I once read a (possibly apocryphal) description of a swiss sign saying in english "please don't pick the flowers", in french "those who love nature leave the flowers alone", and in german "picking the flowers is forbidden"
NOTICE: pursuant to USPCfFS 412/b Section 7 (a), pedestrians AND/OR passersby are hereby informed that disobeyance of this ordinance by any unauthorized party or parties towit any prohibited action including but not limited to treading, stamping, cartwheeling etc. without written or otherwise signalled express permission from the landowner or manager will be liable to legal action or violent retribution under said ordinance or bylaw for up to 25 days from the most recent observance of the offense or offensive behavior
Trurl pulls up a chair and dictates: “Notice is hereby given that in re hindrance of tenant, as
stated under Rev. Stat. c. 117(e) dash 2 dash KKP4 of the CTSP Comm. Code, in clear violation of
paragraph 199, thereby constituting a most reprehendable offense, we do declare the termination,
desummation and full cessation of all services accruing thereunto, by authority of Ordinance 67
DPO No. 14(j) 1101 et seq., on this the 19th day of the 17th month of the current year, aff’g 77
F. Supp. 301. The Tenant may appeal said action by extraordinary procedure to the Chairman of the
Board within twenty-four hours.”
Trurl attaches the seal, affixes the stamp, has it entered in the Central Ledger, consults the
Official Register, and says:
“Now let the mailman deliver it.”
The mailman takes it, they wait, they wait, and the mailman returns.
“Did you deliver it?” asks Trurl.
“I did.”
“And the return receipt?”
“Here it is, signed on this line. And here’s the appeal.”
Trurl takes the appeal and, without reading it at all, orders it returned to sender and writes
diagonally across it: “Unacceptable—Proper Forms Not Attached.” And he signs his name illegibly.
“And now,” he says, “to work!”
This is why I re-did the AI operating system I originally placed in Claude. For my 2.0 version I pulled it into OpenClaw (then eventually migrated to Hermes). All our work can be preserved after we change the model, even at a moment's notice or temporarily.
Right now we're using OpenAI's models by default since (unlike Anthropic) will allow us to use our pro subscription rather than token metering, but I've already had the joy of being able to change it to Kimi K3 (via OpenRouter) for an hour to try it out, and there were zero hiccups.
We were staying at a nice ocean-side resort in Dana Point, California. My wife, our daughter, and I, were chilling by one of the pools.
Suddenly security was announcing "There's been a sanitary inconvenience, everyone must leave the pool!!! We apologize, but there's been a sanitary inconvenience!".
A moment later we saw them scooping up some floating poop that had escape some baby's swim diaper.
What you said about "next fiscal quarter" is exactly right, and goes along with us (in the US) only thinking politically in 4 year cycles... which means on average we are thinking only 2 years ahead.
China is the master of the long-game. It's shortest cycles are 5 year tactical plans. Their strategic plans go far beyond.
I don't know what the solution is in the US (and West in general) to be able to think 25+ years ahead, as no material incentive would do the job; only cultural/society/civilizational goals make someone think that far ahead (religion does too).
If the US can't think that far ahead for the same reasons as China, maybe we need to find things we care about long term and tie economic development to that (family, religion, and even our potential extreme longevity).
> I don't know what the solution is in the US (and West in general) to be able to think 25+ years ahead, as no material incentive would do the job
Eliminate share buybacks. Raise the top tax bracket to 95% on earnings over $10m. Executive shares cannot be exercised until retirement if you really want to get aggressive.
The nuclear option would be stocks cannot be used as collateral for loans, it would shore up 90% of the nonsense overnight and have 0 negative impact on 99.99% of the general public.
It's already too easy for those in power to control popular opinion, and only getting easier, so you're not going to get mass protests or revolutions that upset the status quo.
> ...only cultural/society/civilizational goals make someone think that far ahead ...
Not saying I was paying close attention to America from 1850 to 1950, but a variety of cultural and social factors - especially less hyper-individualism, and people's futures being far more closely tied to the success of their families, neighborhoods, towns, etc. - lead to very priorities.
> and goes along with us (in the US) only thinking politically in 4 year cycles
One of the two parties spends most of their intellectual capital on acquiring and maintaining power. The other party spends theirs on policies which they rarely have power to enact.
Lots of reactions here, but if it works for you then that's great.
For me I feel that LLMs have exploded (in a good way) my cognitive capabilities. I'm now the general of an army, rather than playing the role of a soldier. Of course that means that I lose the experience of being the lonely soldier, but it is a no-brainer tradeoff for me.
Anyway, I have to go now so I can push my car to the grocery store (so I don't forget how to walk), me and my giant calves will be back in a few hours.
All meant in good spirit. Keep doing what you're doing, thanks for sharing, and hope people are kind and only give good natured ribbings.
I feel like you think the car analogy was a clever parallel to draw here but looking at a car centric north american population and the dimensions of a non trivial slice of them that are unable to walk a 5k, id say you made the opposite point.
You have a point based on the way I wrote it. What I was trying to get at:
If you're going to walk to the store, don't push you car there! Just walk. So if you want to write code, don't retype what the LLM said, create your code from your own brain.
Haha, your analogy reminds me of one I often make to highlight just how much we undervalue fossil fuels.
Imagine filling your car with $1 worth of fuel and then driving it on flat terrain as far as it will take you. Now get out and push your car back. Friction and momentum aside, that's the astounding amount of energy/work we get from a dollar's worth of fuel.
Now imagine your car is actually an LLM model. It gets you a great distance on $1 worth of tokens but what happens when you run out and for whatever reason (I can imagine quite a few) further LLM use is not possible. You have to push your car/LLM back all by yourself to finish what was supposed to be a quick, convenient trip to the grocery store. Might've been better off walking.
Seriously though, I do think there is a real risk that LLMs are going to lure a lot of people far beyond their ability to swim back. It might even be the case that LLMs help strand people in situations that even the LLMs can't help rescue them from.
I've gotten into a situation multiple times where an LLM (usually a low-end free model) will write a whole bunch of code and then be unable to make any more correct changes to it because it can't hold enough context. Super easy to get into a duplicative spaghetti mess - exactly like I've seen human developers do countless times, but even worse.
No, in that it's something inherently much more unstable than a bicycle and needs a trained human onboard to have any hope of getting anywhere without falling over spectacularly
Don’t good generals know how everyone else in their army does their jobs? At the very least to the extent they can see through the bullshit.
For example, I don’t handwrite the code that the compiler produces, but I know how to troubleshoot the IR/assembly and fix optimization issues that arise occasionally. That makes me better at my job of directing the compiler.
> Don’t good generals know how everyone else in their army does their jobs?
They most certainly do, but on a mid-higher level. They don't probably know every single motion and definitely lack hands-on experience. But they know enough to be able to manage them efficiently.
Throw yourself into it if you love it. The world is going to change many more times before you're even done your undergraduate studies, so there is no point in trying to predict it. Just arrive at graduation having had an awesome college experience (especially the people you'll meet), know how to learn stuff quickly, and be flexible.
I'm sure that during your studies, through serendipity, you'll find great opportunities to pursue that you couldn't possibly imagine right now. Give yourself the greatest surface area for luck to find you.
Since you posted this here on HN I can already tell that you're the type of person who will not be short of opportunities and already has a good surface area for luck to find you.
Ban Post-It notes and any other piece of paper than can be passed around with messages written on them by bad people. No whispering into people ears either unless your lips are plainly readable.
Compared to regular programming languages it reminds me of the difference between lawn signs in the US vs the UK:
US: Keep Off Grass! UK: Please remain on the footpath for the sake of our lawn
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