I am trying to focus on posting source documents, as opposed to someone else’s reporting on source documents.

  • 4 Posts
  • 303 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: June 11th, 2023

help-circle













  • This is especially true if a simulated universe is indistinguishable from base reality - so perfect in all its aspects that it is identical.

    You can also get into the fact that we do not and can not objectively experience reality, simulated or not. Our experience and perception is based on the senses we have, which are inaccurate, and the brain that interprets the inputs, which makes shit up and is wrong all the time. Yes, we can use tools and measurements to enhance our perception and make it more accurate as far as understanding is concerned, but we actually each live in a universe manufactured by our own mind.



  • I don’t find the distinction particularly useful. We seek to understand more accurately how our universe works, with disregard to whether it is direct reality or simulated reality. The increased accuracy that we discover may result in our knowing whether we are in a simulation, or it may not.

    Either way, something is base reality, whether it is our universe as we observe and experience it, or some number of simulated levels “below” it. Our own state as simulated or real doesn’t change that. There is isness.





  • Math time!

    Let’s use nice round numbers to make this easy. We’re going to pay community mods a salary of US$100,000.00.

    Now, keep in mind that the cost of labor to a business is much more than just salary. Employees need technology, 401K matching, health insurance subsidies, an HR department, management, company stock programs, training - all sorts of things. Again, to make this easy, we’ll say that each community mod costs the business another US$100,000.00, at least in the first year. (I would expect that kind of cost to diminish as an employee gains tenure, even if it never vanishes.)

    This means that for every US$1M Reddit decides to spend on human capital instead of a CEO whose job appears to be largely centered around cuntery, you get five community mods. Since we are referring to diverting US$93M, that would give us 465 community mods.

    This doesn’t work perfectly, since employees generally like to be paid in cash, while executives (who already have all the cash they’ll ever need) are much more willing to be compensated with stock options and other similar non-cash strategies. Huffman certainly got some kind of pre-IPO stock grants and/or options that make this IPO very personally rewarding for him, and which cost Reddit US$0.00. (One of the drivers of inflation is how public companies get to essentially print money by issuing stocks.)

    All that said, you can keep that kind of math in your back pocket whenever you become aware of any executive salary. Every million dollars one dick swinger gets would employ five well-paid workers (or ten who can live independently with some level of comfort). That executive who gets $200M a year? Half of that would put 500 people to work, and not impact the quality of life of the executive at all.