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Paris Marx

💥 FINAL FOUR 💥

We’ve reached the semi-finals. It’s time to choose who will head to the final round!

🗳️ VOTE NOW: forms.gle/CP7XV9q3oS54qKWJ8

RADICALIZED IMBECILE vs FASCIST PUPPETMASTER

🗳️ VOTE NOW: forms.gle/CP7XV9q3oS54qKWJ8

AMAZON EMPEROR vs AI EMPORER-IN-THE-MAKING

🗳️ VOTE NOW: forms.gle/CP7XV9q3oS54qKWJ8

We’re not doing Twitter polls so people who no longer use the platform can participate, but that doesn’t mean the results are hidden. You can watch the progress yourself over here:

docs.google.com/forms/d/1PC7Kx

Google DocsWorst Person In Tech - Semi-FinalsThe end-of-year contest from Tech Won’t Save Us to let YOU choose the worst person in the tech industry is back! We're down to the final four. The winners from today's matchups will move on to the final round, and be one step closer to taking home the big prize. Here's how it works: Every day I’ll post the matchups and you'll have 12 hours to vote. That will give me time to tabulate the results and get everything ready for the next round. Then, the winner will be announced live on our end-of-year livestream for Patreon supporters on December 17 — with a public announcement across our social media channels to follow soon after. This round ends at 9pm ET. You don't have to vote in every match if you don't want to. Let the voting begin! A couple notes: Yes, we're using Google Forms. It's not a ploy to collect your email address, as the little icon below this should indicate. I haven't turned that option on. We're using it for two reasons: Twitter's user base has splintered so using its polls wasn't a good option (not to mention not wanting to do any more than necessary on the Musk platform) and because every other option was just prohibitively expensive for some year-end fun. So this is how it is. Enjoy!

The winner will be announced tomorrow during our year-end livestream for Patreon supporters, and shortly after across social media.

Sign up to join us!

patreon.com/techwontsaveus

Voting is closed. Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos move to the finals. Come back tomorrow to vote for the winner of the Worst Person in Tech 2023!

@parismarx kinda hoping Bezos wins so Musk can end 2023 still being a loser.

@parismarx any chance to vote without a google account ..?

@Frando @parismarx

It is quite ironic a poll like that requires a google account.

@FuckElon
I was about to voice the same opinion. I guess I will have to find out the results using some other source.
@Frando @parismarx

@parismarx

It's the ever stingy Bezos .His ex left him becasue he wasn't a giver..It's all about him.

@parismarx Do not put me in a position where I can’t vote against Bezos.

@parismarx Can’t we just have a four-way tie at this point?

@parismarx This is a hard one, but I'm going with Thiel because:
1. Counter tendency: everybody knows Musk is going to win, so I think we should give the others a fighting chance
2. The tech that Musk's workers make, while he bickers on Xitter, would actually help humanity in the long run, once it is free from capitalist governance

@parismarx 3. Thiel's projects, on the other hand, only help elites escape into imaginary utopias, away from the hell they are creating, while simultaneously eroding the rights of those that would have to work for them to sustain their 'libertarian' apartheids out at sea

@sirdorius @parismarx I feel like Thiel and Musk should have been seeded 1 & 2 so they were the final bosses

@parismarx damn that is a true clash of titans in the worst possible way. I think Elon has the edge but Thiel is pretty fucking awful

@parismarx Peter Theil is more damaging. Elon Musk is just a manbaby edgelord.

@ex3mpted @parismarx I think Thiel v Musk should have been the final. Dreadful how they've organized the progression in the lower rounds ;-D

@parismarx JeffBezos and ElonMusk seem more like rubes compared to Thiel and Altman, like Altman is doing mad datacrunching of the entire commons and Thiel literally has a MIC corporation named Palantir of all things. Amazon is an entire machine of human suffering all the way down but Altman uniquely seems worse than Bezos, unless Bezos was on the flight logs

@parismarx I'm disappointed David Sacks didn't make it deeper into the tournament.

@igb @parismarx Yeah some of the first round matchups were tough. It was a shame having Eric Schmidt, Mark Zuckerberg, and Bill Gates all knocked out in the first round. Maybe a preliminary seeding round would help prevent this next time.

That said, the semi-finals are shaping up well!

@stuartmarks @parismarx yes! Super-villains like Musk and Theil should get a bye for the first round.

@igb @parismarx Or have top seed matched against bottom seed, 2nd seed against 31st seed, etc.

@stuartmarks @igb @parismarx I prefer double or triple elimination because it reduces matchup issues and also means that they also end up not just being losers but two or three time losers.

@steffensoeffner @parismarx @Egghat

Well SBF is actually in jail so this makes him less worse

@gruikya @parismarx @Egghat

Worse as in possible future effects, I see that point. But in actually having done or doing bad things, I don’t see that in Sam.

@Egghat @parismarx

True, not pure tech. But crypto is tech adjacent and probably the most „tech“ in finance right now. And he acted pretty bad, certainly worse than Altman.

@steffensoeffner @Egghat @parismarx SBF cost people a lot of money and he is now neutralized.

SAMA’s harms may be permanent and affect most of humanity. They will cost a lot more than just money, as ChatGPT pollutes the entire web, replaces humans with error-prone mediocrity, and whole industries (education, publishing, law, those involving collaboration, discussion …) may grind to a halt trying to deal with the explosion of various kinds of unreliable texts.

@skry @Egghat @parismarx

True, those events might happen. But many of them, e.g. the impact to industries, are also true for many disruptive technologies: some jobs will become obsolete and disappear and new ones will come up. In the end it depends on how we humans use the tech and how we adapt.
So right now Sam A. hasn’t done anything really bad, but SBF has.

@parismarx oh jeeze, Musk vs Theil is rough at the moment.

@parismarx Zuck knocked out in the first round, holy shit! Obviously a worthy opponent, but you don't want next years top seeds facing each other that early in the comp.

@stacey_campbell @parismarx Zuck has been too caught up in his metaverse this year, probably trying to find some users actually using it. He needs to step up his game.

@parismarx @tchambers There is no doubt in my mind that Elon was a forgone conclusion if the audience is Mastodon users.

@parismarx I really wanted Andreesen but I'm fine with the final four.

@parismarx How did Musk and Thiel, both PayPal Mafioso, wind up on the same side of the ladder?

@parismarx what even means worst in tech?
And is this contest only a big advertising campaign for a slogan that itself could win the contest?
What does it even mean to say tech won't save us? Will less/no tech save us?
Technologies are developed. That they exist will surely not change much, thus can't save much. It must be used but be used wisely. And used quickly and widespread for us to be able to make any significant change.
That change can be amplified by change in behaviour or vice versa.

@parismarx Why isn’t Lennart Poettering on this list???