Laptops create systems. Phones feed algorithms. The asymmetry determines power • Hacker News Board

Re: Laptops create systems. Phones feed algorithms. The asymmetry determines power

#41

Post by Aurornis » Sun, Oct 05, 2025, 3:23 PM UTC

steveBK123 wrote: post #21

I'd take it a step further and say this distinction is also contributing to the erosion of hobbies in younger generations. Even more so it is eroding time spent on productive / skill based hobbies and lean into consumption based hobbies. Due to the rise of influencers, social media is barely a sharing platform anymore.. its just decentralized long-tailed broadcast media. Many modern people think dining out and travel…

EDIT: The author has been changing the post in real-time to try to undermine the comments calling out the clear AI use. The article now contains an admission that AI was used and the obvious AI slop image has been cleaned up. Some of these comments won’t make sense if you’re looking at the updated article.

Did you notice that this entire blog is just an LLM content farm newsletter? That the laptop in the headline image has a double keyboard AI artifact that the author didn't even spend 10 seconds cropping out?

The recent posts hit all the common points in LLM hallucinated content like the famous "recursive protocol" trope. The posts are about BS like "UFO markets" and reality protocols.

It's ironic that people are consuming this obvious AI slop uncritically while criticizing other people for their uncritical consumption of media on their phones.

Re: Laptops create systems. Phones feed algorithms. The asymmetry determines power

#42

Post by zahirbmirza » Sun, Oct 05, 2025, 3:33 PM UTC

Most millionaires and billionaires and World leaders did not need laptops to attain positions of power, success and influence.

An impression being created here that laptops are the best creation tools, and that users have the right to greater control on them. MacOS, iOS, Windows and Android are just extensions of each other. In a continually connected device ecosystem, there is a false perception of power and control in the writer's mind about using a Laptop.

I certainly think that laptops have better software and interfaces for some types of work. But, Capcut mobile is earier to use and more powerful in the hands of the 99.9% than any desktop editing tool.

What we must remember, is that where once the limitation to productivity was typing, or clicking, LLMs and AI assisted tasks are going to afford mobile users the power that was once only available to computer users. For example, who needs to edit chunks of code when bitrig or cursor mobile (early in their stages of company development) do the laborious work for you. The limitation of mobile devices is now only one of perception.

Re: Laptops create systems. Phones feed algorithms. The asymmetry determines power

#43

Post by fsflover » Sun, Oct 05, 2025, 3:43 PM UTC

rr808 wrote: post #15

I just wish this were true, all I see now is convergence between the two platforms. Perhaps a linux workstation is still configurable enough to stay true.

This is why I'm using a GNU/Linux phone.

Re: Laptops create systems. Phones feed algorithms. The asymmetry determines power

#44

Post by zakelfassi » Sun, Oct 05, 2025, 3:46 PM UTC

Aurornis wrote: post #41

steveBK123 wrote: post #21

I'd take it a step further and say this distinction is also contributing to the erosion of hobbies in younger generations. Even more so it is eroding time spent on productive / skill based hobbies and lean into consumption based hobbies. Due to the rise of influencers, social media is barely a sharing platform anymore.. its just decentralized long-tailed broadcast media. Many modern people think dining out and travel…

EDIT: The author has been changing the post in real-time to try to undermine the comments calling out the clear AI use. The article now contains an admission that AI was used and the obvious AI slop image has been cleaned up. Some of these comments won’t make sense if you’re looking at the updated article. Did you notice that this entire blog is just an LLM content farm newsletter? That the laptop in the headline ima…

Oh well. If you say so.

Re: Laptops create systems. Phones feed algorithms. The asymmetry determines power

#45

Post by Aurornis » Sun, Oct 05, 2025, 4:00 PM UTC

floundy wrote: post #20

willidiots wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole thing feels AI-padded.

I’m not going crazy, right, nearly nobody aside from professional writers used em dashes prior to 2022. And the whole bolded topic intro, colon, short 1-2 sentence explanation seems way more like a product of GPT formatting than how organic humans would structure it? So much writing on the internet seems derivative nowadays (because it is, thanks to AI). I’d rather not read it though, it’s boring and feels like a sam…

The entire blog is full of characteristic LLM styles: The faux structure on top of rambling style, the unnecessary and forced bullet point comparisons with equal numbers of bullets, the retreading of the same concept in different words section after section.

The rest of the blog has even more obvious AI output, such as the “recursive protocol” posts and writing about reality and consciousness. This is the classic output you get (especially use of ‘recursive’) when you try to get ChatGPT to write something that feels profound.

Re: Laptops create systems. Phones feed algorithms. The asymmetry determines power

#46

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Oct 05, 2025, 4:00 PM UTC

Aurornis wrote: post #41

steveBK123 wrote: post #21

I'd take it a step further and say this distinction is also contributing to the erosion of hobbies in younger generations. Even more so it is eroding time spent on productive / skill based hobbies and lean into consumption based hobbies. Due to the rise of influencers, social media is barely a sharing platform anymore.. its just decentralized long-tailed broadcast media. Many modern people think dining out and travel…

EDIT: The author has been changing the post in real-time to try to undermine the comments calling out the clear AI use. The article now contains an admission that AI was used and the obvious AI slop image has been cleaned up. Some of these comments won’t make sense if you’re looking at the updated article. Did you notice that this entire blog is just an LLM content farm newsletter? That the laptop in the headline ima…

[deleted]

Re: Laptops create systems. Phones feed algorithms. The asymmetry determines power

#47

Post by wizzwizz4 » Sun, Oct 05, 2025, 4:00 PM UTC

zakelfassi wrote: post #44

Aurornis wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EDIT: The author has been changing the post in real-time to try to undermine the comments calling out the clear AI use. The article now contains an admission that AI was used and the obvious AI slop image has been cleaned up. Some of these comments won’t make sense if you’re looking at the updated article. Did you notice that this entire blog is just an LLM content farm newsletter? That the laptop in the headline ima…

Oh well. If you say so.

It's an interesting keyboard layout, though.

  ± 2 3 3 2 6 7 8 0 0 = * -
   M W C B T Y U F O P ] [ [ [
    A G G E R H J K L | / ├ examb
   ² X C V B N M / ꕯ └ ;

Your other keyboard has even more exotic glyphs: is that APL?

Re: Laptops create systems. Phones feed algorithms. The asymmetry determines power

#48

Post by zakelfassi » Sun, Oct 05, 2025, 4:08 PM UTC

Meta-response to a lot of these comments: My high school teacher in 2004 accused me of plagiarizing from Wikipedia because my research paper looked "too polished" for something typed on a keyboard instead of handwritten. Twenty years later, HN commenters see clean prose and assume LLM slop. Same discomfort, different decade, identical pattern: people resist leverage they haven't internalized yet.

I use AI tools the way I used spell-check, grammar tools, and search engines before them; as cognitive leverage, not cognitive replacement. The ideas are mine. The arguments are mine. The cultural references, personal stories, and synthesis across domains—all mine. If the output reads coherently, maybe that says more about expectations than about authenticity.

You can call it slop. Or you can engage with the ideas. One takes effort. The other takes a glance at a header image and a decision that polish equals automation. Your choice reveals more about your relationship to technology than mine :)

Re: Laptops create systems. Phones feed algorithms. The asymmetry determines power

#49

Post by zakelfassi » Sun, Oct 05, 2025, 4:10 PM UTC

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #47

zakelfassi wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh well. If you say so.

It's an interesting keyboard layout, though. ± 2 3 3 2 6 7 8 0 0 = * - M W C B T Y U F O P ] [ [ [ A G G E R H J K L | / ├ examb ² X C V B N M / ꕯ └ ; Your other keyboard has even more exotic glyphs: is that APL?

I'm sorry the GenAI image prevented you from engaging with the ideas. Layout removed if that makes you and others feel better.

Re: Laptops create systems. Phones feed algorithms. The asymmetry determines power

#50

Post by zakelfassi » Sun, Oct 05, 2025, 4:16 PM UTC

Aurornis wrote: post #39

This blog is an LLM newsletter content factory. It's more obvious in the other articles. Look at the heading and sub-heading of a post from a couple weeks ago: > Witnesses Carry Weights: How Reality Gets Computed > From UFO counsel to neighborhood fear to market pricing—reality emerges through weighted witnessing. A field guide to the computational machinery where intent, energy, and expectations become causal forces…

1/ So far, you've made five comments about this throughout the thread. 2/ I've added an update at the top; pasting it here as well:

"My high school teacher in 2004 accused me of plagiarizing from Wikipedia because my research paper looked "too polished" for something typed on a keyboard instead of handwritten. Twenty years later, HN commenters see clean prose and assume LLM slop. Same discomfort, different decade, identical pattern: people resist leverage they haven't internalized yet.

I use AI tools the way I used spell-check, grammar tools, and search engines before them—as cognitive leverage, not cognitive replacement. The ideas are mine. The arguments are mine. The cultural references, personal stories, and synthesis across domains—all mine. If the output reads coherently, maybe that says more about expectations than about authenticity.

You can call it slop. Or you can engage with the ideas. One takes effort. The other takes a glance at a header image and a decision that polish equals automation. Your choice reveals more about your relationship to technology than mine."