5 ms·

Pretty clear that these are people who want to fuck you over. Silicon Valley elites have accumulated enough power to come mask off. Entitled dirtbags who profit

Pretty clear that these are people who want to fuck you over. Silicon Valley elites have accumulated enough power to come mask off. Entitled dirtbags who profited off government funded science and technology who've never created an ounce of value in their lives.

yetanotherforg 4y ago
Thank you. Nobody ever seems to mention how much founders get to stand on the heads of engineers and scientists who were paid with tax dollars. Kind of how the libertarian musk fans ignore how much aid his companies have gotten from the t taxpayers. In the heads of somebody who believed The Fountain Head and Atlas Shrugged were bibles, there are 1 or 2 people doing 99% of all work in the companies.
- wittycardio 4y ago
  Most progress has come from universities, defense and government funding. These losers build an app and proclaim themselves gurus on the future. It's insane that people fall for it.
  - robertlagrant 4y ago
    Progress doesn't come from funding, and funding doesn't come from the government. People make progress. People pay taxes.
    - wittycardio 4y ago
      Sure progress comes from scientists , not from idiots building b2b saas apps.
      - TurboHaskal 4y ago
        But what about the yet another distributed key store we built?
        yetanotherforg 4y ago
        I feel like you're making fun of Riak :)
      - robertlagrant 4y ago
        > Sure progress comes from scientists , not from idiots building b2b saas apps. Progress comes from all sorts of places. Scientific progress come from scientists. That doesn't result in things better in my life without a huge number of other people doing things well and efficiently. Both of which includes anything people will pay for, including b2b saas apps. Try having a pandemic lockdown without Amazon-level fulfillment in place. Thankfully we didn't have to.
        wittycardio 4y ago
        No not all work is equal. Progress is a rare thing. Do not equate all forms of work to progress. People will pay good money for women to fart on their faces. That's not valuable work. Neither is building shitty apps.
        yetanotherforg 4y ago
        > Do not equate all forms of work to progress. People will pay good money for women to fart on their faces. Depends entirely upon the quality of the fart.
        robertlagrant 4y ago
        I'm not equating all forms of work to progress. That'd be a category error. It's the inverse: you saying only progress comes from scientists is a category error.
        nickpp 4y ago
        Scientist's work is not necessarily valuable either: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ig_Nobel_Prize https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ig_Nobel_Prize Who would you like to appoint as an arbiter for what "valuable work is"? If certain people enjoy and pay women to fart in their faces - would you like to ban that? How about other "useless" activities that humans enjoy like video games or massages or fashion or fancy restaurants - would you like to ban those as well?
        wittycardio 4y ago
    - yetanotherforg 4y ago
      Corporations seem to do a good job of avoiding taxes in a way that people cannot replicate. The ultra-rich founders also do a great job of making sure they pay a lower tax rate than the rest of us. I think Keynes said "The worst form of capitalism is in which the public holds all the risk, and the private sector realizes all the rewards".
      - robertlagrant 4y ago
        > Corporations seem to do a good job of avoiding taxes in a way that people cannot replicate. The ultra-rich founders also do a great job of making sure they pay a lower tax rate than the rest of us. Focusing on the latter is fair enough. Thinking that a corporation having lots of money is bad seems completely pointless. That money ends up as dividends or higher salaries or lower prices. Tax the first two and celebrate all three.
  - Dracophoenix 4y ago
    Progress comes from individuals. MIT did not endow Claude Shannon with divine knowledge of Boolean algebra and information theory. He discovered it himself.
    - wittycardio 4y ago
      Claude Shannon was able to do what he was able to do because of the ample research funding and the academic environment. I have great respect for people like Claude Shannon but they require an ecosystem to be able to do their work.
      - Dracophoenix 4y ago
        There were plenty of electrical engineers at MIT working on differential analyzers when Shannon worked on his paper. Why Shannon and not them? Funding and ecosystems don't make technological revolutions anymore than they make cures for diseases. After all, the four papers that revolutionized physics in the early 20th century were composed by a 24-year old patent clerk. Someone has to do the job of thinking and putting those ideas to paper. This is a requirement of any great idea irrespective of funding or people. Thinking is an individual pursuit for an individual reward.
        wittycardio 4y ago
        There is both an individual contribution and a societal contribution. No one is denying the individual contribution. But none of YC types had anything to do with inventing the internet but feel like they are the only ones who deserve it's rewards. They haven't created anything like information theory. It's mostly been about fleecing retail investors. More SBF and less Shannon
- bmitc 4y ago
  > Nobody ever seems to mention how much founders get to stand on the heads of engineers and scientists who were paid with tax dollars. Not that anyone listens to him, but Noam Chomsky has been saying this for his whole career. https://youtu.be/a4ZIhW5ZpaE https://youtu.be/a4ZIhW5ZpaE
timmytokyo 4y ago
It does seem a bit tone-deaf for pg to be making this argument at the precise moment tens of thousands of people are being laid off in the tech industry. Definitely a "mask off" moment. Either that, or he has a large equity stake in a manufacturer of pitchforks.

yetanotherforg 4y ago

Thank you. Nobody ever seems to mention how much founders get to stand on the heads of engineers and scientists who were paid with tax dollars. Kind of how the libertarian musk fans ignore how much aid his companies have gotten from the t taxpayers. In the heads of somebody who believed The Fountain Head and Atlas Shrugged were bibles, there are 1 or 2 people doing 99% of all work in the companies.

wittycardio 4y ago
Most progress has come from universities, defense and government funding. These losers build an app and proclaim themselves gurus on the future. It's insane that people fall for it.
- robertlagrant 4y ago
  Progress doesn't come from funding, and funding doesn't come from the government. People make progress. People pay taxes.
  - wittycardio 4y ago
    Sure progress comes from scientists , not from idiots building b2b saas apps.
    - TurboHaskal 4y ago
      But what about the yet another distributed key store we built?
      - yetanotherforg 4y ago
        I feel like you're making fun of Riak :)
    - robertlagrant 4y ago
      > Sure progress comes from scientists , not from idiots building b2b saas apps. Progress comes from all sorts of places. Scientific progress come from scientists. That doesn't result in things better in my life without a huge number of other people doing things well and efficiently. Both of which includes anything people will pay for, including b2b saas apps. Try having a pandemic lockdown without Amazon-level fulfillment in place. Thankfully we didn't have to.
      - wittycardio 4y ago
        No not all work is equal. Progress is a rare thing. Do not equate all forms of work to progress. People will pay good money for women to fart on their faces. That's not valuable work. Neither is building shitty apps.
        yetanotherforg 4y ago
        > Do not equate all forms of work to progress. People will pay good money for women to fart on their faces. Depends entirely upon the quality of the fart.
        robertlagrant 4y ago
        I'm not equating all forms of work to progress. That'd be a category error. It's the inverse: you saying only progress comes from scientists is a category error.
        nickpp 4y ago
        Scientist's work is not necessarily valuable either: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ig_Nobel_Prize https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ig_Nobel_Prize Who would you like to appoint as an arbiter for what "valuable work is"? If certain people enjoy and pay women to fart in their faces - would you like to ban that? How about other "useless" activities that humans enjoy like video games or massages or fashion or fancy restaurants - would you like to ban those as well?
        wittycardio 4y ago
  - yetanotherforg 4y ago
    Corporations seem to do a good job of avoiding taxes in a way that people cannot replicate. The ultra-rich founders also do a great job of making sure they pay a lower tax rate than the rest of us. I think Keynes said "The worst form of capitalism is in which the public holds all the risk, and the private sector realizes all the rewards".
    - robertlagrant 4y ago
      > Corporations seem to do a good job of avoiding taxes in a way that people cannot replicate. The ultra-rich founders also do a great job of making sure they pay a lower tax rate than the rest of us. Focusing on the latter is fair enough. Thinking that a corporation having lots of money is bad seems completely pointless. That money ends up as dividends or higher salaries or lower prices. Tax the first two and celebrate all three.
- Dracophoenix 4y ago
  Progress comes from individuals. MIT did not endow Claude Shannon with divine knowledge of Boolean algebra and information theory. He discovered it himself.
  - wittycardio 4y ago
    Claude Shannon was able to do what he was able to do because of the ample research funding and the academic environment. I have great respect for people like Claude Shannon but they require an ecosystem to be able to do their work.
    - Dracophoenix 4y ago
      There were plenty of electrical engineers at MIT working on differential analyzers when Shannon worked on his paper. Why Shannon and not them? Funding and ecosystems don't make technological revolutions anymore than they make cures for diseases. After all, the four papers that revolutionized physics in the early 20th century were composed by a 24-year old patent clerk. Someone has to do the job of thinking and putting those ideas to paper. This is a requirement of any great idea irrespective of funding or people. Thinking is an individual pursuit for an individual reward.
      - wittycardio 4y ago
        There is both an individual contribution and a societal contribution. No one is denying the individual contribution. But none of YC types had anything to do with inventing the internet but feel like they are the only ones who deserve it's rewards. They haven't created anything like information theory. It's mostly been about fleecing retail investors. More SBF and less Shannon
bmitc 4y ago
> Nobody ever seems to mention how much founders get to stand on the heads of engineers and scientists who were paid with tax dollars. Not that anyone listens to him, but Noam Chomsky has been saying this for his whole career. https://youtu.be/a4ZIhW5ZpaE https://youtu.be/a4ZIhW5ZpaE

timmytokyo 4y ago

It does seem a bit tone-deaf for pg to be making this argument at the precise moment tens of thousands of people are being laid off in the tech industry. Definitely a "mask off" moment. Either that, or he has a large equity stake in a manufacturer of pitchforks.