<story><title>Ask HN: Disillusioned with the direction of society and technology</title><text>Technology seems like a giant waste of time and energy for human civilisation.&lt;p&gt;Specifically the social media giants and advertising funded tech companies seem like the definition of emotional vampires. So do cryptocurrencies.&lt;p&gt;They are making society worse not better. For a time maybe 15-20 years ago, maybe peaking around the era of Snowden it looked like technology was going to truly democratise the world.&lt;p&gt;Now we are being led into an orwellian hell hole.&lt;p&gt;For what tech produces it is overly rewarded economically. The true economic value of some companies like facebook or amazon may be negative.&lt;p&gt;What can we do or is it already too late to save the world from the big tech monster?&lt;p&gt;I think it is already too late. The internet is like an opiate or stimulant for the masses and a vampire, feeding off of and feeding into emotions and mass popular delusions allowing people to be manipulated as sheep and resulting in time and energy being wasted by literally billions.</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>pirate787</author><text>Revolving doors -- when people work for companies and then that industry&amp;#x27;s regulators, and back -- are a symptom of the problem.  The problem is the government is too large and engages in too many activities that pick winners and losers.  The government should be a neutral referee.  End corporate subsidies (including regulatory cross-subsidies) and flatten the tax code to reform this area.&lt;p&gt;Also a ban is plainly unconstitutional, people have a right to free speech, free association, and to work for whom they choose.</text></item><item><author>zouhair</author><text>Let&amp;#x27;s start by making revolving doors illegal.</text></item><item><author>civilized</author><text>Some lessons that will come with age.&lt;p&gt;1. There is no magic that will change human nature.&lt;p&gt;2. Rules that keep people from harming others are very important.&lt;p&gt;3. Don&amp;#x27;t expect to live a &amp;quot;special&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;great&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;revolutionary&amp;quot; life. Aspire to something extraordinary if you see an opportunity, but ordinary things like health, moderate wealth, and family are also good enough, and will have to be good enough for most people. And there is something very special in simply living a very good ordinary life.&lt;p&gt;4. Try not to be pushed into doing things that corrode the moral goodness within you. You will not regret spurning material rewards to live in accordance with your values, but you will regret the opposite.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jrd259</author><text>Certainly they do, but the public also has a right to insist that its servants (regulators, in this case, but also the other branches of government) be free of conflict of interest.  In the particular case, they should not hire directly from the very industry they regulate.  Ensuring that the regulators have expertise will be a problem, but at least no conflict of interest</text></comment>
<story><title>Ask HN: Disillusioned with the direction of society and technology</title><text>Technology seems like a giant waste of time and energy for human civilisation.&lt;p&gt;Specifically the social media giants and advertising funded tech companies seem like the definition of emotional vampires. So do cryptocurrencies.&lt;p&gt;They are making society worse not better. For a time maybe 15-20 years ago, maybe peaking around the era of Snowden it looked like technology was going to truly democratise the world.&lt;p&gt;Now we are being led into an orwellian hell hole.&lt;p&gt;For what tech produces it is overly rewarded economically. The true economic value of some companies like facebook or amazon may be negative.&lt;p&gt;What can we do or is it already too late to save the world from the big tech monster?&lt;p&gt;I think it is already too late. The internet is like an opiate or stimulant for the masses and a vampire, feeding off of and feeding into emotions and mass popular delusions allowing people to be manipulated as sheep and resulting in time and energy being wasted by literally billions.</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>pirate787</author><text>Revolving doors -- when people work for companies and then that industry&amp;#x27;s regulators, and back -- are a symptom of the problem.  The problem is the government is too large and engages in too many activities that pick winners and losers.  The government should be a neutral referee.  End corporate subsidies (including regulatory cross-subsidies) and flatten the tax code to reform this area.&lt;p&gt;Also a ban is plainly unconstitutional, people have a right to free speech, free association, and to work for whom they choose.</text></item><item><author>zouhair</author><text>Let&amp;#x27;s start by making revolving doors illegal.</text></item><item><author>civilized</author><text>Some lessons that will come with age.&lt;p&gt;1. There is no magic that will change human nature.&lt;p&gt;2. Rules that keep people from harming others are very important.&lt;p&gt;3. Don&amp;#x27;t expect to live a &amp;quot;special&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;great&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;revolutionary&amp;quot; life. Aspire to something extraordinary if you see an opportunity, but ordinary things like health, moderate wealth, and family are also good enough, and will have to be good enough for most people. And there is something very special in simply living a very good ordinary life.&lt;p&gt;4. Try not to be pushed into doing things that corrode the moral goodness within you. You will not regret spurning material rewards to live in accordance with your values, but you will regret the opposite.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mushbino</author><text>So instead of banning revolving doors we should have fewer regulations on them? That somehow fixes the problem?&lt;p&gt;Maybe allowing private money and politics to mix at all is the problem.</text></comment>