Instead of just rejecting the future like a Roman fatalist because you've decided that it's just going to be someone else controlling you, maybe a better plan is to adopt emerging technology when it comes into play (like for example when the Internet came into play) and use it to start your own company, or make yourself more productive, or disrupt an industry that desperately needs it.

I shouldn't have to explain the benefits of productivity improvements and computer technology to people on Hacker News, but the place for some reason has been hijacked by neo luddites from Reddit that apparently have nothing better to do than troll about AI on a web site that is literally dedicated to an industry they don't like. Sam Altman literally used to run Y Combinator. Why not use that energy you're wasting to adopt emerging technology instead of bashing it?

There are places that recognized manufacturing was going to go away, transitioned a service economy, and did well economically, and places that ignored reality and are now in disrepair. Now's a great time to decide if you want to be Seattle or Cleveland. Don't fight the future. And don't think it's a billionaires fault when certain places are more successful then others because they didn't ban AI and datacenters while other places squandered the opportunity because they didn't confront the pitchfork mob driven into a frenzy by yellow journalism.

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pixl97 a day ago | parent | next [-]

"All everybody has to do is work and there will be no unemployment" --throwaway323929

Wow, you just solved economics!

Your argument is so incredibly reductive as to be nonsensical. The understanding of the allocation of capital is seemingly below grade school level. Even moreso, your understanding of the business cycle and how it interacts with governments and banks seems to be even more immature.

"manufacturing" didn't "go away", it moved to China so investors could capitalize on lax environmental laws and cheap labor. This engineered trade off of wealth had devastating results to massive parts of the US. On top of that, not every city can become Seattle. There isn't enough 'service economy' to go around and do that, especially as technology tends to concentrate wealth.

	▲	selimthegrim a day ago \| parent [-]
		This has strong shades of BoJack Horseman's "We solved America's gun problem by giving everyone guns"

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andy_ppp a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I love AI and have built many projects with PyTorch and use LLMs daily for all my work and am building a startup in my spare time here: https://veloa.com/

Being concerned about how AI will concentrate power doesn’t mean I don’t think it’s extremely useful.

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inigyou a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Did you adopt cryptocurrency in 2022? What were your results?

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dofm a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If any of you guys who use the phrase "neo-luddite" had any grasp of who the Luddites were, what their concerns were, and why such campaigns did what they did, you'd be getting ready to fight the future too. Whichever side you're on.

Maybe try to understand the future neo-Luddites before you have to fight them off. Libertarianism made your salaries good but it made them affordable semi-automatic weapons.

It seems to me that it's a bit more likely to be a Captain Swing than a Ned Ludd who emerges, anyway.

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tharmas a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If AI was utilized to eliminate the "shitty" jobs I'd be more enthusiastic about it. AI Robots that clean toilets so humans don't have to? Yes, please. (Yes, I get it that at present its probably still cheaper to employ a human wage slave to do this job -> the economic argument).

But at present AI seems to be just eliminating the junior programmer positions. That is, the apprentices. Once the more experienced engineers retire and die off who will replace them? AI? Who will have the knowledge and expertise to know what is crap software is and what isn't?

	▲	dofm a day ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Right. Luckily the universe has decided to solve this problem quite early on by having the tech industry fuck itself in the face first.
	▲	satvikpendem a day ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Won't anyone think of the software engineers? It's funny how hypocritical the tech worker world is when the very jobs they work are in the business of automating professions away. But when it comes for my profession? Oh the horror.

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blinkbat a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

it's really funny when people advise the fix for widespread sociological problems as "just become an entrepreneur and disrupt an industry bro"

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try_the_bass 20 hours ago | parent [-]

I mean, that is the essence of how to fix the problems in a capitalist society?

One of the core tenets of capitalism is that one person's profits are another person's opportunity. If the latter can do the work/obtain the capital to break into the industry, they can capture some of those profits by offering competition at a lower price point.

I don't think the person you're bagging on is saying it's easy to do; but they are saying that if people feel strongly about changing something, perhaps they should try doing it themselves, instead of just complaining about it and wishing someone else (i.e. government) will fix it for them

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unknownfuture 19 hours ago | parent [-]

> I mean, that is the essence of how to fix the problems in a capitalist society?

So... we're just gonna forget that governments exist?

We gonna assume rivers would've stopped burning in the US if only there had just been more startups working on making rivers stop burning?

	▲	dofm 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Superfund-as-a-Service

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nearlyepic a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[flagged]

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watwut a day ago | parent | prev [-]

> disrupt an industry that desperately needs it.

Why is the primary tech people impulse to disrupt, destroy and harm other industries? Maybe that is why we dont produce useful tech anymore. The primary impulse is always hostile, rarely something like "lets create and sell a useful thing for them".

> adopt emerging technology when it comes into play (like for example when the Internet came into play) and use it to start your own company, or make yourself more productive,

Funny, the strategy of creating a company entirely dependent on mercy of another company, vulnerable to destruction with any simple change in TOS has been criticized on HN previously.

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try_the_bass 20 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> Why is the primary tech people impulse to disrupt, destroy and harm other industries? Maybe that is why we dont produce useful tech anymore. The primary impulse is always hostile, rarely something like "lets create and sell a useful thing for them".

I think you misunderstand what disruption means in this context? Disruption means pursuing the same market as some incumbents, with the express goal of serving that market better/faster/more efficiently.

The impulse is hostile to the incumbents, but (in principle) good for the market: the market is getting competition, and competition is one way to make things cheaper/better/etc.

Obviously what this looks like varies by market, but the principle is very different from how you're presenting it

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satvikpendem a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Sometimes the other industries are just bad, like Uber for taxis or Airbnb for hotels. Now the disrupted industries have gotten somewhat better but only due to competition.

And disruption doesn't always mean destruction, it's just a word that is used, not to necessarily be taken literally.

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watwut 21 hours ago | parent [-]

Hotels did not got better. They are about the same. Uber sold rides under pruce for years and then pushed expensis on deivers.

In my city, Uber is just like any other taxi company.

>;And disruption doesn't always mean destruction, it's just a word that is used, not to necessarily be taken literally.

It means exactly that tho. When tech people talk about disruption, they dont talk about creating better products, they are not interested in what the rest of the world needs or want. When tech people talk about disruption, focus is alwas on, well, disruption as a goal on itself.

It is never mutual prosperity vision, it is about using VC money to create monopoly and then raising prices to milk the situation to the max.

We dont even see articles about how to make more useful products on HN. Nor about how to solve real world problems. We, as a culture, just dont do that.

	▲	satvikpendem 20 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I'd rather take an Uber, with an app and no tip or meter without redzoning than any taxi, same with Airbnb and having a full kitchen everywhere I go. So the disruption was in fact good for many facets of society. It is useful, otherwise so many would not, well, use it.

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randysalami a day ago | parent | prev [-]

I see your comment is not popular but I agree. I think it’s because it’s easier to take value than it is to create it from scratch. One requires empathy, creativity, the other only requires greed. Or maybe it is a zero-sum game.