6 ms·

It's certainly eating up a lot of the threads on HN.

CaptainOfCoit 1y ago
[flagged]
Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
Exactly my thoughts. Couldn't agree more really, there is so much to discuss on this short time that we have on earth but a lot of that energy is going into talking about AI and AI again it seems. I have nothing against the tech but c'mon I would argue that open source itself overall is more valuable than AI but that isn't an apples to orange comparison but still, I see far fewer discussions of open source as compared to AI. Maybe Open source is just on mind a lot these recent days.
- pixl97 1y ago
  >I see far fewer discussions of open source as compared to AI. Because the big discussions of open source were decades ago now. If you add up all the discussions of open source in the past I'd assume they'd out number the AI discussions now. Also, there is very little novel to discuss about open source. Now novel and 'important' are different things, but novel is what tends to write articles and get eyeballs.
  - Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
    I don't really know man half the population doesn't know what open source means or cares whereas a lot of people seemingly have lots of opinions about AI. One can liberate people from big tech and the other ties them to it in sorts. And there are very very more conversations about the latter than the former. The point of discussion is to bring change. There has been a real change in how usable Linux has been lets say compared to past but now its really about user adoption I suppose. I genuinely think that we might need to reopen that discussion window as a lot of people are getting interested in linux/homelabbing /realizing that they can degoogle and what not to really get privacy. Those discussions brought a change into how open source software is written today (git) etc. but now we probably might need discussions about the awareness of these open source products to the general public if we truly want mass adoption I suppose. What are your thoughts?
    - SketchySeaBeast 1y ago
      > I don't really know man half the population doesn't know what open source means or cares whereas a lot of people seemingly have lots of opinions about AI. I'm not the person you responded to, but I'm certain that way less than half the population knows about or considers open source, that's one of those living in a bubble illusions. Ultimately those people aren't here and have no interest in being here.
      - Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
        I agree that those people aren't here and have no interest. I would say that it is the issue of lack of knowledge if anything. Yes, there is an infinite amount of knowledge available on the internet regarding open source and that's honestly where I learnt about stuff but its overwhelming at first and required something to kickstart the whole process/ be a catalyst of sorts. Realizing using linux that privacy matters a lot and then realizing that I can just search open source alternative to X really helped me in the beggining/still sometimes does and there are a lot of low hanging fruits that can just be told for people to follow (like use signal instead of whatsapp) so there's definitely that. I definitely am thinking about doing something about it tbh the more I think about it but I think that partially why people don't go around doing this is because of how AI seemingly sells and open source fundamentally doesn't sell
        SketchySeaBeast 1y ago
        It's not knowledge, it's interest. You go looking because you care. But people don't even use desktops anymore. They could, but they don't, what's the point? I know devs who haven't even put together their own PCs in decades if they ever did at all. I don't know how you shift that, but getting people interested would be the first step. They need to have a reason to want to learn.
        johnnyanmac 1y ago
        >They need to have a reason to want to learn. Supposedly evveryone's mad over paywalls and enshittification and slop, but no one wants to take the time find geuine, curious content anymore. As far as I'm concerned, the frog it cooked already. immediate dopamine trumps over the idea of ever owning anything in life.
  - pessimizer 1y ago
    There's an enormous amount to discuss about "open source," and it's neglected enough that the bro generation of programmers doesn't even understand it, or the difference between it and Free software, and what those differences materially mean to developers and the public at large. The reason that HN is eaten up by LLMs is because it's eaten by any trendy topic that's in the mainstream news. HN used to be directed by an active and opinionated mind in pg, and it's been left to salaried, caretaking censors whose primary job is to make sure the site doesn't become an embarrassment. This mainly consists of artificially excluding discussions that may lead to energetic debate; debate that usually becomes swamped with low-quality comments by people speaking outside of their expertise, and can make the place look like a cesspool. But energetic debate is where all of the energy is. The problem isn't those topics, the problem is that those topics also take a lot of energy to moderate the problems out of. We're experiencing an abandoned place, not a place driven by anything internal. It's an old barn that is kept clean just so it doesn't catch on fire. We don't talk about FOSS because it isn't a general topic that is in the mainstream news, not because it isn't an important topic that is more vital to discuss than ever, in the face of monopoly, walled-gardens, verified signatures and centralization. A positive editor like pg was aware of this, and treated the site as his personal playground. It partially revolved around what were essentially his journal entries. I only ever ended up on this site because he decided one day to have every front page article be about Erlang, of all things. edit: and to add to the penultimate paragraph, an energetic discussion of FOSS that lead to productive projects and statements by people of influence would influence the mainstream. This place used to make stories, not just Digg them. The purpose of the site (other than to run something on Arc) seemed to me to be to juice new YC startups in a way that would leak into the general media. It doesn't even seem useful for YC any more.
    - Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
      That is an insight that my age simply didn't bring. I am not sure about the accuracy of it as I was there after the AI era and I have only seen the slow but steady creep of it. > This place used to make stories, not just Digg them This does give me goosebumps. Honestly, I like this place because it has a lot of nice people and we are more alike and different and it's just that this seems to be the place I have decided to call a home to all of my ramblings/thoughts on essentially everything. The only other social media that I operate is maybe discord and a very small dose of reddit. it does seem to me that somewhere along the internet, we might have lost it, or atleast its hidden, waiting to be discovered. I can't help but share things like julia evan's zines and how he inspired one day when I messaged him on mail about being worried about AI when he shared me somebody who had created a better UI for the man pages and so many other interesting pages which really reflected personality that I didn't know exist. I don't really think that we can do over hackernews but there is certainly a possibility of atleast having niche discussions like erlang and discussing them could lead to more people exposure's to it... which can benefit them or the community! I can maybe think of that we might need to use something like matrix to atleast create a public community with better moderation if that's the issue. I think the HN mods are also trying their best but if we want opinions, the best way I right now could think of to fixing this as an issue might be to creating a hackernews but not for AI which I had actually suggested once but everybody just said to me to block posts about AI or to create a tracker which removes all AI references at most, the post is definitely lost in my comments but I definitely remember it. I can understand where you are coming from and I think that this place isn't a substitute for a place like that and we still might need a place like that too if we become too pessimistic of y-combinator. Never give up hope I suppose :)
kusokurae 1y ago
yeah I don't know how to write this sentiment without whining, but I am Tired of seeing Boring articles about AI where very little of interest is said or done, with mealmouthed comments. I swear the development lifecycle of really neat and novel tools used to be more than "Poll AltmanBot"
guestbest 1y ago
It’s retro computing, diy or AI at this point.
otherayden 1y ago
It seems to vary a lot by the day. HN still has enough good days so I keep checking, but on the bad days I just go to lobste.rs and usually there’s something quality to read over there
notmyjob 1y ago
I remember when UBI was consuming too much bandwidth. Foreplay to the AI saturation now. Suppose it was useful to get the hype up enough to arrive where we are. Still odd we aren’t having any UBI threads now, when it’s actually relevant. (Not that I endorse the idea, which afaict traces back to Charles Murray.)

[flagged]

Exactly my thoughts. Couldn't agree more really, there is so much to discuss on this short time that we have on earth but a lot of that energy is going into talking about AI and AI again it seems. I have nothing against the tech but c'mon I would argue that open source itself overall is more valuable than AI but that isn't an apples to orange comparison but still, I see far fewer discussions of open source as compared to AI. Maybe Open source is just on mind a lot these recent days.

pixl97 1y ago
>I see far fewer discussions of open source as compared to AI. Because the big discussions of open source were decades ago now. If you add up all the discussions of open source in the past I'd assume they'd out number the AI discussions now. Also, there is very little novel to discuss about open source. Now novel and 'important' are different things, but novel is what tends to write articles and get eyeballs.
- Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
  I don't really know man half the population doesn't know what open source means or cares whereas a lot of people seemingly have lots of opinions about AI. One can liberate people from big tech and the other ties them to it in sorts. And there are very very more conversations about the latter than the former. The point of discussion is to bring change. There has been a real change in how usable Linux has been lets say compared to past but now its really about user adoption I suppose. I genuinely think that we might need to reopen that discussion window as a lot of people are getting interested in linux/homelabbing /realizing that they can degoogle and what not to really get privacy. Those discussions brought a change into how open source software is written today (git) etc. but now we probably might need discussions about the awareness of these open source products to the general public if we truly want mass adoption I suppose. What are your thoughts?
  - SketchySeaBeast 1y ago
    > I don't really know man half the population doesn't know what open source means or cares whereas a lot of people seemingly have lots of opinions about AI. I'm not the person you responded to, but I'm certain that way less than half the population knows about or considers open source, that's one of those living in a bubble illusions. Ultimately those people aren't here and have no interest in being here.
    - Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
      I agree that those people aren't here and have no interest. I would say that it is the issue of lack of knowledge if anything. Yes, there is an infinite amount of knowledge available on the internet regarding open source and that's honestly where I learnt about stuff but its overwhelming at first and required something to kickstart the whole process/ be a catalyst of sorts. Realizing using linux that privacy matters a lot and then realizing that I can just search open source alternative to X really helped me in the beggining/still sometimes does and there are a lot of low hanging fruits that can just be told for people to follow (like use signal instead of whatsapp) so there's definitely that. I definitely am thinking about doing something about it tbh the more I think about it but I think that partially why people don't go around doing this is because of how AI seemingly sells and open source fundamentally doesn't sell
      - SketchySeaBeast 1y ago
        It's not knowledge, it's interest. You go looking because you care. But people don't even use desktops anymore. They could, but they don't, what's the point? I know devs who haven't even put together their own PCs in decades if they ever did at all. I don't know how you shift that, but getting people interested would be the first step. They need to have a reason to want to learn.
        johnnyanmac 1y ago
        >They need to have a reason to want to learn. Supposedly evveryone's mad over paywalls and enshittification and slop, but no one wants to take the time find geuine, curious content anymore. As far as I'm concerned, the frog it cooked already. immediate dopamine trumps over the idea of ever owning anything in life.
- pessimizer 1y ago
  There's an enormous amount to discuss about "open source," and it's neglected enough that the bro generation of programmers doesn't even understand it, or the difference between it and Free software, and what those differences materially mean to developers and the public at large. The reason that HN is eaten up by LLMs is because it's eaten by any trendy topic that's in the mainstream news. HN used to be directed by an active and opinionated mind in pg, and it's been left to salaried, caretaking censors whose primary job is to make sure the site doesn't become an embarrassment. This mainly consists of artificially excluding discussions that may lead to energetic debate; debate that usually becomes swamped with low-quality comments by people speaking outside of their expertise, and can make the place look like a cesspool. But energetic debate is where all of the energy is. The problem isn't those topics, the problem is that those topics also take a lot of energy to moderate the problems out of. We're experiencing an abandoned place, not a place driven by anything internal. It's an old barn that is kept clean just so it doesn't catch on fire. We don't talk about FOSS because it isn't a general topic that is in the mainstream news, not because it isn't an important topic that is more vital to discuss than ever, in the face of monopoly, walled-gardens, verified signatures and centralization. A positive editor like pg was aware of this, and treated the site as his personal playground. It partially revolved around what were essentially his journal entries. I only ever ended up on this site because he decided one day to have every front page article be about Erlang, of all things. edit: and to add to the penultimate paragraph, an energetic discussion of FOSS that lead to productive projects and statements by people of influence would influence the mainstream. This place used to make stories, not just Digg them. The purpose of the site (other than to run something on Arc) seemed to me to be to juice new YC startups in a way that would leak into the general media. It doesn't even seem useful for YC any more.
  - Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
    That is an insight that my age simply didn't bring. I am not sure about the accuracy of it as I was there after the AI era and I have only seen the slow but steady creep of it. > This place used to make stories, not just Digg them This does give me goosebumps. Honestly, I like this place because it has a lot of nice people and we are more alike and different and it's just that this seems to be the place I have decided to call a home to all of my ramblings/thoughts on essentially everything. The only other social media that I operate is maybe discord and a very small dose of reddit. it does seem to me that somewhere along the internet, we might have lost it, or atleast its hidden, waiting to be discovered. I can't help but share things like julia evan's zines and how he inspired one day when I messaged him on mail about being worried about AI when he shared me somebody who had created a better UI for the man pages and so many other interesting pages which really reflected personality that I didn't know exist. I don't really think that we can do over hackernews but there is certainly a possibility of atleast having niche discussions like erlang and discussing them could lead to more people exposure's to it... which can benefit them or the community! I can maybe think of that we might need to use something like matrix to atleast create a public community with better moderation if that's the issue. I think the HN mods are also trying their best but if we want opinions, the best way I right now could think of to fixing this as an issue might be to creating a hackernews but not for AI which I had actually suggested once but everybody just said to me to block posts about AI or to create a tracker which removes all AI references at most, the post is definitely lost in my comments but I definitely remember it. I can understand where you are coming from and I think that this place isn't a substitute for a place like that and we still might need a place like that too if we become too pessimistic of y-combinator. Never give up hope I suppose :)

kusokurae 1y ago

yeah I don't know how to write this sentiment without whining, but I am Tired of seeing Boring articles about AI where very little of interest is said or done, with mealmouthed comments. I swear the development lifecycle of really neat and novel tools used to be more than "Poll AltmanBot"

guestbest 1y ago

It’s retro computing, diy or AI at this point.

otherayden 1y ago

It seems to vary a lot by the day. HN still has enough good days so I keep checking, but on the bad days I just go to lobste.rs and usually there’s something quality to read over there

notmyjob 1y ago

I remember when UBI was consuming too much bandwidth. Foreplay to the AI saturation now. Suppose it was useful to get the hype up enough to arrive where we are. Still odd we aren’t having any UBI threads now, when it’s actually relevant. (Not that I endorse the idea, which afaict traces back to Charles Murray.)