Hacker News: mirror_neuron

New comment by mirror_neuron in "People who can't picture anything are rewriting the science of imagination"

mirror_neuron — Mon, 14 Sep 2026 14:29:19 +0000

As someone who is close to the aphantasic end of the spectrum: for me, it does not apply to audio. That difference is how I came to understand aphantasia better: I can very concretely hear sounds and music in my "mind's ear" in a way that I can't for vision.

New comment by mirror_neuron in "Resist "AI""

mirror_neuron — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 20:34:38 +0000

Well said. I completely agree.

New comment by mirror_neuron in "Resist "AI""

mirror_neuron — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 12:38:22 +0000

I think there's a key difference of perspective hidden in your response. You're a business owner; you sell outcomes to your customers. Even if we suppose that skill atrophy is real, it's easy to see how that tradeoff would be worth it to you, and not to someone who is an individual contributor in a corporate environment. For an IC in a corporate environment, the accumulation of portable skills is an important part of what makes the job worthwhile.

For what it's worth: I went freelance right around the time that agents were starting to become extremely capable, and I've never enjoyed my work more. I'd believe the claim that my hands-on coding skills are atrophying to some degree, but I'm also developing other skills that have much higher leverage in my new setting.

New comment by mirror_neuron in "The short leash AI coding method for beating Fable"

mirror_neuron — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 15:30:00 +0000

I still work like this, using Aider. What do you mean when you say you “miss” it? (Why not just keep using it?)

New comment by mirror_neuron in "Don't fall into the anti-AI hype"

mirror_neuron — Sun, 11 Jan 2026 16:58:47 +0000

I’m a “LLM believer” in a sense, and not someone who derives joy from actually typing out the tokens in my code, but I also agree with you about the hype surrounding Claude Code and “agentic” systems in general. I have found the three positive use cases you mentioned to be transformative to my workflow on its own. I’m grateful that they exist even if they never get better than they are today.

New comment by mirror_neuron in "Ask HN: What's a standard way for apps to request text completion as a service?"

mirror_neuron — Sat, 10 Jan 2026 15:43:59 +0000

I love this concept. Looks great, I will definitely check it out.

New comment by mirror_neuron in "Local AI is driving the biggest change in laptops in decades"

mirror_neuron — Wed, 24 Dec 2025 18:52:16 +0000

I’m curious to hear more about how you get useful performance out of your local setup. How would you characterize the difference in “intelligence” of local models on your hardware vs. something like chatgpt? I imagine speed is also a factor. Curious to hear about your experiences in as much detail as you’re willing to share!

New comment by mirror_neuron in "Increasing your practice surface area"

mirror_neuron — Wed, 01 Oct 2025 19:42:43 +0000

That was my first reaction, too, but it’s not actually nonsense - it’s a depiction of Eminem practicing rhymes in a casual conversation.

It’s valid feedback for the author, though. I had to read the article to understand the image.

New comment by mirror_neuron in "Centuries of milk marketing warped the way we think about dairy and nutrition"

mirror_neuron — Fri, 31 May 2024 22:07:43 +0000

Count me among those that didn’t realize how much seed oil is used. But is that bad? I don’t have an axe to grind against cow’s milk, but I do have trouble digesting it (and besides, I like the way oat milk tastes).

Do I need to be worried about the fact that there’s a lot of seed oil in it?

New comment by mirror_neuron in "Quiet-STaR: Language Models Can Teach Themselves to Think Before Speaking"

mirror_neuron — Fri, 15 Mar 2024 13:50:21 +0000

It’s hard (impossible?) to know if we’re talking about the same thing or not, but I experience something like this all the time, without being on the edge of sleep. We might both be wrong, but it’s relatable!

New comment by mirror_neuron in "Math as a habit"

mirror_neuron — Tue, 13 Feb 2024 17:28:19 +0000

My mother forced me to practice classical string instruments from a very young age, and as a child, I fought her viciously over it.

Because she pushed through my complaints and bore my abuse, I now have deeply embedded musical skills that have changed the trajectory of my life experience for the better.

As an adult, I try to thank her for this whenever I can. I don’t know if I’ll be strong enough to give my own future children this gift.

New comment by mirror_neuron in "Ask HN: Are there any fulfilling careers in tech anymore?"

mirror_neuron — Tue, 29 Aug 2023 13:31:59 +0000

> Even if you manage to find something that is somewhat relevant to the real world, like green energy research, chances are it might be something highly technical, abstract, and difficult to relate back to the final product.

As someone lucky enough to have found a programming job in an organization that is dedicated to something I believe in, I can confirm this perspective. The big picture mission helps keep me motivated, but my day-to-day is pretty abstracted from that mission.

My advice to OP would be to try to diversify your sources of fulfillment. That may be unsatisfying advice - I know that there was a time in my life that I would have rejected it - but from where I stand now, it is the most reliable path to overall happiness.

New comment by mirror_neuron in "Lifers, Dayjobbers, and the Independently Wealthy: A Letter to a Former Student"

mirror_neuron — Wed, 12 Jul 2023 17:01:04 +0000

It's a matter of the degree of support. Would it be wrong, in your view, for a wealthy tax-paying parent to invest in their own child above and beyond what their taxes provide for society's children?

New comment by mirror_neuron in "My 20 year career is technical debt or deprecated"

mirror_neuron — Tue, 16 May 2023 10:39:16 +0000

I agree with your takeaway message, but the timeline isn’t completely arbitrary. From the perspective of humans appreciating things, there’s a difference between something that endures for .01x vs. 10x a person’s expected lifespan.

New comment by mirror_neuron in "Making friends as an adult is hard (2021)"

mirror_neuron — Tue, 18 Apr 2023 18:11:46 +0000

Unless you mean that you eventually grew out of the view that extroverts “suffer from severe deficit in their mental makeup”, I wouldn’t call your position “balanced” at all. You’ve just swung from one extreme to another.

I don’t know you, but I have a feeling that you’ll eventually come to understand “extroverts” better than this.

New comment by mirror_neuron in "Pursuing status will never bring true happiness"

mirror_neuron — Mon, 03 Apr 2023 20:08:42 +0000

That adaptation may not be appropriate for the modern environment.

When exposed to modern/ internet-scale communities, it could be that there are so many false-positive threats to one’s status that the advice to (generally) not worry too much about it is good advice.

Our innate desire for sweets comes to mind.

New comment by mirror_neuron in "Wronger Than Wrong"

mirror_neuron — Mon, 03 Apr 2023 18:24:32 +0000

Are you suggesting that there are people who practice science that do not rely on trust in others in any way to establish their beliefs?

New comment by mirror_neuron in "Hustle bros are jumping on the AI bandwagon"

mirror_neuron — Sat, 04 Feb 2023 12:16:33 +0000

I sympathize with you (the feeling of being threatened by charlatans). I don't think these feelings reflect reality, though. It can feel like your career will be threatened by the existence of this type of person, but unlike them, you have real technical skill to deploy on real problems.

> it also changes the expectations of my friends and family on the occasions that I do try to relate to them about the aspects of work that I like

While it can be grating that charlatans can have this kind of influence on the public's perception, realize that this is really the limit of their influence. They will never displace a person with real knowledge in settings where actually getting things done is the goal. Among your friends and family, it may even present an opportunity to practice your ability to translate your knowledge into something digestible to the layperson. You'll be doing them a service in the process.

New comment by mirror_neuron in "America's worsening return on health investment"

mirror_neuron — Tue, 31 Jan 2023 21:19:38 +0000

You are expanding the scope of the original suggestion to make it seem more extreme. Taxing activities that damage society as a whole (and funneling that money towards mitigating that damage) seems to me like a good solution.

New comment by mirror_neuron in "America's worsening return on health investment"

mirror_neuron — Tue, 31 Jan 2023 21:17:43 +0000

I disagree that this is a slippery slope. The line should be drawn by the people living in the society that draws it. As that society (and the cultural, technological, and environmental context around it) changes, the position of that line might change as well.

Many in the USA would choose a world with more expensive junk food and socialized healthcare than the reverse.

(I'm assuming your questions are rhetorical. Each of them has their own set of trade-offs.)