>The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it
I can put all kinds of words together that are legitimate uses of language, but that doesn't mean they mean anything or have any ground truth. Determining truth is massively more difficult than saying words.
As a parent you'll punish or otherwise teach your kids not to lie. Really quickly you'll find yourself punishing them for telling the truth, but not the full truth.
In the topic we're talking about proving something was a lie or bullshit, and proving a lie by omission gets really really hard, much harder than proving something is an outright lie.
> If it is distinguishable, can’t the machines do the distinguishing?
No? Just like they are not able to reliably tell if a piece of text was LLM written or not aside from by having access to the watermarking that some providers and models intentionally embed in the text.
> If crap is indistinguishable from substance, is it truly crap?
The crap is very very distinguishable. But there is so much of it we have to wade through, and it’s only getting worse.
> A more persuasive sales pitch for me to consider Apple products would be if the company had judgement not to ship such a hot mess of a sloppy product in the first place...
When I read a sentence like this, I have to remind myself that this is Apple products we're talking about.
What other company do you feel surpasses Apple in terms of "judgement not to ship such a hot mess of a sloppy product in the first place"?
Is there any consumer electronics company today that ships products that are in any way less of a slop than Apple?
What makes it sticky? I just don't see it. The declarative Github Actions manifests?
I imagine very few people use the wiki, because it's so subpar.
The issues are a problem, but this is why I always thought issues should be a core part of the Git repo, checked into it, sort of how Fossil does it. And so should the wiki, for that matter.
In an odd sort of irony, I know that at least one WITCH in fact gives feedback to the employees about their monitoring directly, versus other 'solutions' where only the manager and/or HR gets access to the system's reporting.
I’ve never been an executive but I’ve worked as an Engineering Manager and a Senior EM of various levels at big shot software engineering companies and all the same rules always applied to me as literally every other employee I managed, directly or indirectly.
But that's the point of the vast array of fancy corporate titles, it's a nice way to get them to feel closer to the management and thus side with the execs despite not receiving the same privileges,
Not many feel very important working as a line manager, but a Senior Solutions and Progress Development Analyst...Wow!
I've never worked for a line manager that has 'sided with the execs' in any meaningful manner. I'm sure there are plenty of sycophants and sociopaths that do, but it's not a broadly accurate generalization.
To wit: When one gets an order to, say, pick two people to fire, or get fired himself, carrying out the order doesn't regularly mean that they 'side' with it.
Considering everyone today is a “social media manager” or “email marketing manager”, and I have even seen “QA manager”, chances are there are more individual-contributor being called “managers” than managers themselves.
I’m sure an EM can extrapolate the role of lead clerk at the grocery store. The EM probably goes to the grocery store and has interacted with the grocery store workers.
> The problem is there are very, very, very few good executives. Most that I've interacted with are either narcissistic, lazy, incompetent, or a combination thereof.
His point is that narcissistic, lazy, incompetent people are easy to replace with AI. In other words, most executives and grant writers. Why are you framing it like you disagree? He is correct.
Also a point about style for "someone who excels at technical writing": an LLM could help you come up with stronger, more evocative wording than very, very, and very. I try to use words like "very" zero times in a row, because there's always a better word that actually adds something more insightful to the description than a generic "very" or three. Using "very" three times in a row is like eating a whole box of unflavored starch packing peanuts.
I guess maybe I disagree in terms of the good executives and wish for a world where that was the norm, and those character traits were sought after by companies instead of narcissism, etc.
For your second paragraph: I'm not looking for a job on here and I'm not writing technically. I'm posting on an Internet forum and using repetition to emphasize a point. Sort of like changing the voice I use for the forum or audience. That sort of thing is very, very common.
I have to agree with DonHopkins. Your GP comment reads like needless steelmanning or playing devil’s advocate. It’s noise. I much prefer discourse where you say what you mean and mean what you say.
In this country of oh-so-much freedom and journalism how can a layperson like myself check whether in the final degree my tax dollars are really paying for someone’s collection of vintage Ferraris, hidden behind an inconspicuous budget item?
If it is distinguishable, can’t the machines do the distinguishing?
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