beep
12hr ago
Claude initially overstated its confidence levels and forced me to ask a follow-up question. It felt to me like it shut down the conversation in its first response. This is bad and actively user-hostile design. It also fundamentally failed to satisfy my curiosity. So, I turned to ChatGPT and got a much more satisfying response. Claude didn't even bother to provide the Russian word for the term. This is how you lose a customer.
By the way, I used Opus 5 on High for this, so it's not like the model itself was just being dumb.
beep
19hr ago
Sorry that this is the second week in a row that I'm complaining about Claude, but I need to get this out of my system.
What is going on with Claude?
I asked:
Is it true that in Russian prison culture, you are not allowed to fart in your own cell. It is considered really bad. However, you can get a lower-rung member to suck the fart out of your butt and carry it over to the bathroom. Only then is it okay to fart.
Claude:
No, that's not true — it's an internet joke that's been circulating for years as a copypasta. There's no such practice.
[...]
But the specific fart-transport scenario is invented. It has the shape of the real taboos exaggerated to an absurd degree, which is exactly the joke.
So I asked:
Right, and you're absolutely sure of this.
Claude:
Yes, on the specific claim — with the caveat that "sure" for me means high confidence, not access to a definitive registry of prison customs.
Here's my reasoning. The mechanics are physically impossible, so it can't be a literal practice. [...] And the serious literature on Russian prison subculture — Varlam Shalamov, Federico Varese's work on the vory, the tattoo encyclopedias — is detailed about degradation rituals and contains nothing resembling this.
Meanwhile, ChatGPT gave me:
There also really is an online Russian prison story about a vodolaz/gazonukh/fortochnik—roughly a “diver/gas-sniffer/window man”—whose supposed job is to inhale another prisoner’s intestinal gas and expel it through a window. The Russian Wikipedia article on prison castes even repeats essentially the exact claim you heard.
[...]
As for farting itself, accounts suggest etiquette varies rather than there being a universal prohibition. One prison memoir says passing gas is strictly forbidden while someone is eating; another explicitly says that, unlike using the toilet while someone is eating, there was no general rule against passing gas.
It cited Russian Wikipedia and this prison memoir.
Maybe the thing on Wikipedia is itself bullshit. Anyone can edit it. There's a reason teachers don't trust it. I have no idea. But Claude didn't have any idea either! It didn't even check.
"The mechanics are physically impossible." Are they?
I asked Codex to read it and find anything relating to farting or passing gas in the memoir. It found three clear references. One explicit rule against passing gas, and two descriptions of gas/flatulence caused by prison bread or food.
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