Cursor 3

I only used Cursor in short bursts so 20 USD per month was hard to justify. I recently switched to VSCodium + Cline + OpenRouter and I can use any model I want (currently Step 3.5 Flash for "Temu Sonnet"). It scratches the itch very well for me for literal pennies on the dollar.

I should also add: Cline doesn't require any account at all. I just installed the extension and added my OpenRouter API key and that was it.

As these products mature people are going to see more of this stuff. These are the contours of the market. The technology is incredible but it’s still subservient to the economics of building products.

It’s the “why can’t Facebook just show me a chronological feed of people I follow”. Because it’s not in their interests to do so.

Which is true for human-written code as well.

In both cases, it's your processes (automated testing, review, manual QA) that is the bulwark against bugs and issues.

With AI, you can set up great processes like having it check every PR against the source code of your dependencies or having it generate tests for what's an intermediate step or ephemeral solution that you would never write tests for if you had to do it yourself.

There's this idea on HN that if you delegate too much to AI, you get worse code. Presumably not appreciating all the code-improving processes you can delegate to AI, particularly processes you were never doing for hand-written code.

(I think I agree), Georgist here, Our point is also that these rent-seeking abilities (something which even the creator of capitalism famously hated the land-lords quite a lot)

This is the issue with something like Cursor and VC's funding because I feel like these private equities essentially seek rent in their own way by hollowing out the products from within, to maximize profits without doing efforts in a manner very similar to Rent-seeking, and most large companies also feel like a rent-seeking on the monopoly that they establish (like google or facebook)

I have made someone who was communist/socialist agree to georgism and I have had someone who was extremely capitalist agree to georgism, and to be honest, whether it be georgism or anti capitalism or socialism, I think that the world just wants a system where a person is treated with dignity within the economic cogs.

My opinion is that as long as we can all agree on the last premise about dignity for individuals within the economic cogs, we can all have meaningful conversations to make that a premise, hopefully a reality.

(I feel like the people who might deny dignity to people within this particular context, have either a bias/incentive to not look towards the problem, or are uninformed, or lack the energy to fight towards change within the system, and more importantly the _hope_ that the future can be better)

I am not hopeful about the current political systems (even around the whole-world at times), I feel like there should be more information and decentralization within politics.

Essentially, politics really just feel unaccountable to me, your vote really stops mattering to politicians if/when money starts talking. But technically, this system can be broken through with enough votes.

I really hope for a future where politics and politicians feel accountable and genuine, maybe even someone from down the street who we can have some chats with to actually know them.

Ironically or unironically, just as how the landlords pushed against Georgism/George within really making political difference, The same is happening right now as well where Online landlord monopolies dictate how people interpret and vote by using their algorithms/influence.

Politics like many other problems feel like a chicken and egg problem, like things work until they don't and things don't work until they do. At a more individual level, stepping outside of most algorithms and the reason why I joined hackernews is for doing something like this, myself.

It is easier to imagine the end of the world then the end of feudalism.

I kind of like the story of how Malthus had his theory of societal collapse because he couldn’t imagine a better system then mercantilism. That societies would rather collapse then to end their colonial monopolies.

I see a similar theory today with around depopulation, that as society gets older and relatively fewer working age people there are, that society would rather collapse then we find a better system then Capitalism.