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  • josefjk@mastodon.social
    Oct 2, 2026, 9:08 AM

    every time i read hacker news i am confronted by an impression that the billionaire class are actually supported by a moderately sized pyramid of actual real people who are somewhat wealthy, moderately influential, and have tastes so undiscerning that they genuinely believe things like "AI-generated childrens books" should be celebrated. they don't come across as malevolent, unpleasant, or even as annoying tech bros. they're middle-class men who, somehow, think a computer should raise their kids

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  • josefjk@mastodon.social
    Oct 2, 2026, 9:10 AM

    you can *attempt* to assuage fears like this by dismissing these tech men as holographic artifacts of a new, automated astroturf tsunami. but that doesn't really work, does it?

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  • josefjk@mastodon.social
    Oct 2, 2026, 8:19 PM

    today's hacker news dad is in disbelief that someone would spend years building a city in minecraft "placing one block at a time", brags about him and his kids using AI to do it instead

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  • Passengerpassenger@kolektiva.social
    Oct 2, 2026, 12:24 PM

    @jk

    Yeah this is a good point. I think we forget that every elite tends to be surrounded by a retainer class. Some of those retainers were people who just happened to be like that anyway and stumbled into the niche of being a retainer, while some are predisposed to be suckups and so have changed their personalities to fit the powerful that they're sucking up to.

    Their numbers are large in a human sense, in that there are more than I will ever meet in my lifetime; but they are small in a societal sense, in that if they all lived in one town it wouldn't be particularly prominent on maps.

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  • Passengerpassenger@kolektiva.social
    Oct 2, 2026, 12:35 PM

    @jk

    About a decade ago I read a piece about the gentrification of San Francisco, which said that bars and clubs were closing because this new class of retainers don't like to spend money on entertainment.

    The previous class of retainers were finance, real estate and law types, who often spent a lot of money on status symbols and hedonism: expensive booze, good suits, sex workers, cocaine. Many bought art and fast cars.

    The new tech people, as you say, have utterly bland tastes. The cocaine dealers are going out of business. We may not care about them but many of us do care about bars and art galleries and other such things.

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  • d1d1@autonomous.zone
    Oct 2, 2026, 1:24 PM

    @jk and when they are kicked off the social mobility ladder and the illusion of the middle (upper) class fades well finally have the updated volume of "who funded hitler" for our times 🤪

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  • wb x64wilbr@glitch.social
    Oct 2, 2026, 7:36 PM

    @d1 @jk that's the best part, the system is being manipulated so that every single stock and dollar will passively fund Hitler, because the Nazis have decided that "a system that works" isn't profitable, and tribalist chaos lets them buy the dip

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  • Gwyn 😈lunalapin@slime.global
    Oct 2, 2026, 8:21 PM

    @jk there's something really upsetting about using an automation tool to strip the game out of a game

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  • Gwyn 😈lunalapin@slime.global
    Oct 2, 2026, 8:22 PM

    @jk it sounds like you're having too much fun doing menial tasks, have you considered optimizing the game out of the game so you can complete more story points?

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  • Shane Celisshanecelis@mastodon.gamedev.place
    Oct 2, 2026, 8:36 PM

    @jk Doh, I wonder if I'm guilty of that. I read about this guy's strange accomplishment of typing one to one million, long form, by hand and I had an immediate urge to automate it. Then compare the differences of which language is this task harder or easier? It definitely started as a joke to me, but as I read up on the man, I became kind of bowled over by his accomplishment.

    github.com/shanecelis/sixteen-

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