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> Mark Zuckerburg's superpower is being like Jack Sparrow at the beginning of Pirates of the Caribbean: he steps off one boat just as it's sinking onto another,

> Mark Zuckerburg's superpower is being like Jack Sparrow at the beginning of Pirates of the Caribbean: he steps off one boat just as it's sinking onto another, and he has the humility to not really give a damn which ship he's on. (I say "humility" even as someone frustrated by his net impact on society.) That's like saying a tapeworm is humble because it doesn't care which colon it's sitting in. The tapeworm lacks the faculties to care about the colon. It just needs nourishment. Same with Zuck. You can't blame the worm, because it's got no concept of reality beyond the things needed to serve its survival. Zuck, as a human, can only do that by very likely having a serious personality disorder.

bitpush 2y ago
> That's like saying a tapeworm is humble because it doesn't care which colon it's sitting in. A more VC speak of this is "Strong ideas loosely held"
tibbar 2y ago
A reference to Larry Ellison as a lawnmower, perhaps? [0] > Do not fall into the trap of anthropomorphising Larry Ellison. You need to think of Larry Ellison the way you think of a lawnmower. You don't anthropomorphize your lawnmower, the lawnmower just mows the lawn, you stick your hand in there and it'll chop it off, the end. You don't think 'oh, the lawnmower hates me' -- lawnmower doesn't give a shit about you, lawnmower can't hate you. Don't anthropomorphize the lawnmower. Don't fall into that trap about Oracle. — Brian Cantrill (https://youtu.be/-zRN7XLCRhc?t=33m1s https://youtu.be/-zRN7XLCRhc?t=33m1s) [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15886728 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15886728
- edmundsauto 2y ago
  Generally this is relevant advice for thinking about important people. We know little about them, almost all of it is projection that reflects more of my perspective than any reality of the object’s psychology. Humans love to think we know why someone behaves the way they do. We love to diagnose disorders in strangers based on a very very tiny bit of information. It is best to treat the decisions as black boxes, or else we are just projecting. I think it’s called the fundamental attribution bias?
  - lotsofpulp 2y ago
    Humans feel better “knowing” something than not knowing something (might be called ego or something).
  - soraminazuki 2y ago
    No, the takeaway from that talk isn't that we shouldn't judge Ellison's intentions. Quite the opposite, actually. Bryan Cantrill states that Ellison's motives are simple. It's only about money and no other human emotions are involved. There are so many quotes indicating this: "What you think of Oracle is even truer than you think it is. There has been no entity in human history with less complexity or nuance to it than Oracle." "This company is very straightforward in its defense. It's about one man, his alter ego, and what he wants to inflict upon humanity! That's it!" "If you were to about ask Oracle, 'Oracle what are you about? Larry, what are you about? Why Oracle? Tell me about Oracle.' 'Make money.' ' Okay, yeah yeah I get it.' 'Make money. Make money. Make money. That's what we do. Make money.'" "The lawn mower can't have empathy!"
    - edmundsauto 2y ago
      I have to disagree with your interpretation. “Inflict”, for example, is a very loaded word that speaks to intent or at least the mindset. I think we all feel like we know who movie stars and celebrities really are. When, in reality, not only do we not know their motivation - often we don’t even know our own.
      - soraminazuki 2y ago
        I mean you can personally disagree with the talk, but what's being said is pretty clear here. The quotes in my previous comment alone make what's unambiguously a judgement about Ellison, and there's so much more from the original talk. Bryan Cantrill even likens Ellison to Nazis in a number of his other talks btw, so it can't get any clearer than that. Me personally, I think it's fair to judge people by their actions. When a person is amassing billions in wealth at the expense of everyone else, there's nothing more meaningless than wasting time imagining about how that person might possibly be kind and well-meaning deep down.
egypturnash 2y ago
[flagged]
noisy_boy 2y ago
> The tapeworm lacks the faculties to care about the colon. It just needs nourishment. Same with Zuck. You can't blame the worm, because it's got no concept of reality beyond the things needed to serve its survival. Zuck, as a human, can only do that by very likely having a serious personality disorder. Isn't that behavior massively rewarded in the current system of VC-driven capitalism as a general rule? Such founders/companies leach off the society, leave it worse and are given huge valuations and riches. Infact the incentives mean we will see more of such people rise to the top in a ever-worsening feedback cycle until the society puts some checks on them. Which is a extra difficult in this deliberately fragmented environment. Same old loop we can't break out of.

bitpush 2y ago

> That's like saying a tapeworm is humble because it doesn't care which colon it's sitting in. A more VC speak of this is "Strong ideas loosely held"

tibbar 2y ago

A reference to Larry Ellison as a lawnmower, perhaps? [0] > Do not fall into the trap of anthropomorphising Larry Ellison. You need to think of Larry Ellison the way you think of a lawnmower. You don't anthropomorphize your lawnmower, the lawnmower just mows the lawn, you stick your hand in there and it'll chop it off, the end. You don't think 'oh, the lawnmower hates me' -- lawnmower doesn't give a shit about you, lawnmower can't hate you. Don't anthropomorphize the lawnmower. Don't fall into that trap about Oracle. — Brian Cantrill (https://youtu.be/-zRN7XLCRhc?t=33m1s https://youtu.be/-zRN7XLCRhc?t=33m1s) [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15886728 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15886728

edmundsauto 2y ago
Generally this is relevant advice for thinking about important people. We know little about them, almost all of it is projection that reflects more of my perspective than any reality of the object’s psychology. Humans love to think we know why someone behaves the way they do. We love to diagnose disorders in strangers based on a very very tiny bit of information. It is best to treat the decisions as black boxes, or else we are just projecting. I think it’s called the fundamental attribution bias?
- lotsofpulp 2y ago
  Humans feel better “knowing” something than not knowing something (might be called ego or something).
- soraminazuki 2y ago
  No, the takeaway from that talk isn't that we shouldn't judge Ellison's intentions. Quite the opposite, actually. Bryan Cantrill states that Ellison's motives are simple. It's only about money and no other human emotions are involved. There are so many quotes indicating this: "What you think of Oracle is even truer than you think it is. There has been no entity in human history with less complexity or nuance to it than Oracle." "This company is very straightforward in its defense. It's about one man, his alter ego, and what he wants to inflict upon humanity! That's it!" "If you were to about ask Oracle, 'Oracle what are you about? Larry, what are you about? Why Oracle? Tell me about Oracle.' 'Make money.' ' Okay, yeah yeah I get it.' 'Make money. Make money. Make money. That's what we do. Make money.'" "The lawn mower can't have empathy!"
  - edmundsauto 2y ago
    I have to disagree with your interpretation. “Inflict”, for example, is a very loaded word that speaks to intent or at least the mindset. I think we all feel like we know who movie stars and celebrities really are. When, in reality, not only do we not know their motivation - often we don’t even know our own.
    - soraminazuki 2y ago
      I mean you can personally disagree with the talk, but what's being said is pretty clear here. The quotes in my previous comment alone make what's unambiguously a judgement about Ellison, and there's so much more from the original talk. Bryan Cantrill even likens Ellison to Nazis in a number of his other talks btw, so it can't get any clearer than that. Me personally, I think it's fair to judge people by their actions. When a person is amassing billions in wealth at the expense of everyone else, there's nothing more meaningless than wasting time imagining about how that person might possibly be kind and well-meaning deep down.

egypturnash 2y ago

[flagged]

noisy_boy 2y ago

> The tapeworm lacks the faculties to care about the colon. It just needs nourishment. Same with Zuck. You can't blame the worm, because it's got no concept of reality beyond the things needed to serve its survival. Zuck, as a human, can only do that by very likely having a serious personality disorder. Isn't that behavior massively rewarded in the current system of VC-driven capitalism as a general rule? Such founders/companies leach off the society, leave it worse and are given huge valuations and riches. Infact the incentives mean we will see more of such people rise to the top in a ever-worsening feedback cycle until the society puts some checks on them. Which is a extra difficult in this deliberately fragmented environment. Same old loop we can't break out of.