I wonder if the author has ever played Diplomacy. You have to fight the perennial sense that you have nothing and can be replaced. All your opponents have to do is band together against you. A similar generalization to OP would say everyone loses. And it would be wrong. This post shows the dangers of over-generalization more than anything else. The state isn't just about war. Each person in the line of dominoes the author has set up doesn't just care about what the author thinks they care about. In particular, people have agency and can run cartoon thought experiments like this and react to them. Billionaires won't just sit around and not develop military power, for one. We already have billionaires owning satellites in large numbers and creating geopolitical consequences. You better believe they have cards to play. And hopefully so does everyone else.
I have no idea what that looks like, because if I did I wouldn't be here commenting on HN :D But I suspect some people will play their cards well and get some luck, and come out on top, just like some people have always done.
Oh I love that. I program on my phone as well using LÖVE, though games aren't really my interest. My devlog at https://akkartik.itch.io/carousel/devlog is about recreating the feeling of typing in programs from magazines in the microcomputer/PC era. Only, you know, with copy/paste instead of typing in by hand.
HN has always had sucky bits, just like human nature. Everyone who thinks it's going downhill is just one of today's 10,000 [1] to discover some sucky corner of human nature.
I'd say the world has gone downhill much faster and is making HN look good in comparison.
Adtech isn't about showing ads. It's about targeting ads. And yes, if Gemini gets wildly popular maybe they'll think of something. Good problem to have! New mistakes instead of same old ones!
Building simple, low-maintenance programs that reward curiosity about their internals.
http://akkartik.name/freewheeling
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