[mway]

Unfortunately, benefit to society seems to very rarely be the goal anymore.

Cynically, as time goes on, it feels more and more as though we exist to be maximally extracted from, rather than to enjoy any intended benefit (where the benefit is not a happy byproduct that exists only because it is massively subsidized by aforementioned extraction).

[gary_0]

> Unfortunately, benefit to society seems to very rarely be the goal anymore.

If it ever was. Most of these businesses are still owned by the same people--the Sam Altmans, the Brins and Pages, the Elon Musks, the Steve Huffmans--who started out with the "not in it for the money" and "do no evil" rhetoric, and now their actions show that all that was just a lie from the start.

[OrigamiPastrami]

Call me naïve, but I actually suspect Brin started out believing in "do no evil" and changed over time after becoming ridiculously wealthy. Having the misfortune of actually knowing some of the other people though, I firmly believe they were shitty from the beginning.

[gary_0]

Not living up to your word because you lack the moral fortitude, rather than having ill intent from the beginning, is still lying. You said you would do something, then ended up doing effectively the opposite. "I didn't lie, circumstances changed" is a bullshit cop-out, especially when it's a billionaire saying it.

[cgriswald]

Lying requires the speaker to know that what he is saying is false. That’s what the word means.

By all means castigate Brin all you like but if you want to show he lied in this instance you have to show it was always a lie.

[sokoloff]

When I was five, I said I was going to be an astronaut.

As an adult, I took no action to make that happen; was I a big fat liar?

[worble]

Yes, but at least the only person affected by that was yourself, and not millions of people.

[Eisenstein]

Is a doctor allowed to abandon their Hippocratic oath because they aged 15 years?

[cgriswald]

If he does, did he lie when he swore the oath?

[appendix-rock]

> just a lie from the start

Ugh. Such a naive and simplistic take. People change, for better and worse. And the figureheads that unaccountable nerds love to bash here are sometimes just that, figureheads.

[Eisenstein]

And apologists are sometimes just that, too.

[exe34]

no, money seems to only change people for the worse. the rich ones who are good were good all along.

[immibis]

This has been the norm for most of human history, except for brief periods of time after the people being extracted from organised themselves enough to kill the people doing the extracting.