I am still confused why this argument is still valid to anyone...
Not only China has 4 times more population than the US, but they produce all the stuff that the US buys, so if the US had to produce all that stuff on their own they would emit so much more carbon.
I think we are presented with a false dichotomy here, as you can use llm tools for menial tasks and code whatever scratches your itch at the same time. For me, I really do not enjoy writing any frontend, html, javascript, whatever; I just want to bring some website I need to light. I focus on other code and that is what brings me joy.
And here I am, 2026, and one of my purposes for this year is to learn to write better, communicate more fluently, and convey my ideas in a more attractive way.
I do not think that these skills are so easily replaced; certainly the machine can do a lot, but if you acquire those skills yourself you shape your brain in a way that is definitely useful to you in many other aspects of life.
In my humble opinion we will be losing that from people, the upscaling of skills will be lost for sure, but the human upscaling is the real loss.
It is such a challenge! As English is not my first language I have to do some mind gimnastics to really convey my thoughts. 'On writing well' is on my list to read, it is supposed to help.
Agreed in principle, but replying to a concrete, personal, whimsical comment with a generic, ideological, denunciatory comment is not a good way to develop a thread on Hacker News. In fact it's the opposite. That's why the site guidelines say:
You'd think I'd feel differently having seven parrots, but you may be surprised to find I agree with you. To an extent anyway. I struggle with it.
Don't bring a parrot into captivity from the wild. Separating them from the life they already know is cruel -- save for medical exceptions, after which you release them back.
But it's already been done, and we have domesticated parrots. They are raised by humans, hand-fed by humans, and they bond with humans. They have slim odds of reintegrating back into the wild, where they fend for their lives against other territorial birds. One swoop from a hawk and they're gone.
Gone, your buddies that are an integral part of your every day. They climb on your shoulder and attach themselves to you like velcro. They mimic your laugh and preen your hair. You trim their nails, you give them all kinds of delicious fruits and veggies every day. They throw fruit back at you that they don't want, like little children throwing a tantrum. They have a giant daytime aviary that takes up quite literally half your home, and their own night time cages to sleep and rest in.
All they know is you and the human touch. They integrated with you and you're their only flock now. The bond of a parrot is extreme and lifelong.
Imagine the devestation when their only flock abandons them. A prior owner of one of my birds left their cage outside an exotic's facility, like a child in a basket outside the fire station.
For another, she came from a flock of two. Her prior owner murdered the other -- the remaining one is laying an egg now.
For two others, their owner's parrots themselves had fertile eggs. She couldn't bring herself to boil, freeze, or smash the eggs as you're supposed to do with eggs you do not want to hatch.
For two others, their prior owner of 25 years passed away. And for one other, she simply needed a new home.
They all have a home here now where they will peacefully enjoy the rest of their lives with me. I hope to never let them go hungry, alone, abused -- so I have to outlive them and make sure I am their last owner.
But as we wish more for our children, I wish more for them. I wish they could fly to the end of a lake and back and know how it feels to feel the breeze under their wings. I wish they could be adopted by a flock of their own kind. That they could endure the harshness of the wild -- and perhaps even come home after a long, fruitful, eventful day outside.
Thank you for clarifying and thank you for looking after the rescues!
I don't remember where I read it, but there was an interesting case for pairing abandoned parrots with veterans and people suffering from PTSD. Both suffer in similar ways, and were able to reduce their struggles together.
Could have been Bessel van der Kolk who mentioned it.
I have them to thank. On that same train of thought they saved me too :)
I believe it. In some parrots there is a look in their eye when they are scared of you. It's as though they're looking right past you, even though you're the fearful stimulus.
It does strike me as cruel too, to be denied freedom like that.
It also seems like the sibling comments are misunderstanding your last sentence, it's not about the "you" in that sentence having self imposed limitations, it's you being literally imprisoned by an external source without any way to get out. So asking "why are you a prisoner inside" doesn't make any sense.
We keep a rabbit indoors, free roaming in the house, now for 7 years, I expect he will do 10+
Would you prefer to live freely for 6 months or have a hopefully comfortable life for ten times more. Before anyone jumping to say “freedom!” why don’t you do it already? Why are you keeping your body prisoner indoors?
This was always a flawed quote because even before such a realization, people still did novel things (and literally flew to new places), much the same as birds. And the answer is still the same for birds and humans, the constraint of resources. If you have enough then by all means, fly.
The point is for you to take a look at yourself and how you are currently spending your time, from the assumption that you could do something different.
People already do that. It also doesn't relate to the person you replied to, as I said in another comment, it's about an external source imprisoning you, not you imprisoning yourself.
It’s more so a realization that you have agency, choice, but have decided perhaps without much intention or thought, to remain in your status quo.
I don’t think it’s literally about flying. It’s about ignorantly complying to a status quo and how that itself is a decision even if you’ve made it unintentionally.
Again I think the resources it takes to fly being a limitation are not what it’s referring to. A bird just lives its life in an area and never really assesses if a flight to a far off land is possible, if resources would support their journey, or any of that. They just do what all the other birds are doing or of course what their instincts tell them to. We’ve ignored migration and birds that do travel great distances as not a part of this as it’s not a literal statement about flying!
1. I used "fly" metaphorically as branching out, and doing new things, one of which is the literal "flying" on a plane to travel to a new location for vacation, but my point was still about the metaphorical concept in general.
2. The quote about the bird staying in the same place is not relevant to what
ainiriand said because they are talking about being imprisoned from the outside, not by one's own self.
Ehhh, I feel like resource is still a big part of it. I like to travel, not above all else, and would like to do more of it, provided. But provided is not.
Half the pyramid is dairy+meat, that's a pass for me. I do not eat those and my yearly health checks are as boring as a tax seminar on a Friday afternoon.
reply