this post was submitted on 03 Jan 2025
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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.

This is not debate club. Unless it’s amusing debate.

For actually-good tech, you want our NotAwfulTech community

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I am rich and have no idea what to do (news.ycombinator.com)
submitted 3 months ago by sue_me_please@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems
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This is a twofer:

  1. The article itself
  2. HN's take on it
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[–] Soyweiser@awful.systems 42 points 3 months ago (4 children)

Just the opening alone, doesn't know what to do with his life, but mentions 'NPC coworkers' (that is also so fucking weird, I don't think I have worked with much people who gave off an NPC vibe off at all, like people always seemed like people with lives and hobbies, social lives, families interests, stuff they cared about, etc.

It started to dawn on me that what I actually wanted was to look like Elon, and that is incredibly cringe. It hurts to even type this out.

My reactions to this 'ow come on, you call others NPCs?!' and 'at least he knows it is cringe'

When I got back home and regaled my friends with my mountain stories, one of my friends joked that I should work for Elon and Vivek at DOGE and help America get off its current crash to defaulting on its own debt. So I reached out to some people and got in.

This has got to be a parody.

So now I’m in Hawaii. I’m learning physics.

Ha, I recently watched, this video billionaires want you to know they could have done physics by actual Theoretical Physicist, Angela Collier. I'm quite sure he will not be getting an actual degree in physics.

I don't have the energy to read the orange site comments.

[–] blakestacey@awful.systems 20 points 3 months ago

The orange site comments aren't all worthless:

His attention span won't be enough to stick with physics for longer than 4 weeks.

[–] AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net 17 points 3 months ago (3 children)

I love that video because until I watched it, I didn't realise how much of a thing it was. Physics seems to be a magnet for the "iamverysmart" types; I feel sorry for actual physicists

[–] Soyweiser@awful.systems 12 points 3 months ago (2 children)

It is a field that attracts a lot of cranks (who are pretty recognizable as being cranks via various patterns). Being a well known physicist must be hell.

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 14 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Back when I was an undergrad I saw a letter addressed to the department from a German gentleman who claimed to have invented a perpetual motion machine (this was the department of mechanics). I remember the letter being quite typographically florid and especially the author’s likeness in silhouette.

My advisor had fun finding the flaw in the proposal. Took a few minutes.

I often wondered if demolishing a PM suggestion would be a good extra credit question on an exam.

[–] blakestacey@awful.systems 14 points 3 months ago (1 children)

You don't even have to be well-known to get crank attention. Post anything with "quantum" in the title on the arXiv and they'll find your e-mail.

Source: this is one of the few times when I can say "trust me, bro" and be entirely sincere about it

[–] Soyweiser@awful.systems 6 points 3 months ago

Had no idea it was worse. Damn.

[–] rook@awful.systems 10 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Remember that actual physicists can fall into the same trap, and believe themselves to be very smart too. Plenty suffer an irresistible urge to fix every other field that’s doing it wrong.

As an alternative to the various xkcds on the subject, have an smbc instead.

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2012-03-21

[–] AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net 2 points 2 months ago

Yes, quite. As a scientist (biochemistry), I sometimes have to catch myself on this too.

A tension that I see within the sciences and beyond is not sufficiently factoring in how good communication is essential to good research. Some of my peers disagree with me vehemently here, arguing that good research is good research regardless of one's ability (or willingness) to dress up said research with pretty words, but I argue that the whole point of publishing papers or going to conferences is because science relies on communicating our research. I see a weird amount of hostility directed towards scientists who branch out into science communication. I speculate that an analogue of the "physicist instinct" is at the core of this — a disregard of the skill involved in interdisciplinary research, and an unwillingness to recognise how situated one's own knowledge is.

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[–] Jayjader@jlai.lu 12 points 3 months ago

Funnily enough, Angela Collier also made some pretty good videos for "actually" studying physics. Spoiler: no need to go to Hawaii, or anywhere further than your own couch/desk!

how to teach yourself physics

how to solve a physics problem

[–] skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 3 months ago

sheesh i guess life sciences are too much of a dirty job [1] for billionaire megaminds. unless they want to pull a theranos, of course

[1] unlike with physics to some degree, or maths generally or CS specifically you won't get too far on blackboard only without lab work. like selected subfields of physics, biotech has that aura of place where all these old scifi tropes that sv wankers misunderstand and fawn over come to life, and also there's some crossover with startup/vc crowd

[–] sailor_sega_saturn@awful.systems 34 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

Within 5 minutes of my first hike, the trees smiled at me and whispered their simple wisdom.

This probably only sounds profound to people who haven't been outside in 7 years. Don't get me wrong hiking is good for the soul. But if it hits you that hard after five minutes you're probably terminally online.

~~Also why can't trees have complex wisdom gosh darn it?~~

[–] blakestacey@awful.systems 9 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 12 points 3 months ago

at least for once it isn't the kind of post where a bayfucker went "I took acid in a park and you wouldn't believe what I discovered"

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[–] blakestacey@awful.systems 29 points 3 months ago (1 children)

When I got back home and regaled my friends with my mountain stories, one of my friends joked that I should work for Elon and Vivek at DOGE and help America get off its current crash to defaulting on its own debt. So I reached out to some people and got in.

What a fucking idiot. Also a fascist collaborator, but importantly, a fucking idiot.

[–] Soyweiser@awful.systems 18 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

The combination of 'I realized wanting to be elon is cringe' to -> 'im gonna join doge' -> 'no im gonna do physics' (like elon).

Yo dude you were so close at first, you almost had it! You fool!

Really hope that friend was also just joking because he knew there would be no crash as the default can be extended. (But, considering rich peoples friends are usually all in the same mindspace as the rich person (see for example the text messages revealed in the Musk vs Twitter lawsuit) I doubt this).

[–] V0ldek@awful.systems 13 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

‘no im gonna do physics’ (like elon).

At first I was like "wait, didn't Elon have a B.Sc. in Economics" so I searched him and apparently he also has a... B.A. in Physics?

How do you get a liberal arts degree in Physics, what is this even

EDIT: Apparently there are allegations he didn't even finish that and he's lying about it, I don't care enough to actually look into it

[–] Soyweiser@awful.systems 7 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

When you are rich/famous universities give you degrees. For honour. (e: Turns out the degree thing is a bit more complicated here, according to snopes, im wondering if this was backdated (also of arts? It is a real thing but it feels a bit fishy), but im getting very conspiratorial here, so sorry yes he does have a BA in physics).

[–] tatterdemalion@programming.dev 27 points 3 months ago

This is so fucking cringe. Give the money away and do it all over again if that's what makes you happy.

[–] self@awful.systems 25 points 3 months ago (3 children)

it was really hard to read the article when my hands wouldn’t stop making the wanker motion every time this fuckhead decided to whinge about yet another not-problem they’re having. money poisoning’s a fuck of a thing, isn’t it?

anyway I don’t think this is a parody or if it is they’re incredibly dedicated to the bit

Within 2 minutes of talking to the final interviewer for DOGE, he asked me if I wanted to join. I said “yes”. Then he said “cool” and I was in multiple Signal groups.

I’m kinda amazed it’s not multiple Telegram groups, but not at all surprised DOGE is ramshackle enough that this is what passes for organization. it goes to show why they’d hire someone who’d just come hot off of losing interest in robotics after 2 weeks of barely trying and also almost killed themselves doing rich kid vanity hiking, who would then quit their surely extremely important position at DOGE after about a month

If this means I’ll never do something as spectacular as Loom, so be it.

wait, I know that name. loom is just a video and screen recorder with unnecessary social networking and AI features that I’m pretty sure charges a lot for a subscription. loom is fucking Unregistered Hypercam 2 for Workgroups. that’s the product this kid is wanking about? that’s the fucking height of human achievement? fuck you

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 15 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I know that name. loom is just a video and screen recorder with unnecessary social networking

same. I was like "hold on, don't I know this name?", did a quick search and got to "oh right it's twitch clips enterprise edition" and then

and AI feature

"....but the fuck is AI-based loop clips?"

seriously, they have "AI-based" on their frontpage

[–] Amoeba_Girl@awful.systems 14 points 3 months ago

i hear they're also a y2k compliant online 3d multimedia solution

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 9 points 3 months ago

I’m kinda amazed it’s not multiple Telegram groups

vulnerabilities for thee but not for me! but kinda same, esp given how much both orange man and felon are willing to ride putin's tumescent instructions to feel some faint warm glow at how much destruction they can wreak

[–] nick@midwest.social 23 points 3 months ago

Jesus fucking Christ.

[–] Amoeba_Girl@awful.systems 18 points 3 months ago

I'm glad I don't see other people as NPCs, otherwise I couldn't delight in these vapid grifters' perpetual insatisfaction.

[–] mountainriver@awful.systems 17 points 3 months ago

Tech bro ennui, the societal problem.

In this essay I will explore solutions to this problems.

Solution 1. Really high marginal tax rates. Oh, this solves the problem, guess my work here is done.

[–] xep@fedia.io 11 points 3 months ago

To really do physics from first principles first you must do maths.

[–] sc_griffith@awful.systems 10 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

why are none of these people working on 3d printing guillotines. reading this blog post, there's clearly a use case

[–] zbyte64@awful.systems 8 points 3 months ago

I think we need to add the words AI and robotics for it get funding. I'm thinking it could be fully automated and make margaritas.