6 ms·

I guess we could all forgive trying to destroy western civilization under the guise of saving it, but drew the line at poor media literacy when it comes to One

I guess we could all forgive trying to destroy western civilization under the guise of saving it, but drew the line at poor media literacy when it comes to One Piece and Watchmen. (This is a joke in case that wasn't clear)

jordanb 8mo ago
It was always difficult to get normal people to understand why the tech billionaires are so bad until Thiel gave us that clip of him getting stumped by the "should humanity survive" question. I'm forever grateful to Thiel for that clip, and to Musk for his crippling Twitter addiction. It was pretty impossible to get regular people to understand that folks like Bill Gates or Larry Ellison are skinwalkers when all they ever see about these people is professionally managed public relations content.
- timacles 8mo ago
  A lot of the older folks are also not well versed in their language or whatever you want to call it, so they can’t even connect comprehend these guys are compulsive liars and paranoid man children with no scruples. They just think they are eccentric and by the virtue of their wealth they must be smart upstanding humans with a strong character.
  - jordanb 8mo ago
    Yeah but I'd argue that the eccentric billionaire trope itself is the creation of the PR industry. "We've got this guy with rancid vibes, how do we make him palatable?"
- heliumtera 8mo ago
  >It was always difficult to get normal people to understand why the tech billionaires are so bad By the "greying out" of your comment, I would assume two things: First, the difficulty you describe is not on the past. Second, normies are here in much bigger proportion than a hacker would assume, and they are offended on the behalf of tech billionaires.
  - jacquesm 8mo ago
    They're not so much offended by it as that they would like to join the billionaire class and believe that those in power may at some point come to review their voting behavior on HN. For instance, YC asked for your HN username on the application form. Of course I don't think they'd stoop so low as to look at the votes on subjects like this but that's the chilling effect for you and technically they have that ability. And they definitely look at the comments.
    - ryandrake 8mo ago
      I don't know. What percentage of HN commenters really have serious aspirations for being a YC founder? 0.01%? 0.001%? Im not sure "What will YC think of me" is really that much of a driver of commenting behavior here. People simp for billionaires all over the web, not just on HN. I've never understood it, and I probably never will. But, there are enough of them and their billionaire-defense commentary pops up everywhere. Not to mention the obvious downvote rings that will hit you if you ever insult one of a few key billionaires with large followings. This is widespread behavior and not about wanting to be a startup founder.
      - jacquesm 8mo ago
        That's a good question. Probably a low percentage but with the amount of people on HN that still adds up to a sizeable number of participants.
    - trinsic2 8mo ago
      >They're not so much offended by it as that they would like to join the billionaire class Same thing happened in WWII Nazi Germany. This timeline has an eerie similar feeling as the masses line up to the slaughter.
  - dingnuts 8mo ago
    [dead]
  - e2le 8mo ago
    Some might even agree with their dystopic vision of the future.
- jacquesm 8mo ago
  The list is getting longer and longer, but a good touchstone is simply net worth. You don't normally get to the top of a foodchain without being an apex predator.
  - toomuchtodo 8mo ago
    Indeed. Empathy and the levels of wealth accumulation in scope are incompatible imho. They are the paperclip maximizers we were warned about.
    - johndhi 8mo ago
      Where do you guys come up with these ideas? Simply having a lot of money makes someone evil? Why? They are obviously all quite competitive in business but the philanthropy they've done is pretty crazy. Gates for example is giving away hundreds of billions of dollars. What does it even matter if he's compassionate or not if he's doing that?
      - toomuchtodo 8mo ago
        Because it's about power, control, and influence. The wealth is just the tool. Melinda French and MacKenzie Scott are true philanthropists, Gates and Bezos are just status chasers. "Look at me!" "Please clap." and so on. There are only ~3000 billionaires in the world, so I am not too concerned about broad support for them in a world with 8-10 billion people. "Fuck you" money is fine, we all strive for freedom during our lifetime as humans. "Fuck everyone" money is not a welcome target, imho. That's unelected power. Its easy to not be a billionaire of course: philanthropy. But do most billionaires? They do not. They hold tightly to their power. "Why does it even matter?" Because many of us do not want to be ruled or governed by these people, who by all indications, are not fond of other humans and see them as a resource to exploit and control. I assure you, I have no envy for these people and their wealth, I am allergic to what it would take to accumulate and maintain it (as a high empathy, high justice sensitivity human). I know what enough is. This is self preservation from a class of predator. > Where do you guys come up with these ideas? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind https://medium.com/roaring-rivers/are-all-billionaires-sociopaths-80146e4b4481 https://medium.com/roaring-rivers/are-all-billionaires-socio... | https://archive.today/nX2Fh https://archive.today/nX2Fh https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2025/billionaires-politics-money-influence/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2025/bil... | https://archive.today/Gb2RF https://archive.today/Gb2RF https://www.forbes.com/sites/ellamalmgren/2025/09/09/americas-richest-billionaires-keep-getting-richer-theyre-not-donating-much-more/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/ellamalmgren/2025/09/09/america... | https://archive.today/nLx78 https://archive.today/nLx78 https://www.google.com/search?q=billionaires+sociopaths https://www.google.com/search?q=billionaires+sociopaths
- EQmWgw87pw 8mo ago
  So someone is evil because they answer questions by thinking through them? There are no questions in the universe that can’t be stopped and pondered over. In fact, it’s dangerous to even suggest that, that’s the exact mechanism that propaganda runs on.
  - pfraze 8mo ago
    Ah yes, the real danger to the world isn’t a powerful man feeling ambivalent about our survival. The real danger is society using that moment as propaganda. This regarding Thiel, a man who most recently tried to make a “Greta Thunberg is the Antichrist” meme stick.
    - ozmodiar 8mo ago
      Not to mention that he and his cohorts had such close ties to Epstein that I find it impossible to imagine he didn't know exactly what was going on. This is someone who's known for building profiles of anyone who mentions him online, not some ambivalent rich guy.
    - EQmWgw87pw 8mo ago
      Hesitating to answer a question that may have nuance is not being “ambivalent”. He literally says “there’s multiple questions implicit here” in response to the question asked of him. I genuinely think people like you making sweeping assumptions about others are way more dangerous. People who refuse to critically think or analyze a situation and jump to conclusions.
      - trinsic2 8mo ago
        You pair that with his behavior and you can see pretty clearly the guy does wants to control the world. Stop trying to see this in isolation of that one event.
    - stale2002 8mo ago
      Question 1: If a human modifies with themselves with enough sci-fi tier technology are they still "Human"? (And therefore if humans "ascend" past their biology, humanity technically wouldn't survive) Question 2: If a person cannot conceive that the 1st question is an interesting question, with multiple nuances, are they basically an idiot?
- rurp 8mo ago
  A frustrating aspect of the AI debates has been the number of people who believe people like Sam Altman who say that the immense wealth created by AGI would be distributed to the masses to improve their lives. The notion that the mega wealthy Elon/Sams/Bezos elites are going to willingly give up unprecedented wealth because millions of people have become unemployed and impoverished is so wildly out of step with how those people have behaved their entire lives. Someone who says they have enough billions and want to improve millions of lives don't make it to those positions. The only way that wealth gets shared will be unprecedented government coercion or worse.
  - cootsnuck 8mo ago
    Yea, it's puzzling to me that this isn't asked of folks like Altman and Amodei in every interview. Maybe it's because Altman would just start shilling his eye scanning orb and start repeating "WORLD COIN" ad nauseum. Either way, they should be getting pressed on this by all media.
    - mrguyorama 8mo ago
      It's not puzzling. Journalism was murdered because it asked Nixon too many questions. So now unless you softball interviews, you just don't get to interview anyone, so the only news orgs with content to monetize are the ones just printing Press Releases and being a backboard for "interviews". It sure is fun how the party who screams about "personal responsibility" seems to get very upset if you ask a responsible person to explain themselves and their actions.
  - jacquesm 8mo ago
    It's beyond naive. But there are also still people believing Elon Musk is going to put humanity on Mars for keeps and out of altruism.
    - rurp 8mo ago
      For sure, I've been rolling my eyes at the Mars colony stuff for probably a decade or more now. I get that it's a fun futuristic thought experiment for nerds but the idea that Elon's going to send up some modern day Mayflower in the near future that builds a thriving settlement is obvious nonsense.
- Imustaskforhelp 8mo ago
  The only non-evil Billionaire I know are the South park creators although they aren't tech Billionaires. I consider everyone else for the most part to not-be-good people. Because south park decided to personally say essentially bad words to paramount using their episodes, the company which gave them a billion dollars. So they took a billion dollars and they were still consistent with how they've been for decades at this point. All of this is truly remarkable in the particular world we live in.
  - AceyMan 8mo ago
    I'd think that original creators such as J.K. Rowling, Steven Spielberg, Bruce Springsteen & Taylor Swift (among others) would be other members of the !evil bucket.
    - ufo 8mo ago
      J.K. Rowling is now infamous for using her vast wealth to lobby against transgender rights.
      - AceyMan 8mo ago
        Oof.
      - andigh 8mo ago
        She's promoting women's rights actually.
    - Imustaskforhelp 8mo ago
      Taylor swift does seem to be using AI or something. I mean she's nice but not as nice as South park creators imo. I have heard so much about Steven Spielberg but I must admit that I don't know much about the man but to me it does feel like you must be correct that he's a good guy, though I do see some controversies of steven spielberg on internet but South park is infamous with controversies as well. There are 3028 billionaries from Forbes list and many many more almost-billionaires yet we have at most so few good billionaires that you can count them on your fingers.
- shevy-java 8mo ago
  > It was always difficult to get normal people to understand why the tech billionaires are so bad This is mostly because normal people are not THINKING usually. It requires some event or insight when they begin to question what they see. There are many ways to go about it, but my own personal favourite one, even though cheesy, is to tell them to watch the old B movie "They Live". Now, the movie is not really grand, has many plot holes, but Roddy made it fun (the kick ass scene with regards to bubblegem); and using glasses to see the thruth is such a powerful meme. People can then begin to question who owns the mass media. Then perhaps they may watch other movies such as Manufacturing consent (is a bit old now and thus dated, and people may find it boring, but I loved Noam's analysis back when his health was in prime condition). It is mostly in the USA where people think the superrich are god-sent. In other parts of the world this worshipping is way less. Or often does not exist; you won't find much love for the average superrich in Denmark or Sweden for instance.
  - trinsic2 8mo ago
    That is my favorite film :D
- simianwords 8mo ago
  It’s very naive to think this is the interpretation. That humanity should survive is a deeper question than it looks. Ask any transhumanist.
- e2le 8mo ago
  People aught to be questioning more the future vision of those in positions to shape it. Someone who struggles with such simple questions around humanity while simultaneously building the tools of a surveillance state probably should not be one of the individuals driving our future. It's quite clear that my vision of the future is nothing like theirs.
  - dijit 8mo ago
    It's a lot more comforting to believe that the people who have influence over us are there by some right of some kind. Wether it be because they're "smarter than us and have completed capitalism" (that's how Gates, Ellison and ironically Trump/Musk are thought of) or by "divine right" as it used to be with Kings. It's horribly sobering to realise that, actually, they're just people. Like, pretty ordinary unremarkable people who have access to different information than we do and have been exposed to different things. Rarely are they more than a single standard deviation from the norm in intelligence. They're people, flawed, egotistical, easily manipulated, easily dragged into thinking weird things, persuadable and unless they're really self-aware: will be surrounded by sycophants that just repeat what they want to hear (because, that feels pretty good) until they have a warped "echo of an echo" understanding of the world. I wouldn't wish this on anyone, it's terrifying to believe that you would be insulated from all direct criticism while being told that everything you do is the right thing no matter what it is. You can't trust your own fucking reflection in that situation. But we do that to people, people who have enormous influence over us, and they get confused when we don't like them, and we get confused about how they can be so out of touch and unlikable. But they're just people.
- nailer 8mo ago
  > It was always difficult to get normal people to understand why the tech billionaires are so bad until Thiel gave us that clip of him getting stumped by the "should humanity survive" question. He was thinking about convergence. You're probably smart enough to be aware of that, so you're deliberately twisting his words. > folks like Bill Gates or Larry Ellison are skinwalkers On HN a decade ago this would have been moderated into oblivion. The recent manual un-flagging of poolitical posts by the mods (dang has openly discussed this) has changed the site for the worse.
  - unethical_ban 8mo ago
    Ah, clearly he was thinking about transhumanism! That thing all normal people understand and agree with.
    - nailer 8mo ago
      Nobody was suggesting normal people understand or agree with transhumanism.
  - trinsic2 8mo ago
    Actually It woke people up to the fact that there is clearly bad things going on. The people that take the politically correct standpoint have a lot to learn. Talking about things that are going wrong in society is important. If you don't like that, go live on an island somewhere where you can cut yourself off from humanity. Discourse is good for society, unless you think that society shouldn't exist, or freedom shouldn't exist...
- trinsic2 8mo ago
  That guy has a strong Nazi feel. I'd stay far, far away from anything he creates
- PunchyHamster 8mo ago
  > It was always difficult to get normal people to understand why the tech billionaires are so bad until Thiel gave us that clip of him getting stumped by the "should humanity survive" question. One "good" thing that came out of that thing. I think main problem is that many people just think of them as "just a normal person but richer". But no. You don't get to that level of power by staying normal. Hell, I remember when people pointed at Bill Gates going "see, you can be billionaire that puts their money to good", and while even before PDFiles got posted he had long history of being a piece of shit, now at least that stopped
- barbazoo 8mo ago
  > Peter Thiel on Transhumanism and the Future of Humanity https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSp07P8jvYs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSp07P8jvYs
soopypoos 8mo ago
it's all a fuckin' joke

jordanb 8mo ago

It was always difficult to get normal people to understand why the tech billionaires are so bad until Thiel gave us that clip of him getting stumped by the "should humanity survive" question. I'm forever grateful to Thiel for that clip, and to Musk for his crippling Twitter addiction. It was pretty impossible to get regular people to understand that folks like Bill Gates or Larry Ellison are skinwalkers when all they ever see about these people is professionally managed public relations content.

timacles 8mo ago
A lot of the older folks are also not well versed in their language or whatever you want to call it, so they can’t even connect comprehend these guys are compulsive liars and paranoid man children with no scruples. They just think they are eccentric and by the virtue of their wealth they must be smart upstanding humans with a strong character.
- jordanb 8mo ago
  Yeah but I'd argue that the eccentric billionaire trope itself is the creation of the PR industry. "We've got this guy with rancid vibes, how do we make him palatable?"
heliumtera 8mo ago
>It was always difficult to get normal people to understand why the tech billionaires are so bad By the "greying out" of your comment, I would assume two things: First, the difficulty you describe is not on the past. Second, normies are here in much bigger proportion than a hacker would assume, and they are offended on the behalf of tech billionaires.
- jacquesm 8mo ago
  They're not so much offended by it as that they would like to join the billionaire class and believe that those in power may at some point come to review their voting behavior on HN. For instance, YC asked for your HN username on the application form. Of course I don't think they'd stoop so low as to look at the votes on subjects like this but that's the chilling effect for you and technically they have that ability. And they definitely look at the comments.
  - ryandrake 8mo ago
    I don't know. What percentage of HN commenters really have serious aspirations for being a YC founder? 0.01%? 0.001%? Im not sure "What will YC think of me" is really that much of a driver of commenting behavior here. People simp for billionaires all over the web, not just on HN. I've never understood it, and I probably never will. But, there are enough of them and their billionaire-defense commentary pops up everywhere. Not to mention the obvious downvote rings that will hit you if you ever insult one of a few key billionaires with large followings. This is widespread behavior and not about wanting to be a startup founder.
    - jacquesm 8mo ago
      That's a good question. Probably a low percentage but with the amount of people on HN that still adds up to a sizeable number of participants.
  - trinsic2 8mo ago
    >They're not so much offended by it as that they would like to join the billionaire class Same thing happened in WWII Nazi Germany. This timeline has an eerie similar feeling as the masses line up to the slaughter.
- dingnuts 8mo ago
  [dead]
- e2le 8mo ago
  Some might even agree with their dystopic vision of the future.
jacquesm 8mo ago
The list is getting longer and longer, but a good touchstone is simply net worth. You don't normally get to the top of a foodchain without being an apex predator.
- toomuchtodo 8mo ago
  Indeed. Empathy and the levels of wealth accumulation in scope are incompatible imho. They are the paperclip maximizers we were warned about.
  - johndhi 8mo ago
    Where do you guys come up with these ideas? Simply having a lot of money makes someone evil? Why? They are obviously all quite competitive in business but the philanthropy they've done is pretty crazy. Gates for example is giving away hundreds of billions of dollars. What does it even matter if he's compassionate or not if he's doing that?
    - toomuchtodo 8mo ago
      Because it's about power, control, and influence. The wealth is just the tool. Melinda French and MacKenzie Scott are true philanthropists, Gates and Bezos are just status chasers. "Look at me!" "Please clap." and so on. There are only ~3000 billionaires in the world, so I am not too concerned about broad support for them in a world with 8-10 billion people. "Fuck you" money is fine, we all strive for freedom during our lifetime as humans. "Fuck everyone" money is not a welcome target, imho. That's unelected power. Its easy to not be a billionaire of course: philanthropy. But do most billionaires? They do not. They hold tightly to their power. "Why does it even matter?" Because many of us do not want to be ruled or governed by these people, who by all indications, are not fond of other humans and see them as a resource to exploit and control. I assure you, I have no envy for these people and their wealth, I am allergic to what it would take to accumulate and maintain it (as a high empathy, high justice sensitivity human). I know what enough is. This is self preservation from a class of predator. > Where do you guys come up with these ideas? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind https://medium.com/roaring-rivers/are-all-billionaires-sociopaths-80146e4b4481 https://medium.com/roaring-rivers/are-all-billionaires-socio... | https://archive.today/nX2Fh https://archive.today/nX2Fh https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2025/billionaires-politics-money-influence/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2025/bil... | https://archive.today/Gb2RF https://archive.today/Gb2RF https://www.forbes.com/sites/ellamalmgren/2025/09/09/americas-richest-billionaires-keep-getting-richer-theyre-not-donating-much-more/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/ellamalmgren/2025/09/09/america... | https://archive.today/nLx78 https://archive.today/nLx78 https://www.google.com/search?q=billionaires+sociopaths https://www.google.com/search?q=billionaires+sociopaths
EQmWgw87pw 8mo ago
So someone is evil because they answer questions by thinking through them? There are no questions in the universe that can’t be stopped and pondered over. In fact, it’s dangerous to even suggest that, that’s the exact mechanism that propaganda runs on.
- pfraze 8mo ago
  Ah yes, the real danger to the world isn’t a powerful man feeling ambivalent about our survival. The real danger is society using that moment as propaganda. This regarding Thiel, a man who most recently tried to make a “Greta Thunberg is the Antichrist” meme stick.
  - ozmodiar 8mo ago
    Not to mention that he and his cohorts had such close ties to Epstein that I find it impossible to imagine he didn't know exactly what was going on. This is someone who's known for building profiles of anyone who mentions him online, not some ambivalent rich guy.
  - EQmWgw87pw 8mo ago
    Hesitating to answer a question that may have nuance is not being “ambivalent”. He literally says “there’s multiple questions implicit here” in response to the question asked of him. I genuinely think people like you making sweeping assumptions about others are way more dangerous. People who refuse to critically think or analyze a situation and jump to conclusions.
    - trinsic2 8mo ago
      You pair that with his behavior and you can see pretty clearly the guy does wants to control the world. Stop trying to see this in isolation of that one event.
  - stale2002 8mo ago
    Question 1: If a human modifies with themselves with enough sci-fi tier technology are they still "Human"? (And therefore if humans "ascend" past their biology, humanity technically wouldn't survive) Question 2: If a person cannot conceive that the 1st question is an interesting question, with multiple nuances, are they basically an idiot?
rurp 8mo ago
A frustrating aspect of the AI debates has been the number of people who believe people like Sam Altman who say that the immense wealth created by AGI would be distributed to the masses to improve their lives. The notion that the mega wealthy Elon/Sams/Bezos elites are going to willingly give up unprecedented wealth because millions of people have become unemployed and impoverished is so wildly out of step with how those people have behaved their entire lives. Someone who says they have enough billions and want to improve millions of lives don't make it to those positions. The only way that wealth gets shared will be unprecedented government coercion or worse.
- cootsnuck 8mo ago
  Yea, it's puzzling to me that this isn't asked of folks like Altman and Amodei in every interview. Maybe it's because Altman would just start shilling his eye scanning orb and start repeating "WORLD COIN" ad nauseum. Either way, they should be getting pressed on this by all media.
  - mrguyorama 8mo ago
    It's not puzzling. Journalism was murdered because it asked Nixon too many questions. So now unless you softball interviews, you just don't get to interview anyone, so the only news orgs with content to monetize are the ones just printing Press Releases and being a backboard for "interviews". It sure is fun how the party who screams about "personal responsibility" seems to get very upset if you ask a responsible person to explain themselves and their actions.
- jacquesm 8mo ago
  It's beyond naive. But there are also still people believing Elon Musk is going to put humanity on Mars for keeps and out of altruism.
  - rurp 8mo ago
    For sure, I've been rolling my eyes at the Mars colony stuff for probably a decade or more now. I get that it's a fun futuristic thought experiment for nerds but the idea that Elon's going to send up some modern day Mayflower in the near future that builds a thriving settlement is obvious nonsense.
Imustaskforhelp 8mo ago
The only non-evil Billionaire I know are the South park creators although they aren't tech Billionaires. I consider everyone else for the most part to not-be-good people. Because south park decided to personally say essentially bad words to paramount using their episodes, the company which gave them a billion dollars. So they took a billion dollars and they were still consistent with how they've been for decades at this point. All of this is truly remarkable in the particular world we live in.
- AceyMan 8mo ago
  I'd think that original creators such as J.K. Rowling, Steven Spielberg, Bruce Springsteen & Taylor Swift (among others) would be other members of the !evil bucket.
  - ufo 8mo ago
    J.K. Rowling is now infamous for using her vast wealth to lobby against transgender rights.
    - AceyMan 8mo ago
      Oof.
    - andigh 8mo ago
      She's promoting women's rights actually.
  - Imustaskforhelp 8mo ago
    Taylor swift does seem to be using AI or something. I mean she's nice but not as nice as South park creators imo. I have heard so much about Steven Spielberg but I must admit that I don't know much about the man but to me it does feel like you must be correct that he's a good guy, though I do see some controversies of steven spielberg on internet but South park is infamous with controversies as well. There are 3028 billionaries from Forbes list and many many more almost-billionaires yet we have at most so few good billionaires that you can count them on your fingers.
shevy-java 8mo ago
> It was always difficult to get normal people to understand why the tech billionaires are so bad This is mostly because normal people are not THINKING usually. It requires some event or insight when they begin to question what they see. There are many ways to go about it, but my own personal favourite one, even though cheesy, is to tell them to watch the old B movie "They Live". Now, the movie is not really grand, has many plot holes, but Roddy made it fun (the kick ass scene with regards to bubblegem); and using glasses to see the thruth is such a powerful meme. People can then begin to question who owns the mass media. Then perhaps they may watch other movies such as Manufacturing consent (is a bit old now and thus dated, and people may find it boring, but I loved Noam's analysis back when his health was in prime condition). It is mostly in the USA where people think the superrich are god-sent. In other parts of the world this worshipping is way less. Or often does not exist; you won't find much love for the average superrich in Denmark or Sweden for instance.
- trinsic2 8mo ago
  That is my favorite film :D
simianwords 8mo ago
It’s very naive to think this is the interpretation. That humanity should survive is a deeper question than it looks. Ask any transhumanist.
e2le 8mo ago
People aught to be questioning more the future vision of those in positions to shape it. Someone who struggles with such simple questions around humanity while simultaneously building the tools of a surveillance state probably should not be one of the individuals driving our future. It's quite clear that my vision of the future is nothing like theirs.
- dijit 8mo ago
  It's a lot more comforting to believe that the people who have influence over us are there by some right of some kind. Wether it be because they're "smarter than us and have completed capitalism" (that's how Gates, Ellison and ironically Trump/Musk are thought of) or by "divine right" as it used to be with Kings. It's horribly sobering to realise that, actually, they're just people. Like, pretty ordinary unremarkable people who have access to different information than we do and have been exposed to different things. Rarely are they more than a single standard deviation from the norm in intelligence. They're people, flawed, egotistical, easily manipulated, easily dragged into thinking weird things, persuadable and unless they're really self-aware: will be surrounded by sycophants that just repeat what they want to hear (because, that feels pretty good) until they have a warped "echo of an echo" understanding of the world. I wouldn't wish this on anyone, it's terrifying to believe that you would be insulated from all direct criticism while being told that everything you do is the right thing no matter what it is. You can't trust your own fucking reflection in that situation. But we do that to people, people who have enormous influence over us, and they get confused when we don't like them, and we get confused about how they can be so out of touch and unlikable. But they're just people.
nailer 8mo ago
> It was always difficult to get normal people to understand why the tech billionaires are so bad until Thiel gave us that clip of him getting stumped by the "should humanity survive" question. He was thinking about convergence. You're probably smart enough to be aware of that, so you're deliberately twisting his words. > folks like Bill Gates or Larry Ellison are skinwalkers On HN a decade ago this would have been moderated into oblivion. The recent manual un-flagging of poolitical posts by the mods (dang has openly discussed this) has changed the site for the worse.
- unethical_ban 8mo ago
  Ah, clearly he was thinking about transhumanism! That thing all normal people understand and agree with.
  - nailer 8mo ago
    Nobody was suggesting normal people understand or agree with transhumanism.
- trinsic2 8mo ago
  Actually It woke people up to the fact that there is clearly bad things going on. The people that take the politically correct standpoint have a lot to learn. Talking about things that are going wrong in society is important. If you don't like that, go live on an island somewhere where you can cut yourself off from humanity. Discourse is good for society, unless you think that society shouldn't exist, or freedom shouldn't exist...
trinsic2 8mo ago
That guy has a strong Nazi feel. I'd stay far, far away from anything he creates
PunchyHamster 8mo ago
> It was always difficult to get normal people to understand why the tech billionaires are so bad until Thiel gave us that clip of him getting stumped by the "should humanity survive" question. One "good" thing that came out of that thing. I think main problem is that many people just think of them as "just a normal person but richer". But no. You don't get to that level of power by staying normal. Hell, I remember when people pointed at Bill Gates going "see, you can be billionaire that puts their money to good", and while even before PDFiles got posted he had long history of being a piece of shit, now at least that stopped
barbazoo 8mo ago
> Peter Thiel on Transhumanism and the Future of Humanity https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSp07P8jvYs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSp07P8jvYs

soopypoos 8mo ago

it's all a fuckin' joke