustworthiness in CEOs is so important. (I am not a Sam Altman fan either, so don't read me as defending him.)

paulryanrogers 2y ago

Still depends on the definition of success. Money and companies with high stock prices? Healthy family relationships and rich circle of diverse friends?

cynicalpeace 2y ago
I would argue this is not subjective. "Healthy family relationships and rich circle of diverse friends" is an objectively better definition than "Money and companies with high stock prices". I await with arms crossed all the lost souls arguing it's subjective.
- genrilz 2y ago
  While I personally also consider my relationships to be more important than my earnings, I am still going to argue that it's subjective. Case in point, both you and I disagree with Altman about what success means. We are all human beings, and I don't see any objective way to argue one definition is better than another. In case you are going to make an argument about how happiness or some related factor objectively determines success, let me head that off. Altman thinks that power rather than happiness determines success, and is also a human being. Why objectively is his opinion wrong and yours right? Both of your definitions just look like people's opinions to me.
  - cynicalpeace 2y ago
    Arms crossed Was not going to argue happiness at all. In fact, happiness seems a very hedonistic and selfish way to measure it too. My position is more mother goose-like. We simply have basic morals that we teach children but don't apply to ourselves. Be honest. Be generous. Be fair. Be strong. Don't be greedy. Be humble. That these are objectively moral is unprovable but true. It's religious and stoic in nature. It's anathema to HN, I know.
    - genrilz 2y ago
      Sorry about the delay. I got sidetracked. That... is actually a pretty interesting argument. I have to admit that if an objective morality existed floating in the Aether, there would be no way to logically prove or disprove that one's beliefs matched it. Since I can't argue it logically, let me make an emotional appeal by explaining how my beliefs are tied to my life: I chose to be a utilitarian when I was 12 or so, though I didn't know it had that name yet. The reason I chose this is that I wanted my beliefs to be consistent and kind. Utilitarianism has only one basic rule, so it can't really conflict with itself. Kindness wise, you can technically weigh others however you like, but I think most utilitarians just assume that all people have equal worth. This choice means that I doubted that my emotions captured any truth about morality. Over the years, my emotions did further effect my beliefs. For instance, I tweaked the rules to avoid "Tyranny of the Majority" type things. However, my beliefs also changed my emotions. One fruit of this is that I started to mediate conflicts more often instead of choosing a side. Sometimes it does make more sense to choose a side, but often people will all behave well if you just hear them out. Another fruit of these beliefs is that rather than thinking of things in terms of "good" or "bad", I now tend to compare states of the world as being better or worse than each other. This means that no matter how little capacity I have, I can still get myself to make things a little better for others. All this to say, I feel like deciding to doubt my own feelings very much did what young me wanted it to do. I wouldn't be able to grow as a person if I thought I was right in the beginning. I'd be interested to hear how you came to your beliefs. Given how firmly you've argued in this thread, it sounds like you probably have a story behind your beliefs too.

015a 2y ago

You should really read the OP's theory as: clearly untrustworthy people lose out. Trustworthy people, and unclearly untrustworthy people, win. OAI's problem isn't that Sam is untrustworthy; he's just too obviously untrustworthy.

cynicalpeace 2y ago
Yes correct. And hopefully untrustworthy people become clearly untrustworthy people eventually. Elon is not "untrustworthy" because of some ambitious deadlines or some stupid statements. He's plucking rockets out of the air and doing it super cheap whereas all competitors are lining their pockets with taxpayer money. You add in everything else (free speech, speaking his mind at great personal risk, tesla), he reads as basically trustworthy to me. When he says he's going to do something and he explains why, I basically believe him, knowing deadlines are ambitious.
- hobs 2y ago
  There's so many demos where Elon has faked and lied its very surprising to have him read as "basically trustworthy" even if he has done other stuff - have dancing people as robots with fake robot demos, the fake solar roof, fake full self driving, really fake promises about cyber taxis and teslas paying for themselves (like 7 years ago?). The free speech part also reads completely hollow when the guy's first actions were to ban his critics on the platform and bring back self avowed nazis - you could argue one of those things are in favor of free speech, but generally doing both just implies you are into the nazi stuff.
  - cynicalpeace 2y ago
    Would you trust Elon or ULA to take you to the ISS? Even though ULA has tweeted pretty much no falsehoods (that I know of) You're complaining about tweets and meanwhile he's saving astronauts and getting us to the moon. Wake up man.
    - hobs 2y ago