Why I'm Learning Sumerian • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I'm Learning Sumerian

#51

Post by iLoveOncall » Fri, Nov 14, 2025, 8:59 AM UTC

curtisblaine wrote: post #38

alex_young wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe indeed an LLM would have caught my little faux pas, or perhaps invented a more eloquent one.

> Maybe indeed an LLM would have caught my little faux pas, or perhaps invented a more eloquent one. reply Did you just respond to yourself but forgot to switch your handle?

This is so weird, because the author of the comment isn't the author of the article, given how different they look on their respective pictures.

Not too sure what the incentive is here. Maybe just advertising his AI business?

Re: Why I'm Learning Sumerian

#52

Post by taylorius » Fri, Nov 14, 2025, 9:04 AM UTC

Clearly summoning Zuul.

Re: Why I'm Learning Sumerian

#53

Post by _moof » Fri, Nov 14, 2025, 9:04 AM UTC

hashbig wrote: post #4

"That's when I learned the difference between burnout and disillusionment. Burnout drains your body; disillusionment erases your purpose. You can recover from exhaustion with rest, but you need something else entirely to recover from meaninglessness." This is an accurate pathology to burnout at least in my experience. I worked on many hard things in my life, from school to obsessing over hard problems on weekends but…

A local maximum. "Maxima" is plural for "maximum".

Re: Why I'm Learning Sumerian

#54

Post by Cthulhu_ » Fri, Nov 14, 2025, 9:05 AM UTC

hashbig wrote: post #4

"That's when I learned the difference between burnout and disillusionment. Burnout drains your body; disillusionment erases your purpose. You can recover from exhaustion with rest, but you need something else entirely to recover from meaninglessness." This is an accurate pathology to burnout at least in my experience. I worked on many hard things in my life, from school to obsessing over hard problems on weekends but…

> I was working on menial, meaningless, tasks that I knew amounted to nothing while I was doing them. That caused my burnout.

Another phrase I recently heard about is bore-out, where you just lose your motivation because the job is unstimulating or meaningless (but you know you and your job can be better).

Re: Why I'm Learning Sumerian

#55

Post by Cthulhu_ » Fri, Nov 14, 2025, 9:07 AM UTC

androng wrote: post #22

theletterf wrote: post #13

They had the guts and willpower to learn Sumerian. Why, I wonder, had they to use an LLM to write the essay about it? It kind of invalidates the core messages.

GPTZero says its 44% AI generated

GPTZero also says one of your previous comments is partially AI generated though.

Re: Why I'm Learning Sumerian

#56

Post by Cthulhu_ » Fri, Nov 14, 2025, 9:08 AM UTC

theletterf wrote: post #20

some_guy_nobel wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you say that? Sad how easy it is for someone to dismiss writing these days as, "must be AI written!" (I'd wager the average LLM blog post takes more effort than your dismissive response, though I wish I didn't have to read either). I'm not a fan of the author's writing, but you can look at their other articles and see the same (non-AI feeling) style of writing and general theme of content (airport-book sty…

I usually don't care too much if a post was written using AI (this one was written at least partially using it, check it out using GPT zero), but in this case it irks me deeply, because the post is meant to summarize deep intellectual effort.

I find it hard to believe someone who is clearly used to deep work would take a shortcut like that. I'm not saying they didn't, just that it doesn't fit.

Re: Why I'm Learning Sumerian

#57

Post by Cthulhu_ » Fri, Nov 14, 2025, 9:10 AM UTC

cynicalsecurity wrote: post #10

Fella says you don’t need to monetise everything, then writes about it on a blog with a subscribe button and affiliate disclaimer. Okay.

As long as the affiliates aren't for substandard copper at least.

Re: Why I'm Learning Sumerian

#58

Post by dkga » Fri, Nov 14, 2025, 9:18 AM UTC

alex_young wrote: post #29

…Sumerian, written in cuneiform, was humanity's first writing system. A language that hasn't been spoken in four thousand years. The same question circles again: Why am I doing this? Why am I trying to learn Sumerian, a language that hasn't been spoken for five thousand years?… Watch out reader, by the end it maybe indeed turn out that Sumerian hasn’t been spoken for 10, 20, or 30 thousand years. The LLM just doesn’t…

I chucked because it reminded me of the Steven Soderbergh movie with Matt Damon, "The Informant!"

Re: Why I'm Learning Sumerian

#59

Post by phatfish » Fri, Nov 14, 2025, 9:19 AM UTC

cynicalsecurity wrote: post #10

Fella says you don’t need to monetise everything, then writes about it on a blog with a subscribe button and affiliate disclaimer. Okay.

And we get to know about the "hard work" by reading what ChatGPT cooked up.

Re: Why I'm Learning Sumerian

#60

Post by ErroneousBosh » Fri, Nov 14, 2025, 9:27 AM UTC

alex_young wrote: post #29

…Sumerian, written in cuneiform, was humanity's first writing system. A language that hasn't been spoken in four thousand years. The same question circles again: Why am I doing this? Why am I trying to learn Sumerian, a language that hasn't been spoken for five thousand years?… Watch out reader, by the end it maybe indeed turn out that Sumerian hasn’t been spoken for 10, 20, or 30 thousand years. The LLM just doesn’t…

> Watch out reader, by the end it maybe indeed turn out that Sumerian hasn’t been spoken for 10, 20, or 30 thousand years. The LLM just doesn’t know what sounds better.

"Dad, can I have ten pounds?"

"Five pounds? What do you want two pounds for? I'm not giving you a pound just like that without a reason!"