MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by pixl97 | 2026-01-20 18:05:08+00:00
>Why is there a requirement for consequences to act moral?

See, most people don't want to murder and kill other people. For them we don't need to make laws saying murder is wrong and we'll hook your ass to ole'sparky if you proceed to do it.

For you, we do need to make that law so you have to think twice about carving people up like cantaloupes, and for dealing with those that do break the law.

A lot of law is the encoding of moral and ethical behavior. We didn't have the law, some people acted immoral, then we made the law to punish said behavior. For many people this pushed them away from the grey area between legal behavior that is immoral because if they act unethical new laws would be developed to punish them further (and people wonder why we have so many laws in the first place, quit acting like shitheads and we won't).

>then I'm not being good and it's all transactional.

Hurray, you've realized there is no god and the physical world we live in is built on cause and effect, thank you for catching up to the 20th century.

Cause: "you act good"

Effect: "I don't crack open your head and eat the tasty goo inside while screaming like a primate, since acting good allows us to build societies that have benefits for us all"
by marstall | 2026-01-20 18:05:22+00:00
The Myanmar story was definitely the worst (Mark Z + callow execs being willfully ignorant as Facebook clearly inflamed ethnic cleansing there and caused many deaths).

Later in the book, the China story was a close second. In order to get into China (to "grow") - exec team agreed to host Facebook's servers in China where the government could get access to customer private data, so they could stifle dissent.

Tons of other weird/bad/embarrassing stuff too. The author, a member of the core executive team, was seriously complicit but redeemed herself in my view with this no-holds-barred account of the complete lack of ethics up top.

In general a damning portrait of the executive team as just not giving a shit about anything except for growth and willing to actively participate in dictatorship in order to make it happen.
by drcongo | 2026-01-20 18:05:33+00:00
I don't know why you're getting downvoted. At parents' evening one teacher told me I was literally the only parent of that school year that uses parental controls.

Thankfully I don't have the FOMO part with my kids - they all seem to understand the reasoning and seem pretty fine with it - none of them have ever asked for TikTok for instance. We recently went to a family gathering though and I was genuinely shocked to see one toddler, barely able to speak, left alone with TikTok on a phone, just swiping away for hours.
by vacuity | 2026-01-20 18:05:52+00:00
For the time being, I consider alloc and std to be part of the language, and the compiler also has provisions for them if they are used. If the alternative is supposed to be only using core, then the language does not provide for control over allocations the way Zig does. Imposing allocations with no control and not providing allocations at all are both failure modes. With enough effort, anyone could do anything, but programming languages exist to control and enhance certain things under their purview. Rust does not have a comparable facility to control allocations like it controls ownership and borrowing. Just as C-with-tooling being safe isn't the same as C being safe, Rust-with-libraries providing control over allocations isn't the same as Rust providing control over allocations.
by otikik | 2026-01-20 18:06:09+00:00
> The Old Way: "I trust this site because the browser says the lock icon is green".

> The Zen Way: "I trust this destination because I have verified its hash fingerprint out-of-band, and the math confirms the signature".

PGP already tried something along those lines. It did not see any adoption.

Problem with that approach is: UX is horrible. If someone technical like myself struggled to get it up and running correctly, what chance do less technical folk have?

If you want to build a really boutique environment for 3 guys to feel good about themselves, the Zen path is the right path.

If you want the public to adopt it, you need that green lock icon.
by mschuster91 | 2026-01-20 18:06:27+00:00
> Look what united healthcare does to its “customers” to make more money.

Hold short. They already lost a CEO to an act of revenge at the end of '24... and still didn't think that maybe they should stop, reflect on themselves and cut down on the BS before the next CEO catches a bullet?

I'm not sure if it's audacity, ignorance or stupidity that's at play here.
by beardyw | 2026-01-20 18:06:57+00:00
> "Many countries are drawing the same conclusions. They must develop greater strategic autonomy: in energy, food, critical minerals, in finance and supply chains.

Sounds like an economic NATO (without the USA). It's good that other counties are waking up at last. Taking the hit now (and blaming it on Trump) will make them stronger on the long run.
by look888 | 2026-01-20 18:07:00+00:00
《AI 模型黑箱終止：SRCP 語義責任鏈標準由沈耀888π正式啟動》
Model Blackboxes End Here — SRCP Semantic Responsibility Chain Standard Activated by Shen-Yao 888π

在這個連模型都「裝無辜」的年代，SRCP 把問題說清楚：
每一句輸出，都必須交代四件事——誰說的、怎麼算的、依哪套價值判的、出事誰負責。
從今天起，語言模型不再只是產生答案的機器，而必須成為可以被審計、被追責的基礎設施。

SRCP（Semantic Responsibility Chain Protocol）由沈耀888π提出，定位為模型之前的語義責任標準層。
任何未能提供可回放責任鏈的系統，都不應被用來承載文明級決策。

In an era where models pretend to be “neutral or harmless,” SRCP makes one demand:
every output must show who spoke, how it was derived, which value template was applied, and who bears responsibility.
Language models are no longer allowed to be blackbox oracles; they must become auditable infrastructure.

SRCP, authored by Shen-Yao 888π, defines a vendor-neutral semantic responsibility layer before any model.
Systems without a replayable responsibility chain are unfit for civilization-level decisions.

Author / 發布者：
沈耀888π / 許文耀 (Wen-Yao Hsu)
Taiwan, Taichung
Email: ken0963521@gmail.com

#SRCP #語義責任鏈 #SemanticResponsibility #AuditableAI #ShenYao888π
by _jab | 2026-01-20 18:07:05+00:00
I'm pretty tempted to discredit this article on the basis of the author's lack of legal expertise, but to be honest I don't really have the expertise to properly comment here either.

But I don't think the author is correctly interpreting the principles of legal ethics, and their repeated questioning of attorney-client privilege, which I've considered to be one of the foundations of the American legal system, is hard to take seriously.

Also, I don't think their depiction of John Adams's representation of the British soldiers is accurate. From what I can tell, Adams sought only to give his clients as strong a legal defense as possible. In the trial, he called the American protestors a "mob", gave a racist depiction of one of the victims to justify the soldiers' panic, and ultimately saw all but two soldiers acquitted. Adams viewed this as a patriotic act, yes, but only insofar as he believed all accused of crimes in America deserved fair legal representation. He was a lawyer defending his clients, not the judge or jury trying to find the "truth" of the matter.
by cheschire | 2026-01-20 18:07:06+00:00
Well, not to be too egregiously reductive… but when the M2 money supply spiked in the 2020 to 2022 timespan, a lot of new money entered the middle class. That money was then funneled back into the hands of the rich through “inflation”. That left the rich with a lot of spare capital to invest in finding the next boom. Then AI came along.

Once the money dries up, a new bubble will be invented to capture the middle class income, like NFTs and crypto before that, and commissionless stocks, etc etc

It’s not all pump-and-dump. Again, this is a pretty reductive take on market forces. I’m just saying I don’t think it’s quite as unsustainable as you might think.
by ericmay | 2026-01-20 18:07:14+00:00
Reliable how? How would you obtain the currency, and what would you do with it?

> when the dollar is propped up precisely on the good will

The dollar isn't valuable because of good will. Central banks in Europe, or Japan, or elsewhere don't hold dollars because they want to be nice to the United States. They hold them because the United States is incredibly wealthy, has incredibly deep capital markets, high liquidity, and because the dollar is a great medium of exchange.
by scotty79 | 2026-01-20 18:07:36+00:00
If what you are trying to test is whether the student will be able to give good answers to those and similar questions in the future, then it's fine if they use AI to answer exam questions. Because in the future, when they are confronted with these and similar questions, they will have access to at least as good AI as they do have today.

And if you want to test something else than whether the student can provide answer to your question, then why do you ask this question? Give a task that shows what you care about.
by cfiggers | 2026-01-20 18:08:21+00:00
Because, "opt-in ethics" turns stronger ethical preference into a game theoretic disadvantage.

There are two populations: population A is those who prefer ethical behavior internally and would volunteer for it even if not compelled. Population B is those who don't prefer ethical behavior internally, wouldn't volunteer for it, and must be compelled to act ethically from without if they are to act ethically at all.

In a landscape that impartially disincentivizes unethical behavior, both A and B can coexist.

But in a landscape that DOES NOT impartially disincentivize unethical behavior, everyone acts the same as before—unless there's a benefit to acting unethically. In which case, A, those who prefer to be ethical for its own sake, will inevitably be outcompeted by B, those who engage in any behavior regardless of ethics, so long as that behavior confers advantage.

Enough of that on a long enough time scale and the voluntarily ethical population just disappears.

So, either we enforce ethical behavior (even on those who need no forcing), or we create an unethical free-for-all waiting to happen.

In some cases the "waiting to happen" stage can last a surprisingly long time. Centuries, maybe. But never, as long as B's exist and are free to act, without end.
by cheeseomlit | 2026-01-20 18:08:30+00:00
Yes, but there were practical limits to currency debasement when the currency was a physical commodity with intrinsic value. People notice when their coins start getting filled with lead, and there were serious political repercussions for it. You cant just conjure a trillion gold/silver coins out of nothing like you can with fiat, and the ability to do so is 100% guaranteed to be abused.
by ijidak | 2026-01-20 18:08:35+00:00
Mankind has never seen the collapse of a nuclear powered empire.

What makes us think this is possible?

It may not be possible for a nuclear powered empire to fall without the death of billions.

Mankind is in uncharted territory.

Even Russia never fully fell after the USSR collapsed. Whoever kept the nuclear weapons continued to be a first tier power.

Nothing in human history compares to the present question of how the current empires fall. And if they can even do so safely.
by mschuster91 | 2026-01-20 18:09:05+00:00
> Meta's instinct was to defend the employee and the illegal activity rather than sacrificing the lamb to protect the company and the shareholders. They are not the only company that does things like this and it just makes no sense. It is something in the water in Northern California that makes them do this or some strange Pacific wind.

It's unchecked greed, that's the thing. It absolutely makes sense if you know you can bring your guy into the office of President - print money and if you break laws and get caught before the President is on your side, use all your resources to prolong the case just enough.

And lo and behold, we saw one Big Tech exec after the other swear fealty to Trump. A mixture of rule by mob (it was literally called the "PayPal mafia") and neo-feudalism.
by weberer | 2026-01-20 18:10:01+00:00
>slowing M2 growth to near zero and eventually reversing it.

The M2 money supply went from 15.4b at the start of 2020 to a peak of 21.7b, before slightly reversing to 20.7b. Then they just continued printing. Now it currently stands at a record high of 22.2b. The dollar is more diluted than ever.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2SL
by jama211 | 2026-01-20 18:10:04+00:00
Always worth trying a different model, especially if you’re using a free one. I wouldn’t take one data point to seriously either.

The data is very strongly showing the quality of AI answers is rapidly improving. If you want a good example, check out the sixty symbols video by Brady Haran, where they revisited getting AI to answer a quantum physics exam after trying the same thing 3 years ago. The improvement is IMMENSE and unavoidable.
Can we stop using `^` in `package.json`
by jsmilker | 2026-01-20 18:10:35+00:00
Stop using `^` in `package.json` if you care about supply-chain safety.

If the lockfile is missing (fresh clone, CI misconfig) or you rely on automated updates like Renovate or Dependabot, semver ranges allow unreviewed code to enter your dependency graph. A compromised minor or patch release becomes eligible and can be pulled in automatically.

After last year’s wave of npm supply-chain attacks, we audited all our projects and locked dependencies down. Every upgrade is now an explicit, manual decision.
by filloooo | 2026-01-20 18:10:43+00:00
The problem is that the EU and China are both looking for export markets to fund their economic growth, unless EU blows up it's welfare system and prints money like the US, the two are competitors.

But doing that would undermine Euro's credibility, as the EU is a loose union of countries with their distinct interests and politics, also member countries would compete on outspending each other as the Euro would have been essentially free money, a Euro debt crisis on turbocharge.

So, the EU can never print like the US. The EU and China will be rivals.
by autoexec | 2026-01-20 18:10:49+00:00
> Attorney client privilege is unethical.

the article doesn't argue this. It argues that sometimes attorney client privilege can be abused to shield criminal acts and that lawyers and state bar associations have a role to play in preventing those abuses and holding violators accountable, which hasn't happened in this case.

> Reducing your legal risk by deleting old data that is no longer needed and no longer on legal hold is unethical.

It doesn't say this either. It talks about the deliberate destruction of evidence of actual crimes and the intentional suppression of the truth so that people can continue to be hurt.

> Violating laws that say you can't collect data on children is okay to do.

I have no idea where you even got that impression.
by mullingitover | 2026-01-20 18:11:00+00:00
I remember studying pre-WWI history, and particularly how carefully Bismarck arranged German foreign policy like he was the diplomatic equivalent of Bobby Fischer. Everything was situated perfectly and Germany was totally content.

Then along came the absolute moron Wilhelm, and he managed to Leroy Jenkins Germany's beautifully arranged relationships into an aggressive, tactless nightmare where all Germany's allies were turned into enemies, and everything turned out exactly like you'd expect.

As the saying goes, history doesn't repeat but it often rhymes.
Show HN: Time Tracker (macOS) offline time tracking, export invoice PDFs
by FlorinDobinciuc | 2026-01-20 18:11:42+00:00
Hi, HN

I built Time Tracker, a lightweight macOS desktop time tracker focused on staying out of the way.

It’s local-first (no account), works offline, stores data locally (SQLite), has a quick start/stop timer + editable history/totals, and can generate simple PDF invoices from a date range.

Download (universal DMG): https://trytimetracker.com

P.S. Feel free to leave a star if you like it.

Cheers!
by mbesto | 2026-01-20 18:11:44+00:00
Not saying your wrong. A few things to consider:

(1) We simply don't know what the useful life is going to be because of how new the advancements of AI focused GPUs used for training and inference.

(2) Warranties and service. Most enterprise hardware has service contracts tied to purchases. I haven't seen anything publicly disclosed about what these contracts look like, but the speculation is that they are much more aggressive (3 years or less) than typical enterprise hardware contracts (Dell, HP, etc.). If it gets past those contracts the extended support contracts can typically get really pricey.

(3) Power efficiency. If new GPUs are more power efficient this could be huge savings on energy that could necessitate upgrades.
by ijidak | 2026-01-20 18:11:48+00:00
Something to think about....

Mankind has never seen the collapse of a nuclear powered empire.

Sadly, it may not be possible for a nuclear powered empire to fall without the death of billions...

Mankind is in uncharted territory.

Even Russia never fully fell after the USSR collapsed. Whoever kept the nuclear weapons continued to be a first tier power.

Nothing in human history compares to the present question of how the current empires fall, and if they can even do so safely.

Very sobering times ahead.
by shevy-java | 2026-01-20 18:11:50+00:00
> without an independent and impartial bar willing to defend the despised

Well - capitalism nullified that. You need money - and connections - to win for many cases in court. So it is more of a milking game than "the old ideals".

> today’s legal ethics codes still speak of lawyers’ threefold duty: to the client, to the court, and to the country

This creates a conflict of interest. If the lawyer thinks he is not responsible for winning the case, then a defendent should be able to defend himself or herself in court. Though this leads to an automatic loss, let's be honest. The current system is designed to make the courts and lawyers rich(er).

> Imagine if Adams had decided that defending his clients meant winning at all costs.

So why should this matter for the client? Why would Adams be allowed to be lazy and lose? How is that a winning strategy for the client?

> Meta lawyers ordering evidence of child exploitation destroyed

Well - people made Facebook rich. That was a big mistake on their behalf. Now children suffer - perhaps you should not have made Facebook rich in the first place.

> These lawyers collapsed Adams’ threefold duty into one — serve the client alone, whatever the cost to the courts and the country.

I think Facebook should be disbanded, but I fail to see why the lawyers should consider "courts and the country". That makes no sense. Then again I also don't think corporations should have persona-rights either - the whole system is not fair.

> Meta’s attorneys have forgotten that the law’s legitimacy derives from the integrity of those who practice it.

Except that the rich have always gamified the system. Look at Trump.

The whole focus on Facebook here makes no sense. This is a systematic problem. Question the whole system. It is basically legal corruption.

> Holding Meta accountable includes holding its lawyers accountable

They know they work for evil but they get money that way. So the question
is: why does evil pay so much money? The whole system is geared towards
that.

> The truth will out for Meta’s lawyers — eventually — as happened with Big Tobacco’s

I am not sure this can be compared 1:1. Tobacco lied about cancer and smoking.

I don't think Meta faces the same problem, even if they ruin people's life. The data just isn't as clear as for smoking.

The whole article is really weak. I'd be the first to chop down Facebook, Google etc... and split these up for evil, but you need to write good articles as to why. That article seems superweak. The comparison to Big Tobacco simply don't apply 1:1. And being an evil lawyer in itself does not invalidate a case, even if their rationale for throwing out cases is also garbage.
by daxfohl | 2026-01-20 18:11:53+00:00
Though the fact that the code is so incoherent and inconsistent plausibly makes it more impressive that they still managed to make something that works at all, and weakens the argument that "all they did was copy/translate some existing other things to Rust."

That said, it's possible that none of that code even gets executed at run time, and the only code that is actually run is some translated glue code, with the other million lines essentially dead, so who knows.
by jwoods19 | 2026-01-20 18:11:53+00:00
Even suggesting that computers will replace human brains brings up a moral and ethical question. If the computer is just as smart as a person, then we need to potentially consider that the computer has rights.

As far as AI conquering the world. It needs a "killer app". I don't think we'll really see that until AR glasses that happen to include AI. If it can have context about your day, take action on your behalf, and have the same battery life as a smartphone...
by 15155 | 2026-01-20 18:12:03+00:00
> Tanks for all!

"Tanks" as a vehicle aren't regulated whatsoever - their main cannon is a destructive device which carries its own set of regulations, but you can absolutely own a tank (sans main gun) with zero paperwork.

Privateers sunk over 600 British vessels during the Revolution - do you think they needed permits for their cannonry? Or that the Founders somehow didn't know this was happening?

> Until Heller in ~2008, the right to bare arms (as a national right) was widely agreed to mean a collective right (eg. The militias), not an individual right.

Tell me what United States v Miller was about then?

Why do the Federalist papers disagree with everything you are saying, repeatedly?

> we inherited English Common Law which limited carrying guns in populated areas.

Federalist #46:

"Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms. And it is not certain, that with this aid alone they would not be able to shake off their yokes. But were the people to possess the additional advantages of local governments chosen by themselves, who could collect the national will and direct the national force, and of officers appointed out of the militia, by these governments, and attached both to them and to the militia, it may be affirmed with the greatest assurance, that the throne of every tyranny in Europe would be speedily overturned in spite of the legions which surround it."

This "collective right" idea is completely bogus and flies in the face of countless historical writings, accounts, etc. The jurisprudence on this issue is long-settled, and who are you to disagree with a majority of Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States?