Exactly. People didn't go back to mail ordering things from the Sears catalog because pets.com was overhyped and went out of business.
"Critics and opponents of the current regime" who travel overseas includes far more than 55k people every single day. A more honest way of interpreting that data is: "even if you are a vocal critic of the current…
California is as socialist as many European countries. It has _extensive_ social services along the lines of what you describe. These make the problem worse, rather than better, by enabling. Junkies get a free apartment…
Newton was able to attend Cambridge at all only because his parents were prosperous yeoman farmers who owned substantial agricultural estates and held private incomes. Nearly all schools at the time were not subsidized…
Newton and Leibniz both inherited substantial estates from their upper middle class parents. Neither was fabulously wealthy, but they were both able to bootstrap their academic careers with inherited money until they…
1. is debatable, but in any case that is not the argument that the GP post made -- the post specifically argued that it's worth developing knowledge with no immediate known application, because some application may be…
Leetcode does not test your ability to code in the sense of anything related to real world engineering applications. Leetcode merely tests your ability to memorize and regurgitate algorithms from a textbook -- a skill…
The claim is falsifiable; the bulk of 18th century math is "forgotten" in the sense that few, if any, people still use or apply or even know about it. It's not "forgotten" in the technical sense that one _can_ still go…
True, but this is also a stunning example of survivorship bias. Countless other mathematical curiosities were developed in the 1700s -- and forgotten. Calculus just happens to be the one that found practical…
Don't despair; new tool rollouts are always a hard sell -- especially when replacing a beloved classic. For me, the killer feature would be "ease of use." Sure, I _can_ make rsync do any number of rarely-used…
They chose a license that is _explicitly designed_ to allow people to profit from their work without paying. There are many other licensing terms in common use. They chose that one. That's fine, they can do what they…
So.... Since they explicitly chose not to require any payment, there is no moral obligation to pay them. That's the point. Would it be nice? Sure. But "not donating" is also fine. "Donations" are, by definition,…
"It's the right thing to do" in reply to a moral query is the "begging the question fallacy". The question at hand is of the form: Is it right to do X (to donate, in this case)? Your reply amounts to: yes, because X is…
You believe you know better than the authors themselves about how they ought to be treated? They chose -- explicitly, voluntarily, knowingly -- to give the thing away for free. That's their right for their own creation.…
Surely "the right thing to do" includes some element of the authors' explicitly stated preferences about how they wish to be treated. In this case, they chose -- explicitly -- to NOT require any payment or contribution…
The AI product doesn't fall apart (at least, not a good AI product.) The proposition is that is functionally indistinguishable from a human product to the extent that _there is no way to tell_, absent a formal and…
The fact that these same people can't tell whether it was authored by a human or an AI without a seperate disclosure is strong evidence that human authorship as such is not what they value at all.
The makeup of the numbers is shifting radically. 20 years ago, ~all Facebook users were organic real life social networks chatting with each other online. It's not gone yet, but for many years, that "organic social…
Has it occurred to you that _all_ model providers are actively trying to shape their models' replies to fit their preferred political narratives?
The case of Sweden entirely falsifies the theory that "it would've been much worse without government action." No government action whatsoever was taken in Sweden. None. Death rates were no better or worse than adjacent…
ICE agents arrest _people who committed crimes_ at green card interviews (including "entering the country illegally," which is a crime.) As I said, the United States is very welcoming to foreigners who are willing to…
Yes. The United States. Despite the whirlwind of media to the contrary, the US is very welcoming to foreigners who follow the laws (that is, don't enter illegally) and make an effort to integrate by learning the…
He's coldly rational: The investors gave him $5 million. Large commitment, large risk. Each customer gives him 15k per unit. Even a rare large customer who buys 100 ovens gives him 150k. Small commitment, small risk. If…
Yes. 99% of things just worked, zero modifications. The few cases where something was not directly translatable was <10 minutes with a coding agent to make some minor config changes, and then it just worked.
I generally agree, but it's a bit overstated to say "nobody talks about Oracle now" -- they made a profit of about $17 billion dollars in 2025.
Exactly. People didn't go back to mail ordering things from the Sears catalog because pets.com was overhyped and went out of business.
"Critics and opponents of the current regime" who travel overseas includes far more than 55k people every single day. A more honest way of interpreting that data is: "even if you are a vocal critic of the current…
California is as socialist as many European countries. It has _extensive_ social services along the lines of what you describe. These make the problem worse, rather than better, by enabling. Junkies get a free apartment…
Newton was able to attend Cambridge at all only because his parents were prosperous yeoman farmers who owned substantial agricultural estates and held private incomes. Nearly all schools at the time were not subsidized…
Newton and Leibniz both inherited substantial estates from their upper middle class parents. Neither was fabulously wealthy, but they were both able to bootstrap their academic careers with inherited money until they…
1. is debatable, but in any case that is not the argument that the GP post made -- the post specifically argued that it's worth developing knowledge with no immediate known application, because some application may be…
Leetcode does not test your ability to code in the sense of anything related to real world engineering applications. Leetcode merely tests your ability to memorize and regurgitate algorithms from a textbook -- a skill…
The claim is falsifiable; the bulk of 18th century math is "forgotten" in the sense that few, if any, people still use or apply or even know about it. It's not "forgotten" in the technical sense that one _can_ still go…
True, but this is also a stunning example of survivorship bias. Countless other mathematical curiosities were developed in the 1700s -- and forgotten. Calculus just happens to be the one that found practical…
Don't despair; new tool rollouts are always a hard sell -- especially when replacing a beloved classic. For me, the killer feature would be "ease of use." Sure, I _can_ make rsync do any number of rarely-used…
They chose a license that is _explicitly designed_ to allow people to profit from their work without paying. There are many other licensing terms in common use. They chose that one. That's fine, they can do what they…
So.... Since they explicitly chose not to require any payment, there is no moral obligation to pay them. That's the point. Would it be nice? Sure. But "not donating" is also fine. "Donations" are, by definition,…
"It's the right thing to do" in reply to a moral query is the "begging the question fallacy". The question at hand is of the form: Is it right to do X (to donate, in this case)? Your reply amounts to: yes, because X is…
You believe you know better than the authors themselves about how they ought to be treated? They chose -- explicitly, voluntarily, knowingly -- to give the thing away for free. That's their right for their own creation.…
Surely "the right thing to do" includes some element of the authors' explicitly stated preferences about how they wish to be treated. In this case, they chose -- explicitly -- to NOT require any payment or contribution…
The AI product doesn't fall apart (at least, not a good AI product.) The proposition is that is functionally indistinguishable from a human product to the extent that _there is no way to tell_, absent a formal and…
The fact that these same people can't tell whether it was authored by a human or an AI without a seperate disclosure is strong evidence that human authorship as such is not what they value at all.
The makeup of the numbers is shifting radically. 20 years ago, ~all Facebook users were organic real life social networks chatting with each other online. It's not gone yet, but for many years, that "organic social…
Has it occurred to you that _all_ model providers are actively trying to shape their models' replies to fit their preferred political narratives?
The case of Sweden entirely falsifies the theory that "it would've been much worse without government action." No government action whatsoever was taken in Sweden. None. Death rates were no better or worse than adjacent…
ICE agents arrest _people who committed crimes_ at green card interviews (including "entering the country illegally," which is a crime.) As I said, the United States is very welcoming to foreigners who are willing to…
Yes. The United States. Despite the whirlwind of media to the contrary, the US is very welcoming to foreigners who follow the laws (that is, don't enter illegally) and make an effort to integrate by learning the…
He's coldly rational: The investors gave him $5 million. Large commitment, large risk. Each customer gives him 15k per unit. Even a rare large customer who buys 100 ovens gives him 150k. Small commitment, small risk. If…
Yes. 99% of things just worked, zero modifications. The few cases where something was not directly translatable was <10 minutes with a coding agent to make some minor config changes, and then it just worked.
I generally agree, but it's a bit overstated to say "nobody talks about Oracle now" -- they made a profit of about $17 billion dollars in 2025.