[−]DonaldPShimoda · 2026-10-10 Sat 17:37 UTC ·
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> I never took pleasure in craftsmanship or perfectionism, I just want things to work and then iterate on it with as little effort as possible.
The problem with this outlook (not with you personally) is that the increase in accessibility for you comes at a cost, but the way things work these days the cost is not paid by you but by someone else — someone you'll probably never even meet. The cost has been abstracted away from you and foisted onto somebody else against their will. This shows up as people adversely affected by local data centers (increased pollution, higher electricity prices), people displaced in the workforce (author of the article), people of the future who will not understand things because it's easier to skip understanding for now (students, early learners), and so many more.
It's very liberating — so long as you are given the ability to not think about the consequences for these other people, and the abstraction process by which AI companies are providing their services gives you that freedom by design. At the very least, it is something about which you perhaps ought to be wary.
That process is nothing new. That’s happened many times in history over and over. And in far more dangerous ways than not understanding how some complex piece of code keeps their favorite or most critical application running. At this point, people have long lost the ability to have even basic survival. How long would people last if they needed food or water? They have no idea on step one to achieving the basics. It’s all abstract to them, which includes us. That’s the loss that actually matters. Not that they know how their Amazon Fire TV works.
Disagree, in that humans are doing the same things they did in the dawn of time. Adapting to the environment and figuring out what it takes to thrive.
There are many things about our modern world which make less intuitive sense than the lives of hunter gatherers. People are trying to figure out how to survive in the conditions they are placed in.
Physical labour was weakened and then had to compete with machines, till we got lights out factories.
We were left with the service economy to find roles that allowed us to thrive. Now that is being threatened as well. It is unlikely that LLMs are going to make us all into entrepreneurs and capital owners.
Not to mention, the service sector required far fewer workers than manufacturing.
This isn't quite the same kind of moment we see over and over. It's not simply cars taking out horse drawn carriages.
You mean like all the benefits of industrialization? The real externalized human/environmental costs of our fast/cheap fashion, of our iPhones, of cars, of electricity, of agriculture?
I saw a video today, talking about how this is really the end goal of what we've been working towards for 200 years. Automation and scale and convenience uber alles. As structured it's not a good idea and it seems that Dr. Kaczynski wasn't wrong in diagnosis, only in the treatment. But here we are and we're pretty pot-committed, so I guess we have to see for ourselves what's on the other side.
[−]bluefirebrand · 2026-10-10 Sat 18:29 UTC ·
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Yes the fact that we have seen this pattern play out in the past and are very aware of all of the positive and negative effects it has should be sufficient to slow us down but naturally people are too selfish. The people who benefit will happily step over the graves of those of us who are fucked by the "benefits of industrialization" and then whoever survived will pat themselves on the back for a job well done while the rest of us rot
But there's no reason for us to be angry about it or resist it, of course
The only people who even somewhat successfully resisted industrialization are the Amish. Is that what we should be doing, forming religious communities that are increasingly isolated from the rest of humanity? Unable to contribute meaningfully to the discourse, but still subject to the externalities of the dominant paradigm?
[−]bluefirebrand · 2026-10-10 Sat 19:23 UTC ·
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As if the only possible two options to how society can operate are "Amish" or "Hyper-extracting wealth from labour"
Throwing shoes into the mechanism doesn't seem to have done anything but coin a new word. But I'm all ears! What other options do you see that could work at a larger-than-village scale?
[−]bluefirebrand · 2026-10-10 Sat 21:40 UTC ·
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Call me crazy but the tone of your writing doesn't inspire me with much confidence that you're actually even remotely receptive. I think you just want to argue
I'm not into it. Go ask Claude instead. It has more patience for this sort of ignorant attitude than I do.
You're crazy, I'm...not even arguing. You'll see that even in the course of this one thread that I've been quite ambivalent. And I've already talked with Claude about it plenty, and few ideas that feel workable in our present climate. I don't feel like I'm "ignorant" but then we never do, right? Would love some pointers to ideas. What you got? Communism? Georgism? UBI?
[−]SaintForthigan · 2026-10-11 Sun 06:50 UTC ·
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Shoot—if the true believers are right and there's ultimately never again going to be an economically viable justification for anyone without an MBA to have a single independent thought, maybe the Amish were onto something after all.
They at least have the notion that you've got a soul, and that it's a thing that should be tended to. A boss who has genuinely internalized the belief that the value of all human knowledge and expertise has gone to zero—such a man is unlikely to be similarly burdened in his assumptions about you.
First, I don't trust the elites to share in the wealth. I expect fuedalism to ensue.
Second, I think what is healthy for humans to yearn for is purpose and meaning, and convenience and idleness are almost counterproductive to that. Ok it's hard to argue with convenience, but nowhere in all of this has AI threatened to make my life more convenient by doing the chores for me, it just takes away fun creative tasks that I can get paid for.
> nowhere in all of this has AI threatened to make my life more convenient by doing the chores for me, it just takes away fun creative tasks that I can get paid for.
And this is, of course, the bitter irony. As that meme goes, I don't want it to write my prose so I can do the dishes, I want it to do the dishes so I can write prose.
The problem with this outlook (not with you personally) is that the increase in accessibility for you comes at a cost, but the way things work these days the cost is not paid by you but by someone else — someone you'll probably never even meet. The cost has been abstracted away from you and foisted onto somebody else against their will. This shows up as people adversely affected by local data centers (increased pollution, higher electricity prices), people displaced in the workforce (author of the article), people of the future who will not understand things because it's easier to skip understanding for now (students, early learners), and so many more.
It's very liberating — so long as you are given the ability to not think about the consequences for these other people, and the abstraction process by which AI companies are providing their services gives you that freedom by design. At the very least, it is something about which you perhaps ought to be wary.
There are many things about our modern world which make less intuitive sense than the lives of hunter gatherers. People are trying to figure out how to survive in the conditions they are placed in.
Physical labour was weakened and then had to compete with machines, till we got lights out factories.
We were left with the service economy to find roles that allowed us to thrive. Now that is being threatened as well. It is unlikely that LLMs are going to make us all into entrepreneurs and capital owners.
Not to mention, the service sector required far fewer workers than manufacturing.
This isn't quite the same kind of moment we see over and over. It's not simply cars taking out horse drawn carriages.
I saw a video today, talking about how this is really the end goal of what we've been working towards for 200 years. Automation and scale and convenience uber alles. As structured it's not a good idea and it seems that Dr. Kaczynski wasn't wrong in diagnosis, only in the treatment. But here we are and we're pretty pot-committed, so I guess we have to see for ourselves what's on the other side.
But there's no reason for us to be angry about it or resist it, of course
I'm not into it. Go ask Claude instead. It has more patience for this sort of ignorant attitude than I do.
They at least have the notion that you've got a soul, and that it's a thing that should be tended to. A boss who has genuinely internalized the belief that the value of all human knowledge and expertise has gone to zero—such a man is unlikely to be similarly burdened in his assumptions about you.
Second, I think what is healthy for humans to yearn for is purpose and meaning, and convenience and idleness are almost counterproductive to that. Ok it's hard to argue with convenience, but nowhere in all of this has AI threatened to make my life more convenient by doing the chores for me, it just takes away fun creative tasks that I can get paid for.
And this is, of course, the bitter irony. As that meme goes, I don't want it to write my prose so I can do the dishes, I want it to do the dishes so I can write prose.
They will share just enough so people are content enough not to riot. Keeping the masses at bay will mean they get to build even more wealth.
When enough people stop being able to buy food is when revolution happens.