yoyohello13

> weren't they right during the Cold War?

Very possible they were right. Hell, I'd agree it's true of the US gov today. If the message was "the government is currently bloated and corrupt, let's fix that" that's great. Today though the message is "government is inherently bloated and corrupt by it's very nature, and therefore unfixable, let's burn it all down" which is not true and actively harmful to democracy.

In the US at least, we've been brainwashed to think that government, by definition, must be bloated, corrupt and inefficient. Believing this axiom, people vote to hand over every possible service to private enterprise.

Now we are in a situation where a handful of unelected business men have more power over our lives than the elected government.

I thought this was going to be a rant about QR code menus.

Let’s me honest, the communities have a lot of overlap.

It’s really the furries that keep the modern world running.

You should read the Herdr front page. Is so full of AIism it hurts my head.

FUD, can’t take investment when your project actually enforces user freedom.

I’m a fan of zellij

Enshitification is 100% guaranteed with any vc backing. Maybe not now, but definitely in the future it is the literal point of venture capital. Gain adoption, then exploit to the maximum extent possible.

It’s fine to use these kind of tools, just don’t get too attached and be ready for the rug pull.

I saw a hallucination just this afternoon about a spurious ca cert error. Definitely happens less often, but I do need to correct it occasionally. Maybe once a week so it still requires vigilance.

We self-host gitlab and it’s great. It’s not cheap, but it’s also never gone down.

I expect it’s more similar to the Buddhist idea that happiness is cultivated in your own mind. It’s driven internally rather than externally.

I would bet that Microsoft is 100% composed of vibe coded slop these days. Everything they touch these days turns to shit.

The writing was on the wall from the very start of Warp. I can't remember precisely what happened, but years ago when it was first announced there was something that required internet, or telemetry, or an account to use Warp. I noped out right there before I even tried further. It was always going to be bloatware.

I remember when I first started reading HN I was surprised how many people refused to use Linux. I get it has friction but to me it was worth it for the social benefit of having a FOSS OS. That’s when I realized FOSS is kind of a lost cause if most tech people don’t even care.

People like to complain about the walled gardens and surveillance of Windows/MacOS but refuse to actually support the organizations working to make alternatives. So frankly, we deserve what we get at this point.

I’ve quit caffeine (multiple times) and it doesn’t do what you’re talking about.

I still get the restlessness. It’s just easier to sleep at the end of the day.

Hey I just wanted to say thanks for writing this. I’m going to check out the things you mentioned, and it just feels nice to know there are like minded people out there. You writing this has helped me feel better about the state of things, and I appreciate that.

One of may favorite things to do was to spend some time tinkering around to learn a new programming language. I collected quite a few and it was fun to learn new paradigms and how to organize programs. But now since AI… idk I just can’t do it, it seems just completely useless in the age of AI. Like getting better at the technical aspects of programming just doesn’t feel important anymore. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forgive LLMs for that. It really took away something I enjoyed.

Maybe we should start requiring companies to pay a percent of wages in equity. That would at least allow workers to share in a company’s success.

Yeah this seems right to me. Politics is so polarizing it's a guarantee that half the country is going to be pissed no matter who is in charge. Most of my family leans left, it's hard to stay positive when the leader of your country actively and proudly hates you while also making terrible policy decisions.

I think it's the dissonance between what the data say and just looking around. I see far more homeless, friends and family are more stressed, life in general just feels harder with less opportunity. Then you have the data people saying "no your life is actually great." So why the dissonance? I don't think it's just social media brainwashing.

Are we not there yet?

> In January, someone told me that an expert told him that software engineering would be dead in 3 months, and I scoffed at the time, but now I think it's pretty accurate

I mean, maybe your 3 month prediction is correct. But by definition that expert's 3 month prediction wasn't accurate because software engineering is still around and it's after April. We are 3.5 years in '6months until programming is solved'.

AI or not, most people never cared about documentation. I have always had to fight tooth and nail to get people to write shit down, and that hasn't changed with AI.

In 2021 I wrote a ton of docs for outlining our deployment and various how-tos, basically just got a "cool thanks bro" for my time. People never cared, I think AI is just a convenient modern excuse.

My take is that people feel powerless to really do anything against these massive tech companies. This is the only tangible way they can fight back.

I propose we build one under Sam Altman's house.

This is what bothers me the most about this whole situation. Reckless, greedy, sociopaths have been put in charge of our society and there doesn't seem to be any way out. It's like I'm on a train barreling toward a brick wall and everyone is shocked I don't clap when the engineer shovels more coal into the engine.

If this is how the 'good guys' act I think I'd rather take my chances with the bad actors...

Yeah, I think this needs to be update for the modern age. "Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by greed." Seems to fit vastly more situations.

Ah, ok I see. Your correcting the fact that I think it's wild when it actually shouldn't be surprising. I understand now.