> it has increasingly become a right wing echo chamber and place to promote conspiracy theories.
In what way? I still only see the very same industry-focused information that I first started using Twitter for. If anything, X has improved in pulling in information from more industry players than I was seeing before, so I consider it to be an even more compelling product now.
But perhaps that same algorithm improvement is what you ultimately mean? As in, that X has become better at finding the information you want to see, so if you have an interest in "right wing" or conspiracy content then it is a greater likelihood of it exposing you to that than the Twitter of yore did?
Interesting that they felt their content added to right wing conspiracies. Good on them for realizing and backing away, I guess, but won't they still feed other platforms? It does not appear that they are willing to halt production on that realization. Not to mention that this encourages others to still share their content on X, defeating the whole intent of no longer posting... The story doesn't add up.
On second thought, this is clearly an advertisement disguised as news trying to latch onto searches for Twitter/X. They are no doubt backing away, but only because nobody wants to read widely published news on X in the first place. X's niche is in providing a place for everyday people to get their own personal news out, like the aforementioned industry practitioners sharing what they are doing in industry.
> Interesting that they felt their content added to right wing conspiracies.
This is not an accurate characterization of The Guardian's reasoning.
> They are no doubt backing away, but only because nobody wants to read widely published news on X in the first place
This is your claim - presented without evidence. You are also making multiple claims, also that The Guardian is publishing (essentially only) news on X and not also reactions, commentary and other content to X.
> X's niche is in providing a place for everyday people to get their own personal news out
The changes in the algorithm seem to have shifted this. News is difficult to convey when an algorithm suppresses it or is drowned out by loud voices. The null hypothesis here would be that X is a place for nothing and beyond that - "maybe, or maybe not". I'm curious what evidence there is for X being an effective vehicle for 'personal' news distribution over time. Without that evidence, we should not accept any such claims.
> This is not an accurate characterization of The Guardian's reasoning.
Go on. There is no logical association with "right wing" conspiracies in their decision unless they believe they are contributing to it. But as they are not backing away from producing the content on the same concern, the association doesn't add up at all.
> This is your claim - presented without evidence.
Of course. That's what a discussion forum is for. If you want someone else's claim naturally you'd go talk to them instead. But as you have chosen to interact with me, logically you are here to hear my claim as I give it.
Is there some additional pertinence to you pointing out the obvious here? Because if so, I am afraid I missed it.
> News is difficult to convey when an algorithm suppresses it or is drowned out by loud voices.
Most importantly, the news is difficult to convey when the users aren't there for news from a news organization. Let's face it, X is not well suited to conveying long format news in the first place. While the character limit isn't what it once was, the entire format of the service remains not particularly amenable to that kind of content. It is really only good for individuals sharing small tidbits of information, like something they did at work.
There are much better services for news publishers. That is where the users are. That is where publisher effort is going to be best spent. Of course you are not going to waste your time posting news on X for that reason.
>There is no logical association with "right wing" conspiracies in their decision unless they believe they are contributing to it.
>but irrelevant to the Guardian – unless they feel they are feeding it. That would deserve action, but otherwise... (from your child comment)
One can choose to leave a group/platform/party without believing they are contributing to the negative direction the group has taken. If I go to a social club and find that new leadership and new members changed the focus from sports to anti-immigration, I might not want to be associated with them anymore. That has nothing to do with feeling like I was "feeding it" or "contributing" to it.
> One can choose to leave a group/platform/party without believing they are contributing to the negative direction the group has taken.
It is true that one can make up any arbitrary reason for leaving, sure. They could have also said they decided to leave because the moon crossed into their zodiac. But when you get down to it, that's never actually the reason.
Undoubtedly the real story is that there is no compelling economic reason to post on X. It is not a service for long-form news content. Nobody goes there to read that kind of content. It is like trying to post cat photos on HN. Soon you're going to realize that you are wasting your time. There are places for cat photos, as there are places for long-form new content, but HN and X, respectively, are not it.
> If I go to a social club and find that new leadership and new members changed the focus from sports to anti-immigration, I might not want to be associated with them anymore.
With material impact, perhaps. But posting on X is a solitary activity. This is more like giving up on Solitaire because you thought the Queen of Hearts looked at you funny. Which, no matter how much you claim it to be, doesn't make much sense. More likely you were just bored of the game and made up an expiation to not have to admit that you were bored.
"X is a toxic media platform and that its owner, Elon Musk, has been able to use its influence to shape political discourse." [1]
"Social media can be an important tool for news organisations and help us to reach new audiences but at this point X now plays a diminished role in promoting our work. Our journalism is available and open to all on our website and we would prefer people to come to theguardian.com and support our work there" [1]
> There is no logical association with "right wing" conspiracies in their decision unless they believe they are contributing to it.
Could you define more precisely what you mean by "contributing to it?" I think my understanding there might differ from what you meant. I don't want to talk past nor at you.
> Of course. That's what a discussion forum is for. If you want someone else's claim naturally you'd go talk to them instead. But as you have chosen to interact with me, logically you are here to hear my claim as I give it.
Hacker news discussion has a culture of discussions based on supported claims. Unsupported claims are often challenged as being unsupported. The culture war topics often degrade as it gets more of the Reddit & X style crowds that are more interested in winning discussions rather than having discussions. I believe the culture of hacker news in this regard sets it apart. In essence, this guideline: "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."
> Is there some additional pertinence to you pointing out the obvious here? Because if so, I am afraid I missed it.
I want to drill into the substance of your claim, and/or better understand it. I think my first interpretation might have actually been off-base. (So please, do define better what you mean by "contributing to it.")
> Most importantly, the news is difficult to convey when the users aren't there for news from a news organization. Let's face it, X is not well suited to conveying long format news in the first place.
I largely agree and is a major criticism I have X and lots of social media (eg: reddit, facebook, instagram). I would go further and say that none of those forums are all that well suited for sharing truth, nor discovering truth. I am passionate about truth (it is why I love math, logic, science & programming so much. There is very little in life that is black & white, true or false, correct or wrong.)
> It is really only good for individuals sharing small tidbits of information
I agree. On the other side of the coin, tidbits of misinformation too. The culture on X I do not believe is to reward sharing true viewpoints. Instead, dunking & hot-takes are rewarded (AFAIK, my impression, particularly so for Reddit as well).
> "X is a toxic media platform and that its owner, Elon Musk, has been able to use its influence to shape political discourse."
That may be true, but irrelevant to the Guardian – unless they feel they are feeding it. That would deserve action, but otherwise...
> "X has become a cesspool, our work no longer belongs there."
That doesn't really make any sense, but even if we accept the irrationality of it, they claim to still want others to share their content on X, so apparently their work does belong there. A curious contradiction.
> The culture of hacker news is to present evidences based discussion. Unsupported claims are challenged, very frequently with "citation needed." This is something that sets hacker news commentary apart from Reddit or X.*
I have to disagree. "Citation needed" is stupid Reddit nonsense (that sometimes creeps into HN, but thankfully infrequently; it is not acceptable behaviour). On Hacker News, there is an expecting of being smart enough to carry on your own conversation using your own words without needing to outsource to an arbitrary third-party. If bringing in data helps with your comment, so be it, but if all you can offer is something like "citation needed", you contribute nothing and are participating in anti-social, bad-faith behaviour.
Logically, if a comment is so poorly prepared that you can't figure it out on its own standing, you either:
1. Work with the author in good faith to understand what they are trying to say. If you find value in reaching for external resources to accomplish that, then fine. Offering something like "XYZ says this, which contradicts what I think you are trying to say. Was that your intent?" would be reasonable, but "Go do my homework for me!" is uncalled for.
2. Accept it as a lost cause and ignore it. Those who cannot string a worthwhile post together will soon grow bored with being ignored and leave. Don't feed the trolls, as they say.
> "X is a toxic media platform and that its owner, Elon Musk, has been able to use its influence to shape political discourse."
>> That may be true, but irrelevant to the Guardian – unless they feel they are feeding it. That would deserve action, but otherwise...
To be clear, the first quote is a direct quote from the Guardian article. Not my words. Does that change your response? I suspect it would, since their words would seemingly not be "irrelevent to the Guardian."
> I have to disagree. "Citation needed" is stupid Reddit nonsense
Interesting. My perspective is that this is more a wikipedia phenomenon. Reddit enjoys responses like "Sir, this is a Wendy's." The HN guideline that discussions should get more substantive I think means discussions should become more grounded in facts as claims are challenged and discussed.
> On Hacker News, there is an expecting of being smart enough to carry on your own conversation using your own words without needing to outsource to an arbitrary third-party.
Can you link this expectation back to the discussion guidelines? The first part of what you wrote here I could be convinced of. The second part, the "needing to outsource" part, I disagree with. Either a person on HN is an expert in the field, and if not, they should very much "outsource" their claims (AKA provide evidence) to show that those claims are supported and are not just random thoughts. Random thoughts are not truth, our perception and gut instincts are often wrong. What we think is generally kinda worthless, what we know via data & facts OTOH is information.
> but if all you can offer is something like "citation needed", you contribute nothing and are participating in anti-social, bad-faith behaviour.
If someone is making claims that are unsupported, potentially incorrect. Is pointing that out and asking for the basis of the claim completely without value? I agree it is a bit anti-social, but this is not improv where the best response is "yes, and...". In contrast, the alternative is to let bad info just sit, unchallenged, and IMO be perpetuated. So, is there no value in saying "hey, wait a minute, there is no data to support your claims; please back up and give that data, or make it clear that you're spouting pure opinion." We disagree seemingly that HN comments is a place for pure opinions (which is okay to disagree).
> Accept it as a lost cause and ignore it. Those who cannot string a worthwhile post together will soon grow bored with being ignored and leave. Don't feed the trolls, as they say.
Interesting. My view is there are plenty of trolls, they are legion, and they can "win" through sock puppetry and sheer volume. For example, this article is about The Onion & Infowars, yet most of the discussion is back to X. Most HN discussion of Elon Musk usually go off-topic and become dominated by very tired and familiar discussions. In part, it is not about the trolls but the other readers. It is clear when people cannot support their claims vs when they can.
> (Why did you remove the rest?)
My apologies. I was hoping you would not react quite so quickly. After getting a coffee, I think I may have profoundly misunderstood what you wrote and deleted my first response. The second response needed a little cleaning up to read well (my intent was not to alter the substance, but enhance clarity).
No. It was understood to be of their origin. But X being a toxic platform has no bearing on the content The Guardian might post, unless they think their content is also toxic. Recognizing that would justify no longer posting toxic content, sure, but otherwise there is no reason to stop posting.
I mean, aside from the obvious: That nobody is reading the content anyway, not fitting X's niche on the internet, so it is a waste of resources to post. I can understand why they are no longer going to do so. Frankly, I'm surprised they ever did.
> My perspective is that this is more a wikipedia phenomenon.
That is where it originated, as far as I know, yes. But it actually serves a purpose there as collecting quotes around a subject is what that service is largely about, and quotes benefit from citations.
But if you are writing comments on HN made up of quotes from others, why...? Why not let the authors of those quotes speak for themselves? This is, as far as I can tell, not a wiki, it is a discussion forum. Do you disagree? Surely we're here to read what the first person has to say? If I want to have a discussion with a third-party, I'll go talk to them instead. No need for a pointless middleman.
Furthermore, a citation by its very nature requires a quote, but any time I have seen "citation needed" here a quote is nowhere to be found. The HN comment being replied to with that saying is literally the citation! So, not only is it in bad faith, it doesn't even make sense. Fine for a tired Reddit meme, I guess, but has no place on HN.
> Can you link this expectation back to the discussion guidelines?
I don't know. I'm not about to read it. It has no relevance here. The expectations of a service like this come from the users, not some arbitrary guideline document.
Do you want this service to be anything else? Surely we don't need another Wikipedia? I, for one, come to HN because users here actually know things and are willing to talk about it. They don't have to rely on some other person to feed them information. That's the value proposition.
Wikis are fine for what they are, but Wikipedia is right there. Do we really need another one? I say no, but if you think otherwise?
> My view is there are plenty of trolls, they are legion, and they can "win" through sock puppetry and sheer volume.
They only "win" if you react to them. That's what they are here for: Attention. Ignore it and they'll quit wasting their time.
I mean, think about it: If you kept posting and nobody ever replied or pressed one of the vote buttons, wouldn't you get bored of being here too? You may as well write in a private journal if you want to write for no audience. The value over and above a private journal is the audience.
One thing is for certain: You are not going to chase them away with "citation needed".
I again appreciate the respectful dialog, thank you. I think we might be coming close to talking in circles though and would do well to wrap up soon.
I want to emphasize a bit up front that (after having sat on it a bit), I really reject the framing of "outsourcing" thought when giving citations. 'Sourcing' is giving evidence to why a thought might be correct, without it - it's navel gazing, frankly worthless. I go into a bit more detail later in the below responses.
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> I mean, aside from the obvious: That nobody is reading the content anyway
I find that quite doubtful. X does have a large user-base. I suspect the number was tens of thousands (but I don't rightly know).
> But if you are writing comments on HN made up of quotes from others, why...? Why not let the authors of those quotes speak for themselves?
The authors are not omnipresent and clearly won't respond to every random discussion forum. On the other side of the coin, personal opinions are not worth a lot - particularly here on HN.
Which reminds me of your "outsourcing" framing". Backing statements with facts and data is not outsourcing, but instead it is evidence, data, reason. When a person is forced to provide data, to think about why they think they know things - two things happen: 1) quality of statements relative to being truthful goes up (ie: you say more things that are actually true). 2) you realize how much you think you know turns out to be completely wrong, that without data or evidence, you're probably wrong and don't actually know (ie: we think we know a whole hell of a lot more than we actually do, and we are wrong quite often when speaking without facts and without data).
This is something I learned very deeply at Amazon, a place with a culture that is data driven to the max. The saying is there are only three answers at Amazon: "(1) Yes, because of this data. (2) No, because of this data. (3) I don't know, I will get data for that soon."
Working in programming, at those jobs, just stating stuff and being right 90% of the time gets you fired. You have to provide data & reasoning why you think something is true. You can't rely on just how you feel or your intuition. The latter is a poor methodology for finding truth. It goes to why we use science to find truth and not intuition. Science is a powerful way to find truth, intuition is not. We can see what science has done for the last 200 years, vs intuition that turns out to be wrong so often (but seemed like it must have been right).
> not a wiki, it is a discussion forum. Do you disagree?
To my previous point, discussions not grounded in truth are largely going to be incorrect, navel gazing. Having a reasoned discussion is different from a wiki. A person is able to very well make multiple points, backed my multiple sources to provide well founded conclusions. It is the difference of talking to a scientist vs someone else that spouts a series of unfounded conclusions. Now, we don't all have to be 'scientists', but we can use the same methodology to support what we say. Even experts would provide citations of why they think certain things - their benefit is largely that they have already read most of the material and can draw from a much larger knowledge base to connect facts together. In contrast the lay person needs to be concerned of the Dunning-Kruger effect and would do well to remind themselves they are approaching a topic as a novice.
> If I want to have a discussion with a third-party,
Except you're not. It is akin to me saying 'I am saying X, because of Y data and Z reasoning'. That gives a much greater probability of actually saying something meaningful. Rather than simply saying "X" without reasoning. As I mentioned earlier, without any type of backing, that is truthiness, not truth. It goes to methodology of deciding what is correct.
> Furthermore, a citation by its very nature requires a quote
People often give a link to where data comes from, or where a conclusion comes from without a direct quote. There is risk of mischaracterizing the source, but no direct quote can be needed when the conclusions or data from a source are amalgamated. Sometimes a person can give multiple sources to back up a single statement. I don't agree to this framing.
> "citation needed" here a quote is nowhere to be found
This is bad framing. 'citation needed' is another way to ask for evidence, data - more than just an opinion that is based on what you think and feel. It is an ask to move away from truthiness, to truth. It is a way of saying "that is your opinion, please provide data so we can decide if there is a basis in reality, or if you are just communicating your own truthiness."
> Fine for a tired Reddit meme
I have never seen that as a reddit meme, and have an opposite perspective. I've found the bar for truth on reddit is essentially non-existent, nobody cares about evidence there (my impression). Reddit is almost more entertainment than it is a place to learn something.
> but has no place on HN
I respectfully disagree, HN asks that we get more substantive when discussions go on. To me, that means the conversations should become more rooted in fact, data & truth - rather than back and forth with more truthiness claims aimed "at each other" rather than discussed with each other.
> I don't know. I'm not about to read it [HN discussion guidelines]. It has no relevance here.
Everyone is expected to read the discussion guidelines before posting here. AFAIK it is asked that you do. The guidelines of the discussion forum where you are discussing are of course relevant.
> The expectations of a service like this come from the users, not some arbitrary guideline document.
Agree on the former, but the latter does follow from the former. The guidelines frame the expectations of users.
This article is actually something to be flagged. The discussion here is largely an aberration. Notice how we have yet to mention once "The Onion" or "Infowars". Overall the article is not a good fit for HN.
> They only "win" if you react to them. That's what they are here for: Attention. Ignore it and they'll quit wasting their time.
In some cases I would agree. In other cases though, trolls seek to dominate conversations. The 'Seattle Times' discussion threads became completely unreadable. Any comment was followed by 30 responses that veered away to some other talking points and was a noise that drowned out all other conversation. I call it akin to an intellectual DDOS. Trolls don't have to be right, just loud in order to dominate the discourse and prevent the truth from being heard by obscuring it in noise. I feel HN is well enough moderated and has a particular community where that is not tolerated and there is therefore often a good bit to learn form the discussion. The discussion is not just noise of people talking at each other, ignoring what the other has written and just waiting to write platitudes and endless truthiness of their perspective.
> I mean, think about it: If you kept posting and nobody ever replied or pressed one of the vote buttons, wouldn't you get bored of being here too?
I can see that as being the case. On the other side, do you not think there are people who are simply ideological? That want to be sure if there is a conversation about a topic that they care about, that they want to be sure the conversation concludes with 'their points', and 'their truthiness?' In a way, it's defending an in-group.
> You are not going to chase them away with "citation needed".
I agree. Though, sometimes conversation threads are not intended solely for the other party. HN is read by many, having read such threads myself as a third party - it becomes clear when one side is talking in bad faith. Not answering questions, not responding to points, not providing data. It reveals their argument to be bad; sometimes that is the strongest form of persuasion IMO when someone is so clearly making bad arguments. Again, the persuasion is not of the troll, or necessarily the other person, but the thousands of readers. Sometimes it's more the readers who are the audience than the intractable mind of someone that is wanting to die on some hill of truthiness without a shred of evidence.
[edits: clarity]
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[edit, added this section]
Now, there are still places where citations are not needed and are useful and interesting for HN IMO. To this extent I think we might agree. Namely when additional perspectives are raised, and questions asked. That is very different from making unbacked claims. It is very easy to change an unbacked claim into a question - and that keeps the dialog more open IMO and away from incorrect rabbit holes. For example: "Nobody reads the Guardian on X", vs "how many readers do you think they engaged with on X? Do we think that was a significant number?" Staying away from assumptions of what you don't actually know I think gives a lot of healthy space in a dialog, so long as the questions don't go into a bad faith & leading territory (eg: gish-galloping).
----------------
[additional edit, added this section]
Backing up a bit - I think The Guardian layed out their motives very clearly. I believe you ascribed additional motive incorrectly. To which my response is: "show us", and otherwise gave key quotes so you can argue with the motive as written by The Guardian itself. Ascribing the additional motive IMO is incorrect and/or borderline conspiracy theory. To which I want to know why you think that, what you are basing those beliefs on. That is why a response that was largely just quotes from The Guardian was appropriate, it was a "here are their words, here is their exact reasoning."
On further reflection, I don't think I liked some of the examples I gave. I'll finish with stating that those making claims should be expected to also provide evidence for those claims. Otherwise, it is truthiness. Going back to the original disagreement, I see no reason to not take The Guardian's word for their motivation, it seemed clear - and I see no reason to ascribe an ulterior motive (at least without providing evidence for it).
Implying that is how people use X? Continually creating new burner accounts, not giving "the algorithm" what it needs to provide what they really want to see? Seems unlikely.
I suspect those who complain it is a "right wing" echo chamber are using longstanding accounts and actually engaging with "right wing" content, which trains "the algorithm" of their preference to see more of the same. Anecdotally, those I know who complain of "right wing" echo chambers are also the first people to gorge on "right wing" media to see what "they" are up to.
If you use lists, then you probably won't notice that much. However if your looking at the "for you" page, shits just kept on getting more extreme. Just wildly off the deepend scams or abuse.
Before you could just filter out that stuff as it was fairly rare. but its just everywhere.
> However if your looking at the "for you" page, shits just kept on getting more extreme.
That's all I ever read. I only follow a small number of people who produce high quality content related to my industry, though. Perhaps that is what primes the "For You" page to say within the same realm and not go off the rails as you suggest?
I'm sure you are right that garbage in, garbage out applies. But why feed it garbage?
I think the issue is that I follow people who had diverse opinions that were different to mine, from across the spectrum.
In the old times, you could see _why_ a tweet appeared in the stream (as in x follows, y liked, z replied) so curation could happen. But that's gone because musk finally figured out that him liking porn tweets was public.
Before I could say "I don't like edgelord content" and that class of tweet disappeared.
Hence the utility of lists for me. It allows me to follow people who regularly like content that I hate, but allows me to see what they tweet.
So, you are indeed right. I think I follow more than one subject, which causes the issue.
> Blame the parasitic adtech industry wanting trade your personal data.
Blame them for what? We all understand that personal information is the currency that pays for these services. While we may not love that we have to pay (who does?), we accept it as a fair trade. Until governments get their ass in gear to make paying with more favourable currencies viable, that is going to remain, now just with extra clicks.
> Not the EU for providing you with consumer protection.
I guess a bandaid is better than nothing, but we'd be better off if the EU would tackle the real issue. Going there would ruffle some real feathers, though, so good luck. But if there is blame to go around, it is on the EU for being too afraid to ruffle them.
What are the services? Leave out sites where you pay for something with money, or banks, or subscription sites. Those often have tracking too, but they could exist without it. What services are the free ones providing?
News is a special case, paying for journalism is a problem. Other than that:
* Videos and images
* Forums and blogs
* Databases like IMDB
* Random bits of information you want once in your life
I'm struck by how the presence of any amount of website design makes all these things worse. It's not only too easy for them to get our data, it's too hard for us to get their data, because the presentation and theatrical impression of being a service is all self-aggrandizing and works to delay and capture users for more tracking and ads. All we really want is servers, not services.
If somehow storage and processing was paid for by magical pixies, and available as a utilitarian series of gray bulletin boards with identical design, that would be much better than all the bloated sites that track visitors. It's wrong to portray this as a bargain in which we respect and appreciate some sort of service, and therefore ought to pay for it, because there is no service. They're not being paid for providing something wonderful, they're being paid for having got there first and for being well-known, or promoting themselves.
No, everyone does not understand that and companies were not transparent with what they do with the data, what data they collected and who they shared it with. Not to mention, if you consider it a payment-like transaction, surely you'll want to give consent instead of blindly trusting random websites? These are some of the problems GDPR solves.
And the problem with the GDPR. In a typical market situation the onus is on the buyer to first offer payment. The beggar on the street saying "Sir, can you spare some personal information?" is not how anyone likes to do business.
But that's where the GDPR has left things, thinking the problem is with the vendor, when in reality the problem is with the consumer spending beyond their means. Fair enough that the consumer needs protection from themselves, but, when it is a spending problem, why does that not come in the form of legal mandates over how one's wallet is used?
Of course, this would be improved in a much better way if, again, governments would actually tackle the real problem.
DNT does not provide informed consent. It may, if set to not track, imply denial, but the reverse is not true. If DNT is accepting or unset, the site needs to fall back to the banner to get consent. And at that point you may as well prompt everyone with the banner instead of complicating the codebase with extra logic for a DNT edge case.
For existing privacy options — location, microphone, camera — Safari on iOS has the options of "ask"/"deny"/"allow".
I wouldn't be surprised by legislation for a Do Not Track option in DMA designed Gatekeepers' browsers, defaulting to "ask", where all three options must be handled accordingly by websites.
"Ask" would also have to be the default behaviour when no preference is transmitted.
Again, as the law in question requires informed consent, "allow" and "ask" end up being the same thing. A new DNT law as you propose would contradict the other law of which we speak.
I doubt there would be any concerns with "complicating the codebase" (really?) if there was a Yes-Track header that gave consent but no negative signal.
It's not really a Yes Track if it's simply absent. The user hasn't requested to be tracked. I'm not even sure with it set to 0 that you can assume that intent. I guess it would depend on the browsers behavior, but as you say the law is not compatible with that use.
> I'm not even sure with it set to 0 that you can assume that intent.
That's the problem. Someone not paying attention might inadvertently set DNT: 0, which is why the law is written the way it is. But at the same time we have techies who knowingly and carefully set such values and want the service to acknowledge it, contrary to the law. Hence the contention.
Or 1930s Great Depression no work for almost five years tough?
I expect most people here won't have a good sense for 2009. While it wasn't great for many industries, for tech it was the "app" boom. You couldn't hardly go outside without someone throwing money at you.
> Farming isn't in good economic shape right now either, granted.
Anyone considering farming should take note of this. The industry is not in a place where farmers can make any meaningful profit, especially if you're just getting into it. At best the average farmer breaks even after depending heavily on federal subsidies and crop insurance.
There are likely technical roles in the age industry, though personally that runs into a moral problem for me as you will end up being paid well to turn the financial screws even harder on the average farmer or farm hand.
> The industry is not in a place where farmers can make any meaningful profit
To be fair, there was Onlyfans kind of money in it in 2022. It ebbs and flows. Always has, always will.
It just might not be a good tech backup plan as the ebbs and flows have been perfectly aligned with tech's ebbs and flows for at least the past 20 years that I've been watching both. When tech is good, so is ag. When tech is bad, so is ag.
On the other hand, if you are going to become a farmer (or anything, really) you definitely want to start during the bad times. If you try to start when the going is good you're just going to overpay to get in, and then quickly land in a down market.
> To be fair, there was Onlyfans kind of money in it in 2022. It ebbs and flows. Always has, always will.
Are you thinking about some of the homestead influencer types here?
I have a homestead / small family farm and follow quite a few of the common ones. Those that make good money as influencers don't really farm, and those that do farm are getting by but not making any profits big enough to write home about.
We decided not to make our farm into a business pretty quick. The primary goal was to grow our own food anyway, including meat, but it doesn't take long to see how bad the business fundamentals are if you're unwilling to go into a crazy amount of debt to run what most would consider animal abuse and/or ecological destruction.
> Are you thinking about some of the homestead influencer types here?
Not really. I was humorously comparing farm incomes to incomes of certain pornographic performers. Not quite up there with the 1920s (when the farmers all built mansions after harvest), or the 1970s (when a single crop paid for the entire farm), but it was probably the third best time in history to be a farmer. Of course, good times can't last forever.
> We decided not to make our farm into a business pretty quick.
My farm was a business from the get-go. Some years are great, others not so much, but on balance it's a pretty good gig.
> if you're unwilling to go into a crazy amount of debt
That's the beauty of coming from the high paying tech industry. You don't need to accumulate the debt, you can pay for it out of pocket. I agree that if you start giving bankers your profit, you won't have a good time. That is a trap a lot of farmers do fall into, and perhaps have no choice but to without a tech (or similar starting point) foundation. However, for the typical reader here...
> to run what most would consider animal abuse and/or ecological destruction.
Be the change you want to see. There is always more work to do, but my farm has come a long way in improving upon those things from how things were done before I arrived.
On the bright side, racist thoughts creeping into classes who haven't been exposed to circumstances that lead to racist thoughts before might become more understanding of and helpful towards those who have contended with them for ages instead of simply dismissing them as people born with "incorrect thoughts". Racism is never actually about race.
Please don't start flamewars on HN, and please avoid generic ideological tangents (and ideological battle generally). It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
This has been my experience in the US as well, but I'm not so sure that this paradigm extends outside the US.
I lived in Europe for a few years and didn't feel that same context as well - it wasn't almost assumed that white people were racist and anyone might be seen as racist regardless of their skin color or heritage.
But in the current woke public opinion it's not and only whites can be racist.
I would love if it was possible to label racism whenever it appears but it's not possible without being called a racist yourself if you are white.
Looking at sibling parent poster there mentioning Germany, a similar example would be trying to make rational arguments about Israeli conduct with regards to settlements in the west bank. Any German even thinking out loud about those would be labeled a Neo-Nazi.
> But in the current woke public opinion it's not and only whites can be racist.
In my opinion "the current woke public opinion" is almost entirely a bogeyman construction of primarily the US right wing media with trailing support from their UK, AU, and CA siblings.
It's rare (ie. never.) that I read in "left wing" media of any substance articles about the pressing need for kitty litter trays for Furry students.
It's disturbingly commonplace to hear of what can only be performative manufacted outrage about such things from the asshole tanning bowtie wearing media wing.
The conclusion is that the statement " in the current woke public opinion it's not and only whites can be racist" is very much a localised subjective opinion and not any kind of actual global truth.
localised subjective opinion and not any kind of actual global truth.
Global truth: definitely not. But we're also not talking about that. At least I'm not. I'm talking about "western realities". In the parent sibling's Germany example, the only thing relevant is Germany, not globals. If you're a white German in Germany, then in regular media public opinion a lot of what should be normal pro/con type discourse is easily labeled "Neo-Nazi". So much so that people self-censor. Except for the real Neo Nazis. Americans can be "proud to be American". A German proclaiming to be "proud to be German" is a Neo Nazi.
And yes in "NA" context, I can definitely say that it's not "right wing outrage" construct. It actually feels like this conversation is the perfect example now. I'm absolutely not a Trump supporter for example. Not even a republican supporter. But it's absolutely my belief that H1Bs (which primarily means Indian nationals) is a very detrimental construct for America. I would never in my wildest dreams mention this "IRL" in my regular social circles for fear of being labeled racist. I am actually struggling to write any further here right now without fear of being labeled racist. I absolutely want to avoid "being thrown in the Trump camp" as well. I absolutely abhor the kind of vote buying Musk engaged in for example. A million a day for a signature? WTF!? It's such a brazen thing for a person with money to do, it's against everything I always believed the United States of America, the leader of the free world, would stand for. But I guess I was just naive. The world is way less fair than I hoped it was. I do recognize that. I still hate it.
My life did not change because you called me racist in this particular conversation.
If my regular social circle or work environment thought I was racist however, my life very definitely would change.
It does not matter whether I'm actually racist (by some imaginary objective standard) or what "the world" would think about me. Nor what might qualify or not qualify in some other part of the world and whether or not I was wild. What matters to each person is always their own current local reality. Whether they like it, whether it's fair, whether it makes sense objectively, or not.
In my experience you need a high quality codebase to be able to iterate at maximum speed. Any time someone, myself included, thought they could cut corners to speed up iteration, it ended up slowing things down dramatically in the end.
Coding haphazardly can be a lot more thrilling, though! I certainly don't enjoy the process of maintaining high quality code. It is lovely in hindsight, but an awful slog in the moment. I suspect that is why startups often need to sacrifice quality: The aforementioned thrill is the motivation to build something that has a high probability of being a complete waste of time. It doesn't matter how fast you can theoretically iterate if you can't compel yourself to work on it.
> thought they could cut corners to speed up iteration
Anecdotally, I find you can get about 3 days of speed from cutting corners - after that, as you say, you get slowed down more than you got sped up. First day, you get massive speed from going haphazard; second day, you're running out of corners to cut, and on the third day you start running into problems you created for yourself on the first day.
A piece of advice I heard many years ago was to not be afraid to throw away code. I've actually used that advice from time to time. It's not really a waste of time to do a `git reset --hard master` if you wrote shit code, but while writing it, you figured out how you should have written the code.
There's little reason to try to go straight for the final product when you don't know exactly how to get there, and that's frequently the case. Build toys to learn what you need efficiently, toss them, and then build the real thing. Trying to shoot for the final product while also changing direction multiple times along the way tends to create code with multiple conflicting goals subtly encoded in it, and it'll just confuse you and others later.
Perhaps it is the reverse: That ColdFusion training sources are limited, so it is more likely to converge on a homogenization?
While, causally, we usually think of a programming language as being one thing, but in reality a programming language generally only specifies a syntax. All of the other features of a language emerge from the people using them. And because of that, two different people can end up speaking two completely different languages even when sharing the same syntax.
This is especially apparent when you witness someone who is familiar with programming in language X, who then starts learning language Y. You'll notice, at least at first, they will still try to write their programs in language X using Y syntax, instead of embracing language Y in all its glory. Now, multiply that by the millions of developers who will touch code in a popular language like Python, Java, or Typescript and things end up all over the place.
So while you might have a lot more code to train on overall, you need a lot more code for the LLM to be able to discern the different dialects that emerge out of the additional variety. Quantity doesn't imply quality.
I wonder what a language designed as a target for LLM-generated code would look like? What semantics and syntax would help the LLM generate code that is more likely to be correct and maintainable by humans?
In what way? I still only see the very same industry-focused information that I first started using Twitter for. If anything, X has improved in pulling in information from more industry players than I was seeing before, so I consider it to be an even more compelling product now.
But perhaps that same algorithm improvement is what you ultimately mean? As in, that X has become better at finding the information you want to see, so if you have an interest in "right wing" or conspiracy content then it is a greater likelihood of it exposing you to that than the Twitter of yore did?