This is a dystopia no one really thought about. A handful of people anointed to spend borrowed money on a (so far unprofitable) quest to destabilize the world's economy, alienate the working class and make everything we've enjoyed the past 15-20 years a luxury.

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lovich 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

No? Lots of philosophers and writers thought about the problems that happen when capital concentrates to the level that individuals can move nations.

It’s like a whole fucking genre.

What we call capitalism now is just reverting back to monarchism where the handful of rulers decide everything and we stop getting the market to be responsive to reality. Prepare for more absurd and random shortages as our betters play around with their toys

	▲	the_real_cher 15 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Yeah weve gone so far past markets at this point Companies that are essentially monopolies have greater income than most countries GDP, with government bailouts, with the Federal reserve printing money like crazy, the interest on government debt is greater than military spending. This is monarchy wearing the skin of capitalism.

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dontlaugh 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

How so?

The drive towards monopoly, tendency of the rate of profit to fall, over and under production and cyclical ever worsening crises are aspects of capitalism well studied and understood over a century ago.

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beeflet 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

a dystopian world in which computer memory is sort of expensive, god save us

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LorenDB 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

"Sort of expensive" doesn't really convey the true state of affairs, i.e. memory prices have jumped 300% or more.

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reaperducer 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Maybe programmers will have to start making their programs efficient again.

Maybe OpenAI's RAM monopoly is what kills Electron.

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dijit a day ago | parent | next [-]

vibe coders are likely to use electron.

Sam is betting that vibe coders are the future.

Whoever wins, we lose.

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checker659 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Electron is no match for a O(n^3) algorithm.

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ethbr1 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

1. Man creates apps

2. Browser destroys apps

3. Browser creates apps

4. AI destroys browser apps

...

5. AI eats all memory

6. Forth inherits the Earth

	▲	unethical_ban 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Well, uh... There it is.

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wpm 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Memory today

Water tomorrow

This is the natural consequence of letting individual psychos control more money than most world economies.

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beeflet 2 days ago | parent [-]

I am not convinced by this whole AI water scare. Doesn't the water just evaporate? It's not a finite resource like oil.

If the problem is that these companies are creating an externality by straining the local water supply, then maybe we should simply tax water more where appropriate? I don't think any sort of shame will be effective.

For the past decade water has been mismanaged in inefficient farming practices, like bad irrigation practices or production of alfalfa to feed foreign livestock. We also waste a ton of water on our big dumb lawns. "cooling datacenters" doesn't seem like that big of a deal.

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iteria a day ago | parent [-]

Fresh water is a finite resource. It replenishes extremely slowly in certain forms. Like ground water. Lakes and rivers can run dry if you pull too much from them, see: Iran. AI data centers are making the problem of overuse worse. We were already pulling too much water in areas. With these data centers, some places that didn't have a problem are starting to.

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rowanG077 a day ago | parent [-]

Fresh water is not a finite resource. You can simply make more by taking sea water and pumping in energy. It's not cheap but it's doable.

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abenga a day ago | parent | next [-]

In the short term (while you build your desalinators), and in local water-stressed regions, it very much is.

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dijit a day ago | parent | prev [-]

perhaps the most hackernews take in this thread.

desalination isn’t just expensive, it’s existentially costly in terms of energy consumption, and I don’t see any dyson spheres in production.

	▲	rowanG077 a day ago \| parent [-]
		With modern desalination facilities it costs literally on the order of cents per liter. It's an inconvenience at worst in the modern world. It costs approx 3kwh of energy to desalinate one cubic meter of water.