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SubstantialFrivolity

I'm not even supposed to be here today

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joined 2022 September 04 22:41:30 UTC
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SubstantialFrivolity


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
I'm not even supposed to be here today

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 September 04 22:41:30 UTC
				


				
					

					
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 2, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


but is also loathe to admit it




FYI, it's "loath". "Loathe" is the verb, not the adjective.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 2, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


This is quite stupid, if you could have a kid by getting kicked in the balls you'd do it more than once.




I agree it's a poor argument, but I can assure you that this is not true. I know exactly zero men who would choose to get kicked in the balls even once to have a child, let alone more than once.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 2, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


It hurts, alright, but it's nowhere near the most painful thing I endure for the kid's sake.




I genuinely have no idea how that can be the case. Getting hit in the balls is the most painful thing I've ever experienced, bar none. Even if you find it to be worth it, what the heck is more painful?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 2, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I would say I've certainly had things which hurt longer than being hit in the balls. I've been trampled by a cow, I've had an infected tooth, and so on. But nothing that hurt more. Not even the time the oral surgeon cut into my tooth when it wasn't fully numb. Ball pain is just on another level in my experience.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 2, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't know anyone who's willing to get hit in the balls for any reason. Granted I haven't specifically asked, but it's a pretty safe bet. I'm honestly quite shocked at all the people here who said they would, it is something I never could have predicted.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 2, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I have not. And i definitely don't know anyone who would do that.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 2, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
No, of course not. That sounds super weird to me, why would one knowingly subject oneself to pain? I heard legends of people doing stuff like playing bloody knuckles or sack tap, but never have known anyone personally who did that.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 2, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


no you sound weird, haha. Is your background hyper-liberal urbanite or something?




Exactly the opposite. I grew up on a dairy farm, lol.




There's this quip that modern college kids' main problem is that they have never been hit in the face.




I would agree insofar as the kids' problem is that they have never faced adversity. I don't think that being punched in the face is uniquely valuable as a teaching lesson, though. You can learn how to overcome adversity from any number of experiences. And punching each other for fun is, as you said, very stupid.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 2, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I didn't say it was stupid. It's no different than doing judo or boxing.




That isn't true at all. It's significantly different! Doing boxing or judo, the goal is to not get hit. Even if you fail sometimes and do get hit, in principle you can get better and avoid that outcome more often than not. Moreover, the fun in those things comes from the contest of skill, not... some weird form of masochism where you let people hit you in the face for fun. So no, those are not at all the same thing.




Because you lack this formative experience of pain, you find the pain of labour to be unbearable, so you think it cannot be expected of anyone, thereby.... dooming humanity to extinction.




You have extrapolated way too much from my post. All I said is that men wouldn't choose to get hit in the balls to have a child. Nobody said anything about the extinction of the species, nor did I say anything about the pain of labor.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 2, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


On the other side: Trump has now an enemy with 200 million followers and who owns the dominant conservative online corner.




I feel like this leads to Trump getting banned from Twitter again, right? It's hard for me to imagine Musk not taking the chance to spite-kick him off the platform.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for June 6, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The only dub I have enjoyed was Cowboy Bebop. Everything else was meh to bad in my experience.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 2, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Can't cut medicaid or social security because your voting base will revolt.




I don't see why Trump gives a shit. He can't be reelected anyway, so who cares if the voters hate him? His career in politics is over either way. He's in the ideal position to do necessary-but-unpopular things. Granted that he needs Congress to play ball (he can't just cut spending on welfare himself), but Trump himself doesn't need to worry.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 2, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Good point. I was thinking in practical terms (where he has nothing to lose), but forgot how ego-driven the man is.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 2, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


How is this not equally applicable to literally every other politician that has been term-limited out of office?




It is.




Singling out Trump for political cowardice on the matter amounts to special pleading...




I'm not doing that. Trump was under discussion, not anybody else. Nor did I call him a coward.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 8, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I bounced off the very beginning several times myself. But once I got past the first few chapters, I really wound up enjoying the books. I even love the books that people complain about. I know why they complain, but by that time I was so in love with the characters and the world that I was just happy to spend time with them. Plus, a lot of people have observed that the books which are considered a slog are a lot more bearable if you weren't having to wait years for each one to come out like when they were first published.


I can't promise you will enjoy them like I did, but I encourage you to give them a shot. I would say that they don't really hit their stride until the fourth book (the first book in particular is weird because it was written to serve as a standalone story in case Jordan didn't get the chance to continue the series), but if you aren't enjoying them at all by at least the second book then they probably aren't for you.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 9, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Why do you consistently assume that people who don't share your views of LLM capabilities just haven't seen what they can do/what humans can do? For example:




They can't code? Have you seen the average code monkey?




Yes I have (and of course, I've used LLMs as well). That's why I say LLMs suck at code. I'm not some ignorant caricature like you seem to think, who is judging things without having proper frame of reference for them. I actually know what I'm talking about. I don't gainsay you when you say that an LLM is good at medical diagnoses, because that's not my field of expertise. But programming is, and they simply are not good at programming in my opinion. Obviously reasonable people can disagree on that evaluation, but it really irks me that you are writing like anyone who disagrees with your take is too inexperienced to give a proper evaluation.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 9, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The average person who writes code. Not an UMC programmer who works for FAANG.




Yes, that is indeed what I meant as well.




The proof of the pudding is in the eating; and for code, if it compiles and has the desired functionality.




I agree. And it doesn't. Code generated by LLMs routinely hallucinates APIs that simply don't exist, has grievous security flaws, or doesn't achieve the desired objective. Which is not to say humans never make such mistakes (well, they never make up non-existent APIs in my experience but the other two happen), but they can learn and improve. LLMs can't do that, at least not yet, so they are doing worse than humans.




Why should I privilege your claims over [famous programmers]?




I'm not saying you should! I'm not telling you that mine is the only valid opinion; I did after all say that reasonable people can disagree on this. My issue is solely that your comment comes off as dismissing anyone who disagrees with you as too inexperienced to have an informed opinion. When you say "They can't code? Have you seen the average code monkey?", it implies "because if you had, you wouldn't say that LLMs are worse". That is what I object to, not your choice to listen to other programmers who have different opinions than mine.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 8, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
There are fifteen! Or fourteen if you don't count the prequel book, but let's be honest... if you read the other fourteen you're probably going to read that too lol.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 9, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I've tried to have this debate with you in the past and I'm not doing it again, as nothing has changed. I'm not even trying to debate it with self_made_human really - I certainly wouldn't believe me over Carmack if I was in his shoes. My point here is that one should not attribute "this person disagrees with my take" to "they don't know what they're talking about".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 9, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Right, and I gave it then. Which is why I am not going to bother doing it this time. Like I said, nothing has changed.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 9, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Oh for heaven's sake, dude. When did I ever say I consider myself better than anyone else, that I would deserve such a litany of sarcasm directed at me? I don't think that and certainly haven't said it. I am just an ordinary programmer - I doubt very much that I'm better at programming than anyone here except the non-programmers, and I'm sure I'm worse than more than a few. Not only did I say "hey I'm not trying to litigate this right now" and that got ignored, now I get people dogpiling me saying I'm a troll or think I'm better than everyone else or whatever.


But fine, since you and @SnapDragon are insistent on pressing me on the topic (and since I apparently didn't say to him what my experience was, my bad on that, but I know I have posted this in a previous thread before), I will reiterate the things that I personally have seen LLMs fall flat on their face with. This is of course in addition to the various embarrassments that are public, like Microsoft's ill-conceived attempt to let Copilot loose on PRs.


    

  • Tried to get ChatGPT to help me generate a fluentd config file that would process logs in a way I needed to do for work. It gave me a config file that not only didn't do the thing, it didn't conform to the schema and caused the software to crash
    • 

  • Tried to get it to help me order CloudFormation resource delete-and-recreate in a different way than the default order. It first gave me options that didn't even exist, then it gave me options that did exist but didn't do what I asked for. I had a similar issue with the AWS-trained model they provide, which also suggested options that don't do what I asked for (and are documented as such).
    • 

  • A coworker used ChatGPT (a custom one trained on our API docs) to generate a script to run against our API. Again it hallucinated methods that simply do not exist.
    • 



These were all within the last year, though I couldn't tell you exactly when or what model or anything. And I've been honest that sometimes it has done good work for me, namely in generating short snippets of code in a language (or using an API) that I know well enough to recognize as correct when I see it, but not well enough to produce without laborious reading of docs. I've never claimed that LLMs work 0% of the time (if people have taken that away, I've done a poor job communicating), but the failure rate is much too high for them to be considered viable tools in my book. Most frustratingly, the things that I actually need help on, the ones where I don't know really anything about the topic and a workable AI assistant would actually save me a ton of time, are precisely the cases where it fails hard (as in my examples where stuff doesn't even work at all).


So those are again my experiences with LLMs that have caused me to conclude that they are hype without substance. Disagree if you like, I don't mind if you find it useful and like I have tried to say I'm not actually trying to convince people of my views on this topic any more. Like I tried to say earlier, the only reason I posted in this thread was to push back on the idea that one simply must be ignorant if they don't think LLMs are good at coding (and other things). That idea is neither true, necessary, or kind (as the rules allude to) and I felt that it deserved some sort of rebuttal. Though heaven knows I wish I had just left it alone and had peace and quiet rather than multiple people jumping down my throat.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 9, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Thanks. And for my part I'm sorry that I blew you off unjustly; I really thought I had explained myself in detail but I was wrong.


And yeah, the tech might improve. I imagine you can see why I'm skeptical of the strong predictions that it'll do so (given that I don't agree it's as good as people say it is today), but I try to keep an open mind. It is possible, so we'll see.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 9, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I have not tried that, but it also seems like kind of a failure of the tool if I have to, you know? The whole point of a tool that can understand natural language is that you can just talk to it normally. If one has to figure out how to word the incantations just right to get a useful result... I'm not sure how that's better than just figuring out the code myself at that point.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 9, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


If you are decently competent programmer working in an industry where things like accuracy, precision, and security are core concerns, LLMs start to look anti-productive as in the time you spent messing around with prompts, checking the LLM's work, and correcting it's errors, you could've easily done the work yourself.




I think this fairly nicely summarizes how I feel. Not that I do work in one of those industries to be fair, but it's part of my personal work ethic I guess you might say. I want computers (and programs) to be correct first and foremost. Speed or ease of development don't mean much to me if the result can't be relied upon. Not only that, I want my tools to be correct first and foremost. I wouldn't accept a hammer where the head randomly fell off the handle 10% of the time or even 1% of the time. So I similarly have very little patience for an LLM which is inherently going to make mistakes in non-deterministic ways.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 8, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
IMO the best way to keep Discord pleasant is to not join public servers. It works best for small groups of people who know each other, like an MMO guild or similar groups of friends. I've joined large public servers before and they are kind of miserable.