I really hate how the excruciatingly overdue reckoning for tech elites and income inequality is turning into this religious schism over AI and datacenters.
We're going to smash the looms rather than figure out how to share them, again.
I really hate how the excruciatingly overdue reckoning for tech elites and income inequality is turning into this religious schism over AI and datacenters.
We're going to smash the looms rather than figure out how to share them, again.
The underlying issue is really capital ownership, what classifies as capital, protections around it, and how much leverage capital provides on a society and democracy (that part being the most important, IMHO).
Who owns the looms and what they do with them isn’t inherently an issue if all loom owners can do is buy an extra Yacht. Instead they can enforce ungoverned law on society through a combination of disproportionate influence in government and through market forces where private policy (especially at large) become nearly undifferentiated from law (the policy that benefits them becomes so widespread and normalized that alternatives are for all intent and purposes impractical or unreasonable, therefor private policy within a capital ownership domain is law or they’re a monopoly so their policy is the policy).
But I think you’re right, as always we’re going to focus on the adjacent issues vs addressing the root of the problem. The issue is what wealth inequality affords one, when it is capable of infringing on rights and livelihoods of others, not that they necessarily have to share the other luxuries and rewards of their attained wealth. I care not how many luxuries in life Musk has, I may be envious from time to time but whatever. I care a lot more when things he does or says has unrealistic influence and affects me directly, just because he sits atop a mountain of capital and we pretend that mountain of capital somehow was bestowed upon him from divinity that he should have such influence. I’m picking on Musk because he’s the richest and has clear examples of this, he’s by no means alone… it’s that class of wealth at large.
> We're going to smash the looms rather than figure out how to share them, again.
Not we. They. Maybe you are part of that group too but "we" certainly don't.
What reckoning? This is not related to tech elites in the least, but simply a consequence of capitalism.
If your think smashing this generations looms will get you there, your mistaken. See what it took for communism to take hold, and plan for that
In the case of the US, 1929 and WWII bought significant changes. Then Reagan started the path back to the XIX century.
This must be the most utterly trivializing summary of the 20th century I have ever seen in my life
Pretty sure you misunderstood this person. I don't think they are advocating for the smashing of looms, rather fear that the movement that could redistribute the benefits of this new technology will go down that dark road again. I also think the reckoning is overdue, maybe it will never come to be. What reckoning? The reckoning for large scale IP theft, scaling up what they call "ghost work", the usage of natural resources and land which power data centers with no return to the people that depend on those and the already existing predatory and disgusting business practices that they have always partaken in. (I assume)
"Tech elites" are so deeply intertwined with capitalism that they might as well be synonymous.
It’s hard for me to understand why this was downvoted since it’s plainly a simple fact.
A significant fraction of HN users are either are "tech elites" themselves or have paychecks that depend on them.