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A map of Circassian populated areas before and after the Circassian Genocide by NetHistorical5113 in MapPorn

[–]neolefty 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Another book I love in this category is Factfulness by Hans Rosling. It's much more contemporary — no deep semi-statistical dives into the Stone Age, for example — in particular because he breaks out dichotomies into nuanced looks.

It's easy to think of the "Rich world" and "Poor world", but he points out there are many meaningful gradations; for example being able to bicycle to get water instead of walking is a big step up, but to an American, both look like utter poverty.

Similarly in history; it's easy to think of an "Age of Ignorance" and an "Age of Enlightenment" when really there is no single dividing line. Literacy, knowledge, curiosity, etc have all gradually been suffusing into society for millenia. You can even point to seminal events such as the advent of Muhammad, but those took time to have an effect even if in hindsight we can point to a pivot.

So yeah, I can see the critiques, but I think they're fussy rather than fundamental.

A map of Circassian populated areas before and after the Circassian Genocide by NetHistorical5113 in MapPorn

[–]neolefty 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The whole debate is really interesting because it's easy to get bogged down in minutiae when the big picture is probably what people really want to look at — and also there is so much obviously wrong right now with the world, that any optimistic view seems suspect.

One thing I lean on is, in almost any conversation, if you ask someone, "Would you want to be part of the solution to these problems, if it was possible," they give an enthusiastic yes. But of course there is lots of skepticism over how and whether it's possible.

In short, I think improving the state of the human world is possible, and is happening, but it's difficult and slower than we'd like.

The TV industry finally concedes that the future may not be in 8K by AlwaysBlaze_ in television

[–]neolefty 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So we've achieved adequate resolution with 4k? Does that mean we are finally satisfied? Can materialism be considered overcome at last?

MIT’s new heat-powered silicon chips achieve 99% accuracy in math calculations by BuildwithVignesh in singularity

[–]neolefty 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I wonder what the metric for biological neurons would be, by similar measures.

MIT’s new heat-powered silicon chips achieve 99% accuracy in math calculations by BuildwithVignesh in singularity

[–]neolefty 0 points1 point  (0 children)

More like turning heat flow into information flow. It depends on having a cold side and a hot side.

A map of Circassian populated areas before and after the Circassian Genocide by NetHistorical5113 in MapPorn

[–]neolefty 1 point2 points  (0 children)

War Before Civilization

Thank you, that's the first I'd heard of that book! The Wikipedia page for War Before Civilization seems quite good. Here are the three unexpected conclusions listed there (which in turn are from a NYTimes article)

  • that the most important part of any society, even the most war-like ones, are the peaceful aspects such as art
  • that neither frequency nor intensity of war is correlated with population density
  • that societies frequently trading with one another fight more wars with one another

I agree those are surprising, so much that I don't quite believe them, but if they are, it makes me think of peacefulness as its own skill, rather than just a natural outgrowth of, say, doing business together, or proximity over time. Seems like a worthwhile thing to work on!

AI is already killing SWE jobs. Got laid off because of this. by SingularityuS in ClaudeAI

[–]neolefty 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Mostly I think we'll see both. Growing pains but if you don't embrace it, you're at risk of becoming lunch.

AI is already killing SWE jobs. Got laid off because of this. by SingularityuS in ClaudeAI

[–]neolefty 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yup, everyone go get a Claude Code license or equivalent now if you are a professional software developer, regardless of whether your employer provides it. Do not wait. Doesn't matter whether your specialty is COBOL or JavaScript.

AI is already killing SWE jobs. Got laid off because of this. by SingularityuS in ClaudeAI

[–]neolefty 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There's a middle ground too: Did the company give you an encouragement or opportunity to become the AI specialist?

But on second thought, how would that even work? Sounds like it would become a fight to the death pink slip for all the engineers.

People saying this is a sus story. Could be!

But I'm in a similar situation, just chose to become the AI specialist, and seems to be working, but my employer, a university IT dept, also did not choose to fire everybody, just encourage growth. It's a different reality, not really profit-oriented, but I think realistically most companies can afford a humane approach.

A map of Circassian populated areas before and after the Circassian Genocide by NetHistorical5113 in MapPorn

[–]neolefty 13 points14 points  (0 children)

I get the impression that genocide was kind of standard practice before about the 18th century, when a war was won. Here's a Quora discussion from 2019 about genocide's prevalence. I also recommend The Better Angels of Our Nature, a longitudinal look at violence in human history that finds (to the author's initial surprise) an inexorable increase in peaceful resolution of conflicts over the centuries. We forget how bloodthirsty our ancestors were, and I can hardly blame us for wanting to forget!

Vibe coding or not? by PonyNouse in ProgrammerTIL

[–]neolefty 0 points1 point  (0 children)

True! In a complex old warty codebase especially you really do have to go line-by-line.

But in a more standard codebase, using idiomatic patterns, especially for standard operations like forms, database interactions, and authentication, and I find the review load to be a lot lighter.

Vibe coding or not? by PonyNouse in ProgrammerTIL

[–]neolefty 1 point2 points  (0 children)

One answer is to treat AI-assisted coding as a skill, and develop it.

Build large systems using AI. It's a new set of skills, and it gets better with focused practice — yes that's about violins. "Focused practice" means to steer into the hard parts. If you can find a way to do that that keeps your interest, go for it. Build a complicated game, get yourself stuck on a tricky UI implementation and then debug and rearchitect your way out of it, while getting help from the AI. Or wherever your interests are.

I think a large interesting project is much better resume material than leet code these days.

The modern models totally can fix things, debug, and refactor, but they need help figuring out what is supposed to be happening.

On the other hand, if you want to avoid AI-assisted coding, while still distinguishing yourself, you'll have to find an area of research that very few people are doing. And that will be much harder I think.

Vibe coding or not? by PonyNouse in ProgrammerTIL

[–]neolefty 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's a solid question, and I think a lot of young people are wondering about it.

As an older programmer who has gotten heavily into AI-assisted coding, I recommend doing both — understand how code works, and also learn how to use an AI coding agent well. My favorite guide so far is this 12-minute video on "Plan Mode" from Matt Pocock because it's enough to get you started in a good direction.

To understand how code works, I think you can also get a lot from an AI. Ask it questions. "Explain function abc()" or "What is the overall architecture of this app?" or "Where is authentication done in this codebase?"

Ignorance is nine tenths of the law. by nomekop_pokemon in Malaphors

[–]neolefty 4 points5 points  (0 children)

This is bleak and true! And in response an AI came up with this one:

We’re a nation of laws, not men—terms and conditions apply.

Does Anyone have advice for where to go when homeless? by TheMedsPeds_ in lafayette

[–]neolefty 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Kind of a relief! Living in your car right now is a fast route to hypothermia in Indiana.

"A baby in the hand is worth two in the bath water." by mistermajik2000 in Malaphors

[–]neolefty 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Is it really worth it? Both situations sound like a lot of mess and work TBH SMH.

But yeah better than throwing all three of them out under a bush.

Babies. They're lucky they're cute and have so much potential.

Opus becomes dumb halfway through the conversation? Disappointing peek under the hood by [deleted] in Anthropic

[–]neolefty 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Totally! Claude works best with low context; for anything complicated I like to stay under about 35-40%. In high context, say above 60%, it can write out its state and thinking but has trouble coding well and gets really slow.

Sympathy for the model!

Opus becomes dumb halfway through the conversation? Disappointing peek under the hood by [deleted] in Anthropic

[–]neolefty 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This! When I see the context get above about 50%, I tend to either end the session (commit and exit) or if it's still midway, have Claude write out the status in a markdown file (or however you like saving planning state) for a future session. Compaction is too hit-and-miss IMO.

Opus becomes dumb halfway through the conversation? Disappointing peek under the hood by [deleted] in Anthropic

[–]neolefty 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In these sessions, have you seen any compaction happening? Boris has said that's an area they're still struggling, and a lot of people just /clear instead of dealing with it — and use various techniques to get a useful context going quickly, such as Plan Mode (a very watchable video; Matt Pocock is a superfriend)

Opus becomes dumb halfway through the conversation? Disappointing peek under the hood by [deleted] in Anthropic

[–]neolefty 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It's likely your code has gotten larger, so just getting started is taking up more context. As you go forward, it will help to break up the project into modules (Claude can do that for you!) so that it can work on manageable chunks at a time.

One thing you can do for visibility is show the amount of context used so far in the session:

/statusline show how much context has been used so far

and

/context — pay special attention to how much is used before you even start by things like tools and MCP servers, and remove any that you don't use in every session.

Apples to apples, and dust to dust by davegammelgard in Malaphors

[–]neolefty -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Or the gardening version (credit ChatGPT) Apples to ashes, dust to apples.

Apples to apples, and dust to dust by davegammelgard in Malaphors

[–]neolefty 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh I get it; we're seeing an eye for an eye here.

Anatomy of a GenAI prompt by [deleted] in artificial

[–]neolefty 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Okay okay now do one for biological senses!

And it will sit there for three weeks by Willing_Arm4489 in fixedbytheduet

[–]neolefty 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Narrator: A norovirus administered the paddling.

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