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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   9596 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026

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I am listening to your opinion. I am also going to point out that I'm an ACX BR finalist. On my first and only entry. It genuinely is too much to expect me to please everyone. I don't have the budget for it.

I can't think of a change in medication that could possibly account for what I will concede is a change. Everyone changes. It's a side effect of living, or at least learning from experience. I have no idea how much of the stylistic drift you've picked up on is due to internal processes, or because of LLM contribution. Which I have always explained has been less than 10% of the total of any given body of work. Usually less than 95%. Often less than 99%.

Incidentally, that book review is personal. I don't have to name which one it is, since it's rather obvious. If someone else can handle being repeatedly, unforgivably failed by the same system he works for better than me? Haven't met them yet. I think someone who had to pull themselves out of a moderately-severe depressive relapse, do what I've done in the last few months without writing about most of it - could get away with being much less kind and much more bitter.

So yes. Life circumstances. It's a miracle that I didn't hand in my resignation at multiple opportunities. Clearly there's something about my job that keeps me going, or my psyche has built a load-bearing pillar called "not giving up." There are worse pillars.

Now that Prima opened this can of worms, I concur. Your writing got more verbose and rambling than necessary around the time you started extolling awesomeness of AI assisted writing. However, as this is not a forum for writing advice but (supposedly) for debate, I don't think you get that much feedback about it. It's not really a great argumentative move to switch rails from topic-level argumentation to unsolicited stylistic opinions.

Let me illustrate. For instance, your comment here has two or possibly three points: Your book review was ACX finalist, so your writing can't be that bad. You claim that a percentage of your writing is not AI. [1] But you concede that you did have a depressive episode, and you found it helpful to write about it. All of which could have been one paragraph, not four.

[1] I find figurative use of percentages unpersuasive in general, but here in particular, what even is the claim stranded here in the weeds of rhetorical grandstanding? "[...] has been less than 10% of the total of any given body of work. Usually less than 95%. Often less than 99%."

Let me explain what is going on.

Apropos of very little, someone comes and tells me that they no longer like me, because I've done something they've disagreed with.

Sure. It's a free country, somewhere. This is a mostly free forum too, or at least a benevolent dictatorship. People are entirely allowed to say they don't like me. All else being equal (which it never is), I'd prefer they did like me, but I sleep easy at night regardless.

I have pointed out that they have the right to say what they wish, a right I'll defend to a sensible extent, if not to the death. I also have the right to disagree right back, and point at a mountain of semi-objective evidence.

From a Bayesian perspective, I would be an absolute idiot to overindex on a small n of people taking offense to what I consider an entirely benign practice, when I quite literally am being amply rewarded - financially, or through feedback - for what I'm doing.

To be blunt, if someone wants me to do something, and feels that strongly about it? Pay me.

Now that Prima opened this can of worms, I concur. Your writing got more verbose and rambling than necessary around the time you started extolling awesomeness of AI assisted writing.

An annoying post-hoc hypothesis, regardless of factuality. I regretfully inform you that my posts have always leant towards long and rambly. If you've managed to find some kind of canonical tipping point, ran things before and after to Pangram, or simply did intensive manual textual analysis to demonstrate your point? Then I would reward that with a more in-depth rebuttal. I have provided said rebuttals in the past. I also have work, and the need to sleep before work.

I find figurative use of percentages unpersuasive in general, but here in particular, what even is the claim stranded here in the weeds of rhetorical grandstanding?

They're not figurative. You can go looking to find me counting, or estimating, at the time of writing.

All of which could have been one paragraph, not four.

"Sure."

Or: "I did not have the time to write a shorter letter."

I do not care to debate (very strongly), what I do in my free time, mostly for free.

To be blunt, if someone wants me to do something, and feels that strongly about it? Pay me.

How much are we talking in order to get you to, say, never consult AI in any fashion (not even editing) for any Motte post for 6 months?

I would pay to have the old you back, yes. I hold your older posts in extremely high regard.

$600 sounds fair. As long as that doesn't impinge on what I do elsewhere on the internet. I just won't post it here. $1000 if I'm not even allowed to use AI to fact check myself or others while engaging with this platform, even if I am always maximally scrupulous about checking any links or citations. The last thing I need is people breathing down my neck about a hallucination, even if the base rate is nigh negligible these days.

$600 is fair. You can still fact check and do general research, I won’t be that anal about it. DM the details when you get a moment, I’m in no rush.

Thanks. I have a lot on my plate at the moment, and figuring out a way to arrange the transfer that doesn't dox me will take effort. This might entail crypto. Enough effort that I haven't set up something along these lines so far. Remind me if I forget, I'm not kidding about being incredibly busy. I still intend to keep my word, starting from when the money comes through.

Edit:

Alternatively, I can see if Substack can do anything about it. Or if there's Kofi or whatever the hell it's called.

As a person who manages to be longwinded without the use of LLMs, I demand a redistribution of this wealth, less I start using AI myself to encourage a similar payoff.

You have to make it worth everyone else's time. And money. That is the benefit of having a reputation, I'm afraid.

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