Hacker News: sdellis

New comment by sdellis in "I'm Tired of Talking to AI"

sdellis — Wed, 27 May 2026 16:16:29 +0000

Reminds me of my friends in Gaza, where every day means no shops, no restaurants, no home, no medicine, no food, no water, no hope. The beaches are full of people just trying to exist.

New comment by sdellis in "The real cost of owning a home"

sdellis — Tue, 26 May 2026 18:51:46 +0000

I don't think that's good advice. I, and most people I know who have invested in home ownership over the past 30-40 years, have done way better than we could ever have in the stock market or 401k. It's way more tangible for people than trusting some index fund with their savings, especially if they can maintain the home, improve it, and do repairs mostly themselves. And bonus... when you sell, you don't have to wait until you're 60 years old to spend it!

New comment by sdellis in "Magnifica Humanitas"

sdellis — Tue, 26 May 2026 14:06:12 +0000

The USA is currently undoing their previous PFAS regulations and declaring "game on" for poisoning the populace. And who doesn't want Glysophate on their cereal?!? The "free market" has done such a great job protecting us from corporate poisoning. /s

New comment by sdellis in "Magnifica Humanitas"

sdellis — Tue, 26 May 2026 13:44:21 +0000

I think the 22 million people who died in World War I, for reasons there is no consensus on, would contest your claim. And that is just a fraction of a fraction of all humans, with their own stories and dreams and loved ones, who have died (and continue to die) in vain to firearms and explosives.

New comment by sdellis in "A.I. note takers are making lawyers nervous"

sdellis — Tue, 12 May 2026 13:34:27 +0000

Look, no offense, but I'm gonna trust the peer reviewed research article over your hot take.

New comment by sdellis in "Microsoft Israel chief leaves amid ethical controversy"

sdellis — Mon, 11 May 2026 21:15:55 +0000

This comment makes it sound like you are trying to belittle people who work at nonprofits to make yourself feel better about putting profits over people.

New comment by sdellis in "Microsoft Israel chief leaves amid ethical controversy"

sdellis — Mon, 11 May 2026 21:03:28 +0000

The EFF's mission is to ensure that technology supports freedom, justice, and innovation for all people of the world. That is verbatim off their website. It appears that this perfectly in line with their core mission.

New comment by sdellis in "A.I. note takers are making lawyers nervous"

sdellis — Mon, 11 May 2026 20:55:50 +0000

You are making a lot of assumptions about the "average" person. Here's a Pew Research study that says otherwise:

https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2019/11/15/americans-an...

New comment by sdellis in "A.I. note takers are making lawyers nervous"

sdellis — Mon, 11 May 2026 14:04:54 +0000

They care, but realize that there is no such thing as privacy anymore. The amount of obsession required to maybe maintain some degree of privacy is not something most people are willing to do.

New comment by sdellis in "A.I. note takers are making lawyers nervous"

sdellis — Mon, 11 May 2026 13:51:21 +0000

Actually, many people fight this kind of "progress". Just look at what is happening to Flock right now. True "technological progress" would be using technology to empower humans, not to exploit and subjugate them.

New comment by sdellis in "A.I. note takers are making lawyers nervous"

sdellis — Mon, 11 May 2026 13:45:34 +0000

With the level of surveillance and erosion of privacy, that is essentially what is happening. We all know that we are being watched and surveilled. There is no longer an "argument". Anything you say in public or private could potentially be used against you in the future.

New comment by sdellis in "Why Musicians Are Manufacturing Sold-Out Shows"

sdellis — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 15:16:19 +0000

I don't think anyone is suggesting that Rapino is stealing from shareholders. We don't know how that money is spent or disbursed. What is clear from the case and settlement is that they were illegally maintaining a monopoly in the live entertainment industry that had stifled innovation and competition, and resulted in higher ticket prices for music fans.

New comment by sdellis in "Rare concert recordings are landing on the Internet Archive"

sdellis — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 16:16:37 +0000

According to the Wikipedia page, it seems that copies of the archive are stored around the world.

LOCKSS is a decentralized strategy for preservation which includes archival copies at remote sites. It has been in use for a very long time. I feel like preservation via IPFS would introduce quite a bit of risk to the goal.

New comment by sdellis in "Competition is not market validation"

sdellis — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 18:26:25 +0000

We don't need an article to tell us that monopolies are not good for society. The fact that the article ignores this elephant in the room is exactly why I have issue with it.

I agree that the best way to capture value is to destroy all competition or otherwise ensure that the customer has no other options. It is also deeply unethical, even if within the current law. I'll note that anti-trust laws have been eroded in the past two decades as the gov has caved to corporate pressure and lobbyists.

I also can't pretend I don't see a relationship here to Theil's financial backing of Curtis Yarvin, who calls for replacing democracy with a corporate-led monarchy -- the political form of monopoly. Creepy!

New comment by sdellis in "A Programmer's Loss of Identity"

sdellis — Tue, 17 Feb 2026 16:22:52 +0000

Love this take. Clinging to a particular identity is a path to suffering.

New comment by sdellis in "Competition is not market validation"

sdellis — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 15:54:45 +0000

So what did you think the article is about? The polite thing would be to discuss it. That's what HN is here for!

New comment by sdellis in "Competition is not market validation"

sdellis — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 14:39:48 +0000

Please say something intelligent about a link when you drop it. No one can tell if you're being sarcastic or not.

I did watch the video of him and I can confirm (so no one else wastes their time) he does not address why monopolies are great for everyone other than the CEO. But he does go into depth about why women should not wear Hillary Clinton style pantsuits when pitching ideas to him. Noted.

I am not sure if the video is the same as the article, but there is no way I am going to pay a penny to hear what Theil has to say. Honestly, after I heard him rambling about the anti-christ crap he spews I would pay for him to stop talking.

New comment by sdellis in "Competition is not market validation"

sdellis — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 23:00:58 +0000

Sure, monopolies are great for the C-suite, but they turn out to be really bad for the end users and customers, the real losers when there is no competition.

Get in loser, we're going for a monopoly! It's all fun and games until you're locked in and enshitification sets in. I would sooner go without than get fooled again.

New comment by sdellis in ""Hate brings views": Confessions of a London fake news TikToker"

sdellis — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 22:19:57 +0000

Excellent quotes! Thanks for sharing.

New comment by sdellis in ""Hate brings views": Confessions of a London fake news TikToker"

sdellis — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 18:59:40 +0000

Monetary incentives are the foundations of Capitalism. There are only two ways that ethics might get in the way of their profits.

The first is government regulation. We saw lots of deregulation of oversight over the ten years before the 2008 financial crisis. None of the ethically compromised C-suite folks went to jail for their behavior because it was suddenly not a crime. Sometimes you have regulation, but you don't have enforcement of the regulations. This is what we get when the government is comprised of or controlled by capitalists. It's called fascism.

The second is public boycott or revolt. Could the new Target CEO be the result of the recent boycott? Same with Starbucks? Has anyone actually bought a Tesla in the past year? The big tech folks are bending over backwards to hide the fact that they have no real AI business model, making it a gigantic bubble that is about to burst. There is a national frenzy that no one is reporting on people ditching their subscriptions. We are going to see affordability get worse very quickly. It will be interesting to see what happens as more and more people start tightening their purse strings, whether by choice or necessity.