I sometimes wonder about the similarities between this paradigm switch (coding -> vibe coding) and when the industry switched from writing assembler to using high-level languages. I both cases we switched from having to specify every posibble implementation detail to focusing more on higher level concepts and letting the machine work out the rest. Maybe in the future instead of sharing source code, we will share prompts that we used to create a program. Similarly how different compilers produce different assembly now, "compiling" prompts with different agent/model would give different results. Maybe in the future an analog for "optimizing compiler" would emerge for agents, which would turn the (working) slop into something more clean.
George W. got reelected - by a razor-thin margin - for three reasons: lucky timing, an unpopular opposition candidate, and a deliberate campaign to smear Kerry's record in the service.
GW's popularity steadily declined from the summer of '03 until the end of his presidency. If the election had been any later, he would've been below 50% and wouldn't have been able to pull it off. Meanwhile Democrats chose the least energizing presidential candidate I've seen in my entire adult life. (I've been voting since Bush v. Gore.) And when Kerry was nominated and the Swift Boat smear campaign started - a group whose claims have been since been discredited - Democrats did very little to fight back.
Even if we did "want this" back then, support for the invasion of Iraq plummeted during Bush's second term and has never recovered. Two-thirds of Americans, and almost that many veterans who actually fought in the war, said it wasn't worth fighting and still say so today.
> Side note: Why is there so much fact-free anti-US sentiment on HN?
Look at basically any domain: whoever's in the lead, gets the most hate.
The US has the world's biggest economy and military, the most cultural power, the biggest tech industry, etc. The hate is inevitable. That's not to say that the US doesn't have plenty of very real problems -- obviously it does -- but it's just easier to dunk on the leader, which also means more empty, vacuous criticism.
> Why is there so much fact-free anti-US sentiment on HN?
Firstly, it's the US government themselves saying there are imbalances and therefore they have to add tariffs on imports from almost every country. It's the US government who spreads hate towards most other countries, not the other way around.
Secondly, could it be because people living in the US seem to not notice (or don't want to believe) the US is turning into a dictatorship and the rest of the world does. People don't like the new values of the USA, they liked the old values. If it continues like this, it's game over for the USA.
The US has super successful music and movie industries, puts out a lot of fossil fuels, hugely successful finance sector, and has the world's most powerful military. Really, the US has plenty of strengths to go along with its weaknesses.
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