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Hackers should know the government is never on your side.

layer8 11mo ago
Growth hackers aim for regulatory capture.
JumpCrisscross 11mo ago
> Hackers should know the government is never on your side Never is naive. Hackers should understand governments are complex, dynamic and occasionally chaotic systems. Those systems can be influenced and sometimes controlled by various means. And those levers are generally available to anyone with a modicum of intelligence and motivation.
- argomo 11mo ago
  In addition, hackers should know government is inevitable. Even in anarchy, governments spontaneously begin to form.
  - buildbot 11mo ago
    If I am not mistaken, the anarchist school of thought is okay with governance and even governments, but not with the concept of the state - an entity that exists to enforce governance with violence. For example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchy,_State,_and_Utopia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchy,_State,_and_Utopia I’m not 100% sure though. edit - a (vs. the) school of thought is more accurate.
    - xboxnolifes 11mo ago
      That may be one of them, but there isn't a singular anarchist school of thought.
      - JumpCrisscross 11mo ago
        > there isn't a singular anarchist school of thought Would be oxymoronic if there were one.
        mc32 11mo ago
        Isn’t that like saying there must be as many universes as theoretical physicists can think up? Slight maybe but it could also just be one.
        JumpCrisscross 11mo ago
        > Isn’t that like saying there must be as many universes as theoretical physicists can think up? Schools of thought are theories. It’s saying there can be as many theoretical universes as theoretical physicists can think up. This is true for any social construct, of course. But anarchy’s nature means you get less alignment.
      - cess11 11mo ago
        The ideal of self-governance as opposed to alienated state or institutional governance is quite common in anarchist thought. Some would probably consider it foundational for the tendency.
    - cholantesh 11mo ago
      Nozick's libertarianism is not really an anarchist school of thought.
    - gary_0 11mo ago
      I think of anarchy as a theoretical end state, where power is perfectly distributed among each individual, but that this is less of an actually achievable condition and more of a direction to head in (and away from monarchy, where power is completely centralized).
    - int_19h 11mo ago
      The thing that anarchists have a problem with is hierarchy, of which states are a manifestation. Most anarchists aren't just "okay" with some kind of government, but believe it to be necessary.
      - EasyMark 11mo ago
        i guess I can see how it might work in a single person's life or small group, but on a large scale doomed to failure because the neighboring country/cit-state/etc will be organized, with and organized army. That group will eventually desire something the anarchist community has and will destroy it.
        int_19h 11mo ago
        That is indeed the sticky question, but, again, anarchists aren't opposed to organizing either, even at scale - only that such organizing should be fundamentally egalitarian, not forced. You can argue that hierarchical organization is fundamentally more efficient, but by the same logic authoritarian governments ought to always outcompete democracies militarily, yet it's clearly not as simple as that. One could also argue that in a world where anarchist modes of organization are the norm, an attempt by some group to organize for the purpose of conquering neighbors would be treated as a fundamental threat by basically all other groups and treated as an imminent threat that warrants legitimate community self-defense. Of course, then the question is how you get to that state of affairs from the world of nation-states. I don't have answers to these questions, but it should also be noted that it's not a binary. Look at Rojava for an example of a society that, while not anarchist, is much closer to that, yet has shown itself quite capable of organizing specifically for the purpose of war (they were largely responsible for crushing ISIS, and are still holding against Turkey).
    - 1718627440 11mo ago
      An entity, that invents rules, that are not enforced by anybody is a useless waste of energy.
- 1970-01-01 11mo ago
  Yep. The FBI swings from lawful good to lawful evil on a case by case basis. Trusting them is dangerous, but a world where they can be ignored is more dangerous.
- cess11 11mo ago
  No, the naive position is to assume that the state is on your side because you occasionally gain something from it.
  - array_key_first 11mo ago
    The reasonable position is that the state exists to propagate and protect itself, which is made up of it's citizens, you included. This is just like any organism or organization works. Like a company, that doesn't mean they will always make decisions that coincide with what you want or what you think is best. But, it DOES mean they have some goal to keep their people, on the whole, happy, because otherwise they no longer exist. For example, yes the US government sucks in a lot of ways. The US government ALSO wants you to get an education, and they give it away for free. Because more educated people means a stronger economy, which is good for everyone. You might take this for granted, but: there are many countries where the population, as a whole, cannot read or write. Your literacy is the result of hundreds of years of work and has, essentially, been GIVEN to you. That's not something you just have by nature of being human.
    - int_19h 11mo ago
      > But, it DOES mean they have some goal to keep their people, on the whole, happy, because otherwise they no longer exist. Not really. The goal is to prevent people from being unhappy enough that they revolt. But so long as that is not a real possibility, the company - or the state - is quite willing to make the population less happy if that means more productivity that can be extracted. The example you gave - free education - is precisely about that. The point of schools is not to make the people happy, it's to make the people productive. But, also, ideally to brainwash them into being "good citizens" (meaning compliant and not causing problems). It can even mean "happy", but that is not necessarily the desirable state of affairs from the citizens' perspective, either - e.g. in USSR under Stalin, the cult of personality was strong enough that many people were genuinely happy to participate in it, and genuinely sad when the guy finally died; but it wasn't actually good for them! No, the fundamental problem with state is exactly that: it exists to propagate and protect itself, but you, the citizen, are not included. You are a resource, and your well-being and happiness is only incidental, not the actual goal. The reasonable position then is to demand governance that is actually in the interests of those governed. And one can reasonably argue that the resulting entity is not a state.
- HardCodedBias 11mo ago
  "Hackers should understand governments are complex, dynamic and occasionally chaotic systems" No. Hackers should understand that government is force. This is the definition of government. And force is the antithesis of the hacker ethos.
- NooneAtAll3 11mo ago
  oh no, the dreaded "it's complicated" counter-argument! making it complex helps nobody - everyone has to have a default and default of "do not trust the glowies. EVER" is the better one
deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
vkou 11mo ago
Neither are the billionaires and their deputies who both own and run all the megacorps. 99% of the current AI push is entirely anti-hacker ethos. It is a race to consolidate control of the world's computing and its economic surplus to ~5 organizations. A few people do interesting stuff on the edges of this, but the rest of the work in it is anathema to hacker values.
- arbol 11mo ago
  The client ai push has also enabled people to run local llama models and build products without those companies. Presumably there'll be more of this to come
  - vkou 11mo ago
    That's the 1%. It's the hair on the back of the elephant. Their capabilities will fall further and further behind models that need a billion dollars to train, and a supercomputer to run. You're making a faustian bargain.
NalNezumi 11mo ago
A hacker should probably know that it's usually trade offs and blanket statements are very useless. Certain tools are good for certain tasks and situations, but bad for others. No free lunch and all that. If you make that blanket statement, you're definitely not a hacker (or just a novice). But you'd make a heck of a politician or tech bro salesman
purple_turtle 11mo ago
That is an absolute nonsense. At minimum, government will be useful as defence against worse government. I know that some anarchist had dream of a stateless world, but it is not viable. And while I am not going to say that any government is ideal, many are better than USSR, Third Reich or Cambodia under Pol Pot.
- int_19h 11mo ago
  Government != state. And the enemy of your enemy is not your friend. It can be a temporary ally, but you always have to be wary of it becoming strong enough because you can become its enemy tomorrow.
palata 11mo ago
In a democracy, the government is its citizen. It sucks when you disagree with the majority of the voters, of course. But it's wrong to say that the government is against the majority of the voters: it was elected by them.
- nrhrjrjrjtntbt 11mo ago
  A government or president can definitely be against its voters interests.
  - pbkompasz 11mo ago
    So the people should talk to their representative. A government becomes authoritarian not only because of an authoritarian leader, but also because of the enablers, people like the spineless Mike Johnson.
    - mrguyorama 11mo ago
      This is Mike Johnson's district: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana%27s_4th_congressional_district https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana%27s_4th_congressiona... The people who voted for him are very happy with what he does and that's why they vote for him again. They voted 75% for trump. They don't want what you or I want.
      - nrhrjrjrjtntbt 11mo ago
        Well sculpted district shape.
  - palata 11mo ago
    Then that president should not be re-elected. Or it's the voters' fault.

layer8 11mo ago

Growth hackers aim for regulatory capture.

> Hackers should know the government is never on your side Never is naive. Hackers should understand governments are complex, dynamic and occasionally chaotic systems. Those systems can be influenced and sometimes controlled by various means. And those levers are generally available to anyone with a modicum of intelligence and motivation.

argomo 11mo ago
In addition, hackers should know government is inevitable. Even in anarchy, governments spontaneously begin to form.
- buildbot 11mo ago
  If I am not mistaken, the anarchist school of thought is okay with governance and even governments, but not with the concept of the state - an entity that exists to enforce governance with violence. For example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchy,_State,_and_Utopia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchy,_State,_and_Utopia I’m not 100% sure though. edit - a (vs. the) school of thought is more accurate.
  - xboxnolifes 11mo ago
    That may be one of them, but there isn't a singular anarchist school of thought.
    - JumpCrisscross 11mo ago
      > there isn't a singular anarchist school of thought Would be oxymoronic if there were one.
      - mc32 11mo ago
        Isn’t that like saying there must be as many universes as theoretical physicists can think up? Slight maybe but it could also just be one.
        JumpCrisscross 11mo ago
        > Isn’t that like saying there must be as many universes as theoretical physicists can think up? Schools of thought are theories. It’s saying there can be as many theoretical universes as theoretical physicists can think up. This is true for any social construct, of course. But anarchy’s nature means you get less alignment.
    - cess11 11mo ago
      The ideal of self-governance as opposed to alienated state or institutional governance is quite common in anarchist thought. Some would probably consider it foundational for the tendency.
  - cholantesh 11mo ago
    Nozick's libertarianism is not really an anarchist school of thought.
  - gary_0 11mo ago
    I think of anarchy as a theoretical end state, where power is perfectly distributed among each individual, but that this is less of an actually achievable condition and more of a direction to head in (and away from monarchy, where power is completely centralized).
  - int_19h 11mo ago
    The thing that anarchists have a problem with is hierarchy, of which states are a manifestation. Most anarchists aren't just "okay" with some kind of government, but believe it to be necessary.
    - EasyMark 11mo ago
      i guess I can see how it might work in a single person's life or small group, but on a large scale doomed to failure because the neighboring country/cit-state/etc will be organized, with and organized army. That group will eventually desire something the anarchist community has and will destroy it.
      - int_19h 11mo ago
        That is indeed the sticky question, but, again, anarchists aren't opposed to organizing either, even at scale - only that such organizing should be fundamentally egalitarian, not forced. You can argue that hierarchical organization is fundamentally more efficient, but by the same logic authoritarian governments ought to always outcompete democracies militarily, yet it's clearly not as simple as that. One could also argue that in a world where anarchist modes of organization are the norm, an attempt by some group to organize for the purpose of conquering neighbors would be treated as a fundamental threat by basically all other groups and treated as an imminent threat that warrants legitimate community self-defense. Of course, then the question is how you get to that state of affairs from the world of nation-states. I don't have answers to these questions, but it should also be noted that it's not a binary. Look at Rojava for an example of a society that, while not anarchist, is much closer to that, yet has shown itself quite capable of organizing specifically for the purpose of war (they were largely responsible for crushing ISIS, and are still holding against Turkey).
  - 1718627440 11mo ago
    An entity, that invents rules, that are not enforced by anybody is a useless waste of energy.
1970-01-01 11mo ago
Yep. The FBI swings from lawful good to lawful evil on a case by case basis. Trusting them is dangerous, but a world where they can be ignored is more dangerous.
cess11 11mo ago
No, the naive position is to assume that the state is on your side because you occasionally gain something from it.
- array_key_first 11mo ago
  The reasonable position is that the state exists to propagate and protect itself, which is made up of it's citizens, you included. This is just like any organism or organization works. Like a company, that doesn't mean they will always make decisions that coincide with what you want or what you think is best. But, it DOES mean they have some goal to keep their people, on the whole, happy, because otherwise they no longer exist. For example, yes the US government sucks in a lot of ways. The US government ALSO wants you to get an education, and they give it away for free. Because more educated people means a stronger economy, which is good for everyone. You might take this for granted, but: there are many countries where the population, as a whole, cannot read or write. Your literacy is the result of hundreds of years of work and has, essentially, been GIVEN to you. That's not something you just have by nature of being human.
  - int_19h 11mo ago
    > But, it DOES mean they have some goal to keep their people, on the whole, happy, because otherwise they no longer exist. Not really. The goal is to prevent people from being unhappy enough that they revolt. But so long as that is not a real possibility, the company - or the state - is quite willing to make the population less happy if that means more productivity that can be extracted. The example you gave - free education - is precisely about that. The point of schools is not to make the people happy, it's to make the people productive. But, also, ideally to brainwash them into being "good citizens" (meaning compliant and not causing problems). It can even mean "happy", but that is not necessarily the desirable state of affairs from the citizens' perspective, either - e.g. in USSR under Stalin, the cult of personality was strong enough that many people were genuinely happy to participate in it, and genuinely sad when the guy finally died; but it wasn't actually good for them! No, the fundamental problem with state is exactly that: it exists to propagate and protect itself, but you, the citizen, are not included. You are a resource, and your well-being and happiness is only incidental, not the actual goal. The reasonable position then is to demand governance that is actually in the interests of those governed. And one can reasonably argue that the resulting entity is not a state.
HardCodedBias 11mo ago
"Hackers should understand governments are complex, dynamic and occasionally chaotic systems" No. Hackers should understand that government is force. This is the definition of government. And force is the antithesis of the hacker ethos.
NooneAtAll3 11mo ago
oh no, the dreaded "it's complicated" counter-argument! making it complex helps nobody - everyone has to have a default and default of "do not trust the glowies. EVER" is the better one

deleted 11mo ago

[deleted]

vkou 11mo ago

Neither are the billionaires and their deputies who both own and run all the megacorps. 99% of the current AI push is entirely anti-hacker ethos. It is a race to consolidate control of the world's computing and its economic surplus to ~5 organizations. A few people do interesting stuff on the edges of this, but the rest of the work in it is anathema to hacker values.

arbol 11mo ago
The client ai push has also enabled people to run local llama models and build products without those companies. Presumably there'll be more of this to come
- vkou 11mo ago
  That's the 1%. It's the hair on the back of the elephant. Their capabilities will fall further and further behind models that need a billion dollars to train, and a supercomputer to run. You're making a faustian bargain.

NalNezumi 11mo ago

A hacker should probably know that it's usually trade offs and blanket statements are very useless. Certain tools are good for certain tasks and situations, but bad for others. No free lunch and all that. If you make that blanket statement, you're definitely not a hacker (or just a novice). But you'd make a heck of a politician or tech bro salesman

purple_turtle 11mo ago

That is an absolute nonsense. At minimum, government will be useful as defence against worse government. I know that some anarchist had dream of a stateless world, but it is not viable. And while I am not going to say that any government is ideal, many are better than USSR, Third Reich or Cambodia under Pol Pot.

int_19h 11mo ago
Government != state. And the enemy of your enemy is not your friend. It can be a temporary ally, but you always have to be wary of it becoming strong enough because you can become its enemy tomorrow.

palata 11mo ago

In a democracy, the government is its citizen. It sucks when you disagree with the majority of the voters, of course. But it's wrong to say that the government is against the majority of the voters: it was elected by them.

nrhrjrjrjtntbt 11mo ago
A government or president can definitely be against its voters interests.
- pbkompasz 11mo ago
  So the people should talk to their representative. A government becomes authoritarian not only because of an authoritarian leader, but also because of the enablers, people like the spineless Mike Johnson.
  - mrguyorama 11mo ago
    This is Mike Johnson's district: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana%27s_4th_congressional_district https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana%27s_4th_congressiona... The people who voted for him are very happy with what he does and that's why they vote for him again. They voted 75% for trump. They don't want what you or I want.
    - nrhrjrjrjtntbt 11mo ago
      Well sculpted district shape.
- palata 11mo ago
  Then that president should not be re-elected. Or it's the voters' fault.