It doesn't even show you the post is killed, it looks to you like it posted fine, and you have to logout to see it's actually dead. It's an approach that's extremely hostile to the user.

Your post made me randomly spot check another one from a month ago ("The U.S. government on Wednesday..."), the numbers aren't quite as drastic but X is still ahead. Likes/comment shares:

X: 280, 4, 172.

Bluesky: 182, 2, 98.

Because of the algorithms I wouldn't be surprised if you'd be able to cherry pick some Bluesky post that's ahead. But a casual browse through both feeds makes it look like X gets much more engagement.

X: 1,500 likes, 50 comments, 846 shares.

Facebook: 58 likes, 8 comments, 22 shares.

Bluesky: 94 likes, 3 comments, 51 shares.

One big issue I've found is that HN seems to automatically comments from all new users, no matter the content. I used to try to change handles every so often because HN doesn't allow people to delete their comments after the first hour, which becomes a bigger and bigger privacy issue over time (and frankly, extremely hostile to users). Especially for those of use who don't use AI, our individual writing styles are likely identifiable over a long enough period of time.

But the last few times I tried it, all of my comments were immediately shadowbanned. No notification or any indication on the new account, but if I checked with an older account, the comments were all "dead." I try to put effort into my comments, reading through the entirety of the comment I'm replying to (often multiple times), proofreading them myself (I never use AI), and linking to any claims I'm making. All of this takes considerable time. It's extremely frustrating to put that kind of effort into a comment and have it autobanned. It's even more frustrating when the system deceives you and makes you believe it's been posted, and you have to check with another account to learn that it was actually set to dead.

Supposedly there's a desire for comments that people put effort into and aren't written by AI. But why would new users bother putting in that work when their comments get automatically and secretly killed, without them having any way of knowing?

I'm starting to think that the best solution is to move away from these types of online communities in general.

Americans really put up with low standards in a lot of areas, and it becomes obvious the more you travel.

It's a big blind spot among the editors as well. When this problem was brought up here in the past, with people saying that claims on Wikipedia shouldn't be believed unless people verify the sources themselves, several Wikipedia editors came in and said this wasn't a problem and Wikipedia was trustworthy.

It's hard to see it getting fixed when so many don't see it as an issue. And framing it as a non-issue misleads users about the accuracy of the site.

Because the teacher was knowingly giving zeroes to students who didn't cheat, and expecting them to take it upon themselves to reverse this injustice.

Knowing the way a lot of professors act, I'm not surprised, but it's always disheartening to see how many behave like petty tyrants who are happy to throw around their power over the young.

No one is claiming you can't walk away from LLM's, or re-prompt them. The discussion was whether they're inherently unchallenging, or if it's possible to prompt one to be challenging and not sycophantic.

"But you can walk away from them" is a nonsequitur. It's like claiming that all games are unchallenging, and then when presented with a challenging game, going "well, it's not challenging because you can walk away from it." This is true, and no one is arguing otherwise. But it's deliberately avoiding the point.

That was what the "meaningless" comment you took issue with was about.

> My point is that an LLM is not inherently opinionated and challenging if you've just put it together accordingly.

But this isn't true, anymore than claiming "a video game is not inherently challenging if you've just put it together accordingly." Just because you created something or set up the scenario, doesn't mean it can't be challenging.

You can fire an employee who challenges you, or you can reprompt an LLM persona that doesn't. Or you can choose not too. Claiming that power - even if unused - makes everyone a sycophant by default, is a very odd use of the term (to me, at least). I don't think I've ever heard anyone use the word in such a way before.

But maybe it makes sense to you; that's fine. Like I said previously, quibbling over personal definitions of "sycophant" isn't interesting and doesn't change the underlying point:

"...it's possible to prompt an LLM in a way that it will at times strongly and fiercely argue against what you're saying. Even in an emergent manner, where such a disagreement will surprise the user. I don't think "sycophancy" is an accurate description of this, but even if you do, it's clearly different from the behavior that the previous poster was talking about (the overly deferential default responses)."

So feel free to ignore the word "sycophant" if it bothers you that much. We were talking about a particular behavior that LLM's tend to exhibit by default, and ways to change that behavior.

This seems tautological to the point where it's meaningless. It's like saying that if you try to hire an employee that's going to challenge you, they're going to always be a sycophant by definition. Either they won't challenge you (explicit sycophancy), or they will challenge you, but that's what you wanted them to do so it's just another form of sycophancy.

To state things in a different way - it's possible to prompt an LLM in a way that it will at times strongly and fiercely argue against what you're saying. Even in an emergent manner, where such a disagreement will surprise the user. I don't think "sycophancy" is an accurate description of this, but even if you do, it's clearly different from the behavior that the previous poster was talking about (the overly deferential default responses).

People opting for unchallenging pseudo-relationships over messy human interaction is part of a larger trend, though. It's why you see people shopping around until they find a therapist who will tell them what they want to hear, or why you see people opt to raise dogs instead of kids.

Is it ideal? Not at all. But it's certainly a lesser poison.

Treating objects like people isn't nearly as bad as treating people like objects.

The U.S. is a pretty far outlier in this regard. It's strange how many people in the U.S. don't realize this at all, and become appalled at when foreigners are shocked by the way things are done in U.S. cities.

But the problem with over credulity goes far beyond social media. I've gotten strong push back for telling people they shouldn't trust Wikipedia and should look at primary sources themselves.

This is an extremely important point that keeps getting ignored. People keep comparing _public_ schools in Europe to _private_ schools in America.

To further your point, just about every place has a community college where you can do the first two years of your education for about half the price of the state school. The total tuition for this route (2 years at community college, 2 years at a state school) is going to average just under $30,000 for 4 years. Which is definitely in the "work your way through college" range.

And this is before any financial assistance, which the majority of students receive.

Foreigners talking about how crazy expensive college is in the U.S., but they're likely mislead by people who took out large loans to go to extremely expensive private colleges. There's an easy way to stop this kind of debt - don't allow federal loans for private institutions. But no one is really interested in stopping it.

Almost no political junkie I know has changed their view on Trump over the past decade. They'll spend hours a day, sometimes hours a week, focused on him, but it ends up absolutely having no positive impact on their selves or their lives (usually a large negative impact).

Then I ask them about their local politicians, where they stand on certain issues, what their record is, what's been happening with their local government - and they have absolutely no clue. They can't even recall who was running in the previous local primary, or why they voted for who they voted for.

They're wasting countless hours on Trump and national politics because it feels good. Then they won't even spend a fraction learning about things that could actually make an important difference in their voting, because it's too boring for them. Even worse, many people will try to pass off these actions as being virtuous or being informed.

That's one of the things that's tiring about these debates. Too many people only view "free speech" as a rhetorical cudgel, using it to hit "the other side" when it's convenient, then immediately discarding it and going back to "freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences!" when it's not.