No I watch/listen to a lot of entrepreneurial stuff since 2016 and I still haven't launched my own product. There's a YT channel "Starter Story" it's like "this person make $100K/mo, here is the template".
It really is simple though, put a paypal button on a squarespace page and ask someone to pay it.
Timestamp 1:20:50 is about where the clown show starts. Totally out of touch. Her nervous giggling and throwing her hands up when she realizes the audience doesn't think AI is the greatest invention since sliced bread.... Wow.
I mean, duh. Do we really think someone with the title of "vice president of strategic alliances at Tavistock Group" lives in the same universe as the rest of us? In her alternative universe, Zucc and Bezos are heroes to look up to. These people have no actual interaction with the rest of us, and just assume their world view is universally held.
Look how genuinely surprised she was by the audience's reaction. In their world, AI is an unambiguous good.
In the past, "labor saving technology" has always spawned alternate jobs that people could take with some retraining. This time it might be truly different. If one day AI can actually do all knowledge work, there might not be anything left for former knowledge workers to do. There's no physical law that says new technology necessarily produces 1:1 new, different jobs.
> In the past, "labor saving technology" has always spawned alternate jobs that people could take with some retraining.
Labor saving technology does not create enough alternative jobs to employ all those that it displaced, otherwise it wouldn't be labor saving.
Instead, the surplus created by these technologies allows that society to deploy labor on less immediately necessary jobs. These jobs weren't created by the technology, they were always there, but society did not have the resources to staff them (think education, research, academia, merchants, etc.)
This dynamic has been true since pre-historic times, so you'll need some extraordinary evidence if you want us to believe this time is different.
Look at how the billionaires are talking about AI: Their clear, unambiguous goal is basically to replace all white collar "knowledge" jobs. And there's currently nothing regulatory that's stopping them--they just need to wait for the state of the art to improve. Once AI is "good enough" if it ever is, they won't even think twice about 45% unemployment. What are we unemployed workers going to do about it? There's no effective labor organization left. Workers have basically no political power or seat at the table. We're not going to get violent--the police/military are already owned by the billionaire class. We're just going to eventually become economically irrelevant and die off.
> We're just going to eventually become economically irrelevant and die off.
As harsh it may sound, it seems rather likely to me. It is not like s/w engineers have helped struggling workers in other sectors other than sanctimonious "Learn to code" advice. So software folks can't expect any solidarity or help from others.
The fundamental issue isn't unemployment due to automation, but the fact that society cannot benefit from unemployment.
It should be something for us to celebrate, because it means greater freedom for humans to pursue something else rather than spending time doing drudgery.
Put it another way, the issue is that resources are not shared more equitably. This is especially egregious considering that LLMs are trained on all human knowledge. We've all been contributing to this enterprise, and what we may end up getting in return is unemployment.
45% of folks sitting on their hands are going to have the free time to talk, and this group of people are skilled at organization. Are you planning on throwing your hands up and passively accepting whatever comes your way?
And at least in the US they have >45% of all the small arms weaponry. There is no bunker strong enough nor private army big enough if 100M people come for you.
They're probably be betting that the technology they will need to defend their bunkers, think autonomous kill-bots or whatever, will emerge before people start to riot.
Or they're planning to build an Elysium-like colony in the ocean or space, to keep the billionaire class far from danger.
I get that it is popular to hate billionaires these days, but realistically, they did not get to be billionaires by being stupid. It runs directly counter to their own interests to induce anything like 45% unemployment. They will get poorer, the world they live in right along with the rest of us will get noticeably shittier, etc.
More likely they figure out what to do with a bunch of idle talent. Or the coming generation of trillionaires will.
I think it's important to highlight Apple's mentality: That old devices are dead to them, and the pretending that they don't even exist anymore.
I have a house full of Apple hardware and none of them get updates from Apple anymore, and I can't manually update them without hackery (OpenCore) or wiping them to install Linux (where possible). Also, because third party app developers largely align with Apple's philosophy, less and less 3rd party software even works on my computers anymore. Heck, even Homebrew, which ships open source software that has always run on my devices, relegates my hardware into their "tier 3" garbage can[1].
The combination of Apple's and third party's disinterest counts as "killed by Apple" in my book.
This isn't really just an Apple mentality though. I have all kinds of old electronics and devices from Google, Samsung, Intel, WD, etc. that all fit this exact same description.
If you've ever tried to run a hardware business (or really any business), you know that it is not financially sound to continue to support old devices that have been superceded (sometimes more than once) by newer products that consumers are currently spending money on.
We can debate if this is the way things should be, the aspect of whether you truly "own" things, software escrow, and on and on. But the phenomenon itself is in no way unique to Apple. If anything, I have found that the usable lifespan of Apple hardware is, on average, longer than the usable lifespan of other name-brand electronics in similar categories.
Absolutely, we could easily have any number of killedby[manufacturer] websites. A device being "old" is a common reason/excuse manufacturers use to stop supporting it. Just making the point that Apple is not a special exemption.
I always thought it was strange how intolerant Homebrew is of users who are not surfing the bleeding edge.
I held out using MacPorts for ages, but there came a point when I just could not reasonably expect to find the software I needed on MacPorts, but could on Homebrew, and so I switched. I wish Homebrew hadn't won that particular mindshare war. Moving from MacPorts to Homebrew felt like downgrading from an actual package manager to a duct-taped shell script.
The good news is that MacPorts is IMO better than ever. I previously did the MacPorts -> Homebrew switch, but recently moved back and am very happy with MacPorts.
If you ever try to install any packages from GH or an indie, you only get brew install/cask instructions. It's game over.
Regarding the appeal, this probably exists in Mac Ports, I do not know since you guys reminded me it still existed, but Brewfile lets me provision a new Mac very efficiently.
> Also, because third party app developers largely align with Apple's philosophy, less and less 3rd party software even works on my computers anymore.
I think it's more about 3rd party app developers attempting to improve their products and stay relevant.
If Apple releases a new framework or API that would make a developer’s app better, but it requires macOS 14 or later, are they not supposed to incorporate it?
I've noticed lots of 3rd party developers keep older versions of their apps available for older macOS versions.
On both macOS and iOS it is straightforward to target older devices while using the newer SDKs, and to use those new frameworks conditionally based on the user's OS. Of course, Apple's tooling makes this harder and harder to do, the older the targeted OS is.
> I think it's important to highlight Apple's mentality: That old devices are dead to them, and their pretending they don't even exist anymore.
Sorry but the HomePod wasn't "killed" just because they upgraded from gen 1 to gen 2. Gen 1 HomePod literally just got a software update a month ago with another on the way. The iPhone X wasn't "killed" just because they released the iPhone 11. This list is egregiously version-centric for things where it makes no sense.
Despite how the USA barely pretends to be egalitarian, there is 100% an importance totem pole, with billionaires and businesses on the top, then politicians, the police, the military, religious leaders all somewhere in the middle in some order, and then the rest of the population on the very bottom. Any fight between these cohorts will be decided based on where they are on the totem pole, not based on the law, the Constitution, or what's right.
Even if public opinion is unified, if they want something to happen, they are just going to ignore the public and do it anyway. Like the recent cases of data enter projects where they just ignore the public voting against them. Democracy’s weakness it it requires people to follow the rules, but if nobody voluntarily follows the rules, then we don’t really have one.
As usual, the story is much more nuanced and complicated than the simplistic and convenient narrative of "ignoring the public." And reading diluted blogspam like Tom's Hardware doesn't help.
> The commission rejected the plan to rezone the farmland [that would allow the data center to be built]. The township board followed suit, voting 4–1 to deny it. But locals quickly discovered that amid the frenzied AI infrastructure gold rush, “no” does not always mean no.
> Two days later, on Sept. 12, Saline Township was sued by Related Digital and the site’s landowners. Their lawsuit alleged “exclusionary zoning”—that the community had unreasonably barred a legitimate land use under Michigan law, and it hinged on the fact that Saline Township had no land zoned for industrial use, and that a data center qualified as a “necessary” use that could not be excluded altogether.
> The lawsuit underscored the township’s limited leverage. Even if officials had fought it, their lawyers advised them, the project could likely have moved forward via other avenues, such as partnering with an institution like the nearby University of Michigan, which can build projects that are not subject to local zoning in the same way as private developments. Meanwhile, a prolonged legal battle against well-resourced developers risked significant costs for the township, without securing concessions.
> Lucas, the town’s attorney, says the township board had little choice and did its best to be transparent. It was “between a rock and a hard place,” he said. “I’m not sure there were any good solutions.” Within weeks, the township had settled: It signed a court-approved agreement allowing the project to proceed, and construction began soon after.
> In exchange, the township secured roughly $14 million in community benefits—a relatively small sum in the context of a multibillion-dollar project, but more than 10 times its roughly $1 million annual budget. It includes funding for farmland preservation, local projects, and fire departments; along with a series of environmental and operational limits: restrictions on water use, noise caps, preserved agricultural land, and limits on expansion.
> David Landry, the attorney who represented Saline Township in the Related Digital lawsuit, told Fortune that he stands by his recommendation that the board settle with the developer. “The zoning power of any municipality—a township, a city, a village—is not absolute,” he explained. “In this case, exclusionary zoning was substantive—the municipality has to have a reason to say no. They just can’t say, ‘We don’t want it.’”
> Sarah Mills, a professor at the University of Michigan who studies land use planning, agreed that the town had few good options once the lawsuit was filed. “States determine how much authority local governments have in zoning, and those systems vary widely,” she said. “What local governments can do through zoning is highly controlled and regulated by the state.” Local governments are also often strapped for cash, making it difficult to defend against zoning challenges, she added.
> Marion, the township clerk and sole board member who voted in favor of the proposal, said this reality was on her mind when she voted yes. It wasn’t because she favored a data center, she said, but because she did not believe the town could win in a showdown with Related Digital. “They were doing studies,” she said. “They were pulling permits.” Township attorneys and consultants had warned that a denial could trigger a lawsuit—an outcome Marion said felt intimidating. “Everything was drafted and filed with the county within two days of the meeting,” she said of the lawsuit. “They had this all prepared.”
> If the township had continued to fight and lost the lawsuit, Marion said, homeowners could have been on the hook for tens of thousands of dollars in tax assessments to pay for the legal battle. “The insurance company was only going to pay for an attorney to defend us up to so much money if we decided to fight it,” she said.
So a vote happened, and when it didn’t go their way, huge company threatened a huge lawsuit that the township and citizens couldn’t afford, to get their way anyway. Standard corporate bullying tactic in America.
The story perfectly exemplifies how little democratic control the public has over what corporations do in and do to their community.
The reason the would-be purchaser sued the state is that they had a plausible argument that the township's denial was illegal under Michigan state law. There are quotes in the article from the Governor's office that they support the construction of data centers. This isn't democracy not working; it's that the efforts need to go up to the state level in the hierarchy.
And when you find that your state senator's votes don't actually matter, will we start engaging in federal politics? I suspect, if it makes the right person a buck, that even once the federal legislature votes against it, you'll find a treaty or free trade agreement or something requires those votes to be overridden. And by the way, the data center was built and began operating 10 years ago.
State law is yet another tool commonly used by corporations to overrule the will of the people. The Law is a product that corporations and the rich purchase.
That’s exactly it! There is no feeling of accomplishment whatsoever, because we aren’t really accomplishing anything. The LLM is doing all the work. Out pops an application, but it might as well have been written by someone else, because it was, but also it wasn’t!
It’s great that an application now exists where there wasn’t one before, but it’s hollow because I didn’t make it. Nobody made it! It just exists now with nothing actually accomplished by anyone. It’s a very spooky way to conjure things up.
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