5 ms·

Claude Code, Claude Cowork and Codex #5

49 points by swolpers 7mo ago

mslt 7mo ago
Can we stop normalizing the bizarre and childish rename of the us defense department?
- tombert 7mo ago
  I find it amusing that Trump ran with the promise of "no new wars", and then immediately tries to change the Department of Defense to the Department of War. I guess I shouldn't be surprised by a hollow promise from Trump at this point.
  - panarky 7mo ago
    I find it amusing that Franco ran with the promise of "justice for those with clean hands," and then immediately enacted the Law of Political Responsibilities to institutionalize the summary execution of tens of thousands of his political opponents. I guess I shouldn't be surprised by a hollow promise from Franco at this point.
    - logicchains 7mo ago
      [flagged]
      - panarky 7mo ago
        That's what they always say. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Political_Responsibilities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Political_Responsibilit...
  - patates 7mo ago
    As an outsider, the extent and depth of the contradictions are really fascinating, OTOH repeated to the point that nothing surprises anyone anymore. I keep thinking what's the psychology behind this that makes it work and if they are mostly in on the act or if they really rely on many "useful idiots" like their political opponents keep suggesting. The discussion around useful idiots became concerning for me as I'm learning to respect people even in the most "don't look up"-like situations, trying to understand their individual motives without judging them. The main problem in political discussions, I figured, is the fact that we have 2-3 groups we try to fit people into. Wow, I made that digress quickly :)
    - gostsamo 7mo ago
      Unfortunately, useful idiot is a valid phenomena but much of what we observe in the US is disempowerment. The congress people believe that they don't have power outside the president's benevolence and hence does not assert their constitutional powers. The constitutional court is either partisan or outright corrupt and does not work as a corrective. The execution branch are ready to serve the president and not their assigned duties or the law. Many ordinary voters do not feel personal responsibility for acting, but prefer to rely on whoever promises them emotional validation instead of forming and empowering their communities. This is not a single thing, this is a combination of effects that influence and amplify each other.
- nnkk8 7mo ago
  [flagged]
  - georgemcbay 7mo ago
    > why. unlike with the gulf of mexico, in this case they have full naming rights. They actually don't. The official name is still the Department of Defense and only Congress can approve a real name change. The Trump Executive Order just gives the department permission to use the Department of War name without actually changing the name of the department from the Department of Defense. That said, despite being anti-Trump I'm fine with calling it the Department of War, it seems a lot more honest.
    - defrost 7mo ago
      His naming of the Bored of Peace was also foot forward and eerily prescient.
  - mslt 7mo ago
    Because they used millions of dollars of American citizens’ tax revenue to make a meaningless edgelord gesture, amongst a myriad of other reasons why it’s a bizarre and childish thing to do. Stopping there because this isn’t Reddit
    - kingkawn 7mo ago
      It’s not meaningless; it’s a way for them to immediately prove that the person speaking has been intimidated enough by them to acquiesce to this absurdity. If they don’t, they can be punished just for refusing. If they do, they’re already back on their heels proving their willingness to cave on anything else.
  - Sniffnoy 7mo ago
    Ah, but who's "they"? Names of departments are determined by Congress, and Congress has not renamed the DoD. The executive branch does not normally determine the names of its own departments. If you imagine the American government to be a single coherent entity, one might say "they have full naming rights", but it isn't, and in this case, the part doing the rename isn't the part that properly has the power to do so!
- dijit 7mo ago
  I think its rather apt. I welcome the de-1984-ification of governmental functions. Its clear that Trump wants to be at war, with their interventions, so, why not?
  - mslt 7mo ago
    It’s fine that a secondary consequence is them showing their foolish hand; I’ll give you that, but this not normal and should not just be absorbed as though it’s normal and that’s just what we call it now
    - llmthrow0827 7mo ago
      Trump isn't doing anything out of the ordinary for an American president, so I would say it is indeed quite normal. If by "not normal" you mean "not acceptable" then I agree, but that doesn't change that "Department of War" is more correct than "Department of Defense"
      - andruby 7mo ago
        > Trump isn't doing anything out of the ordinary for an American president I'm sorry, but I think both parties would actually agree on the fact that Trump is doing a lot of "out of the ordinary" for an American president. No other president after WWII has reduced federal workforce by >8% (DOGE), and then rehired a bunch. No other US president ordered the capturing a head of state (Venezuela) and framed it as a law enforcement action. No president has ignored congress or the constitution like Trump has (tariffs, ICE, Greenland). He uses executive orders a lot more than previous presidents: ~209 per year in his 2nd term. The next highest are Truman (113/year), Carter (80/year) and Kennedy (75/year).
        llmthrow0827 7mo ago
        I think it's pretty clear I was referring to the topic at hand, which is regards to military action and the Department of Defense/War naming.
- selfawareMammal 7mo ago
  Nah. The current one is in fact more accurate.
  - robbomacrae 7mo ago
    Genuinely surprised they didn't try to get away with department of peace.
  - bbor 7mo ago
    The "current one" is Department of Defense. They are illegally branding it otherwise without congressional approval, but that doesn't mean we should welcome it. More fundamentally, it's hard to convey just how much better a government that wages wars but ostensibly says that they're bad is than a government that gleefully does so. I'll take a flawed democracy that partakes in immoral operations over an openly-imperialist autocracy any day of the week -- as should we all!
kubb 7mo ago
Is there anything interesting in there? I skimmed and it seems like reporting on Twitter posts, and news about the 2 leading LLM providers that have been extensively covered on HN.
foo42 7mo ago
> And this is the best country in the world, with the best system of government, because private citizens can voice their disagreement with such actions, including by refusal to participate. On the off chance other Americans were unaware of this: Other countries are democracies too (and many are better functioning)
- xhcuvuvyc 7mo ago
  America's not a democracy, hell it's not even a country.
  - qsort 7mo ago
    ???
    - laffOr 7mo ago
      Some Americans think the "democracy" vs "republic" distinction is extremely important, and that "democracy" means something like "tyranny of the majority", hence why it is good that America is not a _democracy_, but a _republic_ or a _democratic republic_. Some other Americans (there is some overlap) also think that the US is so large and diverse that essentially its States are their own countries and the US is more like its own continent, and talking about the American _nation_ or even _country_ is meaningless. It is a union of States (though it is rare that someone argues that the US is not a country).
      - qsort 7mo ago
        Isn't this some extreme distortion of semantics though? Going by the majority usage of those words, "democracy" and "republic" mean different but not incompatible things and the claim that America isn't a country is just baffling.
        eru 7mo ago
        Yeah, republic doesn't really mean much these days (in the common definition and applied to contemporary countries). North Korea is officially a republic, but it's closer to a hereditary, absolutist monarchy in practice. The UK is officially a constitutional monarchy, but in practice not all that much would change, if they demoted the royal family.
jtrn 7mo ago
I found this an incredibly well written and interesting read. A bit of a strange format… is it an article or a newsletter or something else? It is extremely long. I don’t really care though. Because I loved the combination of quotes, insights and links. Thanks.
pugio 7mo ago
Lately my favorite podcast to listen to has been the audio version of Zvi's blog: https://dwatvpodcast.substack.com/p/claude-code-claude-cowork-and-codex https://dwatvpodcast.substack.com/p/claude-code-claude-cowor... . It's AI narrated, but at this point if I heard Zvi's actual voice I think I would be confused. It's really well done, and uses different voices for each new person being quoted. It also has really good narrated image descriptions. Zvi's articles are literally exhaustively long,l - before I was able to listen to them I got tired trying to read the whole thing. Now it's my favorite way to keep up with AI.
lAshgar 7mo ago
Breathless thought snippets with an all-in fueled propaganda introduction. Let me see if I can do it, too: "I am 100 years old and my young wife's lover has discovered Claude Code. I am allowed to sit in the cuck seat whenever he pleases my wife. But what really energizes me is to watch him code: He is sitting in the programmer's cuck seat watching Claude Code work and I am sitting in the meta cuck seat watching him watch Claude. It keeps me awake at night. This isn't just evolution;;;it's revolution!" (See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47282777 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47282777 for the marketing inspiration)

49 points by swolpers 7mo ago

mslt 7mo ago

Can we stop normalizing the bizarre and childish rename of the us defense department?

tombert 7mo ago
I find it amusing that Trump ran with the promise of "no new wars", and then immediately tries to change the Department of Defense to the Department of War. I guess I shouldn't be surprised by a hollow promise from Trump at this point.
- panarky 7mo ago
  I find it amusing that Franco ran with the promise of "justice for those with clean hands," and then immediately enacted the Law of Political Responsibilities to institutionalize the summary execution of tens of thousands of his political opponents. I guess I shouldn't be surprised by a hollow promise from Franco at this point.
  - logicchains 7mo ago
    [flagged]
    - panarky 7mo ago
      That's what they always say. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Political_Responsibilities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Political_Responsibilit...
- patates 7mo ago
  As an outsider, the extent and depth of the contradictions are really fascinating, OTOH repeated to the point that nothing surprises anyone anymore. I keep thinking what's the psychology behind this that makes it work and if they are mostly in on the act or if they really rely on many "useful idiots" like their political opponents keep suggesting. The discussion around useful idiots became concerning for me as I'm learning to respect people even in the most "don't look up"-like situations, trying to understand their individual motives without judging them. The main problem in political discussions, I figured, is the fact that we have 2-3 groups we try to fit people into. Wow, I made that digress quickly :)
  - gostsamo 7mo ago
    Unfortunately, useful idiot is a valid phenomena but much of what we observe in the US is disempowerment. The congress people believe that they don't have power outside the president's benevolence and hence does not assert their constitutional powers. The constitutional court is either partisan or outright corrupt and does not work as a corrective. The execution branch are ready to serve the president and not their assigned duties or the law. Many ordinary voters do not feel personal responsibility for acting, but prefer to rely on whoever promises them emotional validation instead of forming and empowering their communities. This is not a single thing, this is a combination of effects that influence and amplify each other.
nnkk8 7mo ago
[flagged]
- georgemcbay 7mo ago
  > why. unlike with the gulf of mexico, in this case they have full naming rights. They actually don't. The official name is still the Department of Defense and only Congress can approve a real name change. The Trump Executive Order just gives the department permission to use the Department of War name without actually changing the name of the department from the Department of Defense. That said, despite being anti-Trump I'm fine with calling it the Department of War, it seems a lot more honest.
  - defrost 7mo ago
    His naming of the Bored of Peace was also foot forward and eerily prescient.
- mslt 7mo ago
  Because they used millions of dollars of American citizens’ tax revenue to make a meaningless edgelord gesture, amongst a myriad of other reasons why it’s a bizarre and childish thing to do. Stopping there because this isn’t Reddit
  - kingkawn 7mo ago
    It’s not meaningless; it’s a way for them to immediately prove that the person speaking has been intimidated enough by them to acquiesce to this absurdity. If they don’t, they can be punished just for refusing. If they do, they’re already back on their heels proving their willingness to cave on anything else.
- Sniffnoy 7mo ago
  Ah, but who's "they"? Names of departments are determined by Congress, and Congress has not renamed the DoD. The executive branch does not normally determine the names of its own departments. If you imagine the American government to be a single coherent entity, one might say "they have full naming rights", but it isn't, and in this case, the part doing the rename isn't the part that properly has the power to do so!
dijit 7mo ago
I think its rather apt. I welcome the de-1984-ification of governmental functions. Its clear that Trump wants to be at war, with their interventions, so, why not?
- mslt 7mo ago
  It’s fine that a secondary consequence is them showing their foolish hand; I’ll give you that, but this not normal and should not just be absorbed as though it’s normal and that’s just what we call it now
  - llmthrow0827 7mo ago
    Trump isn't doing anything out of the ordinary for an American president, so I would say it is indeed quite normal. If by "not normal" you mean "not acceptable" then I agree, but that doesn't change that "Department of War" is more correct than "Department of Defense"
    - andruby 7mo ago
      > Trump isn't doing anything out of the ordinary for an American president I'm sorry, but I think both parties would actually agree on the fact that Trump is doing a lot of "out of the ordinary" for an American president. No other president after WWII has reduced federal workforce by >8% (DOGE), and then rehired a bunch. No other US president ordered the capturing a head of state (Venezuela) and framed it as a law enforcement action. No president has ignored congress or the constitution like Trump has (tariffs, ICE, Greenland). He uses executive orders a lot more than previous presidents: ~209 per year in his 2nd term. The next highest are Truman (113/year), Carter (80/year) and Kennedy (75/year).
      - llmthrow0827 7mo ago
        I think it's pretty clear I was referring to the topic at hand, which is regards to military action and the Department of Defense/War naming.
selfawareMammal 7mo ago
Nah. The current one is in fact more accurate.
- robbomacrae 7mo ago
  Genuinely surprised they didn't try to get away with department of peace.
- bbor 7mo ago
  The "current one" is Department of Defense. They are illegally branding it otherwise without congressional approval, but that doesn't mean we should welcome it. More fundamentally, it's hard to convey just how much better a government that wages wars but ostensibly says that they're bad is than a government that gleefully does so. I'll take a flawed democracy that partakes in immoral operations over an openly-imperialist autocracy any day of the week -- as should we all!

kubb 7mo ago

Is there anything interesting in there? I skimmed and it seems like reporting on Twitter posts, and news about the 2 leading LLM providers that have been extensively covered on HN.

foo42 7mo ago

> And this is the best country in the world, with the best system of government, because private citizens can voice their disagreement with such actions, including by refusal to participate. On the off chance other Americans were unaware of this: Other countries are democracies too (and many are better functioning)

xhcuvuvyc 7mo ago
America's not a democracy, hell it's not even a country.
- qsort 7mo ago
  ???
  - laffOr 7mo ago
    Some Americans think the "democracy" vs "republic" distinction is extremely important, and that "democracy" means something like "tyranny of the majority", hence why it is good that America is not a _democracy_, but a _republic_ or a _democratic republic_. Some other Americans (there is some overlap) also think that the US is so large and diverse that essentially its States are their own countries and the US is more like its own continent, and talking about the American _nation_ or even _country_ is meaningless. It is a union of States (though it is rare that someone argues that the US is not a country).
    - qsort 7mo ago
      Isn't this some extreme distortion of semantics though? Going by the majority usage of those words, "democracy" and "republic" mean different but not incompatible things and the claim that America isn't a country is just baffling.
      - eru 7mo ago
        Yeah, republic doesn't really mean much these days (in the common definition and applied to contemporary countries). North Korea is officially a republic, but it's closer to a hereditary, absolutist monarchy in practice. The UK is officially a constitutional monarchy, but in practice not all that much would change, if they demoted the royal family.

jtrn 7mo ago

I found this an incredibly well written and interesting read. A bit of a strange format… is it an article or a newsletter or something else? It is extremely long. I don’t really care though. Because I loved the combination of quotes, insights and links. Thanks.

pugio 7mo ago

Lately my favorite podcast to listen to has been the audio version of Zvi's blog: https://dwatvpodcast.substack.com/p/claude-code-claude-cowork-and-codex https://dwatvpodcast.substack.com/p/claude-code-claude-cowor... . It's AI narrated, but at this point if I heard Zvi's actual voice I think I would be confused. It's really well done, and uses different voices for each new person being quoted. It also has really good narrated image descriptions. Zvi's articles are literally exhaustively long,l - before I was able to listen to them I got tired trying to read the whole thing. Now it's my favorite way to keep up with AI.

lAshgar 7mo ago

Breathless thought snippets with an all-in fueled propaganda introduction. Let me see if I can do it, too: "I am 100 years old and my young wife's lover has discovered Claude Code. I am allowed to sit in the cuck seat whenever he pleases my wife. But what really energizes me is to watch him code: He is sitting in the programmer's cuck seat watching Claude Code work and I am sitting in the meta cuck seat watching him watch Claude. It keeps me awake at night. This isn't just evolution;;;it's revolution!" (See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47282777 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47282777 for the marketing inspiration)