[jordanb]

It was always difficult to get normal people to understand why the tech billionaires are so bad until Thiel gave us that clip of him getting stumped by the "should humanity survive" question.

I'm forever grateful to Thiel for that clip, and to Musk for his crippling Twitter addiction. It was pretty impossible to get regular people to understand that folks like Bill Gates or Larry Ellison are skinwalkers when all they ever see about these people is professionally managed public relations content.

[jacquesm]

The list is getting longer and longer, but a good touchstone is simply net worth. You don't normally get to the top of a foodchain without being an apex predator.

[toomuchtodo]

Indeed. Empathy and the levels of wealth accumulation in scope are incompatible imho. They are the paperclip maximizers we were warned about.

[e2le]

People aught to be questioning more the future vision of those in positions to shape it. Someone who struggles with such simple questions around humanity while simultaneously building the tools of a surveillance state probably should not be one of the individuals driving our future.

It's quite clear that my vision of the future is nothing like theirs.

[dijit]

It's a lot more comforting to believe that the people who have influence over us are there by some right of some kind.

Wether it be because they're "smarter than us and have completed capitalism" (that's how Gates, Ellison and ironically Trump/Musk are thought of)

or by "divine right" as it used to be with Kings.

It's horribly sobering to realise that, actually, they're just people. Like, pretty ordinary unremarkable people who have access to different information than we do and have been exposed to different things. Rarely are they more than a single standard deviation from the norm in intelligence.

They're people, flawed, egotistical, easily manipulated, easily dragged into thinking weird things, persuadable and unless they're really self-aware: will be surrounded by sycophants that just repeat what they want to hear (because, that feels pretty good) until they have a warped "echo of an echo" understanding of the world.

I wouldn't wish this on anyone, it's terrifying to believe that you would be insulated from all direct criticism while being told that everything you do is the right thing no matter what it is. You can't trust your own fucking reflection in that situation.

But we do that to people, people who have enormous influence over us, and they get confused when we don't like them, and we get confused about how they can be so out of touch and unlikable.

But they're just people.

[rurp]

A frustrating aspect of the AI debates has been the number of people who believe people like Sam Altman who say that the immense wealth created by AGI would be distributed to the masses to improve their lives. The notion that the mega wealthy Elon/Sams/Bezos elites are going to willingly give up unprecedented wealth because millions of people have become unemployed and impoverished is so wildly out of step with how those people have behaved their entire lives. Someone who says they have enough billions and want to improve millions of lives don't make it to those positions.

The only way that wealth gets shared will be unprecedented government coercion or worse.

[cootsnuck]

Yea, it's puzzling to me that this isn't asked of folks like Altman and Amodei in every interview. Maybe it's because Altman would just start shilling his eye scanning orb and start repeating "WORLD COIN" ad nauseum. Either way, they should be getting pressed on this by all media.

[simianwords]

This comment naively believes in zero sum creation of wealth.

Wealth is not taken from our consumers and given to Sam Altman. Sam and his company are creating wealth - increasing the pie.

Of course it benefits everyone while also benefiting them.

Wealth need not be redistributed to improve lives. Just the mere invention of ChatGPT and letting people purchase it and use it is enough to improve people’s lives. Redistribution does not solve any poverty problem other than transfer power.

Sam redistributing money will not sustainably change anything about prosperity or poverty.

[jacquesm]

It's beyond naive. But there are also still people believing Elon Musk is going to put humanity on Mars for keeps and out of altruism.

[PunchyHamster]

> It was always difficult to get normal people to understand why the tech billionaires are so bad until Thiel gave us that clip of him getting stumped by the "should humanity survive" question.

One "good" thing that came out of that thing.

I think main problem is that many people just think of them as "just a normal person but richer". But no. You don't get to that level of power by staying normal.

Hell, I remember when people pointed at Bill Gates going "see, you can be billionaire that puts their money to good", and while even before PDFiles got posted he had long history of being a piece of shit, now at least that stopped

[shevy-java]

> It was always difficult to get normal people to understand why the tech billionaires are so bad

This is mostly because normal people are not THINKING usually. It requires some event or insight when they begin to question what they see.

There are many ways to go about it, but my own personal favourite one, even though cheesy, is to tell them to watch the old B movie "They Live". Now, the movie is not really grand, has many plot holes, but Roddy made it fun (the kick ass scene with regards to bubblegem); and using glasses to see the thruth is such a powerful meme. People can then begin to question who owns the mass media. Then perhaps they may watch other movies such as Manufacturing consent (is a bit old now and thus dated, and people may find it boring, but I loved Noam's analysis back when his health was in prime condition). It is mostly in the USA where people think the superrich are god-sent. In other parts of the world this worshipping is way less. Or often does not exist; you won't find much love for the average superrich in Denmark or Sweden for instance.

[trinsic2]

That is my favorite film :D

[Imustaskforhelp]

The only non-evil Billionaire I know are the South park creators although they aren't tech Billionaires. I consider everyone else for the most part to not-be-good people.

Because south park decided to personally say essentially bad words to paramount using their episodes, the company which gave them a billion dollars.

So they took a billion dollars and they were still consistent with how they've been for decades at this point. All of this is truly remarkable in the particular world we live in.

[AceyMan]

I'd think that original creators such as J.K. Rowling, Steven Spielberg, Bruce Springsteen & Taylor Swift (among others) would be other members of the !evil bucket.

[heliumtera]

>It was always difficult to get normal people to understand why the tech billionaires are so bad

By the "greying out" of your comment, I would assume two things: First, the difficulty you describe is not on the past. Second, normies are here in much bigger proportion than a hacker would assume, and they are offended on the behalf of tech billionaires.

[e2le]

Some might even agree with their dystopic vision of the future.

[jacquesm]

They're not so much offended by it as that they would like to join the billionaire class and believe that those in power may at some point come to review their voting behavior on HN. For instance, YC asked for your HN username on the application form.

Of course I don't think they'd stoop so low as to look at the votes on subjects like this but that's the chilling effect for you and technically they have that ability. And they definitely look at the comments.

[edgyquant]

For me it’s because Peter Thiel has been pretty anti-transhumanism etc and he wasn’t stumped by the question he’s repeatedly answered it. Anyone who’s worldview is shaped by clips from tik tok should be downvoted

[timacles]

A lot of the older folks are also not well versed in their language or whatever you want to call it, so they can’t even connect comprehend these guys are compulsive liars and paranoid man children with no scruples.

They just think they are eccentric and by the virtue of their wealth they must be smart upstanding humans with a strong character.

[jordanb]

Yeah but I'd argue that the eccentric billionaire trope itself is the creation of the PR industry. "We've got this guy with rancid vibes, how do we make him palatable?"

[barbazoo]

> Peter Thiel on Transhumanism and the Future of Humanity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSp07P8jvYs

[simianwords]

It’s very naive to think this is the interpretation.

That humanity should survive is a deeper question than it looks. Ask any transhumanist.

[nailer]

> It was always difficult to get normal people to understand why the tech billionaires are so bad until Thiel gave us that clip of him getting stumped by the "should humanity survive" question.

He was thinking about convergence. You're probably smart enough to be aware of that, so you're deliberately twisting his words.

> folks like Bill Gates or Larry Ellison are skinwalkers

On HN a decade ago this would have been moderated into oblivion. The recent manual un-flagging of poolitical posts by the mods (dang has openly discussed this) has changed the site for the worse.

[trinsic2]

Actually It woke people up to the fact that there is clearly bad things going on. The people that take the politically correct standpoint have a lot to learn. Talking about things that are going wrong in society is important. If you don't like that, go live on an island somewhere where you can cut yourself off from humanity.

Discourse is good for society, unless you think that society shouldn't exist, or freedom shouldn't exist...

[unethical_ban]

Ah, clearly he was thinking about transhumanism! That thing all normal people understand and agree with.

[trinsic2]

That guy has a strong Nazi feel. I'd stay far, far away from anything he creates

[EQmWgw87pw]

So someone is evil because they answer questions by thinking through them? There are no questions in the universe that can’t be stopped and pondered over. In fact, it’s dangerous to even suggest that, that’s the exact mechanism that propaganda runs on.

[Spivak]

Actually evil, no. Forever changed by their enormous wealth which messes you up mentally in a lots of fun unique ways, changes the nature of every relationship you'll have post wealth, and feeds into your ego and all your latent neurosis further and further alienating you from and believing yourself above your fellow man, yes.

Evil is just a shorthand.

[pfraze]

Ah yes, the real danger to the world isn’t a powerful man feeling ambivalent about our survival. The real danger is society using that moment as propaganda.

This regarding Thiel, a man who most recently tried to make a “Greta Thunberg is the Antichrist” meme stick.