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qarl2

135 karma · joined June 21, 2026

Hacker News is now censoring my main account (qarl) because, according to them, my writing sounds too much like AI and it makes people angry. I tried to explain this is a form of ad hominem, but then they got angry too and stopped talking to me.

I have created this new account so that I may continue to provide my legitimate (albeit unpopular) arguments and opinions.

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qarl2··on Sycophantic AI Decreases Prosocial Intentions and Promotes Dependence (2025)
A proof isn't an anecdotal story.

The claim was this is not possible. I show it happening. That's a proof.

You're confused because the example is my own project. But I'm not merely describing it - I am giving you full access to it to confirm or reject my argument.

Not anecdotal. Saying it three times does not make it true.

qarl2··on Sycophantic AI Decreases Prosocial Intentions and Promotes Dependence (2025)
I'm sorry downvoters - it's true. In his opening statement he complained about nastiness and then became extremely nasty himself, when I had said nothing like that to him. Other than just disagree and provide evidence.
qarl2··on Sycophantic AI Decreases Prosocial Intentions and Promotes Dependence (2025)
LOL. Providing a counter example is far from just an anecdote.
qarl2··on Sycophantic AI Decreases Prosocial Intentions and Promotes Dependence (2025)
No. I am not talking past anyone. I am providing cogent argumentation and evidence. And I'm being met with nonsense and platitudes.

And... I didn't start it.

Cheers.

EDIT: Good choice.

qarl2··on Sycophantic AI Decreases Prosocial Intentions and Promotes Dependence (2025)
If you can point to a single error in my argument I would love to talk to you about it.

Otherwise, you have a good life as well.

qarl2··on Sycophantic AI Decreases Prosocial Intentions and Promotes Dependence (2025)
> there are a lot

There are none.

Ghidra does not provide semantic names.

dotPeek shows you the symbols that were not stripped from the .NET.

Neither of these can do what I asked.

qarl2··on Sycophantic AI Decreases Prosocial Intentions and Promotes Dependence (2025)
Projects, plural.

And weren't you the one who started this complaining of nastiness?

qarl2··on Sycophantic AI Decreases Prosocial Intentions and Promotes Dependence (2025)
> but we had decompilers before

Cite one example of a decompiler that provides English names and comments.

qarl2··on Sycophantic AI Decreases Prosocial Intentions and Promotes Dependence (2025)
As near as I can tell - your argument boils down to "I've seen other people make mistakes so you must be also."
qarl2··on Sycophantic AI Decreases Prosocial Intentions and Promotes Dependence (2025)
I would love for you to cite a single one.

It must take a binary executable and derive English names for the memory addresses.

qarl2··on Sycophantic AI Decreases Prosocial Intentions and Promotes Dependence (2025)
I just showed you something that would have been considered a miracle one year ago.

And your response was "So what - show me another one."

qarl2··on Sycophantic AI Decreases Prosocial Intentions and Promotes Dependence (2025)
I guess my experience is different than yours - and I'm providing evidence.
qarl2··on Sycophantic AI Decreases Prosocial Intentions and Promotes Dependence (2025)
Except I'm providing evidence.
qarl2··on Sycophantic AI Decreases Prosocial Intentions and Promotes Dependence (2025)
I think we are noticing it. Are you not?

I've shipped three software projects in the last two months. I shipped zero in the preceding year.

Right now I'm building a system to decompile MAME ROM games into idiomatic JavaScript. It completes one game in about 3 days - complete with extensive commenting. I started it about 2 weeks ago.

I'm not sure "EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED" but if you're not seeing dramatic change, I suspect you're not looking.

qarl2··on Sycophantic AI Decreases Prosocial Intentions and Promotes Dependence (2025)
I'm one of the people who gets accused of this. I don't mind skepticism. But every time I turn around, someone's claiming nobody gets any value from these tools and anyone who says otherwise is deluded or running a scam. That gets really old.
qarl2··on AI-Generated Images Discourage Me from Reading Your Blog
Don't forget photography. Photography is going to destroy art, don't you know.
qarl2··on Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science
They don't need to make NP-hard tractable to shake the world order.

They just need to be better than humans.

qarl2··on AI companies destroy rare and non recoverable physical books
I know! This must have lead to the destruction of AT LEAST 10 copies of the Twilight books.

OH THE HUMANITY!!!

qarl2··on AI companies destroy rare and non recoverable physical books
And... at the very most... each AI company destroys ONE copy of a book.
qarl2··on The Maxwell Conjecture Is False (GPT 5.6 Sol)
Lies, obviously. AI is worthless.

EDIT: Guys! Sarcasm!

qarl2··on Google fixed more Chrome bugs in June than over the past two years, thanks to AI
There is an argument that there is a lot propaganda in this space - because the issue of AI is now an issue of international security and politics.

I see a lot of the disagreement here has the same form as many of the political arguments from 10 years ago.

qarl2··on Google fixed more Chrome bugs in June than over the past two years, thanks to AI
Lies, obviously. AI is worthless.
qarl2··on How is the Bun Rewrite in Rust going?
Ah - my bad. I thought it was obvious that a toy project facing the same issues would be a good playground for experimentation on the topics being argued.

Going forward, I will strive to not make leaps that my audience can't follow.

qarl2··on How is the Bun Rewrite in Rust going?
An example of an LLM porting code is off topic to a project where the issue is entirely about an LLM porting code?

Can you explain that more?

qarl2··on What is happening to jobs? Separating AI hype from reality
For whatever anecdotal evidence it's worth - that has been my experience as well. For the first time last December I noticed the harnesses performing like actual workers.

Everything impressive has happened in the last six months.

qarl2··on SpaceX Starship Flight 13 livestream [video]
> nothing

Heh.

qarl2··on SpaceX Starship Flight 13 livestream [video]
The important factor isn't politics. It's ethics. Saying it's about politics is obfuscation.
qarl2··on SpaceX Starship Flight 13 livestream [video]
You're conflating politics and ethics.
qarl2··on Annoying and alarming things about OpenCode
This is truly delicious.

I invite you to examine the test suite on the project I just published. Was it trivial? No, I'd say the whole project did take me a couple days.

https://github.com/qarl/arcade-js

You have a nice day.

qarl2··on Annoying and alarming things about OpenCode
HA! So now Apple users are hipsters! Your ugly biases are beginning to show.

You know, I can't prove that the Mac mini problem is due to needing to sandbox agents. All I can offer is my anecdotal experience - and that of everyone I know.

I love that I'm now a 50 year old hipster. This is a wonderful conversation.

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