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Re:Elites Could Shape Mass Preferences as AI Reduces Persuas... by crote on Thursday December 04, 2025 @04:21AM (#46145513)
> The wealth inequality we have today, as bad as it is, is as best as it will ever be moving forward. It's only gonna get worse.

Why?

As the saying goes, the people need bread and circuses. Delve too deeply and you risk another French Revolution. And right now, a lot of people in supposedly-rich Western countries are having their basic existance threatened by the greed of the elite.

Feudalism only works when you give back enough power and resources to the layers below you. The king depends on his vassals to provide money and military services. Try to act like a tyrant, and you end up being forced to sign the Magna Carta.

We've already seen a healthcare CEO being executed in broad daylight. If wealth inequality continues to worsen, do you really believe that'll be the last one?

Re:Elites Could Shape Mass Preferences as AI Reduces Persuas... by lurk2 on Thursday December 04, 2025 @04:54AM (#46145743)
> And right now, a lot of people in supposedly-rich Western countries are having their basic existance threatened by the greed of the elite.

Which people are having their existences threatened by the elite?

Re:Elites Could Shape Mass Preferences as AI Reduces Persuas... by jack_tripper on Thursday December 04, 2025 @04:26AM (#46145554)
>Why?

Have you seen the consolidation of wealth in the last 5-20 years? What trajectory does it have?

>Delve too deeply and you risk another French Revolution.

They don't risk jack shit. People fawning over the French revolution and guillotines for the elite, forget that King Louis XVI didn't have Predator Drones, NSA mass surveillance apparatus, spy satellites, a social media propaganda machine, helicopters, Air Force One, and private islands with doomsday bunkers with food growth and life support systems to shelter him from the mob.

People also forget that the french revolution was a fight between the nobility and the monarchy, not between pleasantry and nobility, and the monarchy lost but the nobility won. Today's nobility is also winning as no matter who you vote for the nobility keeps getting richer because the financial system is designed that way.

>We've already seen a healthcare CEO being executed in broad daylight.

If you keep executing CEOs, what do you think is more likely to happen? That the elites will just give you their piece of the pie and say they're sorry, OR, that the government will start removing more and more of your rights to bear arms and also increase totalitarian surveillance and crack down on free speech, like what's happening in most of the world?

And that's why wealth inequality keep increasing no problem, because most people are as clueless as you about the reality of how things work and think the elites and the advanced government apparatus protecting them, are afraid of mobs with guillotines and hunting rifles.

Re:Elites Could Shape Mass Preferences as AI Reduces Persuas... by otikik on Thursday December 04, 2025 @04:34AM (#46145607)
> start removing more and more of your rights to bear arms

Wasn't he killed in New York? Not a lot of right to bear arms there as far as I know.

Re:Elites Could Shape Mass Preferences as AI Reduces Persuas... by jack_tripper on Thursday December 04, 2025 @04:43AM (#46145676)
You think New York is as bad as it could ever be in terms of gun control?
Re:Elites Could Shape Mass Preferences as AI Reduces Persuas... by otikik on Thursday December 04, 2025 @09:05AM (#46147769)
No, I don't think it's as good as it could be.
Re:Elites Could Shape Mass Preferences as AI Reduces Persuas... by lurk2 on Thursday December 04, 2025 @04:56AM (#46145757)
> because most people are as clueless as you

Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.

Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.

When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."

Don't be curmudgeonly. Thoughtful criticism is fine, but please don't be rigidly or generically negative.

Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re:Elites Could Shape Mass Preferences as AI Reduces Persuas... by jack_tripper on Thursday December 04, 2025 @05:03AM (#46145814)
You mean he wasn't being clueless with that point of view? Like the majority of the population who can't do 8th grade math let alone understand the complexities of out financial systems that lead to the ever expanding wealth inequality?

Or do you mean we shouldn't be allowed to call out people we notice are clueless because it might hurt their feelings and consider it "fulmination"? But then how will they know they might be wrong if nobody dares calls them out ? Isn't this toxic positivity culture and focus on feelings rather than facts, a hidden form of speech suppression, and a main cause in why people stay clueless and wealth inequality increases? Because they grow up in a bubble where their opinions get reinforced and never challenged or criticized because of an arbitrary set of speech rules will get lawyered and twisted against any form of criticism?

Have you seen how John Carmack or Linus Torvalds behaves and talks to people he disagrees with? They'd get banned by HN rules day one.

So I don't really see how my comment broke that rule since there's no fulmination there, no snark, no curmudgeonly, just an observation.

Re:Elites Could Shape Mass Preferences as AI Reduces Persuas... by qsera on Thursday December 04, 2025 @05:54AM (#46146146)
I agree with what you say.

But here is the thing. HN needs to keep the participants comfortable and keep the discussion going. Same with the world at large, hence the global "toxic positivity culture"...

Re:Elites Could Shape Mass Preferences as AI Reduces Persuas... by lurk2 on Thursday December 04, 2025 @05:09AM (#46145849)
> Or do you mean we shouldn't be allowed to call out people we notice are clueless?

That’s exactly what it means. You’ll note I’ve been very polite to you in the rest of the thread despite your not having made citations for any of your claims; this takes deliberate effort, because the alternative is that the forum devolves to comments that amount to: “Nuh-uh, you’re stupid,” which isn’t of much interest to anyone.

Re:Elites Could Shape Mass Preferences as AI Reduces Persuas... by jack_tripper on Thursday December 04, 2025 @05:19AM (#46145921)
>“Nuh-uh, you’re stupid,”

You're acting in bad faith now, by trying to draw a parallel on how calling someone clueless (meaning lacking in certain knowledge on the topic) is the same as calling someone stupid which is a blatant insult I did not use.

Re:Elites Could Shape Mass Preferences as AI Reduces Persuas... by lurk2 on Thursday December 04, 2025 @05:28AM (#46145982)
> meaning lacking in certain knowledge on the topic

Clueless has a pejorative connotation. I am struggling to imagine how anyone would read a comment like:

> because most people are as clueless as you about the reality of how things work

and not interpret it to be pejorative.

Re:Elites Could Shape Mass Preferences as AI Reduces Persuas... by zwnow on Thursday December 04, 2025 @04:26AM (#46145555)
> Delve too deeply and you risk another French Revolution.

Whats too deeply? Given the circumstances in the USA I dont see no revolution happening. Same goes for extremely poor countries. When will the exploiters heads roll? I dont see anyone willing to fight the elite. A lot of them are even celebrated in countries like India.

Re:Elites Could Shape Mass Preferences as AI Reduces Persuas... by jack_tripper on Thursday December 04, 2025 @05:22AM (#46145937)
Yep, exactly. If the poor people had the power to change their oppressive regimes, then North Korea or Cuban leaders wouldn't exist.
Re:Elites Could Shape Mass Preferences as AI Reduces Persuas... by FridayoLeary on Thursday December 04, 2025 @06:20AM (#46146307)
As long as you have people gleefully celebrating it or providing some sort of narrative to justify it even partially then no.

>And right now, a lot of people in supposedly-rich Western countries are having their basic existance threatened by the greed of the elite.

Can you elaborate on that?