Hacker News: hcurtiss

New comment by hcurtiss in "Grok 4.5"

hcurtiss — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 00:18:16 +0000

I'd like to use it for legal work too. Microsoft makes great hay about its ability to sandbox CoPilot's work and not train on or share company resources ("Look for the green checkmark."). It's largely for that reason that we've rolled out Copilot to most of the white collar positions in the company. Do you happen to know whether xAI has similar functionality?

New comment by hcurtiss in "Meta steals a tactic from Tesla and builds data centers in tents"

hcurtiss — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 20:27:50 +0000

Nah, dollars buy war machines. And for the first time in human history, we are on the precipice of projecting substantial ground force without the need for humans.

New comment by hcurtiss in "The memory shortage is causing a repricing of consumer electronics"

hcurtiss — Wed, 27 May 2026 20:26:10 +0000

I can think of no capitalist society in the last thousand years that has produced feudalism.

New comment by hcurtiss in "Dropbox CEO Drew Houston to step down"

hcurtiss — Tue, 26 May 2026 22:41:02 +0000

I'm not so sure that global population growth tells the right story vis-à-vis declining birth rates in western countries.

New comment by hcurtiss in "The memory shortage is causing a repricing of consumer electronics"

hcurtiss — Tue, 26 May 2026 19:07:48 +0000

I don't recall what arguments were made in favor of feudal lords. And one could hardly call that system "capitalism," which is the subject of this thread. I maintain that the relevant objective should be the best outcome for the most. There is abundant objective evidence that capitalism is the economic system best suited to that objective, even if it produces varying degrees -- and sometimes large amounts -- of income inequality.

New comment by hcurtiss in "The memory shortage is causing a repricing of consumer electronics"

hcurtiss — Fri, 22 May 2026 21:50:39 +0000

But, again, the gap between the poor and the wealthy is irrelevant. Income inequality doesn't describe what's best for the most. If more income inequality produces a better outcome for the majority, it becomes very difficult to argue income inequality is, itself, bad. While the GINI index has certainly increased over the last fifty years in the US, real median household income and real personal consumption expenditures have too, all while poverty rates have substantially declined. It is exceedingly difficult to argue by any objective metric that rising income inequality has handicapped median standard of living.

We see similar trends around the world. In fact, the countries that have struggled the most with stagnating standards of living are precisely those that have most aggressively imposed redistributionist policies.

Income inequality with rising standards of living for the median is only bad if your politics are driven by envy.

New comment by hcurtiss in "The memory shortage is causing a repricing of consumer electronics"

hcurtiss — Fri, 22 May 2026 20:38:09 +0000

So also does the US. Trump had prominent cases against Google and Meta. Biden against Apple and Amazon. Prominent efforts on airlines and grocery stores. Honestly, I'm pretty sure the US and Chinese antitrust laws are pretty similar (theirs largely crafted after ours).

New comment by hcurtiss in "The memory shortage is causing a repricing of consumer electronics"

hcurtiss — Fri, 22 May 2026 20:29:49 +0000

It's not, but if the existence of billionaires correlates strongly with an increase in the median standard of living, I'm all for it. My politics are not driven by envy -- only what consistently produces the best outcome for the most.

Regarding the idea that we can design a system where "no one should be left wanting," that sounds nice. So does big rock candy mountain. There is no such system.

New comment by hcurtiss in "The memory shortage is causing a repricing of consumer electronics"

hcurtiss — Fri, 22 May 2026 18:08:41 +0000

And almost for the entirety of that period, humans lived in abject poverty. The rise of capitalism perfectly correlates with the most spectacular increase in human flourishing and prosperity in the history of our species. Even in the last fifty years, liberalizing economies, private ownership, and contract law have lifted tens of millions out of poverty, mostly in SE Asia.

New comment by hcurtiss in "The memory shortage is causing a repricing of consumer electronics"

hcurtiss — Fri, 22 May 2026 03:09:53 +0000

There absolutely are monopolies. There are, in fact, many state run enterprises. Where do you get these ideas?

New comment by hcurtiss in "The memory shortage is causing a repricing of consumer electronics"

hcurtiss — Fri, 22 May 2026 01:47:51 +0000

You think Chinese businesses aren’t in it for the profits?

New comment by hcurtiss in "The American Rebellion Against AI Is Gaining Steam"

hcurtiss — Tue, 19 May 2026 14:59:27 +0000

You are doing the left-wing, pretending not to understand meme. Those are the principal objections in the linked article. Data centers are not an environmental catastrophe. And AI isn’t coming to take all of our jobs. There will be change, for certain, but if we don’t embrace it, the West is doomed. That is not hyperbole. History bears this out repeatedly.

New comment by hcurtiss in "The American Rebellion Against AI Is Gaining Steam"

hcurtiss — Tue, 19 May 2026 08:44:59 +0000

Is that your experience with AI? It’s made my work vastly more efficient and valuable. And have you been to modern Chinese cities? Prosperity is awesome. Stop listening to the Luddites and eco-nihilists. There’s a way to have all that AND civil rights. But if we continue to outlaw development and energy intensive industries, then yes, the West will be Chinese slaves.

New comment by hcurtiss in "Elon Musk has lost his lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI"

hcurtiss — Tue, 19 May 2026 04:39:43 +0000

Remember Delaware? Where he not only won on appeal but provoked an exodus of companies out of Delaware?

New comment by hcurtiss in "Elon Musk has lost his lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI"

hcurtiss — Tue, 19 May 2026 04:29:29 +0000

Tesla is falling to pieces?

https://stocks.apple.com/symbol/TSLA

New comment by hcurtiss in "The American Rebellion Against AI Is Gaining Steam"

hcurtiss — Tue, 19 May 2026 03:36:20 +0000

While the west clutches their pearls, China roars ahead on manufacturing, energy, and AI. Unqualified military supremacy will soon follow. I weep for my children.

New comment by hcurtiss in "Princeton mandates proctoring for in-person exams, upending 133 year precedent"

hcurtiss — Wed, 13 May 2026 20:23:06 +0000

Princeton is a strange place. What on earth could be the objection to proctoring? I'd much rather have a proctor than have to narc on a classmate. And even then, the proctor just reports the matter to a student-run body? Wild.

New comment by hcurtiss in "Poland is now among the 20 largest economies"

hcurtiss — Fri, 08 May 2026 15:41:24 +0000

They didn't do a 180 at all. Tusk basically shares Orban's entire platform, particularly vis-à-vis the EU. Orban just got caught in corruption scandals.

New comment by hcurtiss in "Claude Opus 4.7"

hcurtiss — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 21:29:30 +0000

I agree. And I am seeing it in a lot of venues, especially political discourse. Commenting is increasingly AI driven I fear the whole thing is going to collapse and nobody will be able to rely on online commentary to make decisions. At least not without a lot of independent research, maybe that’s for the best, but it’s definitely going to change the Internet.

New comment by hcurtiss in "U.S. jobs disappear at fastest January pace since great recession"

hcurtiss — Sat, 07 Feb 2026 20:38:55 +0000

Is it possible that can be attributed to lagging effects of their predecessors’ policies?