10 comments

  • cs702 0 minutes ago
    "There are two things that are important in politics. The first is money and I can't remember what the second one is." - Mark Hanna, late 1800's

    Source: https://quote.org/quote/there-are-two-things-that-are-import...

  • spicyusername 57 minutes ago
    Is the problem here NVIDIA or is the problem that our government doesn't function unless there's a pac funneling money into decision-making?

    Hardly surprising to see a company with strategic interests strategically try to achieve them. A business exists to make money, and if pulling policy levers is required to make money, you'll see them try to pull the levers.

    Reverse Citizens United and you solve these kind of problems at the source.

    • nonethewiser 7 minutes ago
      Can you first establish that there is a problem? I'm not sure what problem you are even referring to. It's just assumed.
      • darkwizard42 1 minute ago
        The problem is that it requires vast sums of money to influence politics.

        That is the antithesis of how politics should function (people are the interest, not moneyed companies)

      • Plont 2 minutes ago
        You can't be serious.
      • 148ag 3 minutes ago
        Certain general knowledge is assumed in adult conversations. Maybe not for sealions.
    • kzrdude 24 minutes ago
      It's worth listening to Lawrence Lessig, speaking in 2011, "Republic Lost" on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik1AK56FtVc (It's a "Talk at Google")

      I think he laid it out very clearly, but never found traction to try to change this (I don't think US Congress wants to be changed, though).

    • cyanydeez 25 minutes ago
      So the first step down the lobbying-is-good-for-governance that both sides embraced was when they defunded the congressional research office. So a vital way in which congress "informed themselves" was basically minimized to the point that the only way for congress to now inform themselves is via lobbying and th eonly way to write complex legislation is via those lobbyings.

      This is the endpoint of that effort and the people who pushed it most likely knew what they were doing.

    • y1n0 25 minutes ago
      Yeah I generally lean libertarian but I tend to agree with reversing citizens united.
  • bigcat12345678 1 hour ago
    I treat this as a sign of the inevitable terminal phase of any private cooperation in US: they start to invest their resources to stretch into areas that are irrelevant to their core mission, but they have to, because their core mission is accomplished already, and their business, which is built on top of the fruits of their core mission, needs protection beyond direct means relevant to their core mission.

    When pursing a core mission, many corps fail, either because lack of resources, or mission itself is not meaningful, execution failure, etc.; the fortunate few, might be in growth, while their mission keeps self-reinforce into bigger and bigger scope, that's the wonderful time of meaningful growth.

    When the core mission is done. The corp resets.

    Vast majority of them make profit that is small enough that the normal corporate logic prevail, and they behave normally.

    Extremely rarely, when the core mission is so meaningful, the corp reaps so large a profit, and so many stakeholders are attracted, that they no longer focus on core mission, they start to focus on profit.

    That's why NVDA is now buying assets across the whole stack of AI, while still increase price to maintain its profit. NVDA wants to maximize profit.

    The inherent flaw is that private corp in US system, has no meaningful end game when they are in this state of astronomical profit.

    • zdragnar 1 hour ago
      Their biggest customers are struggling to build out locations to use their products. This is nothing more than an attempt to engage in regulatory capture to overrule local politics on behalf of their customers.
      • bigcat12345678 40 minutes ago
        > Their biggest customers are struggling to build out locations to use their products.

        That's true.

        Although, the fact remains that any large corp in US, eventually becomes too big to make sense to pursue their core mission.

        Essentially, NVDA does not need this much profit to continue its core mission or try to expand the scope into more meaningful ventures. But profit seeking inevitably would make them to go blindly.

        They'll find reasons to do that, as profit itself is non-binding to any particular person, ideology, principles etc.

    • actionfromafar 1 hour ago
      They need protection from other oligarchs, and they know the Prince hasn't read chapter 23.
  • wishgreen 1 hour ago
    Wait, I think I've seen this one before...
  • nothrowaways 1 hour ago
    Gotta protect the windfall LoL
  • josefritzishere 1 hour ago
    No amount of campaign donations will save them when the market crashes. They're going to find themselves short on friends.
    • post-it 1 hour ago
      This guy hasn't watched the Big Short.
  • hblerner 1 hour ago
    [dead]
  • downrightmike 1 hour ago
    break them up
  • lapkaaaa 1 hour ago
    we live in cyberpunk without all of the cool stuff
    • actionfromafar 32 minutes ago
      From your downvotes, I can only assume some people think this is the cool cyberpunk stuff. :-D
  • 12ahsgf 26 minutes ago
    Nvidia is the next Juniper. They and the flaggers from their perception management agency only function until the AI fraud collapses in 2027.