Hacker News: amanaplanacanal

New comment by amanaplanacanal in "AI delivers 'zero financial payoff' to most companies, Apollo economist says"

amanaplanacanal — Mon, 02 Nov 2026 03:20:21 +0000

That only works until everybody else is doing the same thing, then you won't be able to charge $23k any more.

New comment by amanaplanacanal in "AI delivers 'zero financial payoff' to most companies, Apollo economist says"

amanaplanacanal — Mon, 02 Nov 2026 03:17:12 +0000

It depends on what you mean by failure. Economists tried to measure the gains in productivity from the rollout of computing, Internet, etc, across the economy, and couldn't actually find any.

New comment by amanaplanacanal in "AI delivers 'zero financial payoff' to most companies, Apollo economist says"

amanaplanacanal — Mon, 02 Nov 2026 03:10:00 +0000

It's unclear how you turn that into more profits though, especially if all of your competitors are doing the same thing.

New comment by amanaplanacanal in "AI delivers 'zero financial payoff' to most companies, Apollo economist says"

amanaplanacanal — Mon, 02 Nov 2026 03:05:41 +0000

All the gains end up in the hands of the people selling the tech, and eventually to consumers in the form of lower prices.

I guess the benefit to the companies is that they don't lose all their customers to a competitor.

New comment by amanaplanacanal in "The Ocean 'Was the Color of Chocolate.' Mexico Declares War on Seaweed."

amanaplanacanal — Sun, 01 Nov 2026 16:18:55 +0000

Algae aren't plants?! I guess I need to dive back into taxonomy.

New comment by amanaplanacanal in "Why Did Meta Suspend a US Senate Candidate's Instagram in the Middle of a Rally?"

amanaplanacanal — Sat, 31 Oct 2026 23:25:02 +0000

I'm sure that's the truth in whatever reality you are living in.

New comment by amanaplanacanal in "Why Did Meta Suspend a US Senate Candidate's Instagram in the Middle of a Rally?"

amanaplanacanal — Sat, 31 Oct 2026 22:10:59 +0000

Trump was banned for breaking the TOS. Is that the case here?

New comment by amanaplanacanal in "Halloween is a crass American import – I'll never indulge it"

amanaplanacanal — Sat, 31 Oct 2026 15:23:09 +0000

I love grumpy British humor, but I think he forgot to put in the humor.

New comment by amanaplanacanal in "Anthropic Cracking Down on Video Game Rewrites"

amanaplanacanal — Sat, 31 Oct 2026 14:56:15 +0000

I'm beginning to suspect that limited liability is a bad idea.

New comment by amanaplanacanal in "Anthropic Cracking Down on Video Game Rewrites"

amanaplanacanal — Sat, 31 Oct 2026 14:54:34 +0000

I'm not sure if an anecdote about the average Joe (billions still use Microsoft) really applies to educated techies (developers writing code). Since we are all trying to predict the future here, I guess we'll find out.

New comment by amanaplanacanal in "The oldest ice disappears and the Stone Age emerges from it"

amanaplanacanal — Sat, 31 Oct 2026 14:27:17 +0000

Yes, and the whole world economy is based on the climate we've had the last couple hundred years. A lot of people are going to die, because we refuse to wean ourselves off fossil fuels.

Of course that's mostly going to be poor people, and it's really hard to get rich people to care about that.

New comment by amanaplanacanal in "The oldest ice disappears and the Stone Age emerges from it"

amanaplanacanal — Sat, 31 Oct 2026 14:22:44 +0000

It's a media literacy issue. Headlines aren't science, and people should learn that in school.

Same issue with believing that crime is terrible now, when it's objectively not. And politicians rely on the ignorance of voters to gain power, so they have no interest in making media literacy any better.

New comment by amanaplanacanal in "Anthropic to receive high 'junk' rating from credit agencies following IPO"

amanaplanacanal — Sat, 31 Oct 2026 00:00:03 +0000

It's not any worse than SPCX, so who knows?

New comment by amanaplanacanal in "US Reps Lead Democratic Resolution Opposing A.I. Bubble Bailout for Big Tech"

amanaplanacanal — Fri, 30 Oct 2026 20:14:20 +0000

Yeah. They are going to have to do something about it eventually. The Republican party used to care, or at least claim to, but that seems to have fallen by the wayside. Clinton was the last president with anything even close to a balanced budget.

New comment by amanaplanacanal in "US Reps Lead Democratic Resolution Opposing A.I. Bubble Bailout for Big Tech"

amanaplanacanal — Fri, 30 Oct 2026 17:53:12 +0000

You may not need to say so, but people still like to gloat.

New comment by amanaplanacanal in "US Reps Lead Democratic Resolution Opposing A.I. Bubble Bailout for Big Tech"

amanaplanacanal — Fri, 30 Oct 2026 17:49:55 +0000

Everybody can find some government programs they like, and some they hate. I would rather my tax dollars were spent differently than they are. This is normal.

New comment by amanaplanacanal in "US Reps Lead Democratic Resolution Opposing A.I. Bubble Bailout for Big Tech"

amanaplanacanal — Fri, 30 Oct 2026 17:43:41 +0000

It's unclear to me that Republican unity in Congress will continue to hold if there really is a giant blue wave. It certainly isn't holding out in the infosphere, pundits are peeling off from MAGA left and right. And obviously it isn't holding among the voters.

New comment by amanaplanacanal in "Kentucky man becomes the first humanist granted religious exemption from AI"

amanaplanacanal — Fri, 30 Oct 2026 17:24:36 +0000

It's very grey. Especially when it comes to newer religions. The LDS Church, for instance, was forced to give up polygamy before Utah could enter the union. The Scientologists have been very forceful at defending their faith. The Satanic Temple have done a good job of pushing back against localities which have tried to privilege the Abrahamic religions.

On the other hand, you have cases like the Native American Church which are allowed to use peyote as a sacrament, whereas other religions are not.

> You're free to exercise religion, not make things up and pretend like your private opinions are religiously imposed on you.

Isn't that how all religions start though? Someone claims to have received a message from the gods, and then converts others.

New comment by amanaplanacanal in "Alleged Chinese spy had 'close relationship' with Nvidia boss Jensen Huang"

amanaplanacanal — Fri, 30 Oct 2026 00:55:49 +0000

I suspect that before the invention of agriculture and ownership of land, serial monogamy with occasional fooling around was the most prevalent relationship style. Once people could develop wealth they started worrying about passing it down to their children and that led to more settling down.

New comment by amanaplanacanal in "Alleged Chinese spy had 'close relationship' with Nvidia boss Jensen Huang"

amanaplanacanal — Fri, 30 Oct 2026 00:49:31 +0000

I think the implication was older than 18.