I like the _idea_ of reading continental philosophy, and then I opened up Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. Here is a random sentence from a random page verbatim: "Spirit contains this actuality here because the extremes…
People say jobs with the "human touch" will stay relevant after AGI. And I'm like have you seen customer service? I can't even find the phone number anymore on amazon
I think this is what makes Asian food more exciting and innovative. No whiff of elitism. No status-signaling or having to appeal to the taste of King Louis the 14th. Just cook stuff and make it taste good for as many…
I read pg's collection of essays (Hackers and Painters) in my 20s, and it single-handedly prevented me from being radicalized by leftist ideologies. The one insight from the book that I will always remember from the…
Approximate monthly cost of owning a car in the city: Lease or loan: $350 Parking in city: $300 Car insurance: $180 Gas: $120 License/Registration: $42 (~$500 per year) Maintenance: $17 (~$200 per year) If you live in…
> "Now I have CLIs that one-shots bugs across distributed systems for me. Bugs that I couldn't solve in the past. Bugs that would take 2 days of full-time debugging. Bugs across distributed systems that lack distributed…
This is so accurate wtf!? - "United States is a service and information economy": Finance, real estate, insurance, SaaS. - "Nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away": here's a video from Smarter…
> Turn three: the company that fired its workers to save money discovers that its customers were, in aggregate, other companies’ workers. Revenue growth stalls. The AI subscription that was supposed to be an investment…
> "Whatever its flaws, the writing you find online is authentic. It's not mystery meat cooked up out of scraps of pitch letters and press releases, and pressed into molds of zippy journalese." - PG in 2005 Look how low…
This entire thread is drenched in class consciousness and I am here for it.
On point 1: I generally agree with you about the benefits of technological progress on a long enough time horizon. But what about the short term? What mechanism of redistribution are you assuming for the displaced…
"If there is less deep poverty in San Francisco than in New York, is it not because San Francisco is yet behind New York in all that both cities are striving for? When San Francisco reaches the point where New York now…
I think the answer is to do multi-disciplinary work. Venture outside of pure theoretical math. Learn some other domain knowledge and combine it with your mathematical ommph. That's the easiest way to make an impact now…
> "Requirements documents that were once a page are now twelve. Status updates that were once three sentences are now bulleted summaries of bulleted summaries. Retrospective notes, post-incident reports, design memos,…
But you've just perfectly described the tacit knowledge problem. Yes, you can spend all your time writing docs, or just mentor a junior and let them grok the system through osmosis. Also your doc won't ever have 100%…
NIMBYism has never been about preserving neighborhood characteristic, or noise and traffic concerns. Menlo Park is not Big Sur. Sure, some concerns are reasonable and should be investigated, but most of the time they're…
Master planning has never worked for my side projects unless I am building the exact replica of what I've done in the past. The most important decisions are made while I'm deep in the code base and I have a better…
For most working-class Americans, education is a form of job-training. In the AI maximalist world where humans are obsolete and cannot contribute to the economy in any meaningful way, there is actually no reason for…
To borrow a concept from Simon Willison: you need to "hoard things you know how to do”. You need to know what is possible; you need to be able to articulate what you want. AI is a fast car, but it’s empty and still…
Good advice to the younger folks. You can afford to look stupid. So go ahead and do that thing you wanted to try. There's more acceptance because of your age. You're expected to fail in some ways. Once you have a…
My solution to this is to prioritize. There isn't enough time in a person's life to learn everything anyways. Selectively pick and struggle through things you want to learn deeply. And let AI spoon-feed you for things…
Yes, what I find beautiful is the craftsmanship, dedication, and the singular, almost monastic focus required to become a master in some human pursuit, whether its software, sushi, or making watches. I find dedication…
I disagree. It's worth asking why some people find brand watches beautiful? Where did they get their sense of aesthetic? Were they born with a congenital preference for RM 16-01 Citron? Culture shapes our taste.…
Software scales. Customer support doesn't. SaaS companies do not want to deal with customer support at all. It's only gotten worse with AI agents. It's incredibly frustrating to spend a good 10 minutes navigating a…
Ad duopoly with Google. Half of all humans on Earth uses Meta products (Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, Threads). These products are free for you to use. But for Meta, your attention is the product which they…
I like the _idea_ of reading continental philosophy, and then I opened up Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. Here is a random sentence from a random page verbatim: "Spirit contains this actuality here because the extremes…
People say jobs with the "human touch" will stay relevant after AGI. And I'm like have you seen customer service? I can't even find the phone number anymore on amazon
I think this is what makes Asian food more exciting and innovative. No whiff of elitism. No status-signaling or having to appeal to the taste of King Louis the 14th. Just cook stuff and make it taste good for as many…
I read pg's collection of essays (Hackers and Painters) in my 20s, and it single-handedly prevented me from being radicalized by leftist ideologies. The one insight from the book that I will always remember from the…
Approximate monthly cost of owning a car in the city: Lease or loan: $350 Parking in city: $300 Car insurance: $180 Gas: $120 License/Registration: $42 (~$500 per year) Maintenance: $17 (~$200 per year) If you live in…
> "Now I have CLIs that one-shots bugs across distributed systems for me. Bugs that I couldn't solve in the past. Bugs that would take 2 days of full-time debugging. Bugs across distributed systems that lack distributed…
This is so accurate wtf!? - "United States is a service and information economy": Finance, real estate, insurance, SaaS. - "Nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away": here's a video from Smarter…
> Turn three: the company that fired its workers to save money discovers that its customers were, in aggregate, other companies’ workers. Revenue growth stalls. The AI subscription that was supposed to be an investment…
> "Whatever its flaws, the writing you find online is authentic. It's not mystery meat cooked up out of scraps of pitch letters and press releases, and pressed into molds of zippy journalese." - PG in 2005 Look how low…
This entire thread is drenched in class consciousness and I am here for it.
On point 1: I generally agree with you about the benefits of technological progress on a long enough time horizon. But what about the short term? What mechanism of redistribution are you assuming for the displaced…
"If there is less deep poverty in San Francisco than in New York, is it not because San Francisco is yet behind New York in all that both cities are striving for? When San Francisco reaches the point where New York now…
I think the answer is to do multi-disciplinary work. Venture outside of pure theoretical math. Learn some other domain knowledge and combine it with your mathematical ommph. That's the easiest way to make an impact now…
> "Requirements documents that were once a page are now twelve. Status updates that were once three sentences are now bulleted summaries of bulleted summaries. Retrospective notes, post-incident reports, design memos,…
But you've just perfectly described the tacit knowledge problem. Yes, you can spend all your time writing docs, or just mentor a junior and let them grok the system through osmosis. Also your doc won't ever have 100%…
NIMBYism has never been about preserving neighborhood characteristic, or noise and traffic concerns. Menlo Park is not Big Sur. Sure, some concerns are reasonable and should be investigated, but most of the time they're…
Master planning has never worked for my side projects unless I am building the exact replica of what I've done in the past. The most important decisions are made while I'm deep in the code base and I have a better…
For most working-class Americans, education is a form of job-training. In the AI maximalist world where humans are obsolete and cannot contribute to the economy in any meaningful way, there is actually no reason for…
To borrow a concept from Simon Willison: you need to "hoard things you know how to do”. You need to know what is possible; you need to be able to articulate what you want. AI is a fast car, but it’s empty and still…
Good advice to the younger folks. You can afford to look stupid. So go ahead and do that thing you wanted to try. There's more acceptance because of your age. You're expected to fail in some ways. Once you have a…
My solution to this is to prioritize. There isn't enough time in a person's life to learn everything anyways. Selectively pick and struggle through things you want to learn deeply. And let AI spoon-feed you for things…
Yes, what I find beautiful is the craftsmanship, dedication, and the singular, almost monastic focus required to become a master in some human pursuit, whether its software, sushi, or making watches. I find dedication…
I disagree. It's worth asking why some people find brand watches beautiful? Where did they get their sense of aesthetic? Were they born with a congenital preference for RM 16-01 Citron? Culture shapes our taste.…
Software scales. Customer support doesn't. SaaS companies do not want to deal with customer support at all. It's only gotten worse with AI agents. It's incredibly frustrating to spend a good 10 minutes navigating a…
Ad duopoly with Google. Half of all humans on Earth uses Meta products (Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, Threads). These products are free for you to use. But for Meta, your attention is the product which they…