I use almost no MCPs and feel like I'm not missing out on anything, I just use APIs directly or CLIs. I honestly don't quite see the point of MCPs any longer.
YouTube needs a way to report mislabelled AI videos, and actually the "Made with AI" label is a bit misleading. I don't mind if it uses some AI, what I don't want is AI slop, and that can only really be reported by users.
Same with Instagram, they need a way to report AI.
Well, they at least say that one is obligated to address bugs in a timely manner (where "not widely exploitable; won't fix" is a perfectly valid resolution).
I'm sure the luddites got all their ideas from TikTok aye?
At least were not at this point yet:
"Mill and factory owners took to shooting protesters and eventually the Luddites were suppressed by legal and military force, which included execution and penal transportation of accused and convicted Luddites."
Why? The hacker ethos is all about understanding systems as they actually are; not as the people at the top want them to be. With the benefit of hindsight, it’s pretty clear that the Luddites were right; the industrialization of weaving did destroy their profession, and, contrary to the opinions of the political leaders, this had a direct, negative impact on society for many decades. The curious-minded hacker should not ignore that reality, even if they think the circumstances are different this time.
Only if you don't know what the Luddites were concerned about. HN users tend to be better educated, and understand that the Luddites probably were right -- they weren't anti technology at all. They just wanted the benefits of the technology to be split between the factory owners and the workers. Instead, the factory owners wanted to keep all the benefits and fire all the workers.
IMO an understanding of modern technology and historical abuse of such makes neo-luddism the only logical end point. If you, like I, am thouroughly excited by the power of modern systems, I feel a cursory glance in the past compared to what is currently occuring should be enough to make one want to resist, whether it feels futile or not.
EDIT:
Does anyone have good modern literature recommedations (blog / pamphlet / book) to support this view. Luddism is not the cause i am going to die for, but I do broadly support the views and ideas so would be interested to have a stronger base. Even the wikipedia prose feels dammning:
"
The term "Luddite fallacy" is used by economists to refer to the fear that technological unemployment inevitably generates structural unemployment and is consequently macroeconomically injurious. If a technological innovation reduces necessary labour inputs in a given sector, then the industry-wide cost of production falls, which lowers the competitive price and increases the equilibrium supply point that, theoretically, will require an increase in aggregate labour inputs.[47] During the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st century, the dominant view among economists has been that belief in long-term technological unemployment was indeed a fallacy. More recently, there has been increased support for the view that the benefits of automation are not equally distributed."
HN isn’t a monoculture. And the Luddites weren’t against tech. They were against the avoidable harm by thoughtless adoption of automated looms. Their argument was distorted and smeared much like is happening here.
Hackers used to be counter culture and want to push power down to individuals. If anything this techno fascist push to merge big tech with government while steamrolling humans is not hacker culture.
We should home brew data centers for open weight models and open labelled datasets.
How is this degrowth? Individuals who had a nice neighborhood now living next to the noise and pollution equivalent of an airport running 24/7 have a point that it sucks. Households complaining that their power flow is getting cut off but the data center isn't have a point. People whose water sources are carefully measured due to drought and loss of replenishment being worried have a point.
Growth can be done carefully and well, or it can be cancer. The current data center boom is not being done carefully and well. How you do things matters a lot.
What part confuses you? The threat to stable and affordable electricity and water supply? The water, light and noise pollution? The threat to jobs? The threat to truth and transparency? The threat to privacy?
> stable and affordable electricity and water supply
Look, I think you misspelled "demand" there. It's an understandable error; those keys are so close together.
Data centers present a demand on resources. A demand that wasn't there previously. You hook a DC up to the grid, and it will demand more electricity from existing generation capability. The DC proposals, without provision for their own generation, present extra demand.
So yeah, unless the supply of those resources can be commensurately increased in some way, the DCs will present extra demand on what we already have, and that means someone, somewhere, will have less available.
if there is extra demand then typically more infrastructure is built to increase supply. we were able to increase it to meet the power consumption demands of manufacturing its only recently that we actually stopped improving our capacity. Increased demand here would actually drive us to increase our capacity instead of stagnating.
> The threat to stable and affordable electricity and water supply
The only threat to stable and affordable electricity supply is government regulations. The idea that we will from here on just have degrown and decline is insane. I'm not up for that. Which means we will always need more electricity, so time to get building more power plants. There is no bounds to how much electricity humans need, and the more we have the more prosperity we will have
As for water supply. Data centers barely make a blip on the water usage.
> The water, light and noise pollution?
The only one of these which actually has any validity is noise pollution, and the US has one of the lowest population densities of any country in the world, and data centres don't need to be close to population centres.
> The threat to jobs?
CEOs saying they are laying people off because of AI is not the same as anyone losing their job because of AI, but even if that was the case, it's about as smart as not using an electric drill to save jobs.
> The threat to truth and transparency?
AI does not only not threaten truth and transparency, it makes it easier to find the truth and to circumvent transperency restrictions.
> The only threat to stable and affordable electricity supply is government regulations
That is straight up not true. Theres currently a threat due to the imprudently started war in the Middle East, there will be more once rivers start drying up and hydropower becomes unreliable or nuclear power plants can no longer be cooled.
> Which means we will always need more electricity, so time to get building more power plants. There is no bounds to how much electricity humans need, and the more we have the more prosperity we will have
This is an ideological dogma smuggled in as a self-evident truth. Please do make a point, not just an unsupported declaration.
> That is straight up not true. Theres currently a threat due to the imprudently started war in the Middle East
The US does not use crude oil from the Gulf to generate electricity. The US could scale electricity production at least 100 times without needing to import anything from the Middle East.
> there will be more once rivers start drying up
Rivers will not be drying up because of data centers.
> The US does not use crude oil from the Gulf to generate electricity.
And yet, reserves are at historic lows. Markets are weird, huh?
> Rivers will not be drying up because of data centers.
That wasn't the claim made, rivers will be drying up because of climate change (they are already!), which is a threat to energy supply. Data centers will accelerate said climate change, but that's not even relevant to disprove your previous assertion of regulation being the only factor.
I'll also note you still haven't justified your core ideological assertion you tried smuggling in earlier in any way.
On our present course we're probably not going to reach Type I on the Kardashev scale, let alone Type II, because of collapse. We need to embrace long term planning instead of short term profits if we want to avoid that.
Of course we won't make Type I on the Kardashev scale if we abandon technological progress like AI.
"Long-term planning" has never once given us a quantum leap in technology. Having humans "plan" AI evolution is dumb. This stuff is happening. You can cry about it, but nothing you do will stop it from happening.
The best you can do is stop it from happening in your country, and the only result will be that your country will become completely insignificant within a couple of years.
It’s not “de growth”. I want sustainable growth, which to me means:
- no NDAs signed with elected officials who then stonewall the public and hide behind them
- paying the same prices for water and electricity that I pay
- paying the same property taxes and income taxes that I pay
- building in a fashion that doesn’t leave area residents stuck with bigger electric bills and water bills
All of these things can be done.
I have a tiny data centre. I get no sweetheart deals on the above tho bf s.
It’s not degrowth. It’s anti monopoly, anti wealth concentration. Anti tax avoidance. Anti price on water and electricity. Anti raising the ambient temperature of a community.
Let’s put the data center in Palo alto or Atherton.
In my state, when a data center needs a lot of new electricity generation, the way utilities are regulated, the existing customers pay for the new generation capacity. The new customer doesn't get the bill. Bills at the state legislature that would have changed this were effectively stopped by lobbyists.
Why would people possibly not want something that uses up water in times of constant draught, uses up energy in an energy crisis and pollutes the air and contributes to climate change in times of climate catastrophe, all so a few already way-too-rich dudes can become even richer?
It just doesn't make sense! Surely they were manipulated to hate progress!
I always hear about how concerned everyone is about water usage from data centers, however I haven't heard any of these people mention the amount of water we lose to leaking pipes. we lose 3x the amount of water to leaking pipes as data centers would use so if they're so concerned about water usage wouldn't fixing those be higher priority?
That's great news that California no longer has a water shortage, I was under the impression they were in a drought but since the have leaking pipes that can't be the case! Besides that I've seen people complaining about water usage from data centers in the great lakes region so it's absolutely not something limited to drought stricken regions.
are you confident the demand for massive ai datacenters peppered everywhere isn't just some financial gambit? wouldn't you ask for consequences and side-effects that are socially desirable, even if the facility brings no wealth to the immediate area (either as a consequence of being owned by a remote corp, or by the investment failing completely).
You’re going to get modded down but you’re right. Go look at these sites in Google Maps compared to datacenter sites that already exist and have existed for a decade.
Let's ignore the fact that congress and not the president that allocates funding, and the fact that "scientific funding" is not a recognized obligation or even right of any branch of the US government, and therefore hardly qualifies as an institution, and the fact that "scientific funding" included things like spending $14,000,000 to have monkeys play a "Price Is Right"-inspired video game[1].
Can you share exactly how much less was spent on "scientific funding" by the US government in 2025, and how exactly that amounts to Trump burning down the institutions?
you're the one using the line "burning down institutions". they are not burning down, but they are on fire, and we are already feeling very significant effects from this. The Trump admin is illegally witholding allocated funds.
Take the EPA for another example. There have been so many layoffs, so many departments that just don't answer the phone any more because they don't have any staff. Over 20% of the EPA staff was laid off. A lot of this is in research departments. The downstream effect will be felt for decades even if you aren't feeling it now.
> you're the one using the line "burning down institutions
No. I'm not. The post I responded to literally said: "By burning the institutions down", which is why I asked "Which institutions has Trump burned down?"
> Take the EPA for another example
EPA is not an institution, it's a regulatory body which is part of the executive branch of the US government.
Also very odd that you did not actually address my question: how much less was spent on "scientific funding" by the US government in 2025?
Social Security / Medicare need to reduce benefits and increase taxation. Let's start with the easy one; social security taxes. Make every dollar of income be taxed for social security. If you make over $150k (pick a number, I don't care where it is), then 100% of your social security is taxed as income. Or maybe tax it a little more.
Cut the federal government. (mini-doge, for lack of a better term). Stop the growth in the budget of each department. Pull back 10%; done sanely by assessing what the department is doing, what it is required to do, and what it doesn't need to do.
Cut the military. Do we need both a land based and sea based nuclear deterrent? Get rid of 1 of them. Cut active duty strength 10%. Stop ridiculous projects like "B-52 Re-engine and Radar update". (So, I am going to put money into my 1950 ford, when I can buy a 2026 model (B21) at a reasonable price... this is absurd)
Raise taxes. Not a lot, but raise them. Bring in more revenue. You don't have to eat the rich, just reach a little deeper into their pockets. (also, I don't care how you define rich. Pick a number)
Do all of these in a moderate amount, and you will be OK. The yearly deficit will shrink, and some of the outstanding bonds will be paid. It doesn't have to be fixed in a year; a 20 year plan, executed, is fine.
You can fix a deficit by reducing spending or increasing income.
Things like not cutting taxes when or letting tax cuts expire would help.
Ending programs can help, but not when it's done in unconstitutional ways that result in court expense, the program being reinstated, and backpay for no work. I'm sure some programs have fraud and waste, too; but the fiscally optimal amount of fraud and waste is not usually 0%.
Related: government shutdowns are also a big waste of money. You can blame those on whoever you like, but having them regularly is not fiscally responsible.
Well, how much did DOGE cut? If you're dependent on something like DOGE, it's hopeless, because as a method of cutting the federal budget, DOGE didn't work.
Where does all the wealth come from? I remeber, as a small boy, i learned Bill Gates was the richest man on earth with 8bn$. Today, Alon is ~120x that much. Where did all this came from?
"Money printer" is usually used negatively by right wingers to argue against debt driven social spending. The point missing in economics and politics is, that this money printer never stopped and it doesnt work for the many but for privileged elites. The superficial right wing response is just a reminder, whos in charge of their world view and fiscal policy.
The distortion of the public debate is reflected in your lopsided stance too, that you think you need DOGE to tackle the problem by cutting spending. There is another way.
Think about it this way, you have a money source, thus you should have a money sink, otherwise it migho get out of hand [1]. What could such a sink be? (i know you know it too.)
This is about as intelligent as say "If I were 17, I'd learn digital electroinics". You would waste your time. Sure, in theory it's useful, in reality it's not that useful.
What relevance does that have here, though? Most countries that are actually signatories don't even adhere to it. The UN is totally feckless and hypocritical, and even if they were not, they are antidemocratic.
How do you figure that? Does the UN define morality for all peoples in the world? Evidently not. What moral weight is added to some text if some governments of some countries have voted for it?
Not even the votes of the majority one people group in their national home define morality, so the votes of the UN General Assembly definitely does not define morality.
So the UN discovers morality by counting votes of government representatives of a bunch of countries for a document that was drafted without their input? And this somehow means it's representative of morality?
What relevance does the common ground between countries have to morality? How does the common ground between Turkey and Greece, Saudi Arabia and Iran, Russia and Ukraine, North Korea and South Korea, China and Japan "discover" morality? Countries almost by definition don't have common ground, the closest they have is contested ground. People may have common ground, but it's somewhat fanciful to suggest that the representatives of the 18 countries who drafted the UDHR somehow was in any position to act as the moral representatives even for the 18 countries they represented.
They were some diplomats, probably all thoroughly immoral people if we somehow ever manage to figure out what the word moral actually meant, which I doubt.
Can you elaborate on this process as you understand it? I just can't quite wrap my head around this. To me, it seems that at best this process will result in something that exactly no person in the world would recognize as moral. A bit like Solomon's proposal to split the baby.
How do you define morality if you think the UN can discover it? Is there any way to check their work? Can I do a test to see if they made a mistake as I can with any other scientific disciple which discovers things about our world? Does their work make some prediction that we can actually check against reality to see if it's true or false?
The UDHR is full of statements that wouldn't even be agreed upon in a room full of people in the US, let alone around the whole world:
> The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.
Social progressives would strongly disagree.
> Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.
Communists would strongly disagree.
> Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.
Several UN member states that are absolute monarchies would strongly disagree.
We could go on and on. The UDHR is just a distillation of the postwar liberal consensus, voted on by only 58 countries back in 1948. Hardly the stuff that moral authorities are made of.
Are you serious? Do you honestly think that I am talking about a schema for passing empty lists around?
If you are passing around lists of structured objects, I need you to send me what those objects are supposed to look like even if the list is empty sometimes. If you say "ok so sometimes I'll give you an object with a schema key and a list of data, other times I will just give you an empty list because I don't feel like it", everyone will hate you.
That's because you're trying to snarkily jump into a conversation you don't understand.
User `flanked-evergl` is asking why do you need a whole new format for this instead of just using json. And the answer is because everyone needs to agree on how to specify the format in the json, which `crote` suggests is as simple as doing `{"schema": ..., "data": ...}`.
There's your format. If you want everyone to agree on the `{"schema": ..., "data": ...}` pattern, you can no longer accept just `[]` as a return type. Every response has to include the `schema` and `data` keys.
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