Hacker News: siavosh

New comment by siavosh in "YouTube now world's largest media company, topping Disney"

siavosh — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 23:49:05 +0000

I’ve disabled YouTube recommendations does anyone have a good resource for discovering things based on interest or even better a one time dump of some form of my recent watch history?

New comment by siavosh in "'Backrooms' and the Rise of the Institutional Gothic"

siavosh — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 15:23:59 +0000

I interned at a few places like this when I was younger, and in my current role I used to visit a fair number customer sites like these. I agree, it was less creepy than it was oppressive. I think the kids might call it an NPC vibe you just got. Definitely an urge to want to get out as soon as possible to get some fresh air and natural light.

New comment by siavosh in "Nasdaq's Shame"

siavosh — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 01:46:55 +0000

Anyone know if vanguards VTI is immune from such practices?

New comment by siavosh in "US- and Greek-owned tankers ablaze after Iran claims 'underwater drone' strike"

siavosh — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 16:01:01 +0000

More specifically a few oil companies and their shareholders. Everyone else suffers. Ie privatizing profits and socializing costs.

New comment by siavosh in "I baked a pie every day for a year"

siavosh — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 22:59:59 +0000

Beautiful. I recently saw a youtube video [1] on radical neighboring that really inspired me. Led me to another book on the gift economy [2]. All which to say, I now always bake two loaves of bread. One I keep for the family, the other I give away.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dynQV-oKM0E [2] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/208840291-the-serviceber...

New comment by siavosh in "An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me – The Operator Came Forward"

siavosh — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 04:01:15 +0000

I’m not sure where we go from here. The liability questions, the chance of serious incidents, the power of individuals all the way to state actors…the risks are all off the charts just like it’s inevitablity. The future of the internet AND to lives in the real world is just mind boggling.

New comment by siavosh in "Neurons outside the brain"

siavosh — Mon, 16 Feb 2026 21:23:50 +0000

A very powerful meditation practice is called self-inquiry. One version of it is after you calm your mind down (say with breath meditation) you look for where u think u r. Wherever that is, ask yourself if that’s where u r, what is looking at it? Keep going, don’t intellectualize it, and keep looking.

New comment by siavosh in "Inside Epstein’s network: what 1.4M emails reveal"

siavosh — Fri, 13 Feb 2026 02:19:27 +0000

dropsitenews has been doing much better reporting than most outlets.

New comment by siavosh in "Inside Epstein’s network: what 1.4M emails reveal"

siavosh — Fri, 13 Feb 2026 02:18:08 +0000

There’s also a lot of self censorship happening in the mass media.

New comment by siavosh in "Officials Claim Drone Incursion Led to Shutdown of El Paso Airport"

siavosh — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 23:42:16 +0000

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655

New comment by siavosh in "YouTube's $60B revenue revealed amid paid subscriber push"

siavosh — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 16:40:16 +0000

lol yeah at first I was annoyed that they seem to be applying pressure on people without the history feature cause they certainly kept recommending videos to me even though I had that feature off. But a few weeks ago, the screens are all blank imploring me to turn on the history, but I actually quite like it. No more youtube doom scrolling on my phone.

New comment by siavosh in "YouTube's $60B revenue revealed amid paid subscriber push"

siavosh — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 05:23:48 +0000

If u turn off search history they turn all recommendations off which is actually a nice feature.

New comment by siavosh in "MIT Living Wage Calculator"

siavosh — Mon, 09 Feb 2026 21:45:40 +0000

If you enter in a US city, another takeaway from the rendered table is that U.S. living standards (measured economically) continued to improve for some time after the 1970s despite weak wage growth largely because *more households relied on two earners instead of one*. While productivity kept rising, the gains were increasingly captured at the top and not shared with the workers. Of course that buffer is now long gone, but wages haven't kept up.

New comment by siavosh in "Shifts in U.S. Social Media Use, 2020–2024: Decline, Fragmentation, Polarization (2025)"

siavosh — Mon, 09 Feb 2026 00:55:21 +0000

From the de-industrialization of a country, the privatization of previously public goods, subsidization of the wealthy by everyone else, the decoupling of national wealth from labor, I mean we can go on and on. And lest you think I’m partisan, both parties are complicit, but this is hardly an American phenomenon.

New comment by siavosh in "Shifts in U.S. Social Media Use, 2020–2024: Decline, Fragmentation, Polarization (2025)"

siavosh — Sun, 08 Feb 2026 23:47:47 +0000

One small change, replace idiots with monetization.

New comment by siavosh in "Shifts in U.S. Social Media Use, 2020–2024: Decline, Fragmentation, Polarization (2025)"

siavosh — Sun, 08 Feb 2026 23:29:49 +0000

The root cause of our issues is the economic austerity imposed on the public causing disaffection of the masses. Dividing this public and redirecting this anger against each other and scapegoats leads to what you refer to.

New comment by siavosh in "Shifts in U.S. Social Media Use, 2020–2024: Decline, Fragmentation, Polarization (2025)"

siavosh — Sun, 08 Feb 2026 23:07:37 +0000

After not logging into Twitter for years I logged back in because I wanted to follow some posts regarding some breaking news. Omg the amount of garbage and fake videos and pictures was overwhelming. My guess is bot content is now so realistic and engagement manipulation is so sophisticated from even a few years ago that people will disengage even more.

New comment by siavosh in "How to Drop Out"

siavosh — Sun, 01 Feb 2026 17:04:22 +0000

Any other recommended writers like this exploring similar themes?

New comment by siavosh in "The Value of Things"

siavosh — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 03:32:35 +0000

It’s interesting—playing devil’s advocate on the purse example, I’m not sure I’d actually call that meaningful. It’s certainly a kind and thoughtful gift, but meaningful?

What if meaning isn’t only about the relationship or the recipient’s satisfaction, but also about what the gift costs the giver in terms of personal value? In the yard-sale case, the purse may be rare to the mom, but it’s essentially cheap and disposable to the giver. Nothing important was surrendered.

By contrast, giving something you personally prize—or investing yourself in a way that reflects what you value—seems to carry a different kind of meaning. I’m not claiming effort alone creates meaning, but that the giver’s valuation of what’s given might be a missing dimension in this framework

New comment by siavosh in "Apple to soon take up to 30% cut from all Patreon creators in iOS app"

siavosh — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 00:37:32 +0000

I’m not claiming CEOs are legally required to chase every conceivable revenue dollar or that they’d lose a lawsuit if they don’t. Corporate law doesn’t work that way, and no serious person thinks it does.

What does exist is a well-understood governance and incentive regime: boards evaluate CEOs on long-term shareholder value, compensation is tied to financial performance, and strategic restraint has to be justified in those terms. That doesn’t require lawsuits, and it doesn’t require explicit mandates. It’s how large public companies are run.

The fact that Apple could charge 50% and chooses not to doesn’t refute this — it just shows that extraction is constrained by regulation, backlash, and platform risk. But once those constraints weaken, dominant platforms reliably increase extraction. That’s an empirical pattern, not a legal theory.