Hacker News: damnesian

New comment by damnesian in "Sixty percent of US consumers say 'AI' in brand messaging is a turnoff"

damnesian — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 14:28:33 +0000

It only takes one attempt to contact a corporation using their new AI system to scar you, it's that dehumanizing.

And millions of people know exactly what I mean.

New comment by damnesian in "Are Americans Too Old?"

damnesian — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 19:29:45 +0000

I'm old. I am not rich in the pecuniary way, but in friendship and canine companionship. And I eagerly support young candidates. I don't want to be led by good ole boys and gals who refuse to relinquish power and represent with antique ideas. We're not all jealous horders. Some just want to live in peace and are generous in spirit. And I bet you a $250 bill that we are legion.

New comment by damnesian in "Ask HN: What happens when AI-voice becomes good enough?"

damnesian — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 19:19:40 +0000

I wonder if when it truly becomes indistinguishable from reality if people won't increasingly seek direct experiences with fellow humans. We're already experiencing this as a family. AI is such a strange mental rabbit hole, we're suffering from "tailored for you" fatigue. When you just want some objective answers, what pleases you the best is NOT useful, and at this point in the curve, you have to work harder to get LLMs to give you what you need rather that what it thinks will engage you more. My adult kids have started gathering to play board games and hang out in person whereas three years ago they'd be content to play online games together. We're hitting that threshold, right now, where our biology is pushing back.

I don't think the future as painted for us presently is as guaranteed as those would profit from it would like you to think.

New comment by damnesian in "Huh. Apparently we can just end smoking"

damnesian — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 19:12:08 +0000

Cool. let's phase out or change all of the other things that can kill you as readily as smoking can: obesity, highly processed foods, air pollution, sedentary jobs / inactivity, chronic alcohol drinking, unsafe driving, occupational hazards, chronic stress/poor mental health care, unsafe food and water.

New comment by damnesian in "Social Security Now Expects Shortfall Earlier, in Late 2032"

damnesian — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 19:12:24 +0000

this is what we had no choice but to contribute to

New comment by damnesian in "Reading for pleasure is sharply down among schoolkids, report shows"

damnesian — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 18:59:13 +0000

The acceleration point for both age groups studied is 2012. What happened that year? The article doesn't try to answer this. Might be mentioned in the study I suppose.

New comment by damnesian in "Reddit's home screen now forces a "for you" feed that cannot be turned off"

damnesian — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 18:46:55 +0000

same, old is all I use, I'm frankly shocked it's still around.

New comment by damnesian in "AI outperforms law professors in Stanford Law study"

damnesian — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 15:09:09 +0000

Does the "outperforming" conclusion incorporate the appropriateness of decisions? Or just if things are technically correct. Without human eyes on cases, things could easily get very off track. AI can do a lot of data wrangling, but there is no conscience.

New comment by damnesian in "The Rise of Anti-AI AI Slop"

damnesian — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 16:51:45 +0000

Murphy's Law in action.

New comment by damnesian in "Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions"

damnesian — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 16:49:41 +0000

>you have disposable income to spend on something as useless as instagram or facebook

Useless in the big picture, but I know people who are cobbling together various income streams to maintain basic quality of life- including sponsored posts on social media. Which gives the platforms a very real value. I'm not saying they aren't exploitative, and overall they don't contribute to the advancement of society- but there a a LOT of big employment holes in the west and like these platforms or not, these platforms are plugging a lot of holes, if only mostly timidly except for the usual stars.

New comment by damnesian in "Age verification for social media, the beginning of the end for a free internet?"

damnesian — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 16:30:17 +0000

this is reason enough to close the vast majority of them. if you're engaged in discussion, that's one type. the doomscrolling types, more addictive but very much more disposable.

New comment by damnesian in "Robinhood now lets your AI agents trade stocks"

damnesian — Fri, 29 May 2026 21:00:35 +0000

Sounds like a feasible world economic collapse scenario.

New comment by damnesian in "Meta launches Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp subscriptions including AI plans"

damnesian — Wed, 27 May 2026 18:23:47 +0000

I believe the room right now is a little divided about yet more subscriptions, we'll see.

New comment by damnesian in "Spotify boss defends move to AI music, saying it is better than 'slop'"

damnesian — Tue, 26 May 2026 19:48:39 +0000

they are trying to change the definition of the term, like truth.

New comment by damnesian in "Trump DOJ mass-deletes info on Jan. 6 riot cases, incl violent assaults on cops"

damnesian — Tue, 26 May 2026 19:43:08 +0000

fortunately theirs is not the only record.

New comment by damnesian in "At Tyler Cowen University, No One Would Have Tenure"

damnesian — Fri, 22 May 2026 19:29:10 +0000

So if you teach something that doesn't jive with admin... [thumb across throat] grkkk.

New comment by damnesian in "Using Kagi Search with Low Vision"

damnesian — Thu, 21 May 2026 20:23:06 +0000

I know it's a completely different thing- but the neurodiverse face similar struggles of having to wade through reams of completely superfluous content to get to anything usuable.

Having done plenty of text to speech testing of my own website, I've never thought to turn it onto a Google search results page. It's abysmal.

Of course Google is an accessibility nightmare.

New comment by damnesian in "Could Universal GLP-1 Drugs End the Obesity Epidemic?"

damnesian — Thu, 21 May 2026 19:28:40 +0000

I'm sure there won't be any regrettable long-term consequences of this. /s

New comment by damnesian in "AI is just unauthorised plagiarism at a bigger scale"

damnesian — Thu, 21 May 2026 15:58:16 +0000

Not the first time I've had the thought massive lawsuits could be in all AI company's future. Surely they realize they are living on borrowed time simply by being the current trendy tech.

New comment by damnesian in "The American epoch of oil is collapsing. What comes next could be ugly"

damnesian — Mon, 18 May 2026 16:48:41 +0000

Uglier than it has to be, since we are in seriously deep denial about it and actively working to suppress what will inevitably replace it. We ought to be completely embracing that now. At least alternatives were allowed to be develop.