this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2024
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Big brain tech dude got yet another clueless take over at HackerNews etc? Here's the place to vent. Orange site, VC foolishness, all welcome.

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so Andreessen Horowitz posted another manifesto just over a week ago and it’s the most banal fash shit you can imagine:

Regulatory agencies have been green lit to use brute force investigations, prosecutions, intimidation, and threats to hobble new industries, such as Blockchain.

Regulatory agencies are being green lit in real time to do the same to Artificial Intelligence.

does this shit ever get deeper than Regulation Bad? fuck no it doesn’t. is this Horowitz’s attempt to capitalize on the Supreme Court’s judiciary coup? you fucking bet.

here’s some more banal shit:

We find there are three kinds of politicians:

Those who support Little Tech. We support them.

Those who oppose Little Tech. We oppose them.

Those who are somewhere in the middle – they want to be supportive, but they have concerns. We work with them in good faith.

I find there are three kinds of politicians:

  • those who want hamburger. I give them hamburger.
  • those who abstain from hamburger. I do not give them hamburger.
  • those who have questions about hamburger. I refer them to the shift supervisor in good faith.
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[–] [email protected] 34 points 5 months ago (1 children)

"The time has come to stand up for Little Tech" —venture capital firm with $42 billion in assets under management

[–] [email protected] 21 points 5 months ago (2 children)

tbf how much of that is real money and how much of that is overhyped stock, cookie cutter shitcoins, and other SV innovation in financial crimes

[–] [email protected] 18 points 5 months ago

Yeah, my first thought was "$42 billion" in "assets" under "management."

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago (1 children)

On the other hand, by the time you're spelling billion with a "B" any appreciable fraction of that is still going to be enough money to functionally remove you from the normal economy. Too big to fail in that even if all the bullshit collapses they'd still probably have more money than God.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago

if you can cut it down by 4 orders of magnitude, maybe less depending on his spending rate, he'll spend all of it before he dies, all on his own (i vaguely remember that people in the west spend something like $4M over their entire lives)

[–] [email protected] 30 points 5 months ago (2 children)

new industries, such as Blockchain.

While resisting the morbid curiosity that might otherwise tempt me to follow the link, I paused to consider that one phrase, with the capital B and all. How did it come to this? What is it about this cumbersome and inefficient type of database that makes people go crazy for it? Or could they have just as easily picked some other algorithm to glorify? It would be quite a world if every data structure we invented got people believing that there's going to be a whole new industry devoted to it. Yeah, I'm working on a new project in the Hash Table industry. We're going to combine it with Sorting Algorithm technology to deliver revolutionary new techniques for optimizing pizza delivery. I would like a hundred million dollars please.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 5 months ago

Bitcoin enables the fantasy of becoming a rent-seeking plutocrat that cannot have their wealth seized by a government nor a popular uprising.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I didn't "read" read, but I skimmed through it, and the core premise doesn't seem that much better.

I'm anti regulatory capture, which shouldn't be a complicated stance, but the government just isn't actively suppressing new tech industries. They're slow and reactionary.

They didn't regulate junk crypto shit until way after people got scammed out of millions of dollars, and that regulation is mostly about exchanges involved real money being documented and taxed.

They are trying to regulate "AI", (and mostly shouldn't, except energy use) but again, after it became a massive industry with billions of dollars thrown around. And it's a pretty weak response, way after massive amounts of noise about IP and heavy lobbying from the "new industry" they're supposedly trying to prevent.

There's also a fucking bunch of noise that doesn't actually say anything.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 5 months ago

just one more manifesto bro, just one more and we'll get an unregulated free market, just one more bro

[–] [email protected] 17 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Another manifesto? Considering the high percentage of people who first write a manifesto and then do a terrorism/shooting I'm now scared.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 5 months ago (1 children)

considering that his previous manifesto was titled "It's Time To Build" and he did not, in fact, built anything, makes me think that the only thing he can fill a pipe bomb with is hot air

[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago (2 children)

They are VC's they would never dirty their hands building something themselves. They would invest into an enterprising startup (making pipebombs with a LLM) they inspired.

The only people really at risk is the people who end up holding the bags.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Does it have to be LLMs? Maybe he will fund my startup "Bombr," which is gig economy for terrorism. Okay, I'll have LLMs write the screeds and there will be a blockchain somehow.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

file that under "venmo for isis" or maybe "tinder for hitmen"

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago (2 children)

I mean, tindr for hitmen would obviously be murdr.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago

won't that be grindr for hitmen

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

iMurdr, murdr is the app for police. Weird overlap in features though.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago

Look, the spec just said that you should be able to use the app to get a man with a gun to show up and make someone dead, it did not specify what he should be wearing at the time.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago

A gig economy startup? In 2024? Oof those went out of style 10 internet years ago. The VC's have not funded any of those since they learned of AI in late 2023.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago

Pipe-bomb-as-a-service (PBaaS)

[–] [email protected] 17 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Regulatory agencies have been green lit to use brute force investigations, prosecutions, intimidation, and threats to hobble new industries, such as Blockchain.

Wow, Andreesen Horowitz, guy who wouldn't acknowledge government repression if a working class person was being bludgeoned with police batons in front of his eyes, thinks he was persecuted for Blockchain.

Makes it sound as if The Gobment sent SWAT teams to sieze the Means of Tax Deduction out of SBFs bloodied hands and then set fire to his luxurious Bahama mansion, whereas the reality is that they... Mostly looked at all the fraud for years until they had enough pages of stern words to warrant an indictment after it all collapsed to shit and people couldn't get their money back.

This guy would've been on Madoff's side, crying persecution on his arrest, wouldn't he?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago

Just reminds me of this:

https://www.economist.com/britain/2024/06/19/britains-conservatives-are-losing-as-they-governed-meekly

Like, if the current world isn't giving you sufficient free reign to change the world with your money then the problem isn't that you need more freedom the problem is that you keep demanding even more power.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago

I nearly downvoted this post on reflex

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago

In ReaL TiMe