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> From the reader’s perspective, there are a billion other articles they could be reading. Why should they read yours?

I'd rather read something that shows any semblance of personality than yet-another engagement/reach/marketability-optimized "article" that just follows all the established tropes and could be written by any drone or clanker.


There is no worse form of bikeshedding than naming pedantry.

Agreed. All variable names should be single-letters as the Greek Gods intended :D

It's easier to enjoy it if you don't see how the sausage is made.

I am definitely not having a blast at work with LLMs. Everyone in the team has become simple rubber-stampers for whatever the AI puts out. There are mountains of documentation which gives a false sense of understanding of how things work, but the code repository itself could have been written in Brainfuck and it would make almost no difference. And we keep getting told by management that this is fine. We've become simple janitors in the slop hall.


    Everyone in the team has become simple 
    rubber-stampers for whatever the AI puts out.
Whoever figures out better ways to:

1. Present a big AI PR to a fellow human for review 2. Understand a big AI PR, as a human reviewer

...is going to be a hero. This is one of the biggest unsolved problems of this new era.

I've been experimenting with this, but it's early days. My efforts are mostly along the lines of having AI generate artifacts that guide the reviewer through the PR in execution flow order, explaining the reason for changes along the way.


I don't think that's the way forward. We don't accept mega-PRs from people, why accept them from machines? The best practice of small, focused commits - whether it be from a person or a LLM - will win out in time once we're past this manic phase.

Yeah, I'm sorry to hear that. I'm very glad I am not dealing with anything even remotely corporate during this time, because I'd absolutely hate it

No. This is one of the many excuses that people employ to keep feeding the beast.


And now you are even more dependent on OpenAI...

You didn't solve the problem, you are just trading pain points.


Nothing about this depends on the provider, you could spin up a local Qwen and give it a search tool like SearXNG or something. At this point local models are more than good enough for simple tasks like that. Using ChatGPT is just (usually) faster and simpler


There should be no real vendor lock in in my opinion. You can ask the same question with pi + qwen (or any harness + good enough model) with internet access and it will work. Chatgpt is just one option came in handy.


"Goddammit, I'm wholly dependent on Merriam-Webster, what ever am I going to do".


Does it bother you so much to see people out there who can go on without their lives being shaped by the Corporations?


It bothers me when people have terrible inefficient workflows for no good reason


What you think is "terribly Ineffcient" can be also considered "perfectly acceptable and resilient to systemic shocks".

Hyperfixation on efficiency gains is a disease of modern society.


Copy pasting ai code from the browser is not perfectly acceptable. The only reason to do it is because you haven’t tried agents. It shows a lack of imagination and a willingness to settle for inferiority.


I tried Claude in agent mode, as I wrote in grand^4 parent - specifically in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49622329


“Terrible inefficient workflows”, like having to prompt Claude to change one or two words in a file rather than just manually editing it, because it gets confused when the file changes out from under it and will later overwrite the changes?


He didn't have to stop Google from doing evil, but he could've refused to have his fortune coming from there.

> Go on, next you'll tell me about how your hands are clean.

They are as clean as they can be, which is a lot more that can be said from anyone who works at any FAANG (or Wall Street, or Big Oil...)

No one has been forced to work for Big Tech. No one ever said "I only took those $300k/year salary with those huge RSUs from Facebook because I couldn't find any other way to provide for my family" or "It was either working for OpenAI or washing dishes at an Olive Garden".


> They are as clean as they can be

Indeed, which is to say not clean at all.

"Only slightly dirty" and "much dirtier than mine" are fine judgements to console yourself of your involvement, but if you intend to indict a man, you'll need much stricter standards than this.

To be completely clear: I agree with your moral assessment. I too would not work for Facebook due to my moral qualms with the company. However, it is a terribly dangerous game to begin judging a man's choices when you know nothing about him.

Before long you'll convince yourself that you're the only decent man around and the rest are less-than-human.


> but if you intend to indict a man, you'll need much stricter standards than this.

I don't want to indict anyone. I am not a judge or prosecutor. I am saying that my own moral shortcomings do not justify his.

> Before long you'll convince yourself that you're the only decent man around and the rest are less-than-human.

There is this kinda old book that has some stories in it. I never got to read the whole thing back-to-back, but the Cliff's Notes of it is pretty much that we all are imperfect beings, that we are not able to fix everything on our own and that the best we can do is to recognize and forgive the mistakes we all made.

> it is a terribly dangerous game to begin judging a man's choices when you know nothing about him.

Love the sinner, hate the sin.

I don't need to know anything about a person working for Facebook to know that the product of their labor is bad for society. Saying "this thing you are doing is evil" is NOT the same as saying "you are an evil person". People will end up creating all sorts of rationalizations for their actions, especially when their identities are attached to it. If we don't call out on evil, then it becomes accepted.


The issue here is that you are adding ketchup to your food...


Oh, please. This reeks of a anglocentric worldview. Most places are like that. The exception to this rule is the US and franchise/chain restaurants that they have around the world.


Well, yes. That's why I labelled it as a "quirk", however as it looks people really seemed to have read a whole lot of other things into it.


> written by some "expert" from the perspective that neurotypical perception is correct, and my brain is a genetic mistake.

Well, it is a mistake. It is a deviation from the normal path. But so what? "Correct" and "mistake" are not antonyms. Without any mistakes, there would no be life in the world as we know. This is not a moral codemnation of any individual.

> I and my experience of life is not inferior, and may be superior, to the NT experience of life.

I am not quite able to put in words right now, but the sentiment expressed here seems like a perfect illustration of what happens when we let society become hyper-atomized and the fetishization of the individual.


> Well, it is a mistake.

If you say it is a mistake, then you must know what the goal is.


If we are talking about genes, the goal is to keep the ability to duplicate itself. If there is anything about this duplication process that has lead to the individual's brain development with difficulties to adapt to life with their tribe, socialization and chances of finding a mate are also hindered.


So if all the tribe goes to one water source because that's what they always do. And someone decides they want to try other water sources because they don't want to use the traditional source just because it's always been done that way.

What happens when the traditional source gets contaminated?

The outsider then has an advantage.

Yes tribal dynamics require people to act like sheep, but that can lead to getting stuck in local maxima, and not having any diversity.


Amazing strawman you built here. Very impressive. Now try to argue the actual point, maybe?


" the goal is to keep the ability to duplicate itself"

You are talking about putting all your eggs in the tribal cohesion basket.

That doesn't deal very well with black swan events. Not putting all your eggs in one basket maintains the ability of the tribe to "duplicate itself".

So given that I have provided an mechanism for improved survival of the group, that doesn't require the group to be completely homogeneous, please explain how I strawmanned your argument.

Or maybe point out what point you were trying to make, as it evidently isn't very clear


> You are talking about putting all your eggs in the tribal cohesion basket.

Sorry, that's waaaay off the mark.

I am taking about OP's remark where he wants experts to not "talk about his brain (development) having a genetic mistake", and I am saying that any individual with a brain that has developed in a way that diverges from the norm (and consequently makes it more difficult to socialize, empathize and find a mate), then we can definitely say that this brain has a "genetic mistake".


So explain "If we are talking about genes, the goal is to keep the ability to duplicate itself"

That is your basis for 'mistake', and the general position that you are objectively right.

I am saying divergence from the norm can also be a benefit towards the goal of keeping the ability to duplicate. Therefore you can't say that the genetic imperative to duplicate proves you are objectively right. Therefore you can't really support the view that it is a "genetic mistake", unless you want to make the claim that everything thatmakes us different from our proto 1 celled ancestors is a "genetic mistake".


You are once again taking the worst possible interpretation: every mutation is a "mistake" in the process of cellular duplication, that's all I said. Whether this "mistake" will have good or bad consequences will depend on how this is manifested in the individual and how it will fit with the environment.


No. I don't think so. Your original comment is basically 2 parts.

"If we are talking about genes, the goal is to keep the ability to duplicate itself."

We have already discussed the above. You then proceed on that basis.

"If there is anything about this duplication process that has lead to the individual's brain development with difficulties to adapt to life with their tribe, socialization and chances of finding a mate are also hindered"

You are basically restating evolution through the process of natural selection, with the implication that Neurodivergency is bad, because you are less genetically fit.

I have, I hope demonstrated that that isn't necessarily the case. Neurodivergency can make the tribe more genetically fit, therefore the inference we are meant to draw from your post is incorrect.

Unless we are expected to ignore the context, and you are just talking about evolution abstractly. But I would hope everyone here knows the basics of evolution, so why did you repeat them for no particular reason?

Edit. Ps. My first response was more than fair, and you accused me of constructing a strawman, so please don't accuse me of using an unfair interpretation.


> I hope demonstrated that that isn't necessarily the case. Neurodivergency can make the tribe more genetically fit.

You are conflating fitness of the individual with population robustness against systemic shocks.

> But I would hope everyone here knows the basics of evolution, so why did you repeat them for no particular reason?

Because (1) not everyone understands the basics of evolution, (2) to make my argument I wanted to establish where I am coming from and (3) this is a public forum and I am not addressing you in the particular, you might feel like I am "stating the obvious" but to other people this is a pretty standard and effective way to ensure the communication is clear.

> the implication that Neurodivergency is bad, because you are less genetically fit.

I am not implying anything and I tried to be clear that there is no "good" or "bad" when you have "experts describing what is normal/typical".


>You are conflating fitness of the individual with population robustness against systemic shocks

Yes and as per my first example, the ones who don't drink the contaminated water survive. The population robustness is people doing things differently and not dying. Fitness of the individual is population robustness where that individual does something different.

>(1) not everyone understands the basics of evolution, (2) to make my argument I wanted to establish where I am coming from

Right. So did you get past (1) or not? Your argument seems to be that neurodivergents are less likely to pass on their genes. I'm saying that isn't necessarily so.


> the population robustness is people doing things differently and not dying.

No, you created a completely contrived example in an absurdly complex and dynamic system and assumed your outcome is the likely one.

You are fantasizing a completely stereotypical behavior (neurotypical people act like sheep) to say "they would all drink poisoned water and die", when the story could just as well be that after a first wave of people dying because a poisoned well, the second group of people would notice the danger and go after the others who are drinking something else.

The advantage of diversity in the population would be determined if individuals in an heterogeneous group by the same threat or pathogen survived at different rates.

> I'm saying that isn't necessarily so.

Not necessarily so doesn't stop it from likely being so, and I would stand by the idea that neurodivergent people are likely to have far fewer children than neurotypical ones.


You do realise that modern germ theory was discovered in the 19th century due to cholera in a well. The 19th century! So no it isn't obvious. London's sewers were originally built to get rid of the smell, ie 'miasma'.

The outcome doesn't have to be likely. Just likely enough.

Yes perhaps I was over egging the pudding with the sheep comment. The point that we both agree on is that neurodivergents think differently.


> modern germ theory was discovered in the 19th century due to cholera in a well.

So what? If you see people getting sick after drinking from a well, you don't need to know the science to know that water is not safe. Birds do not need to know the laws of physics in order to fly around, etc.

If anything, you should look at your contrived example to understand that most people will not wait for a scientific explanation to establish social norms. A lot of Organized Religion "doctrines" are just learned behaviors that gained some metaphysical explanation in order to be passed down the generations. To this day we have people who do not eat pork out of the belief that they are not "clean", and while this is would be a perfectly valid assumption millennia ago, no amount of "Science" and laboratory analysis will convince an observant Muslim, Jew or Seventh-Day Adventist to go eat some bacon.

> The point that we both agree on is that neurodivergents think differently.

This is tautological and never has been the point of disagreement. If you don't mind, I'd rather just let this go now...


The prevalance of these traits shows that it wasn't always a hinderance. Capitalist society predominantly valuing conformity is the issue.


That's not how genetics of sexual reproduction works. I think it's only fair to say that we can't truly do a qualitative measure of the impact of any condition on fitness.


1) Being a hinderance does not necessarily mean evolutionary dead-ends, and some traits can still be prevalent in populations because the diversity is what protects us from systemic environment shocks.

2) Perception and adherence of hierarchies and status symbols are things present in nature for millions of years. "Capitalist society" has nothing to do with it.


> Well, it is a mistake. It is a deviation from the normal path.

This is a non sequitur. Why do you assume variation is a “mistake”? And how do you define “normal”?


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