"Im not even sure we will need maintain software" (sic) - I'm not sure what your specific background is, but with a statement like that you lose all legitimacy to me.

You know, it's possible for these oil companies to have done all this bad stuff, and for Greenpeace to be a pretty shitty organization. And for the person to have a different mindset than all the strawman assumptions you just made.

I think what you’ve said is thoughtful and honest and I disagree with the downvotes.

I’m one of the politically homeless, and not even a resident of the USA, so I suppose I have an easy out.

Life can be very hard, and I don’t fault anyone for prioritizing their life over a political situation that is so very hard to affect. I do appreciate those that dedicate themselves though, the ones that seem to be helping and not hurting, anyway.

I don’t think I was downvoted, at least I not as of the time of this writing, though I don’t generally care if I am. I already have a ton of HN karma and I also don’t want to have my name attached to an opinion I will not defend I don’t see the point of unpaid social media if not to have a place to express honest opinions.

It’s not like I am apolitical; I donate money to causes I support, and I am generally willing to argue my beliefs if it’s something I believe it. I have my opinions, many of them very strong.

I am just saying that I am not an ambassador. I don’t really have a strong desire to “convert” people, and I don’t think I am the right person for that particular job. There’s value in it and I am ok with people doing it. Just not me.

I think you're in the minority of people that are using LLMs for one of the best uses - for augmenting your own understanding and intelligence. Of course you have to triangulate and triple check what they say, but that's a good habit to get into anyway. Many of my teachers would repeat tribal myths all the same.

I think people get really worked up guns and 3d printing quickly. A lot of those folks are printing accessories for common firearms. I mod up my mtb bike, my work area, my coffee workstation - I'm not surprised that gun enthusiasts would want to tweak their weapons to suit their desire.

I think it's cool in a nerdy way, and I might even do it if: I was into shooting (I find it boring), and my government hadn't outlawed anything related to 3d printing and firearms entirely.

Of course there is a crew of people that want to print guns (not just accessories) for libertarian or criminal purposes - That seems like a lot of time to waste given how easily you can access guns (in the USA anyway). I'm not convinced that's a huge community, but I could be wrong.

Taylor Swift is very popular, therefore no one listens to anything but pop music. It's a very low effort argument.

Obviously such a pursuit is going to never be something 1/2 of people do, you need:

- space

- ambition

- aptitude

- money

- tolerance for huge amounts of frustration

- some ability and openness to learn rapidly

- enough time to devote to it

- a space to allow noisy things to run for hours

- the ability to acquire these things in your country

Those aspects filter out a great percentage of the population, of course this will never be "mainstream". VR goggles aren't mainstream, why would you expect someone wanting to make their own CNC cabinets (or whathaveyou) to be moreso?

I really appreciate and enjoy the perspectives that you've added to this conversation; thank you.

I will admit that as a whole, this thread has made me super sad even while I'm confident pg would say that most people revealing themselves to be uninspired pessimists can be seen as a major source of opportunity for hackers.

I just wish that so many people weren't so easy to slot into the matrix, if you know what I'm saying.

"maybe I'll be smart enough to do something else that's useful" - I'm in precisely the same boat, with the same unease, but also it's kind of the golden time right now. We still get paid, we've been given superpowers that were sci-fi a couple years ago, and we can do great things with them.

With that kind of potential, I find it strange to think that all these talented people will be let go. Maybe if AI really ramps up quickly, but I think it's more likely we'll see a million small business started, exploring into niches that were just too much time investment previously. I myself have a bunch of ideas that also involve hardware and physical manufacturing.

It's a scary but very vibrant time to be in this position we are. It might not be bad for those who are bold enough to grab it by the horns.

And the entirety of OSS is hand waved away as an externality, but clearly there's something very powerful about all the sharing of models and knowledge going on that doesn't seem to be captured by traditional economic models (that I'm aware of).

I think we'll see this slowly march along. I just made some custom-designed speaker tilt mount things for my desk. Sure, it's a trivially simple example, but a lot of things are. I was able to get the exact angle I wanted, bigger than most and in a design I liked, crafted by AI in 5 minutes, and on my desk by the next morning and for a fraction of the price of a Chinese made Amazon version.

It's no replicator, but give it 5 years and it might be surprising how useful it is.

Every local business I deal with is completely lacking on the online side. They might have square POS terminals and all that stuff, but their website either doesn't exist, sucks (not updated in years) or they throw me to Facebook (also sucks).

This is like the last mile for online presence. The average barber out here doesn't use Squarespace, barely knows how to use Facebook and doesn't touch GenAi. But they can still cut your hair pretty well - tech savvyness doesn't have a huge connection to business competence out here.