#norms — Public Fediverse posts

Don’t be a meat proxy for an LLM

I’m very glad someone has put a name to this behaviour. I sometimes do it on my blog because user-model interaction is often part of how I think, but I don’t think I ever do this in communication with others for precisely this reason:

Too often I ask a question in Slack or leave feedback under a merge/pull request or argue with friends in a WhatsApp group and get back:

Claude said: [giant response verbatim]

Please don’t do this. I mean, I’ve done this. But I’ve been on the receiving end too many times now. This is not adding value. I can talk to Claude myself. It’s going to be faster and I get to control the context. I don’t need a meat proxy in between.

Reading AI output is extra effort. It’s verbose, frequently contains all too plausible nonsense, and is increasingly jargon dense. I recently got this sentence from Claude:

NATS control-plane events: stream leader election / R3 quorum re-form during pod churn.

Jesus. I had to lookup almost every word to make sense of this.

By all means, prompt AI. But don’t just relay the output. Read it, understand it, validate it, and then write a response in your own words (a decent certificate that you’ve done the prior steps). Making that effort is value you can add.

https://gruhn.me/blog/2026-08-03/

If I do ever slip into doing this, I think I’m going to stop now I’ve got a name for it.

A quotation from Horace

The Rash, the Lazy, Lover, none’s so wild,
But may be tame, and may be wisely mild,
If they consult true Vertue’s Rules with care,
And lend to good advice a patient ear.
 
[Invidus, iracundus, iners, vinosus, amator,
nemo adeo ferus est, ut non mitescere possit,
si modo culturae patientem commodet aurem.]

Horace (65–8 BC) Roman poet, satirist, soldier, politician [Quintus Horatius Flaccus]
Epistles [Epistularum, Letters], Book 1, ep. 1 “To Maecenas,” l. 38ff (1.1.38-40) (20 BC) [tr. Creech (1684)]

More about (and translations of) this quote: wist.info/horace/78567/

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #horace #advice #anger #brutality #character #coarseness #culture #degradation #drunkenness #envy #faults #gluttony #lust #moralcharacter #norms #reform #rehabilitation #selfcontrol #selfimprovement #sloth #society #temperament #vice #virtue #wisdom #wrath

A quotation from Horace

The Rash, the Lazy, Lover, none’s so wild,
But may be tame, and may be wisely mild,
If they consult true Vertue’s Rules with care,
And lend to good advice a patient ear.
 
[Invidus, iracundus, iners, vinosus, amator,
nemo adeo ferus est, ut non mitescere possit,
si modo culturae patientem commodet aurem.]

Horace (65–8 BC) Roman poet, satirist, soldier, politician [Quintus Horatius Flaccus]
Epistles [Epistularum, Letters], Book 1, ep. 1 “To Maecenas,” l. 38ff (1.1.38-40) (20 BC) [tr. Creech (1684)]

More about (and translations of) this quote: wist.info/horace/78567/

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #horace #advice #anger #brutality #character #coarseness #culture #degradation #drunkenness #envy #faults #gluttony #lust #moralcharacter #norms #reform #rehabilitation #selfcontrol #selfimprovement #sloth #society #temperament #vice #virtue #wisdom #wrath

A quotation from Horace

The Rash, the Lazy, Lover, none’s so wild,
But may be tame, and may be wisely mild,
If they consult true Vertue’s Rules with care,
And lend to good advice a patient ear.
 
[Invidus, iracundus, iners, vinosus, amator,
nemo adeo ferus est, ut non mitescere possit,
si modo culturae patientem commodet aurem.]

Horace (65–8 BC) Roman poet, satirist, soldier, politician [Quintus Horatius Flaccus]
Epistles [Epistularum, Letters], Book 1, ep. 1 “To Maecenas,” l. 38ff (1.1.38-40) (20 BC) [tr. Creech (1684)]

More about (and translations of) this quote: wist.info/horace/78567/

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #horace #advice #anger #brutality #character #coarseness #culture #degradation #drunkenness #envy #faults #gluttony #lust #moralcharacter #norms #reform #rehabilitation #selfcontrol #selfimprovement #sloth #society #temperament #vice #virtue #wisdom #wrath

A quotation from Horace

The Rash, the Lazy, Lover, none’s so wild,
But may be tame, and may be wisely mild,
If they consult true Vertue’s Rules with care,
And lend to good advice a patient ear.
 
[Invidus, iracundus, iners, vinosus, amator,
nemo adeo ferus est, ut non mitescere possit,
si modo culturae patientem commodet aurem.]

Horace (65–8 BC) Roman poet, satirist, soldier, politician [Quintus Horatius Flaccus]
Epistles [Epistularum, Letters], Book 1, ep. 1 “To Maecenas,” l. 38ff (1.1.38-40) (20 BC) [tr. Creech (1684)]

More about (and translations of) this quote: wist.info/horace/78567/

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #horace #advice #anger #brutality #character #coarseness #culture #degradation #drunkenness #envy #faults #gluttony #lust #moralcharacter #norms #reform #rehabilitation #selfcontrol #selfimprovement #sloth #society #temperament #vice #virtue #wisdom #wrath

A quotation from Horace

The Rash, the Lazy, Lover, none’s so wild,
But may be tame, and may be wisely mild,
If they consult true Vertue’s Rules with care,
And lend to good advice a patient ear.
 
[Invidus, iracundus, iners, vinosus, amator,
nemo adeo ferus est, ut non mitescere possit,
si modo culturae patientem commodet aurem.]

Horace (65-8 BC) Roman poet, satirist, soldier, politician [Quintus Horatius Flaccus]
Epistles [Epistularum, Letters], Book 1, ep. 1, l. 38ff (1.1.38-40) (20 BC) [tr. Creech (1684)]

Sourcing, notes, other translations: wist.info/horace/78567/

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #horace #advice #anger #brutalishness #character #coarseness #culture #degradation #drunkenness #envy #faults #gluttony #lust #moralcharacter #norms #reform #rehabilitation #selfcontrol #selfimprovement #sloth #society #temperament #vice #virtue #wisdom #wrath

A quotation from Horace

The Rash, the Lazy, Lover, none’s so wild,
But may be tame, and may be wisely mild,
If they consult true Vertue’s Rules with care,
And lend to good advice a patient ear.
 
[Invidus, iracundus, iners, vinosus, amator,
nemo adeo ferus est, ut non mitescere possit,
si modo culturae patientem commodet aurem.]

Horace (65-8 BC) Roman poet, satirist, soldier, politician [Quintus Horatius Flaccus]
Epistles [Epistularum, Letters], Book 1, ep. 1, l. 38ff (1.1.38-40) (20 BC) [tr. Creech (1684)]

Sourcing, notes, other translations: wist.info/horace/78567/

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #horace #advice #anger #brutalishness #character #coarseness #culture #degradation #drunkenness #envy #faults #gluttony #lust #moralcharacter #norms #reform #rehabilitation #selfcontrol #selfimprovement #sloth #society #temperament #vice #virtue #wisdom #wrath

A quotation from Horace

The Rash, the Lazy, Lover, none’s so wild,
But may be tame, and may be wisely mild,
If they consult true Vertue’s Rules with care,
And lend to good advice a patient ear.
 
[Invidus, iracundus, iners, vinosus, amator,
nemo adeo ferus est, ut non mitescere possit,
si modo culturae patientem commodet aurem.]

Horace (65-8 BC) Roman poet, satirist, soldier, politician [Quintus Horatius Flaccus]
Epistles [Epistularum, Letters], Book 1, ep. 1, l. 38ff (1.1.38-40) (20 BC) [tr. Creech (1684)]

Sourcing, notes, other translations: wist.info/horace/78567/

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #horace #advice #anger #brutalishness #character #coarseness #culture #degradation #drunkenness #envy #faults #gluttony #lust #moralcharacter #norms #reform #rehabilitation #selfcontrol #selfimprovement #sloth #society #temperament #vice #virtue #wisdom #wrath

A quotation from Horace

The Rash, the Lazy, Lover, none’s so wild,
But may be tame, and may be wisely mild,
If they consult true Vertue’s Rules with care,
And lend to good advice a patient ear.
 
[Invidus, iracundus, iners, vinosus, amator,
nemo adeo ferus est, ut non mitescere possit,
si modo culturae patientem commodet aurem.]

Horace (65-8 BC) Roman poet, satirist, soldier, politician [Quintus Horatius Flaccus]
Epistles [Epistularum, Letters], Book 1, ep. 1, l. 38ff (1.1.38-40) (20 BC) [tr. Creech (1684)]

Sourcing, notes, other translations: wist.info/horace/78567/

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #horace #advice #anger #brutalishness #character #coarseness #culture #degradation #drunkenness #envy #faults #gluttony #lust #moralcharacter #norms #reform #rehabilitation #selfcontrol #selfimprovement #sloth #society #temperament #vice #virtue #wisdom #wrath

'Europe’s narrative is constructed on the exclusion of colonialism from its history, allowing the ideology of Europe’s racelessness. […] The disremembering of the colonial past shapes the contemporary perception of Europe as a progressive well-intentioned neutral mediator. Moreover, this colonial amnesia produces Europeans of color as outsiders and “aliens” threatening to the liberal continent’s identity.'

'Thus, racialized Europeans are forever “just arriving” and forgotten in the construction of a contemporary European identity. The book gives examples of continent’s Roma and Sinti populations who have resided in Europe for half a millennium and are constantly marginalized as foreigners.'

(1/2)

#activism #culture #identity #norms #normality #Europeanness #whiteness #raceMaking #racialization #ElTayeb #Europe #postColonialism #racelessness #colorblind #raceMaking #colourblind #racism #diaspora #Belgium #France #Netherlands #NL #Germany #Austria #Italy #Spain #Portugal #Hungary #postNational

A quotation from Hannah Arendt

   The total moral collapse of respectable society during the Hitler regime may teach us that under such circumstances those who cherish values and hold fast to moral norms and standards are not reliable: we now know that moral norms and standards can be changed overnight, and that all that then will be left is the mere habit of holding fast to something.
   Much more reliable will be the doubters and skeptics, not because skepticism is good or doubting wholesome, but because they are used to examine things and to make up their own minds.
   Best of all will be those who know only one thing for certain: that whatever else happens, as long as we live we shall have to live together with ourselves.

Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) German-American philosopher, political theorist
Essay (1964-08), “Personal Responsibility Under Dictatorship,” The Listener Magazine

Sourcing, notes: wist.info/arendt-hannah/42785/

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #arendt #hannaharendt #conscience #dictatorship #doubt #integrity #judgment #morality #mores #norms #obedience #skeptic

This clearly has @jon vibes 🤭 , but I am so glad, Weber took the time to make this decision graph on how to choose the right bike hitch. Because in terms of standardisation, cycling is fundamentally broken.

#cycling #norms #standards #hitch #kupplung #mdrzkiga

https://www.weber-products.de/Montageanleitungen/Kupplungsfinder_Einseitig.pdf