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> More people building things is straightforwardly good I still don’t understand this perspective, how is it good when a growing portion of stuff that’s built

by mcmcmc 5mo ago

> More people building things is straightforwardly good I still don’t understand this perspective, how is it good when a growing portion of stuff that’s built is straight garbage?

emodendroket 5mo ago
Suppose the choice is between software that does what you want, but isn't very optimized, and the software not existing at all, rather than between shoddy and beautiful software that both do what you want, and maybe it will make more sense to you.
- mcmcmc 5mo ago
  So apply a false dichotomy and it will all make sense? Still not buying it. Not everything needs to be solved with software, and brushing off negative externalities as “not very optimized” is irresponsible
  - emodendroket 5mo ago
    It's not a false dichotomy at all. There wasn't a lot of junk clothing in the ancient world -- everything was made to last. The downside was it was very expensive and most people didn't have much. The episode with the guards casting lots to see who can have Jesus's robes in the gospels is rather difficult to understand for a modern audience.
- acedTrex 5mo ago
  I will pick the software not existing at all every time. Easily without a thought.
  - emodendroket 5mo ago
    I think that's an absurd thing to believe, but if we've moved beyond "I don't understand" to "I don't agree" then my post served its purpose.
    - acedTrex 5mo ago
      I'm not following what "I dont understand" would entail here. The choice is fairly binary.
      - emodendroket 5mo ago
        Then ask the guy I was replying to and not me.
- wiseowise 5mo ago
  > and maybe it will make more sense to you Still doesn't.
  - emodendroket 5mo ago
    Well, I can lead a horse to water but not make it drink.
    - wiseowise 5mo ago
      Give it an LLM, maybe it can write a half-assed app that can help it drink.
SkyBelow 5mo ago
Depends upon the filtering system. Consider indie games. If there are 10 of them and 5 are great, you don't need any filter. You look through 5 great and 5 not so great games and end up with 5 great ones. Now go to a world where indie games explode. But only 1 in every 100 are great. There are now 100,000 games, but most qualify as very low quality. There are now 1,000 great games (and a few of these might be the perfect game you dreamt of), but if you don't have a filter and are buried under 10s of thousands of horrible games, things feel worse. With a filter, you now live in a world where you can easily find most of those great games with only a few lower quality ones showing up. So as long as the filters that exist, whatever they might be, can handle it, more is better even if quality drops. Unless the quality extremely fast, say my previous example of 100,000 games but only 1 in a million was a great game. I think this level of quality drop is extremely unlikely. Instead, I suspect the real problem is if the filters can keep up, because they depend upon human effort, so it is possible to hit a point where they are overwhelmed and stop functioning properly. That's when things get worse. As long as the filters hold, more building leads to better outcomes even with a drop in quality.
- wiseowise 5mo ago
  > I think this level of quality drop is extremely unlikely. Just open Steam, PSStore, Nintendo store.
wiseowise 5mo ago
Infinite monkeys with typewrites theory. Except typewriters are $20/$200 Claude code subscriptions.
HDThoreaun 5mo ago
People can choose not to consume things that are straight garbage.
- bigstrat2003 5mo ago
  They can, in theory. But when the signal to noise ratio gets too low, it becomes prohibitively difficult to filter out the garbage. Thus I don't think it's true that more people creating things is a pure benefit. It may not even prove to be a benefit at all, on net.
  - HDThoreaun 5mo ago
    That's what critics are for. In our decentralized media environment it is not difficult to find critics for whatever youre interested in
    - Jensson 5mo ago
      Critics has the same issue, they will also be mostly AI generated. How do you find the good non-AI generated and unpaid critics in the future?
      - HDThoreaun 5mo ago
        Same as it’s always been. Test the waters until you find someone with a consistent preference that lines up with your own. Personally I don’t really care if a critic is ai as long as its preferences are consistent and align with my own. If you dont find yourself relating to a critics take the great thing is that it’s easy to switch.

by mcmcmc 5mo ago

> More people building things is straightforwardly good I still don’t understand this perspective, how is it good when a growing portion of stuff that’s built is straight garbage?

emodendroket 5mo ago

Suppose the choice is between software that does what you want, but isn't very optimized, and the software not existing at all, rather than between shoddy and beautiful software that both do what you want, and maybe it will make more sense to you.

mcmcmc 5mo ago
So apply a false dichotomy and it will all make sense? Still not buying it. Not everything needs to be solved with software, and brushing off negative externalities as “not very optimized” is irresponsible
- emodendroket 5mo ago
  It's not a false dichotomy at all. There wasn't a lot of junk clothing in the ancient world -- everything was made to last. The downside was it was very expensive and most people didn't have much. The episode with the guards casting lots to see who can have Jesus's robes in the gospels is rather difficult to understand for a modern audience.
acedTrex 5mo ago
I will pick the software not existing at all every time. Easily without a thought.
- emodendroket 5mo ago
  I think that's an absurd thing to believe, but if we've moved beyond "I don't understand" to "I don't agree" then my post served its purpose.
  - acedTrex 5mo ago
    I'm not following what "I dont understand" would entail here. The choice is fairly binary.
    - emodendroket 5mo ago
      Then ask the guy I was replying to and not me.
wiseowise 5mo ago
> and maybe it will make more sense to you Still doesn't.
- emodendroket 5mo ago
  Well, I can lead a horse to water but not make it drink.
  - wiseowise 5mo ago
    Give it an LLM, maybe it can write a half-assed app that can help it drink.

SkyBelow 5mo ago

Depends upon the filtering system. Consider indie games. If there are 10 of them and 5 are great, you don't need any filter. You look through 5 great and 5 not so great games and end up with 5 great ones. Now go to a world where indie games explode. But only 1 in every 100 are great. There are now 100,000 games, but most qualify as very low quality. There are now 1,000 great games (and a few of these might be the perfect game you dreamt of), but if you don't have a filter and are buried under 10s of thousands of horrible games, things feel worse. With a filter, you now live in a world where you can easily find most of those great games with only a few lower quality ones showing up. So as long as the filters that exist, whatever they might be, can handle it, more is better even if quality drops. Unless the quality extremely fast, say my previous example of 100,000 games but only 1 in a million was a great game. I think this level of quality drop is extremely unlikely. Instead, I suspect the real problem is if the filters can keep up, because they depend upon human effort, so it is possible to hit a point where they are overwhelmed and stop functioning properly. That's when things get worse. As long as the filters hold, more building leads to better outcomes even with a drop in quality.

wiseowise 5mo ago
> I think this level of quality drop is extremely unlikely. Just open Steam, PSStore, Nintendo store.

wiseowise 5mo ago

Infinite monkeys with typewrites theory. Except typewriters are $20/$200 Claude code subscriptions.

HDThoreaun 5mo ago

People can choose not to consume things that are straight garbage.

bigstrat2003 5mo ago
They can, in theory. But when the signal to noise ratio gets too low, it becomes prohibitively difficult to filter out the garbage. Thus I don't think it's true that more people creating things is a pure benefit. It may not even prove to be a benefit at all, on net.
- HDThoreaun 5mo ago
  That's what critics are for. In our decentralized media environment it is not difficult to find critics for whatever youre interested in
  - Jensson 5mo ago
    Critics has the same issue, they will also be mostly AI generated. How do you find the good non-AI generated and unpaid critics in the future?
    - HDThoreaun 5mo ago
      Same as it’s always been. Test the waters until you find someone with a consistent preference that lines up with your own. Personally I don’t really care if a critic is ai as long as its preferences are consistent and align with my own. If you dont find yourself relating to a critics take the great thing is that it’s easy to switch.