Worst person in tech 2023 - semi final
(mastodon.online)
from sirdorius@programming.dev to technology@lemmy.world on 16 Dec 2023 14:24
https://programming.dev/post/7333837
from sirdorius@programming.dev to technology@lemmy.world on 16 Dec 2023 14:24
https://programming.dev/post/7333837
Edit: final round is live now mastodon.online/@parismarx/111595842718166678
threaded - newest
Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Sam Altman for those who don’t want to click through.
And I have no idea which I would choose to face off from those four, let alone who would win.
To make things slightly easier it’s Musk v Thiel and Bezos v Altman.
In the first matchup, I would pick Musk over Thiel for being a bigger POS in general.
In the second matchup I would pick Bezos for the larger impact he has had on the world.
I’m with you on the second, but I would have a really hard time with the first because Musk is more overtly a piece of shit, but Thiel has had so much influence over the years, including elevating Elon Musk to the position where he is today. I guess if it’s the worst of 2023 and we’re restricting it solely to what we know they’ve said and done in 2023, it would be Musk. But I think overall, it is probably Thiel just because there wouldn’t be an Elon Musk anyone had heard about without Peter Thiel.
This is the 2023 matchup, so I guess it would put Musk on top
Musk was likely worse in 2023 and does suck a lot in general, Thiel is more dangerous in general
But Musk’s acquisition of Twitter is in itself subservient to Theil’s overarching political goals. One has been in the limelight more, but the other has caused more harm overall.
This is the 2023 matchup. You don’t consider Jordan’s performance at UNC when determining their championship status this year. Heck, despite the past damage done, i don’t think. Bezos, for his 2023 tech fuckery, should have made it out of the first round.
By the same metric, Musk easily tops Thiel first 2023 and is the clear shoo-in as champion of the worst.
No matter who wins we all lose. That’s kind of the point whenever these guys turn up.
Well, and sadly, said.
Musk.
What did Thiel do to make the internet hate him as much as the other three?
So, so, so many things.
Let’s start with him saying women getting the vote was bad for democracy and we can continue on from there.
huffpost.com/…/peter-thiel-women-democracy_n_5747…
It’s a full time job to answer completely, but from what I know he finances escape fantasies for the rich which they call seasteading. He calls it a libertarian ideal to create these new colonial city states, but what he means is liberty for his ilk from taxes, regulation and societal rules. Meanwhile his brainchild Palantir erodes the rights of the poor people who are left behind through surveillance, military technology and ICE funding. But this is all in line with his ideology, because apartheid “works” in South Africa according to Thiel
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
liberty
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
You could put them in a sack and hit the sack with a stick. You’d never hit the wrong guy.
I like this idea much better than picking one of them as the worst person in tech for 2023. Can we do the stick beating instead?
But we definitely need to have Zuck in there too. And maybe Thiel, as a special guest.
The more the merrier!
Could I? Yayyyy!
Whack. Whack. Whack. Whack. Whack. Whack. Whack. Whack.
Theil wants a techno libertarian oligarchy with no regulations ala Blade Runner.
Musk wants the rich to escape to Mars while destroying earth and dooming the poor’s.
Bezos wants to send the poor’s into space along with heavy industry and turn earth into a rich person paradise ala Black Mirror “Fifteen Million Merits”.
Altman is just a shitty rich person in tech wasting precious resources to teach a computer to create porn. Becaue we all know that’s what 99% of people do and will use AI for. He’s also a prepper which means he’s a selfish cunt.
If I had to pick just one it would be Theil. I think the man is insidious while the rest are more in your face.
Ranked choice would be Theil, Musk, Bezos then Altman.
I love your descriptions for all of them. If you have some free time would you mind writing it for everyone in the brackets?
I’m shocked that Sam Altman won out over SBF
SBF hasn’t been in the headlines as much recently.
Sam Bankman-Fried is definitely bad for what he did and his belief in effective altruism, which is just another smoke screen to not properly tax rich people because they “donate to charities”. You could argue his getting into crypto also makes him bad because crypto mining is bad but he’s not on the same level as Sam Altman. Not even close.
I’d rather pick someone who did something deserving of life in prison than someone who didn’t, but maybe that’s just me.
Also, Sam Altman has no equity in, and was only paid $73k by OpenAI last year. You can dislike him for the rumors surrounding his managerial style and whatnot, but it’s pretty clear he isn’t exploiting people to get shit rich like everyone else on this list.
I don’t.
If he wasn’t promoting AI and trying to sell it as the next best thing to sliced bread he’d just be a shitty rich prepper. Instead he is wasting time and resources on AI.
And my personal bias against crypto really lowers my “give a fuck” bar so while, again, what he did is bad I don’t care if he defrauded a bunch of crypto cunts. Same as I don’t care about people “loosing” their NFT’s.
Under what circumstances would AI research and training not be considered a waste of time and resources, in your mind?
Well, his whole ballgame was selling crypto to normal people, not cryptobros. Do you really think the FTX Super Bowl commercial was targeted at people who can articulate the differences in technology between Bitcoin and Ethereum?
Right now? None.
All the same crypto cunts to me. Doesn’t matter if you mine, trade, marry or fuck crypto they are all the same cunts to me.
I don’t watch any sports and few to no ads so I have no idea what you are talking about.
Wow, this is a concerningly sociopathic worldview. I’m quite sure that a lot of people who were fucked over by FTX were people you would otherwise consider to be your brethren. Or, y’know, your grandparents.
And here I was thinking Lemmy would be less toxic than Reddit.
Okay.
I can tell you with great certainty that none of my friends or family were/are invested in crypto. None. And if even a single one had been my opinion on crypto cunts would not change.
Sorry?
That’s the thing about sociopathy: you’re convinced that your opinion is enlightened because you have successfully disregarded the human cost of the issue at hand, when in reality that is the fundamental problem with your opinion.
Please, for all our sakes, learn to empathize with people who make mistakes you personally wouldn’t. Introspect on the conversation we just had, and ask yourself what stands to be gained from the opinion you hold.
Why do people hate Altman? Genuinely OOTL.
He’s not really as bad as the other three, but he did take a nonprofit company and turn it into a multibillion dollar profit machine which has a massive carbon and fresh water footprint.
Also some view ChatGPT (and the other “AIs”) as massive plagiarism machines.
AI or not, plagiarism appears to happen a lot. AI just makes it a little easier than it was before.
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His world coin project is one of the sketchiest. Paying people in poor countries to get scanned by this creepy orb thing? Odd.
His sister has also vociferously accused him of molesting her for a period of time when she was 4 and he was 13.
How is every bracket not Elon Musk?
That’s not how brackets work?
Gee, I wonder how this will end if lemmy gets to vote.
Do you mind? We’re trying to have a circlejerk here.
Final match should have been between Zuckerfuk and incElon
The one thing he (unfortunately) isn’t, is celibate, lmao.
I think it’s more about his sick mentality in general, and not about if he can eventually bribe a woman to be his living incubator.
At what point does that word lose all meaning?
Meanings drift. The original word was coined in women’s groups, literally for women who didn’t find willing partners. Today it refers to the particular position of certain toxic male groups instead of the involuntary celibacy itself.
Insisting in keeping the original meaning could be a case of etimological fallacy.
Of the four I’ll take Bezos. Elon says controversial stuff but most of his businesses are legit. He owns Twitter now but he didn’t create that monster. Altman opened up a can of worms with AI but I do believe he initially had some good intentions with it. I don’t even know who Peter Thiel is. Bezos is just an evil corporate suit and Amazon will do anything for money.
Bezos isn’t even involved in Amazon anymore.
He’s executive chair of the board of directors, what are you talking about?
Jassy is the one steering the boat now, and it’s been rechristened as the SS No More Innovation
Thiel is associated with musk, and a pretty awful guy in his own right. The short version is he’s a billionaire techno-fascist that funds political campaigns for people like Trump. Here’s a video for more stuff about him if you’re curious.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Here’s
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
How is it that every bracket isn’t just “Elon Musk”?
Thiel’s worse, he just hasn’t made a celebrity of himself
No spez?
He's small time. He's ruining one big-ish social platform. While people like Zuck are ruining many!
Can’t argue with that. But I have to admit that I miss reddit, mate. Hence my question.
He’s an insignificant gnat.
I think I'd say Thiel is worse than Musk. He supports anti-gay politicians while being gay himself. Tax cuts are more important than having the law treat people as human beings.
It's possible that Musk might fail to understand exactly how shitty he's being due to his autism, I'm pretty sure Thiel knows he's fucking people over and doesn't care. Also the whole bloodboy thing.
He isn’t autistic. He simply said he is. Which makes him a giant piece of shit.
According to his biographer, he’s wildly bipolar.
I think he is too. But neither of us is qualified to make the diagnosis officially. 😆
…but you’re a doctor.
But everyone’s a dog online. I’m the 10th doctor you always wonder about. 😆
At least Musk is so loud and obnoxious that it’s easy to avoid him. Lex Luthor sits over there at Amazon quietly taking over the world and almost nobody gives him a second thought.
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The worst person in tech is a choice between a bunch of people who are working together to make things worse for everyone else?
No unity ex ceo?
He’s a small time capitalist. These guys have society shaping power and wealth
I agree with you, but in 2023 unity fuck up was one of the major events cause most developers used unity and still continue using it
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bezos
Too bad Zuckerberg is about to feast on our data now that Threads has federated
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Information is cached on servers in the fediverse through connections. You can’t just make an empty server and harvest all of the data. Now if you unleash millions of accounts on the Fediverse like threads is doing, then you have access to everything.
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So what exactly is your point? That we should just give up that corporations own everything, period, sorry, bud?
If that’s the case, go back to Reddit and sign up for threads.
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Unfortunately the folks over at Mastodon are loving Metas integration
…How is Bezos in the running?
Jassy is the CEO of Amazon. Outside of space cuntery and being on the chair, he’s not really in tech.
With that being said, it’s still hilarious to me that Jassy has been CEO for two years, and most people still assume Bezos is boss.
Amazon is one of the biggest tech companies in the world.
There is a good chance the instance you are browsing lemmy on is using Amazon hardware.
They are one of the premier IaaS and PaaS companies, as well as the owners of tons of platforms including websites like twitch.
I think you need to read the comment you replied to. It seems like you commented before reading anything past the first sentence.
Bold of you to assume voters even know that Jassy is running Amazon. Most people in polls like this vote based on which name they recognize and dislike the most. The only legit competition in name recognition Jeff had on the right side bracket was Steve Jobs.
Look, I agree, but the comment that they replied to explained that…
Oh, I’m not faulting you or the original comment about Jassy, just a general lament about how bad the voting is on polls like this. This thread is full of other brain-dead takes that have nothing to do with tech.
Definitely agreed there!
I think if you made billions in tech, you always qualify. To some degree even more after you stop working and still can’t find time to do anything beneficial for the world.
He’s building that insane clock in the desert, does that count?
www.10000yearclock.net/learnmore.html
It’ll be musk. He is just the worst person.
It’ll be a popularity contest, but Musk isn’t the worst. He’s just the most well known.
Musk is more of a misguided idiot than evil.
But Musk arguably does more harm to the society. If there’s evil billionaires, they can be exposed, sued and punished according to the law. But what Musk does is spreading division and hate among the general public. The same thing Trump does. This ruins a generation, a country or even the whole world if the world doesn’t restore balance. Division and hate among the general public throws a society back in ways that’s very hard to recover from.
Thiel has spent his entire life with that as his goal. Thiel has caused more harm and is more evil.
Musk shouldn’t have won against Ellison. Musk is an uncontrolled trainwreck, sure, but Ellison is a highly controlled and effective lawnmower. He’s just better at not being known.
Very amusing. I still know barely anything about him, but I’m thoroughly convinced.
How is Altman worse than sbf
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I hope you don’t expect any help if you ever get ripped off. Some of them were poor as hell, show some compassion and respect.
SBF’s peak was a few years ago. This year all he’s done is show during his trial how deluded these techbros/EAs can actually be. At least SBF had the common courtesy to remove himself from public life within 5 years. Style points for the life-in-prison ending, while simultaneously killing mainstream crypto.
We’re stuck with Altman for the foreseeable future, and now with a recently purged OpenAI board that will let him continue the industry-wide commercialization of copyright infringement (but only of the laypersons’ IP. Better not ask it to draw Mickey Mouse, though).
It’s also really unclear where OpenAI lies on the EA/Longtermist/E Acc pipeline. Altman is likely letting whackos have some pretty serious power.
Altman is also into crypto, so it’s a double whammy
SBF funded a lot of the whackos that created the situation at OpenAI.
Should David Zaslav really be considered in tech? If WB Discovery is considered a tech company, then the Barbie movie is now (technically) a tech product…
How do you do, fellow tech workers?
All modern movies are kinda tech products. At least in a sense that there’s crazy amount of cutting edge tech involved in making them as well as during the consumption of that media
It’s all content now unfortunately
How could anyone but musk win?
Depends on if we consider Zuccer a person.
Zuck is bad sure, but he’s not a jackass, at least not publicly, he might not have made the best decision for meta but the company is by no means failing, Elon is just so much worse on every level.
Not failing, but actively ignoring Metas own research that shows Facebook is directly harmful to children and teens.
I’d say actively continuing to harm children should outrank being a jackass and/or incompetence.
At this point it’s like choosing cancer over Alzheimer’s. Die from excruciating inner torment or infuriate everyone else until you die.
I dunno, some of these votes are like comparing stage 4 leukemia to a mere urinary tract infection, and the UTI is somehow winning.
Go UTI!
Peter Thiel is also abysmal. Elon is more visibly terrible today but Thiel has been bankrolling regressives from the shadows for 20 years. He published his first screed about diversity in academia in 1995. So he is an all-time shitstain, for sure.
How did Nadella lose to Altman? Nadella is the reason Altman is what it is now. The reason open ai is not anymore an independent no profit research team to push open AI solutions.
He’s the king maker of evil tech. Nadella vs Musk is the only possible final. Whoever voted is insulting one of 2 main contenders. Like CEO of BP losing to a gas pump owner
It’s almost as if this is the most popular worst tech person. It’s like that year all of Reddit voted EA the worst company in the world. There are companies out there costing people their lives by intentional malfeasance but a company is doing video games dirty is the worst…
the heck, how did altman get so far? not that hes an angel(by far no), but someone like SBF did way worse imo
How the hell did Gates get eliminated in the first round??
EDIT: to people downvoting me, could any of you explain what good Bill Gates has done for the world of software?
Better question: who the fuck is Palmer Luckey?
Dude invented oculus
Ok but what has he done to earn a nomination as the worst person in tech?
Being bought out by Facebook doesn’t seem to qualify, especially when Zuckerberg lost in the first round too…
Well if the title is for just 2023 I think musk has it, if we take overall negative impact in a lifetime then I’m not sure but musk is probably not as bad.