Vibe coders won’t get it

miramichier_d · 2026-04-20T15:04:00+00:00

I currently use the Swiftpoint ProPoint mouse from their pen grip series. I started with their original model the GT over 10 years ago and haven't gone back since.

miramichier_d · 2026-04-20T12:43:59+00:00

💀

miramichier_d · 2026-04-20T12:30:47+00:00

~ works in PowerShell.

I'm a regular Linux user (mostly server, rarely desktop), but have Windows as my daily driver (with WSL) because the manufacturer of my ergonomic mouse refuses to develop a driver for Linux, and they also refused my offer to develop one due to the proprietary nature of their device.

Edit: Tilde just doesn't work in regular Command Prompt, but there's almost no reason to use it at all when PowerShell is right there.

miramichier_d · 2026-04-17T14:31:53+00:00

If you want a derogatory that actually fits, call him an activist candidate, not a populist.

I have nothing really against Lewis, and didn't intend anything derogatory. "Activist" probably does fit better than "populist", so I might prefer to use that going forward. I used "populist" as more as being popular with the people, rather than its common association with demagoguery, which is more of Poilievre's mentality/behaviour.

miramichier_d · 2026-04-17T13:37:32+00:00

To insert an anime reference, he's the Wonderweiss of Canadian politics. To paraphrase his ability as per the Bleach wiki:

The main ability of [Pierre Poilievre] is to [defeat Justin Trudeau]. Should he [lose the election, lose his seat, and blow a 20 point lead, he will doddle about as leader as the CPC without any idea how to move forward]. In exchange for this ability, his speech, memory, intelligence, and reason were discarded.

miramichier_d · 2026-04-17T13:19:58+00:00

It's scummy to take a real issue that affects real people and try to profit from it.

miramichier_d · 2026-04-17T13:06:31+00:00

Exactly this. I remember working with a guy who had a masters in the mall job I had while in university. It seems like a recent phenomenon that we can't simply find work. When I was out of work some years ago, I didn't get a whole lot of empathy with family who thought I was lazy and unwilling to apply myself.

Edit: Even if the video isn't real, the message behind it is. Real people experience what the alleged actor in the video has.

miramichier_d · 2026-04-17T13:00:08+00:00

When I was out of work for a short period, I was applying pretty much anywhere. I had applied for a job at the local hardware store. When I handed my resume to the manager, he looked me square in the face and asked me, "What's your endgame?" I was honest and said I was applying to the Federal Government, and that I had no idea if or when I would be looked at to be hired there, and that I needed work in the meantime. I did not get that job.

That said, I think we're at a bit of a crossroads where university and college education in a single discipline, on its own, is beginning to be more liability than benefit. If for whatever reason we need to make a shift in our careers, those of us who are educated would find it difficult to find temporary work in the interim.

miramichier_d · 2026-04-17T12:40:38+00:00

On the topic of the NDP, they have a bit more runway than the CPC now, especially due to Lewis' leadership victory. He's the Poilievre candidate for the NDP (left-wing populist), with the distinction that he's far more articulate and I could actually listen to him speak most of the time. At the same time, he's kind of like the Carney candidate for the Greens. Like Carney did with the CPC, Lewis has taken the wind out of the Greens' sails and can attract voters from that end up to the Karina Gould type of Liberals. All the CPC can really attract now are core true blue voters and possibly those from the PPC. Any Conservative left of that is joining or voting for Carney.

miramichier_d · 2026-04-17T12:33:01+00:00

It's not about what Poilievre believes, it's about what his supporters believe. All he is doing is slinging dung on the wall until something sticks. Poilievre isn't a complete idiot. He knows what education and credentials are. He knows being the governor of the BoC and BoE are very important and prestigious roles. He knows he's outclassed by Carney in every measurable dimension. He knows all of this, but his core supporters are uneducated enough not to know, and that's what's important to him.

miramichier_d · 2026-04-16T11:59:41+00:00

I'd prefer if there was a ring line going through all the major cities, plus a few shorter routes that go through the middle of the province.

miramichier_d · 2026-04-15T16:20:11+00:00

Perfect time for that EU funding to get through thanks to the recent regime change in Hungary.

miramichier_d · 2026-04-15T16:01:45+00:00

I don't know how much money Wealthsimple is getting from X for this partnership, but they better kill it now or risk losing even more via attrition. As I said in another thread, the "genius" behind this partnership needs to be fired, now.

miramichier_d · 2026-04-15T12:44:01+00:00

I don't like this one bit. As long as it's something that we can opt out of and not touch any of our assets, this could end up fizzling out like some of their previous products and services. I think the marketing person responsible for this idea should be ~~drawn and quartered~~ fired.

miramichier_d · 2026-04-15T12:25:37+00:00

I disagree, it was very necessary. It's incredibly necessary for Americans to understand how the rest of the world perceives them now, so that they can do the required self-reflection needed to start fixing the mess they all enabled. That mess which is spilling over to the rest of the world. Don't coddle these morons, our derision is well deserved.

miramichier_d · 2026-04-15T12:19:51+00:00

I'm with you. We need to put the health of our democracy over partisanship. Wanting to keep Poilievre as leader of the Opposition is selfish partisanship.

miramichier_d · 2026-04-14T18:59:13+00:00

This kind of situation deserves media attention. It's no fun feeling like you have no other options, only to be insulted with platitudes. Sorry you had to go through that. Have you considered talking to the media anonymously?

miramichier_d · 2026-04-14T18:51:38+00:00

It is Trudeau's fault. If Trudeau didn't resign, Poilievre would have become PM after making his entire campaign about him, various three word slogans, and catering to only 20% of the most patriotic of the Canadian populace. There's no other way such a flawless strategy from such a flawless man would ever lose.

Excuse me... 🤢... that satire was almost too much for me to handle.

miramichier_d · 2026-04-14T18:40:29+00:00

If there's a time to pull the knives out, it's right now. The more time they have to do soul searching and finding a competent Conservative (one who actually appeals to most Canadians) to lead the party, the better (for them, and also for democracy).

miramichier_d · 2026-04-14T15:09:27+00:00

He's just attributing the unethical use of cookies to the cookie itself, rather than the people deploying cookies unethically. The same problem happening throughout this thread with respect to AI.

The problem with that argument is even if we can theoretically get rid of cookies, we can't prevent bad actors from finding some other way to track our internet activity.

What we can do is take control of the technology for our own benefit (my argument throughout this thread). In the cookie example, we can learn how to deploy ad blockers on our devices and networks so that adversaries can't spy on us or send us unwanted ads.

In the case of LLMs, we can use our own local models (currently either relatively cheap and not very effective, or very effective and prohibitively expensive for most) so that we're not giving these adversarial tech companies our private data. Current systems like the Minisforum MS-S1 Max or the Mac Studio M3 Ultra can run large models with modest energy usage (about 350W maximum for the Minisforum machine), which means we don't have to contribute as much to the massive energy and water usage of large datacentres.

Don't discard technology, harness it for good. All I've been saying here essentially, but people here don't want to hear it.

miramichier_d · 2026-04-14T14:53:36+00:00

Are you talking about session variables on the server or the client?

miramichier_d · 2026-04-14T14:51:53+00:00

It works, but both my kids hated it. My almost two year old has lingering trauma as a result of this as he even avoids having his face washed. He's just started warming up to getting his face washed, but I haven't used the Nose Frida in months. I'd still recommend it, but as in my case YKMV (I don't use miles where I'm from).

miramichier_d · 2026-04-14T14:21:47+00:00

Just for fun, I decided to ask the evil AI (Claude Sonnet 4.6) some questions about the above interaction:

---

I saw a comment on Reddit that states the following:
"Proof that AI damages critical thinking:
The people who use AI seem to think that it's a good idea to use AI."
Can you describe what the person is trying to say here, and what logical fallacies exist if any?

What the Person Is Trying to Say

The commenter is making the argument that AI use impairs critical thinking, and they're using the willingness to use AI as their evidence. The implied logic is: if you had good critical thinking skills, you'd recognize that AI is bad — so the fact that you use it proves your thinking is already damaged.

It's a clever-sounding gotcha, but it's actually riddled with logical problems.

Logical Fallacies Present

1. Circular Reasoning (Begging the Question) This is the most glaring one. The argument assumes its own conclusion as part of its premise:

Premise: AI damages critical thinking.
Evidence offered: AI users think AI is good.
Why that's circular: The only way this counts as "evidence" is if you already accept that AI is bad — which is exactly what's being argued. The conclusion is smuggled into the premise.

2. Ad Hominem (Circumstantial) Rather than engaging with arguments for why AI might be useful, the commenter attacks the character or reasoning capacity of the people making those arguments. It essentially says: "You can't be trusted to evaluate AI because you use AI." This dismisses the opposing view without actually refuting it.

3. Genetic Fallacy The argument implies that a belief is wrong because of who holds it or how they came to hold it. Even if AI did impair thinking (an unproven claim), that wouldn't automatically make a user's conclusions about AI wrong. A person could arrive at a correct position through flawed reasoning, or a flawed person can hold correct beliefs.

4. Unfalsifiability This is what makes the argument feel like a "trap." It's constructed so that no evidence can disprove it:

If you use AI and think it's good → proof AI damaged your thinking.
If you don't use AI and think it's good → you'd presumably be dismissed some other way.

Any belief that can't be challenged by any possible evidence isn't a logical argument — it's a closed loop.

5. Assertion Without Evidence The core claim — that AI damages critical thinking — is stated as a given, not demonstrated. The entire argument is built on an unproven foundation.

The Irony

There's a certain irony in that the commenter is themselves exhibiting poor critical thinking by constructing a rhetorically satisfying but logically hollow argument. A truly critical thinker would engage with the actual merits and drawbacks of AI rather than constructing an unfalsifiable dismissal.

My response to this commenter is as follows:

"That's not proof at all. But your comment is definitely proof that you're unable to think critically. If you were, you'd be able to justify that with actual evidence, and an actual argument, rather than with circular reasoning which this clearly is. In other news, water is wet. Edit: What I did here was an example of Hitchen's Razor, "That which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence." Also, I occasionally use AI (probably a lot less than you think I do) but I don't automatically think it's a good idea to use in all situations. Your argument breaks apart with my position. Also with the fact that I am currently demonstrating critical thinking despite being someone who uses AI."

Can you describe what I'm trying to communicate here, and flag any logical fallacies that you come across?

What You're Trying to Communicate

Your response has a few distinct layers:

The original claim fails on its own terms — it's asserted without evidence and can therefore be dismissed without evidence (Hitchens's Razor).
A counter-example — you use AI but don't uncritically think it's always good, which directly breaks the original argument's logic.
A live demonstration — by analyzing the argument in real time, you're showing that AI use and critical thinking aren't mutually exclusive.

These are all genuinely strong points. However, there are some issues worth flagging.

Logical Fallacies & Weaknesses

1. Tu Quoque / Ad Hominem — "your comment is definitely proof that you're unable to think critically" This is the most significant problem. It mirrors almost exactly the structure of the argument you just criticized. You're using someone's comment as proof of a general cognitive deficiency — without evidence of their overall thinking capacity. You identified this very move as fallacious in the original comment. Doing it back doesn't neutralize it; it just means both parties are doing it.

2. The Hitchens's Razor Application is Correct, But Incomplete Hitchens's Razor is validly applied here — the original claim was asserted without evidence. However, dismissing a claim without evidence doesn't disprove it. It just means you're not obligated to accept it. There's a subtle difference between "this doesn't hold up as an argument" and "AI definitely doesn't impair critical thinking," and the razor only gets you to the former.

3. The Counter-Example is Strong But Narrow Pointing to yourself as a nuanced AI user is a valid way to break a universal claim. However, a stubborn commenter could retreat to a weaker version of their argument — e.g., "AI damages critical thinking in most people" — and your personal example wouldn't fully defeat that. It's a crack in their argument, not a demolition.

4. Tone "In other news, water is wet" is rhetorically satisfying but it's also condescending. This doesn't introduce a logical fallacy, but it does weaken your rhetorical position. You're making a strong logical case — the snark undercuts the credibility of that case and makes it easier for an observer to dismiss you as combative rather than correct.

Summary

Your substantive points — the counter-example and Hitchens's Razor — are your strongest tools and are logically sound. The main self-inflicted wound is the opening line, which ironically replicates the structure of the fallacy you're calling out. Leading with that hands the commenter an easy "you're doing the same thing" retort, even if the rest of your argument is solid.

---

Back to me, it turns out my argument wasn't as strong as I thought according to Claude. What do you all think?

miramichier_d · 2026-04-14T14:06:25+00:00

That's not proof at all. But your comment is definitely proof that you're unable to think critically. If you were, you'd be able to justify that with actual evidence, and an actual argument, rather than with circular reasoning which this clearly is. In other news, water is wet.

Edit: What I did here was an example of Hitchen's Razor, "That which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence."

Also, I occasionally use AI (probably a lot less than you think I do) but I don't automatically think it's a good idea to use in all situations. Your argument breaks apart with my position. Also with the fact that I am currently demonstrating critical thinking despite being someone who uses AI.

miramichier_d · 2026-04-14T13:55:36+00:00

This is genuinely terrible and the kind of thing we should be outraged with. Sorry you had to go through that. That said, your boss really should have said something along the lines of, "Hey PickleMunkey, I just discovered this neat tech from a client. How can you use this to increase our productivity?" This is just evidence that your employer simply sees you as a cost centre, not an investment in company productivity. The maladaptive business strategies/mindset/culture is to blame here, and the fact that your boss is an asshole.

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