One of the rare times HN can come together and agree on something. Which is: that this is a loose weekend project thrown together quickly that doesnt solve any problem in particular
Readit Newstimacles commented on Show HN: 1 Million Rows 1mrows.pages.dev... · Posted by u/ankitchhatbar
timacles commented on Getting good results from Claude Code dzombak.com/blog/2025/08/... · Posted by u/ingve
To be fair, if you turn on thinking mode on Llms and see the output their is some thinking/reasoning.
A simple example:
Prompt:Make it yellow
Think: the user wants something yellow but hasn't said what it is. Previously the user talked about creating a Button, so it must be the button but I should clarify by asking
Response: is it the button that you want yellow?
this part of LLMs is the pre-programmed human logic. The LLMs arent actually thinking, they're just going through a defined IF THEN loop based on whatever weights, if there is some ambiguity in a prompt the LLM is just programmed to prompt for more info. Its not actually thinking it needs to ask anything, its just coming back with low precision probability.
All of the recent improvements in the LLM's "thinking" have just been layers of programming on top of its statistical models. Which is why its becoming clear LLMs are really not advancing that much.
timacles commented on The rise of AI as a threat to the S&P 500 [pdf] autonomy.work/wp-content/... · Posted by u/seangrvs
To add to your comment: I think you could probably post an article with white space with a title "AI is going to kill [fill in the blank]" and it will at least initiate a discussion these days.
You could probably start a company with that as your mission statement and get a couple million in VC
What about reading about Stoicism? I have a couple of close family members who are deep into recovery.
The more they talk about it, the more it just sounds like repacked Stoicism.
Very few people have the internal discipline for Stoicism. Sure its great and wise and reasonable, but its basically life on hard mode.
To be a stoic you have to be minimalist, have intense will power, and high tolerance for pain. How many people do you know that fall into that criteria?
Let's not forget that the "12-step-infrastructure" is a VERY American thing based around mostly christian religious nonsense and is by design completely inaccessible for people without a belief in fairy tales. It's obvious that the modern society requires addiction counseling and rehabilitation facilities, what we don't need is even more outlets for cults of all color to pray on people in dire situations.
Just the very 12 Steps themselves are enough to show you that[0]:
> We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
> Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
> Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, as we understood Him
> Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
> Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
> Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
> Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
> Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
> Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
> Continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
> Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
> Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
I mean listen. If humans have to abstract a belief into something to get them through tough times then so be it.
It does not help anyone to pretend that the universe is some sort of pure logic and reasoning machine and that a human can operate that way, because we are governed by and a slave to our emotions.
Religion and God exist for a reason, and that reason is that the world is inconceivably complicated and if you dont create a mental and emotional reasoning system that helps see beyond the complexity then you are going to have a really tough time.
Now, churches and cults and all that preying on vulnerable people is a whole other subject. But God and religion is a powerful tool humans have turned to for millennia.
timacles commented on Problems the AI industry is not addressing adequately thealgorithmicbridge.com/... · Posted by u/baylearn
A sufficiently good simulation of understanding is functionally equivalent to understanding.
At that point, the question of whether the model really does understand is pointless. We might as well argue about whether humans understand.
> A sufficiently good simulation of understanding is functionally equivalent to understanding.
This is just a thing to say that has no substantial meaning.
- What is "sufficiently" mean?
- What is functionally equivalent?
- and what is even understanding?
We're not philosophizing here, we're talking about practical results and clearly, in the current context, it does not deliver in that area.
> At that point, the question of whether the model really does understand is pointless.
You're right it is pointless, because you are suggesting something that doesnt exist. And the current models cannot understand
timacles commented on Entry-level jobs down by a third since launch of ChatGPT personneltoday.com/hr/fal... · Posted by u/lsharkey602
Look at Nvidia (also US company) instead of Intel, it's what now, a $3T market cap? BTW, that capital was created, not hoarded. Many companies fade from glory or their peak at various times, but capitalism ensures that a dynamic and ever-shifting set of companies is thriving based on demand and efficiency. The train keeps going.
> capitalism ensures that a dynamic and ever-shifting set of companies is thriving based on demand and efficiency
That form of capitalism is dead. There is no free market anymore (if there ever was). We currently have crony capitalism that operates on being able to secure cheap capital through "other" means.
There is no more efficiency in the current markets. Everything is massively over valued. Financial engineering is the name of the game. Major banks gamble with our money and when they collapse they get bailed out. That is not market efficiency.
> The train keeps going.
The only train that keeps going form here on out, is larger companies swallowing smaller companies. And the top siphoning wealth from the bottom.
Real capitalism would have had several market correction in the last 15 years, but the USA just keeps on printing money.
timacles commented on Entry-level jobs down by a third since launch of ChatGPT personneltoday.com/hr/fal... · Posted by u/lsharkey602
It's not AI. We are in a recession caused by fear and instability.
Tech may just be dying in general.
This could finally be the collapse we have been waiting for.
While the US was allowing capitalists to hoard all of the USs excess capital, China was facilitating the development of important industries via central planning.
Look at Intel. The owning class has become so greedy and incompetent. They aren't even running functional companies anymore: just grifting for government money then using that for stock buybacks.
We are looking at the a reshuffling of the USA economic order. Small businesses are essentially being (slowly) completely erased from the US economy, and monopolies are all that will be left. The middle class is being wiped out. Wealth is being transferred to the top
> Tech may just be dying in general.
Its not just tech, its any company that doesnt have infinite capital to integrate and monopolize every bit of the supply chain.
timacles commented on Journalists wary of travelling to US due to Palantir surveillance bsky.app/profile/alistair... · Posted by u/Kapura
Thiel and Karp have both said in various places that western civilization is worth saving and that it's better that we develop this power than enemies of the West, and I'm not going to lie, I'm inclined to agree with them.
Do you really think Putin, Xi and Khamenei are better stewards of the world than the West?
The West's introspective nature is good and all, but sometimes we unwittingly forget that there is actual evil in the world, and it's much worse than saying mean things on Twitter, or putting facts above feelings.
Students in Iran literally die protesting the regime, meanwhile students here who live a life of luxury and don't know what actual oppression is "protest"/simp for the Iranians (or one of their various proxies)...
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timacles commented on The ‘white-collar bloodbath’ is all part of the AI hype machine cnn.com/2025/05/30/busine... · Posted by u/lwo32k
I think something Keynes got wrong there and much AI job discussion ignores is people like working, subject to the job being fun. Look at the richest people with no need to work - Musk, Buffett etc. Still working away, often well past retirement age with no need for the money. Keynes himself, wealth and probably with tenure working away on his theories. In the UK you can quite easily do nothing by going on disability allowance and doing nothing and many do but they are not happy.
There can be a certain snobbishness with academics where they are like of course I enjoy working away on my theories of employment but the unwashed masses do crap jobs where they'd rather sit on their arses watching reality TV. But it isn't really like that. Usually.
What percentage of people would you say like working for fun? Would you really claim they make up a significant portion of society?
Even myself, work a job that I enjoy building things that I’m good at, that is almost stress free, and after 10-15 years find that I would much rather spend time with my family or even spend a day doing nothing rather than spend another hour doing work for other people. the work never stops coming and the meaninglessness is stronger than ever.