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Comment by ZeroGravitas | Hacker News Reader

Why do AI stocks rely on corrupt assholes being in charge?

Seems like a moment for "are we the baddies?" style reflection.

The USA's AI companies have embraced regulatory failure as a shortcut to accelerate physical deployments.

Using onsite fossil fuel electricity generation as primary power source, instead of waiting for the grid to catch up (preferably a decarbonized grid), depends on corrupt assholes being in charge.

> Why do AI stocks rely on corrupt assholes being in charge?

Isn't this true about whole US politics, where lobby groups fund elections, so that politician later returns a favor to them?

To make their (lobby groups) job easier, this election theatre has only 2 actors to pick from, imagine how expensive would be if you always had 8-9 real contenders and media didn't control the narrative

It's not all rosy in multi-party systems. Those 8-9 candidates are chosen by party leaders, not open-primaries. There is no such thing as a gun rights democrat or a pro-choice republican.

Not sure exactly what your point is. Off the top of my head Peltola is a gun rights Democrat and Collins is a pro choice Republican. Do you mean in non US style governments this can't happen?

Isn't the whole stock market mostly selfish assholes investing into other greedy assholes?

No the bulk of the public invests in some form and much of industry gets funding. It would probably function better without the assholes.

That's a motivated take. Obviously the party and candidates which promote less regulation are preferable to the stock market. It doesn't require accusations of corruption, and it doesn't mean their opponents are wrong, either.

Republicans are not the party of "less regulation". That's another of these myths they use like "states rights" or "fiscal responsibility".

Ok members of one party are proposing rent controls, city-owned groceries, abolition of AI advancement, expansion of the EPA, etc. and the other is revoking long-standing SEC, EPA and other agency regulations. This claim just doesn't hold up.

(I'm a swing voter if that helps.)

Which party created the EPA?

I don't know the history. Nixon? Seems like it was motivated in the 1950s. I don't think Richard Nixon was on the ballot this year, but maybe I just missed it.

Pretend like Nixon was on the ballot.

Tariffs?

Totally disappointing from a citizen (and market?) perspective, but I think you're stretching the meaning of "regulation" to try to squeeze tariffs in. That's like saying war is "regulating" the other country.

You have a very shallow understanding of economics. "Less regulation" is great if you can't think beyond next quarter. "Good regulation" is what keeps the economy healthy long-term.

Perhaps, but that's not really relevant as I am not the stock market.

You may not be directly invested in the stock market but you will certainly feel the repercussions to the economy from a crash.

I am in the market. I am not the market myself, so my opinion on the efficacy of regulation is of little concern to the debate. One thing is clear though: the election of a deregulation candidate immediately makes market go up, and the inverse. That’s what’s being discussed here, wheee the OP says “must be corruption”.

Ideally markets should price rationally, unfortunately they are often driven by human-sentiments, exuberance or dejection.

Textbook stock market != economy situation.

Abortion bans, book bans, trans bans, voter ID laws and so forth are regulation. It's "regulation for thee but not for me".

That's a fair observation, and perhaps requires qualifying my initial point with "non-social" regulation. The market doesn't care about those.

Cannabis stocks certainly care about their anti-cannabis regulation.

You know why I can play this game all day? Because the base premise doesn't hold.

Sure, also all the gambling/prediction markets, abortion-adjacent stocks etc. could potentially be down. In terms of the market, though, those industries just don't matter. The lion's share of the economy (energy, finance, technology, tobacco, firearms) benefit from the election of a party that is hostile to their regulation. It's not really debatable. What is debatable is whether that's correct or good, since deregulation allows those organizations to potentially externalize costs to the environment, society, etc.

They also have a very short-term outlook. Deregulation of derivatives was great for the market, until it caused a massive financial crisis.

> Obviously the party and candidates which promote less regulation are preferable to the stock market.

For a while...

In your understanding, what do you think caused the last few recessions?

Imagine unironically believing this indicates a windfall of ethics to come.

This is where third-worlders have absolutely no illusions. They know how the system works.

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