[latexr]

> Also, when did we stop liking to learn?

I suspect it happened when we achieved a level of such constant stimulation (there is a pocket computer always on us with infinite effortless distraction) that we’re never bored and never engage the default mode network.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Default_mode_network

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orQKfIXMiA8

When you’re bored, your mind goes to places it wouldn’t otherwise go. Curiosity kicks in. Curiosity is a precursor to learning. Learning engages the brain and is fun. But it’s not fun all the time, some of it is challenging and frustrating (which is good, that’s the process that teaches you).

When you have the digital equivalent to infinite candy and the brain equivalent to a sweet tooth, it’s hard to resist the siren’s call. The consequence is the brain equivalent to a stomachache—depression and loss of meaning—but unfortunately it doesn’t hit you the same way so you don’t make the immediate connection to make yourself stop. When you think about it, it’s ridiculous from several angles: the candy is infinite, it’s never going to run out, so you don’t need to gorge! But then we justify ourselves as only a true addict would, that while the candy is infinite, the flavours are limited editions and always rotating, and what if I miss that really good one everyone is on?! Then you miss it, is the answer. No one will be talking about it in fifteen minutes anyway.

[gchamonlive]

> it happened when we achieved a level of such constant stimulation (...) that we’re never bored and never engage the default mode network.

I don't know... I don't disagree, but I think this has been repeated so much that I believe everyone, at least everyone that is actively participating in HN discussions is aware of this.

So if we are aware of this and we consciously choose to keep engaging in dopaminergic activities, without having some time to be bored, I think it starts to become a choice. We can blame tech for starting this trend of stealing our attention, but once we become aware of this, we can only blame ourselves for perpetuating it.

[therealpygon]

Or at least, aware that this argument continues to be made with tenuous evidence and anecdotes. And yet, people are being more productive (actually productive) with AI. Release schedules are increasing, bugs are getting fixed faster, security issues identified and patched sooner, so on and so forth.

I’m not denying (at all) that unused skills languish. I take issue with AI being characterized as a magic eraser that mystically makes people forget what they have already learned. I’ve just done a study and concluded that dogs gets dumber when I throw a ball. What’s my evidence? They stop staring at me to chase it. The ball definitely made them forget who I was, so we shouldn’t allow dogs to have balls anymore.

Can AI make developers lazy in new ways? Of course! Why wouldn’t it? I don’t write things in ASM because I can be “lazy” and write 50x more useful instructions with a few lines of a modern language. I doubt I’d be able to write working ASM anymore without a serious refresher. Did newer languages erase my memory of ASM and make me “lazy”, or did my efforts evolve to make use of the newest technology regardless of “lost” skills?

[kiba]

Can AI make developers lazy in new ways? Of course! Why wouldn’t it? I don’t write things in ASM because I can be “lazy” and write 50x more useful instructions with a few lines of a modern language. I doubt I’d be able to write working ASM anymore without a serious refresher. Did newer languages erase my memory of ASM and make me “lazy”, or did my efforts evolve to make use of the newest technology regardless of “lost” skills?

I would argue that's a misuse of AI. If the point of an engineer is to know how things work behind a piece of software, then shipping code without an understanding how it all works is a failure.

You wouldn't trust an engineer a bridge that an engineer vibe-engineered would you?

So instead of focusing on AI as a productivity tool, focus on AI as a means of adding rigor and understanding to your workflow.

[randallsquared]

> If the point of an engineer is to know how things work behind a piece of software

That might be the point of an engineer in some orgs, but mostly the point of an engineer is to ship a product or release that matches someone's vision of what should come next, and doesn't cause additional noticeable problems in the next quarter or three.

[g3f32r]

> You wouldn't trust an engineer a bridge that an engineer vibe-engineered would you?

If it was as easy to stress test/battery test/materials test/etc a bridge as it is to test code - then yes. I'd trust an engineer who vibe-engineered a bridge.

---

The problem with mapping digital problems into meat-space is that there is inherently a few orders of magnitude of cost automatically added to anything that happens in meat-space.

I can spin up an arbitrary number (10, 10k, 500k) docker instances, X with fuzzed inputs, Y with explicit edge cases, Z with tolerance testing, etc etc. And if that doesn't work - I can fix and push a button and it just happens again.

If a bridge engineer could do that with bridges - yes I'd expect them to be vibing just as hard as we are now.

[esafak]

Don't mechanical engineers do that with FEM simulations? Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZspM_TvPKQ

[therealpygon]

Absolutely. These days engineers use AI and simulation to design new types of engines, jet nozzles, etc. Treating it not like a tool is the mistake, and the assumption many make is that “other people must be making that mistake too”.

[kiba]

That's verification. An engineer still understands the bridge and the engineering decisions that they built.

[therealpygon]

No, but I’d certainly trust an engineer to use software with in-built algorithms to design a bridge instead of using a typewriter, calculator, and a pencil. What you argue is your perception that this means everything is vibe coded and an engineer doesn’t understand any of it. My thought would be that this sentiment seems more telling of your views or how you use it than someone else. I’m not saying it isn’t possible for you to be right in circumstances, but rather you seem to assume your view fits all circumstances.

That the point of the engineer is to know how all of it works? So one must know the specific details of how every hard disk driver is implemented, with the algorithms being used, and have checked all the math and inspected all that code, just to be able to “read file”? Do you also argue that million+ line codebases should be inspected through every dependency and every file, line by line, and run through a debugger, before making a single line change anywhere?

Seems more like an extensive exercise in self-flagellation on the company’s dime than would be appropriate, but that’s just my opinion.

We all have our domains. A person can absolutely use AI within their domain and understand its output perfectly as much as having written it themselves.

The need for knowledge in those domains also changes over time. The need to understand a domain at a depth is directly proportional to the depth of the changes you are making to a stack. I don’t need to know how the hard drive spins to write a program. I don’t even need to understand that hard drives exist to write most programs these days, because it is not an area of concern. All of the implementation and efficiencies happen at a level below, or another below that, or within a trusted dependency. The people working on all those things understand those domains better than I ever could have the time to.

Maybe you could better explain where vibe-coding significantly differs from the above as another “layer” of separation?

Look, I’m not arguing vibe coding is “good” in and of itself by any means, but just basically that it’s not all vibe coding, and those of us that understand that don’t really have as much need to argue about the inevitable or that things change.

[latexr]

> this argument continues to be made with tenuous evidence and anecdotes.

The linked Wikipedia page has plenty of evidence and studies and you can find plenty more with a basic web search. This is not something someone just made up; if you don’t know there are a multitude of studies on the harms of social media, you haven’t looked at all. Which is fine, it’s our prerogative to not search for information, but don’t turn around and say it doesn’t exist or is anecdotal.

> And yet, people are being more productive (actually productive) with AI.

You said, ironically without providing evidence, in the same paragraph that you complained about evidence not being provided for something else which has plenty of it. Furthermore, there are several studies suggesting AI may in fact decrease productivity, but I’m not going to link to those because the more important point is AI has nothing to do with the conversation. The original poster mentioned AI, but this branched thread is exclusively about the “liking to learn” part.

[swsieber]

> And yet, people are being more productive (actually productive) with AI. Release schedules are increasing, bugs are getting fixed faster, security issues identified and patched sooner, so on and so forth.

I didn't see anything in parent chain that implied this. Nor did I see it "characterized as a magic eraser"; I saw it framed as something that impedes learning, and that was tied back to constant simulation.

> Or at least, aware that this argument continues to be made with tenuous evidence and anecdotes

The arguments I read and the argument you seem to be replying to seem to be different things.

[lvales]

Why don't addicts chose to stop with their addictive behaviour?

And this isn't an excuse btw, but if you want to understand why, this is a good place to start.

[gchamonlive]

If they don't want to, go for it. I'm all up for the freedom to choose your poison, as long as it doesn't restrict someone else's freedom of choice (like jumping off a building and landing on someone, killing you both). What I'm saying is that if you recognize booze is bad for you, but you don't do anything about it because heck there is a billion dollar industry behind it, everyone drinks and you'll die anyway, IDK it seems to me like it's mostly your fault, because you'd know where yo get help if you really wanted to. That is, of course, assuming where you live has good policies for treating people with such diseases.

[jplusequalt]

>there is a billion dollar industry behind it, everyone drinks and you'll die anyway, IDK it seems to me like it's mostly your fault

This is an absurd statement. What good is the willpower of a single human in the face of a billion dollars of capital aimed at a society with a penchant for drinking?

People are not isolated systems. We live in a society.

[gchamonlive]

> because you'd know where yo get help if you really wanted to. That is, of course, assuming where you live has good policies for treating people with such diseases.

You are probably not the kind of person that would read "Antichrist" and think that Nietzche was a satanist. Or that just because it's called National Socialist party, that the nazis where left-leaning, I'd wager. So why read statements in isolation?

[_DeadFred_]

You are pitting your randomly acquired will power and your in large part unintentional stumbling through life against all of human kind's psychology knowledge, against billions of dollars spent on advertising and advertising research. That is at this point tens maybe hundreds of millions of years of acquired human knowledge how to manipulate you versus your very randomly acquired 'will power'.

Have you seen the quotes coming out of the richest/most powerful companies on the planet? These are very intentional impacts by companies more powerful than entire nations.

I don't think 'but your willpower' stands a chance if you want to be connected to the modern world.

[gchamonlive]

So if you are helpless in a world dominated by the billionaires and the clerics of psychological research, what's the hope for the average person? Should we just accept our fate and waste away in endless Instagram feeds, alcohol, drugs, gambling and all forms of addiction? These need to be managed at society level, banning or taxing goods. But no amount of regulation can compensate for someone determined to destroy himself. So yeah, it's your fault. But it's also society's fault. And at the end of the day the most effective thing you have is your choice.

[jplusequalt]

>So yeah, it's your fault

This framing is doing so much PR work for the alcohol/tobacco/social media companies of the world. Effectively removes any blame from the corporations making billions of dollars off harming our societies.

[gchamonlive]

It doesn't, or it shouldn't, but you are right, they subvert any responsibility the individual has so they can offload their responsibility into them. But my mistake here is not realising that people under abstinence doesn't behave as if they had any choice. In any case, my original comment was about social media only, which I think has a lot of psychological pressure over the individual, but doesn't have the pharmacological component.

[rickdeckard]

> So if we are aware of this and we consciously choose to keep engaging in dopaminergic activities, [..] I think it starts to become a choice.

...or a subtle addiction that also creates the impression of productivity/progress/social interaction...

If so, then all applicable studies on addiction should be taken into consideration as well, but their context probably doesn't even begin to cover the size of the issue here.

[latexr]

> I think this has been repeated so much that I believe everyone, at least everyone that is actively participating in HN discussions is aware of this.

I promise you that is incorrect. People who actively participate on HN are a group more diverse than is often given credit, and I strongly believe there is nothing “everyone knows” here.

https://xkcd.com/1053/

Just nine days ago, someone on HN was vaguely aware of the idea but did not know it’s called the default mode network. How many more aren’t even aware of the idea?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47926043

Not knowing the name means you’re not aware of all the details, intricacies, studies and ideas pertaining to it.

Finally, even if everyone knew about it that would still not be reason to not talk about it. Talking and doing something repeatedly is how you create habits and change behaviour. Same way you should still call out when someone does something bad even if “everyone knows they do it”.

> I think it starts to become a choice. (…) we can only blame ourselves for perpetuating it.

That is called blaming the victim. There are multiple billion dollar corporations and industries actively working to get you addicted, bombarding you from every side. It’s not a simple choice of “I’m not going to engage”, rather you have to actively disengage from what’s thrown in your face all the time. It’s exhausting. You’re falling into their trap and repeating the words they want you to. It’s like a supermarket which offers 99% junk and only a tiny section of always the same selection for healthy eating (not a hypothetical, I have several like that nearby) then blaming buyers for not eating more healthily. It’s not a fair choice if you’re constantly pushing and finding ways to trick people to in one specific direction.

And again, not everyone is aware of what is happening. Most people aren’t. And even those who are (which, again, is not even everyone on HN) aren’t immune.

[gchamonlive]

Fair enough. It's always tricky to generalize like this, so I wont defend that position.

However, for those who know, I don't think this is blaming the victim. I think victim blaming is a form of debate simplification in this case, just like "this is life" or "shit happens".

Sure there are billions of dollars invested in attention stealing mechanisms, just as there are billions of dollars invested in gambling sites, in alcohol, tobacco and highly processed foods, or in the scamming industry. However, while we need as a society need to discuss mechanisms to control and maybe prohibit these practices, a functional adult human beings should be expected to create safeguards to protect themselves against this. Maybe the phrasing wasn't the best, but my point stands. Once you are aware of things that aren't good for you, you can really only count on yourself to do something about it.

[kiba]

We do all what we can as individuals, but it's not enough. The obesity crisis is going unabated except GLP-1 drugs to clean up the mess.

[gchamonlive]

we can also apply regulations but they are also not enough, otherwise people wouldn't OD on controlled substances. At one point the individual needs to start taking responsibility for their actions.

[fugalfervor]

And the unscrupulous purveyors of addictive products should likewise take responsibility for their actions. How often do you see that happen, though?

[latexr]

> gambling sites, in alcohol, tobacco and highly processed foods, or in the scamming industry

Those are great examples because they show that leaving it all up to the individual is not enough. All of those are regulated by the state because we as a society recognised they were doing their damnest to screw everyone else for their own gain. Social media is going the same route, with several countries already introducing bills to prohibit them to minors.

There is another discussion to be had if we’re going about it the right way (I certainly do not support privacy invasion in the form of age checks), but it does show we’re recognising its harm.

[gchamonlive]

Exactly, but I still think those are two slightly different conversations. If we are talking about harmful habits at a more general level, I'll defend that we need to be very restrictive in those examples. Online gambling, alcohol use and such shouldn't be allowed to advertise, it should pay almost prohibitively expensive taxes etc...

But if we are talking about the individual, the one inserted in the society, which is temporally bound, the conversation changes. We have to admit that it isn't enough to wait for laws and culture to change in order for the individual to be able to protect him/herself. To be a functional adult is to recognize what's around us that is harmful and do our best to protect ourselves. This is why if people recognize the harm social media is doing to their attention and to their ability to be bored they only have themselves to blame if you don't take action, because only blaming the multi-billion dollar industry for the habits they exploit won't do much for the individual.

[fugalfervor]

You've clearly never been addicted to anything. You seem to have little understanding of, or empathy for, those who have become addicted.

I quit smoking cigarettes. It took years. It was incredibly difficult on an emotional level, and took a lot of failure and disappointment to finally make it through. And I almost lost all my progress when I relapsed after my Dad died unexpectedly.

Every pair of eyes that you see walking down the street has an entire universe behind them that we cannot see. It is not simple like you assume.

I suggest you recognize your exceptional self-discipline and relatively unaddicted lifestyle as the stroke of good fortune that it is; you are genetically predisposed or developmentally more well-prepared than most. Recognize that others are less fortunate than you in that regard, but no less deserving of aid, comfort, and a legal avenue to seek recompense from unscrupulous actors.

[theshrike79]

> When you’re bored, your mind goes to places it wouldn’t otherwise go. Curiosity kicks in. Curiosity is a precursor to learning. Learning engages the brain and is fun. But it’s not fun all the time, some of it is challenging and frustrating (which is good, that’s the process that teaches you).

And I love how I can go from a curious brainfart "hmm, could I do a movie catalogue app that uses a web page + phone camera + OpenAI API to identify physical DVDs by front/back cover instead of trying to find a reliable barcode database" to it actually working in maybe two hours of real time. Just paused the movie I was watching, typed the idea to Claude Code on mobile and kept watching.

After the movie went back to my computer, merged the changes and tested whether it worked. It mostly did. The UI/UX was horrible etc, but the basic idea was functional. It even got some of the movie extras correctly.

I didn't try to turn it into a product, didn't buy a domain for it or advertise it on Reddit or Show HN. But now I know it CAN be done. Curiosity sated.

[latexr]

I don’t see what that has to do with “when did we stop liking to learn”, which is the only point I’m addressing. My point has nothing to do with AI and it doesn’t seem like you actually learned anything from that experiment.

[swsieber]

I read it more as response to your argument that it was a lack of curiosity due to over stimulation, which they responded to by citing an example of a time when they were curious while stimulated and chucked something at a vibe-coding agent to satisfy that curiosity.

[theshrike79]

Yep, now I have the time to satisfy my curiosity in weird things because it doesn't take active time from me that much.

Before all those curiosity brain farts would've just slipped away with "oh well, I'll never have the time to find out".

Wikipedia has scratched the same itch multiple times, but from a different angle. Doing deep dives in weird stuff is so much easier with Wikipedia than it used to be when you had to go to the library and pull books from the shelves for an hour or two.

[AStrangeMorrow]

I still love learning, especially outside of tech. Been working in the ML field for over 8 years, and while I went into it because I liked the field, I did lose some interest in learning things, but mostly because of the sheer volume of publication and the rate of change. Learning stopped being something I enjoyed doing and went to something I had to do to keep up. And it just stopped having the same flavor.

[madduci]

We also stopped learning when someone had the idea to put unrealistic deadlines in projects and tackling tech debt has been denied and the most hated activity from management.