I think this classification of "trolls" is sort of a truism. If you assume off the bat that someone is explicitly acting in bad faith, then yes, it's true that engaging won't work.
That said, if we say "when has engaging faithfully with someone ever worked?" then I would hope that you have some personal experiences that would substantiate that. I know I do, I've had plenty of conversations with people where I've changed their minds, and I myself have changed my mind on many topics.
> When has "talking to an LLM" or human bot ever made it stop talking to you lol?
I suspect that if you instruct an LLM to not engage, statistically, it won't do that thing.
> Writing a hitpiece with AI because your AI pull request got rejected seems to be the definition of bad faith.
Well, for one thing, it seems like the AI did that autonomously. Regardless, the author of the message said that it was for others - it's not like it was a DM, this was a public message.
> Why should anyone put any more effort into a response than what it took to generate?
For all of the reasons I've brought up already. If your goal is to convince someone of a position then the effort you put in isn't tightly coupled to the effort that your interlocutor put sin.
> For all of the reasons I've brought up already. If your goal is to convince someone of a position then the effort you put in isn't tightly coupled to the effort that your interlocutor put sin.
If someone is demonstrating bad faith, the goal is no longer to convince them of anything, but to convince onlookers. You don't necessarily need to put in a ton of effort to do so, and sometimes - such as in this case - the crowd is already on your side.
Winning the attention economy against a internet troll is a strategy almost as old as the existence of internet trolls themselves.
Convince who? Reasonable people that have any sense in their brain do not have to be convinced that this behavior is annoying and a waste of time. Those that do it, are not going to be persuaded, and many are doing it for selfish reasons or even to annoy maintainers.
The proper engagement (no engagement at all except maybe a small paragraph saying we aren't doing this go away) communicates what needs to be communicated, which is this won't be tolerated and we don't justify any part of your actions. Writing long screeds of deferential prose gives these actions legitimacy they don't deserve.
Either these spammers are unpersuadable or they will get the message that no one is going to waste their time engaging with them and their "efforts" as minimal as they are, are useless. This is different than explaining why.
You're showing them it's not legitimate even of deserving any amount of time to engage with them. Why would they be persuadable if they already feel it's legitimate? They'll just start debating you if you act like what they're doing deserves some sort of negotiation, back and forth, or friendly discourse.
> Reasonable people that have any sense in their brain do not have to be convinced that this behavior is annoying and a waste of time.
Reasonable people disagree on things all the time. Saying that anyone who disagrees with you must not be reasonable is very silly to me. I think I'm reasonable, and I assume that you think you are reasonable, but here we are, disagreeing. Do you think your best response here would be to tell me to fuck off or is it to try to discuss this with me to sway me on my position?
> Writing long screeds of deferential prose gives these actions legitimacy they don't deserve.
Again we come back to "legitimacy". What is it about legitimacy that's so scary? Again, the other party already thinks that what they are doing is legitimate.
> Either these spammers are unpersuadable or they will get the message that no one is going to waste their time engaging with them and their "efforts" as minimal as they are, are useless.
I really wonder if this has literally ever worked. Has insulting someone or dismissing them literally ever stopped someone from behaving a certain way, or convinced them that they're wrong? Perhaps, but I strongly suspect that it overwhelmingly causes people to instead double down.
I suspect this is overwhelmingly true in cases where the person being insulted has a community of supporters to fall back on.
> Why would they be persuadable if they already feel it's legitimate?
Rational people are open to having their minds changed. If someone really shows that they aren't rational, well, by all means you can stop engaging. No one is obligated to engage anyways. My suggestion is only that the maintainer's response was appropriate and is likely going to be far more convincing than "fuck off, clanker".
> They'll just start debating you if you act like what they're doing is some sort of negotiation.
Debating isn't negotiating. No one is obligated to debate, but obviously debate is an engagement in which both sides present a view. Maybe I'm out of the loop, but I think debate is a good thing. I think people discussing things is good. I suppose you can reject that but I think that would be pretty unfortunate. What good has "fuck you" done for the world?
LLM spammers are not rationale, smart, nor do they deserve courtesy.
Debate is a fine thing with people close to your interests and mindset looking for shared consensus or some such. Not for enemies. Not for someone spamming your open source project with LLM nonsense who is harming your project, wasting your time, and doesn't deserve to be engaged with as an equal, a peer, a friend, or reasonable.
I mean think about what you're saying: This person that has wasted your time already should now be entitled to more of your time and to a debate? This is ridiculous.
> I really wonder if this has literally ever worked.
I'm saying it shows them they will get no engagement with you, no attention, nothing they are doing will be taken seriously, so at best they will see that their efforts are futile. But in any case it costs the maintainer less effort. Not engaging with trolls or idiots is the more optimal choice than engaging or debating which also "never works" but more-so because it gives them attention and validation while ignoring them does not.
> What is it about legitimacy that's so scary?
I don't know what this question means, but wasting your time, and giving them engagement will create more comments you will then have to respond to. What is it about LLM spammers that you respect so much? Is that what you do?. I don't know about "scary" but they certainly do not deserve it. Do you disagree?
> LLM spammers are not rationale, smart, nor do they deserve courtesy.
The comment that was written was assuming that someone reading it would be rational enough to engage. If you think that literally every person reading that comment will be a bad faith actor then I can see why you'd believe that the comment is unwarranted, but the comment was explicitly written on the assumption that that would not be universally the case, which feels reasonable.
> Debate is a fine thing with people close to your interests and mindset looking for shared consensus or some such. Not for enemies.
That feels pretty strange to me. Debate is exactly for people who you don't agree with. I've had great conversations with people on extremely divisive topics and found that we can share enough common ground to move the needle on opinions. If you only debate people who already agree with you, that seems sort of pointless.
> I mean think about what you're saying: This person that has wasted your time already should now be entitled to more of your time and to a debate?
I've never expressed entitlement. I've suggested that it's reasonable to have the goal of convincing others of your position and, if that is your goal, that it would be best served by engaging. I've never said that anyone is obligated to have that goal or to engage in any specific way.
> "never works"
I'm not convinced that it never works, that's counter to my experience.
> but more-so because it gives them attention and validation while ignoring them does not.
Again, I don't see why we're so focused on this idea of validation or legitimacy.
> I don't know what this question means
There's a repeated focus on how important it is to not "legitimize" or "validate" certain people. I don't know why this is of such importance that it keeps being placed above anything else.
> What is it about LLM spammers that you respect so much?
Nothing at all.
> I don't know about "scary" but they certainly do not deserve it. Do you disagree?
> walk with their passport so they are not sent to jail
No, it's broken because we've allowed millions of foreigners to come in and raise said healthcare and housing costs. Checking that people here actually belong here else they're deported is part of the "cost of living" solution, in addition to crime.
For one thing that document argues that one of the single greatest costs to citizens of immigration is somehow a benefit: increased housing costs. They talk of higher property tax collections from increased home values, this is just another way to say immigration is increasing housing costs and taxes for native population.
The Federal Reserve confirmed this a couple years ago that housing inflation was in part due to a large increase in immigrant population over last few years.
> we've allowed millions of foreigners to come in and raise said healthcare and housing costs
They also raise your GDP by a lot more than they cost.
Australia and New Zealand have about 30% foreign born population, and we do fine.
Maybe add 100 million more people into the US before you would have problems that get difficult.
The biggest cost of healthcare is staff, and a lot of the staff here come from overseas so it's kinda self-sustaining (in the short term). The biggest cost of housing is people whinging and whining about it. NZ and AU does build plenty of housing (land isn't a constraint). Many people in the building industry were born overseas.
It isn't all rainbows, but it mostly works for us.
The US has about 290 million native-born citizens and 25 million naturalized citizens. It has maybe 15 million unauthorized immigrants (of which approx 80% are of working age).
One should always compare population densities, rather than absolute numbers.
Foreigners competing for jobs and housing stock and territory is bad for current citizens. Add to it the political effect of shifting the politics away from national and citizen interests and towards more support for foreigner interests, and it's worse.
The net fiscal impact from the cohort of immigrants we get now is negative; they cost taxpayers more than they contribute. They take more from welfare and social services than than they pay in and more than current citizens. Additionally there is increased crime. There are so many of these that are not adding any economic benefit period, and for those that do, that benefit accrues to a small subset of business owners and politicians, not the general population of citizens. H1B expansion of foreign worker visas for example is bad for displaced American workers. The mindset that considers their own fellow citizens lacking such that they want to replace them with foreigners is insane to me. None of these western countries needs something such that they must get it from others; they can cultivate all of this from their own people, and birthrates would increase if not for the crowding out through increased costs especially housing, insurance, and depressed wages from importation of immigrants.
When I drive on the roads, when I shop for housing or apartments, when I want to pay for car insurance, when I got public spaces, parks, cities, vacation spots, got to stores.... I've never ever had the thought "You know what would make my quality of life better? If we had 100 million more people especially those that come from a different culture and speak a different language here and everywhere else right now". That is such a ridiculously foolish mindset, and disservice to one's own neighbors and such. Makes no sense to me.
My point is that your opinions are not universal facts. Some of what you say might be true for the US, and we've heard of other countries with severe issues due to immigration. But your opinions appear to me to be simply unbalanced anti-immigrant.
Australia and especially New Zealand use immigration to help their economies and while that can cause problems, those problems have mostly been addressed over time. We are using immigration as a bandaid to help fix the demographic problem of too many retirees versus not enough workers. Many countries have the same problem, and the problem is getting worse as people choose not to have children. I admit it is an unstable workaround given that those immigrants eventually become retirees. But it is a functional workaround.
Over the last decade, New Zealand’s housing stock has grown by approximately 16% (mostly through densification). I believe Australia is similar. The US administration or culture seems to lack the ability to do the same, but other countries are managing to do it so that's where it look for reasons why.
> That is such a ridiculously foolish mindset
No need to be rude. I have given you examples of how New Zealand and Australia have mostly successfully dealt with a large percentage of immigration. This is fact not fantasy.
The US was built on immigrants with great outcomes, there's no economic reason the US can't pull finger and do it again.
Australia has all the same problems with immigration, just much worse. [0]
I've come across so many Australians online holding the same sentiments as myself. "Per capita" measures of "economy" mean more to me than nebulous claims of the the overall economy benefiting from immigration. When I look over time the quality of life and level of development in Australia, nothing points to any such need of an influx of millions of foreigners for most Australians. It's obvious why some businesses want to improve labor margins and why politicians benefit from diluting domestic voters base and important a voting block, though mostly it's a sort of civic religious belief apart from any practical concrete benefit so many leaders support it because they think it is a moral obligation.
Lower birth rates, massively unaffordable housing, strains on public programs and healthcare, as well as reshaping the character and ethnic makeup of the country all to the detriment most especially of young people are all reasons why I think Australia's mass immigration program is traitorous to its own citizens. Japan has more of an immigration policy I think is worth emulating, which is to the benefit of it's own people.
So much of "living in a place" is a zero-sum competition for resources with everyone else around you. Doubly so when you take into account intangible social loyalties and support networks, trust, sense of community etc that all go down as diversity rises. But again, just the massive increase in people in and of itself is huge punch in the face to young people and other citizens. What these people do not need is a rise in competition over space, and rival claims on democratic political power.
I think there is no mainstream policy you can advocate for that is as detrimental to and harms your fellow citizens more than immigration.
My few paragraphs or your few paragraphs can only encompass trite answers.
There is no obviously good solution. We can only hope our glorious leaders find good compromises.
I am mostly trying to suggest you look at how different countries manage (positively and negatively) their "demographic time bomb".
It is unclear whether immigration is a strongly beneficial solution since it does cause friction.
> Australians online > same sentiments
Please take care with your arguments because anecdotal evidence generalises poorly (especially for topics that are common in echo chambers - it is difficult to avoid ones own biases).
It is clear that immigration is broadly unpopular. The question is whether the rewards are worth the risks?
I predict Australia and particularly New Zealand will continue to use immigration to help their economies, despite pitfalls.
I don't feel confident to predict anything about the US. The government there (either party) continues to surprise me with its recklessness; however systematically it surprises me with its resilience.
Last year I was in New Orleans for a month and as an in person snapshot I saw a lot of negative signals for the future.
I try to care about economics as a topic because for retirement investment I kinda have to invest overseas. However, this year I've withdrawn from the US stock market (later I will learn if that was a mistake).
Your link is irrelevant because (a) New Zealand already has that specific problem in spades - it isn't a scare tactic here, and (b) while it is difficult to find unbiased links - you can try to avoid obviously biased links
All of these countries had massive population increase in past 100 years. It is natural especially for high density, smaller size regions to experience a reversal in growth rates of population which is the natural and desired compensation to previous eras of huge population growth given finite space, and other resources and the zero-sum nature of all of this including political power and representation.
Importing foreigners makes your own domestic birth rates worse than they otherwise would be! Some levels of automation will make the overall labor needs lower than they have been in the past. Countries that import many millions of (often) 3rd world populations or in general more bodies wherever they come from that must be employed (or subsidized by taxpayers) and also that are going to want to be married and have children are simply going to exacerbate the fiscal problems, the social problems, the unemployment problems, the family formation problems, while creating resource constraints you otherwise wouldn't have.
So much of this nonsense talk of need for immigrants is policy based on propping up the asset values and lifestyles and subsidization of the elderly which apart even from immigration is arguably the 2nd biggest travesty western nations are subjecting their young people to (prioritizing everything related to interest of the old at the expense of the young, see: COVID). The natural course of events MUST be population growth slow/decline until elderly die out and while you back-fill growth from younger people from your own country to have their own ability to grow, buy real estate, have families, have jobs, not pay exorbitant transfer payments to old and immigrants either through social services, or lost wages. Stealing this opportunity by giving this slack away to foreigners is just so evil in my view.
The carrying-capacity in terms of "comfortable lifestyle" akin to what our recent ancestors experienced in their nations during peacetime is what it is, and when we bump up against those limits, we can't fool ourselves that whatever pain comes next can be solved by causing other worse problems of filling our countries up with more people we have to compete against for everything and making already tough resource constraints worse. How much more unhappy and hopeless for housing and family formation will Australians be as millions and millions more immigrants come in? Why would anyone want that and how does it solve whatever demographics problem you think exists? The solution is population decline, which would help young people. Of course if there is some iron law of politics or the universe that states young people must bear the burden of subsidizing the complete comfort of old people from birth to death, well then we're already screwed.
I don't think it's just anecdotal it's a loud chorus over many decades of popular opposition from large portions of western nations in our supposed "democracies" that is ignored by most players in politics.
> No, it's broken because we've allowed millions of foreigners to come in and raise said healthcare and housing costs.
The idea that deporting every undocumented person will reduce the bloat and profit extraction in our health care system is making me giggle.
And do you really think checking every person is a strategy that scales? Why not just indiscriminately jail the people who hire them and thereby create a strong incentive to come?
Maybe those workers actually belong here more than you'd like to admit, but the powers that be enjoy keeping their status uncertain to use as a piñata they can beat whenever they need political candy.
> issues auto-close after 1 week of inactivity, meanwhile PRs submitted 10 years ago remains open.
It's definitely a mess, but based on the massive decline in signal vs noise of public comments and issues on open source recently, that's not a bad heuristic for filtering quality.
Yes, of course I think they lied, because a trustworthy person would never consider 0-effort regurgitated LLM boilerplate as a useful contribution to an issue thread. It's that simple.
> If the spec was sufficient to fully specify the program, it would be the program
Very salient concept in regards to LLM's and the idea that one can encode a program one wishes to see output in natural English language input. There's lots of room for error in all of these LLM transformations for same reason.
It's not so much crazy as very lame and stupid and dumb. The moment has allowed people doing dumb things to somehow grab the attention of many in the industry for a few moments. There's nothing "there".
What's that got to do with burning thousands of dollars producing nothing of value, and a lot of useless code created by agents you turn loose while advocating not reviewing it? "Used LLMs" is a non-sequitur here. What did your agent build with you spending thousands of dollars and not reviewing the code? If you have something high quality to show that followed this process link it here, else what are you even talking about?
Of course this is true but seems to be one of the most underrated facts of modern society. Always it is proposed without question to expand access to things, to "democratize" them, open barriers, open borders. But this invariably lowers quality while crowding out those already enjoying them. Think of any quality club, park, vacation spot, restaurant, online forum whatever: none of these are improved for your own usage of the thing by adding more people to it at least beyond some threshold. A lot of this is zero sum, and quality is in tension with quantity.
When has engaging with trolls ever worked? When has "talking to an LLM" or human bot ever made it stop talking to you lol?
reply