The bears will be right eventually. But they'll be wrong many times in a row before that. And we'll pull through, eventually. I'm a long-term optimist, so I'm not particularly worried about when the next downturn will be.
Seems like our leaders laundered our money through the US military and government apparatus, to the tunes of billions of dollars, so that they could carry out the dirty work of overthrowing the Venezuelan government in order to enrich Exxon and other oil companies. That's our money doing this. My money doing this. Boomers are cooked, man.
Same site as the OP has an article stating Tesla makes it difficult, and if you put 50k in 8 years ago and obtain 50k now, I think you lost a lot of money. I have no opinion on the process itself though, I don’t know enough about Tesla as I’m only interested in the engineering, just wanted to point out the inflation losses.
> Put that on your resumé and you'll easily land a cushy job in Washington.
I think you have it backwards. The entire tech bro scene reeks of fraud schemes, and the most successful ones seem to be pulled into all kinds of government schemes as well.
That’s a fair point, but a combination of “fake it ‘til you make it” together with extracting massive “compensation” before you actually make it amounts to pretty much the same thing.
He has been selling a lot of Tesla stocks through the life of the company (not that it matters to him as other shareholders are giving him load of free shares all the time).
It's not the usual type of 'dump', but he will probably again request massive bonus or threaten to leave. And his statements are the key for pumping part.
So is your issue here that a CEO makes public claims if his company that may be predictions or aspirations for the future, then sells shares he owns in the company to buy another company?
Fair enough. I may just be cynical enough to assume CEOs are always talking out of their ass with regards to the future, but I do understand if people would rather things not work this way.
My evidence is that in America people sue for these things left and right all the time. It's a popular pastime for lawyers to get a class action lawsuit for securities fraud together. But as far as I can tell, Musk / Tesla weren't convicted of these things in conjunction with the sale of Tesla stock to buy Twitter.
There is a meme for this kind of move. It's pump and dump because it isn't worth what the underlying assets are worth and because there is a sale. Whether people sue for it and whether or not they were convicted is immaterial.
I guess when people stop believing them. Until then, they're words from a visionary that's building the future, who can get some things wrong / be over zealous etc. When people stop believing him, they become lies.
Imagine me standing next to the fence of the White House, calling the Meta Office. "I am calling from the White House", while technically true would be a lie, as my intent would be to make the other person believe something that isn't true, that I would be calling in some kind of official role.
So the statement does not necessarily be false to be a lie - if the intent is to deceive.
To be "mere puff", the claim needs to be so obviously untrue that no reasonable bystander would suppose it to be meant literally.
But Musk often acts as if he does actually intend to be taken seriously. In the case of the current story, consider the marketing resources Tesla have poured into their previous "Battery Day" events and look at the press reaction; it's clear that at least some people believed that the claims stacked up.
A quick search of the hn archives for "4680" shows a similar picture. Yes, there were always some sceptical voices, but they were often shouted down as being from people motivated by an anti-Elon grudge. Nevertheless, the sentiment tended to be overwhelmingly positive with many posters actively reinforcing the hype.
Now, whether or not a self-selecting sample of hn posters can be seen as "reasonable bystanders" is certainly debatable - but it does seem that we're getting close to the point where Musk is going to have to start branding those who believe him as being exceptionally gullible in order to escape a charge of misleading advertising.
This article makes me think of how defiant Discord has been against all of this, and how slowly I'm starting to succumb to many of the same forces, although much slowly than other platforms. It's a minor miracle they never got bought up/sold themselves.
Also reminds me of the Dark Forrest Yancy Strickler stuff.
First human robot war is us telling the AI/robots 'no', and them insisting that insert technology here is good for us and is the direction we should take. Probably already been done, but yeah, this seems like the tipping point into something entirely different for humanity.
... if it's achievable at all in the near future! But we don't know that. It's just that if we assume AI can do X, why do we assume it cannot, at the same level of capability, also do Y? Maybe the tipping point where it can do both X and Y is near, but maybe in the near future it will be able to do neither.
We do not currently have the political apparatus in place to stop the dystopian nightmares depicted in movies and media. They were supposed to be cautionary tales. Maybe they still can be, but there are basically zero guardrails in non-progressive forms of government to prevent massive accumulations of power being wielded in ways most of the population disapproves of.
Thats the whole point of democracy, to prevent the ruling parties from doing wildly unpopular things. Unlike a dictatorship, where they can do anything (including good things, that otherwise wouldn't happen in a democracy).
I know that "X is destroying democracy, vote for Y" has been a prevalent narrative lately, but is there any evidence that it's true? I get that it's death by a thousand cuts, or "one step at a time" as they say.
> I know that "X is destroying democracy, vote for Y" has been a prevalent narrative lately, but is there any evidence that it's true? I get that it's death by a thousand cuts, or "one step at a time" as they say.
I suggest reading [1], [2], and [3]. From there, you'll probably have lots of background to pose your own research questions. According to [4], until you write about something, your thinking will be incomplete, and I tend to agree nearly all of the time.
[4]: "Neuroscientists, psychologists and other experts on thinking have very different ideas about how our brains work, but, as Levy writes: “no matter how internal processes are implemented, (you) need to understand the extent to which the mind is reliant upon external scaffolding.” (2011, 270) If there is one thing the experts agree on, then it is this: You have to externalise your ideas, you have to write. Richard Feynman stresses it as much as Benjamin Franklin. If we write, it is more likely that we understand what we read, remember what we learn and that our thoughts make sense." - Sönke Ahrens. How to Take Smart Notes_ - Sonke Ahrens (p. 30)
I actually do think people directly see the negative public health impact, its so visceral in so many parents lives, and that that is the driving force behind all of this.
I love being cynical, but I actually do buy these efforts as being purely "for the kids", kind of thing. Sure, there are knock-on effects, but I do buy the good faith-ness of phone bans in school and of these social media bans for kids.
I think this might be true at the parent level, but less and less true as you climb up the government ladder.
The shitty part is that when the parents really do believe something is "for the kids", it becomes that much easier to push through laws that have awful side effects (intentional ones or not). Which is why "for the kids" is so common, of course.
It's very unfortunate. As a parent, I feel like it requires regulation at the national level because I can't win against Meta (FB, Insta), Google (Youtube), Snapchat and TikTok.
My son is 15. My talk to him went something like this: There's a lot of porn and nasty things that you can't unsee, so be careful what you look at. Also, those extortion gangs target teenage boys, so if some girl is suddenly hot for you online, come see me immediately so we can troll the ever loving fuck out of them. I think it went pretty well. We like doing things as a family, but more like the Addams family...
Education and believably honest offers of support are needed to navigate the world, which is ugly and evil in some parts. Restrictions are really just counterproductive because curious young people are drawn to restricted stuff, and age restrictions build a sense of 'us (the young) against them (the adults)', so it's hard to convince that you actually offer honest support. Restrictions also focus on the bad parts, while we should instead focus on the good parts, the advantages of a global network of anything, which is totally amazing. Restrictions are counter productive.
Humans need to learn to live here, and it starts when we're young and curious.
Ok, now we have no restrictions. Timmy just got his driver’s license at 13 and is on his way to 7-11 to pick up a 24 pack because he’s young and curious.
Remarkably, Youtube's logged out experience will still be completely available to all age groups. And an a Australian HN user mentioned that one 14-year old had another (presumably older looking) 14-year old do the "video selfie" for her to verify her account on one the sites. So I'm not sure the fight will go away, but it may be slightly more tractable.
It will normalize people thinking that uploading their state-issued ID to whatever contractor is validating accounts is safe and normal.
Most people probably agree something needs to be done at scale. Banning kids sounds neither effective nor long term beneficial though, and at the core of it seems to deflect from solving deeper issues.
It looks like they're "doing something" while nothing really changes or potentially gets worse. Trying to regulate Meta/YouTube from there has IMHO become harder, as kids are on paper supposed to be out of the picture.
I'd view that as more of a works for me argument than necessarily actionable. Social dynamics are complex and personality, status, etc, plays into which relationships end up mattering, being convincing, etc. I.e. some children bond closer to a grandparent not because parents have failed in any way at honest conversations.
3 kids, same honest conversations, 2 where it worked and works very well, 1 where it is a constant battle.
So sorry but no, the platforms are addictive and not all the kids can resist against an armada of statisticians ensuring the systems stay addictive only through honest conversations.
By the way, this would mean you could solve all the addiction issues if it would be working...
> It's very unfortunate. As a parent, I feel like it requires regulation at the national level because I can't win against Meta (FB, Insta), Google (Youtube), Snapchat and TikTok.
Sorry, but this just isn't the case. I have children very much in the target age here, and they only have a passing understand of what social media even is due to us explaining how unhealthy it is to them.
It's unfortunate you feel incapable of achieving the same, but abdicating your responsibility as a parent to the state isn't the answer.
I remember there being an experiment where parents were placed in a room with some toys their children were allowed to play with and some toys their children weren't allowed to.
They measured the parents perceived level of control against their actual level of control by seeing if they stopped their children from playing with the researchers laptop that had been left in the corner of the room.
Part of me wonders if it was apocryphal, I'm not sure if a test like that would get past an ethics committee (at least since laptops existed)
Likewise, the state abdicating its responsibility and placing the burden solely on parents isn't fair either, and that is exactly the environment we currently find ourselves in.
Yes, let's allow cigarette manufacturers to target children, and let's the capable parents teach them. Same for porn, alcohol, drugs. If your kids have issues, it's your fault, not society's. /s
It's not that the people don't genuinely believe what they're saying. It's that they've deluded themselves into thinking their ideological right is "for the kids".
There's always been Reefer Madness sorts of people. Sex, Drugs, Rock and Roll, Video Games, DnD, Rap Music, Homosexuality, and on and on. Today it's half woke mind virus and half DEI (for lack of a better term). Most of the people that spout this stuff genuinely believe they're fighting for the kids.
Its not good faith because its already broken by vpn. And its forcing kids with no credit cards to download free and malware ridden ones. How would you measure any level of success from this initiative? Doing something isnt a solution if it has tons of bad sideeffects
It very much is. Free VPNs almost always have some sort of catch. E.g. HolaVPN users agree in the ToS to become an exit node for other VPN users: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hola_(VPN)
If social media is so compelling, then teens almost certainly will take whatever steps are necessary to access it.
> Its not good faith because its already broken by vpn.
One does not follow from the other.
We make speeding illegal even though even the most affordable cars can trivially bypass all speed restrictions. It doesn't mean that the efforts to curb speeding are in bad faith just because it is still possible to bypass speed reduction rules.
Thank you. I thought it was a pretty good analogy, too.
>Wonder why banning homelessness works so well[?] Oh we don[']t ban it? Must be because we don[']t care enough[.]
I do not understand what point you are trying to make about homelessness, and how that would be at all relevant to keeping teenagers from having accounts on social media.
That's not a great comparison.
I was just pointing out that the existence of ways to violate a law, does not in any way, mean that passing the law or enforcing it is a bad faith effort.
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