> For example, when Timothy B. Lee looked at a spreadsheet that Zitron used to create a projection of Anthropic's revenue, he found, "He doesn't count February 1-10, counts March 1-10 twice, counts August 21-October 21 as one month instead of two, and doesn't count October 21-November 1. [another commenter notes that his spreadsheet also contains February 30] ... Ed claims he tried to compute Anthropic's revenue for 2025 and came up with $3.6 billion, suggesting some funny business [but the numbers work out once you fix the errors]"
Because the former, as P.T. Barnum pointed out, is just free advertising. And I see far more of that than the latter. Now, if and when their various empires collapse there will be no shortage of people pointing back and saying "all the signs were there", but in my everyday life (obviously just a single point of anecdata), it feels like I see a lot more coverage of them as "bad people" than as "bad at what they claim to be experts on".
https://hackernewstrends.com/?q=Musk&q=Altman&from=151234560...
Profiling Hacker News users based on their comments - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47473086 - March 2026 (86 comments)
(simonw's work I cribbed off of)
The point is not a few users you can point out, it wouldn't prove anything. The point is that you claimed that Musk and Altman are "Pathological liars like Musk and Altman are glossed over". I would say that requires at least sentiment analysis that an extremely high percentage(90+%) of hackernews users match that description. And that is simply not what I observe when I use this site. My feeling is that sentiment for Musk and Altman are neutral at best.
You seem to live in a bubble where these people are worshipped ... :-(
https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/ai-startupschool
I am a realist, I understand the cult of personality, etc. Just like I wouldn't spend a moment trying to talk a Catholic out of their faith. I have no feelings on the topic, this can only last so long based on capital trajectories.
For me, HN ist rather some kind of counterweight/counterbubble where not everybody is insanely critical and cynical about Elon Musk and Sam Altman. :-)
Gonna start using that one
Edit: I am not asking for anyone to be overly critical of those I mention. Facts and evidence are objective, feelings are subjective.
Find Your People - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44074017 - May 2025 (283 comments)
I realize we've both been in this community for a long time but I think one of the things I find about participating in Reddit and HN communities over time is that, I stop both being able to separate the truth of a matter from the argument itself and I stop being able to conceptualize the people in the thread as people and not mouthpieces for argument. There's a special toxicity that arises on these sites, where the argument becomes the main issue at hand and I see a conversation as a large conflict between world views. I may be projecting my own feelings here, but think it's worth contemplating these hot button issues elsewhere and responding in a lower temperature forum more conducive to actual discourse.
> and think that perhaps your time would be better spent elsewhere
Open to ideas, propose where. I have...looked extensively for work with meaning and am coming up short. Mods have my email if you want to reach out. I am always open to being proven wrong and/or updating my priors. What needs to be built that is also worth building? I am always happy to contribute my time, energy, and resources to meaningful causes and work. I have done my best to be interesting to people who can provide opportunity, and yet find opportunity in the scope of meaningful work in short supply.
FWIW I've decided to view sites like HN and Reddit as "intellectual junk food." There's a feeling that one is engaging in intellectual betterment by using these sites, but in practice none of the outcomes valued in intellectual output fall out of reading and posting a lot on these sites. I can't tell you what you should work on; every human who wishes to be creative struggles with this problem.
Ultimately very few problems can be solved by talking endlessly about them, whether that's online or in real life. I suggest just trying to actually make solutions to problems if you want to use your time that way. Talking with others can be a great way to get energized about solving problems, but doesn't take the place of actually solving them.