It's a tough nut to crack. I had a feeling that was the catalyst to my post. Am I completely inadequate? Why is it I can't create some perfect vibe app? I felt every prominent post I was seeing at the moment was saying my personal experience was invalid. It was so visceral, it was /too/ visceral. I got suspicious.
What was gnawing at me was the humility and nuance seemed missing in what I was seeing / was prominent. "I whipped up this code in seconds..." is usually--in a good faith scenario of telling such an experience--followed with some variant of "granted, it helps that I have twenty years in software engineering and could tell it was not slop. And my job has me using AI tools all day, whether I want to or not, so I already have a fair amount of prompting/tool skill to avoid slop. And, of course, this was a big win, but there were a ton of time wasters before that got me nowhere before and after this. And if I look at the negatives of what we give up--copyright theft, resource waste, ponzi-ish VC subsidizing token costs to create moats that probably won't happen but regardless is anti-competitive, financial trickery with tech-washing to cement broligarch status quo--not sure I'd make the trade they claim necessary for this win. But yeah, it was kinda neat when I took one second to look at it in isolation, before I remembered I live in a cyber dystopia and this tech doesn't seem to be leveling the playing field as much as the entire apparatus is making it seem bleaker."
Do I expect everyone to do this? No. Do I expect /no one/ to do this? No. Should I wait until one or more people reads an email to address my feeling before I make a comment? ...
I'll admit, I actually don't know on the last one. But I stand by my feeling. And I appreciate the feeling of this rule. But I also feel "degrades discussion and is usually mistaken" should be examined. Is it possible that "usually" is because astroturfing works both ways? "Usually" refers to a higher quantity of X over Y, which is exactly what astroturfing is about. Is it "usually" mistaken when brought up in good faith, carefully, and with nuance? One can call that making a "general statement."
I don't post about this topic constantly, I don't astroturf about astroturfing, a threshold hit me to make this comment, a threshold should be examined with this account and that comment. I think I am in line with the spirit of this rule. And I like the spirit of this rule. Beyond I am not sure.
