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Comment by BeetleB

18 hours ago

> I'd assume the link to be to a blog post, or Wikipedia page, that articulates the idea in a clearer more succint way than the person might be able of.

As with everything, it depends on who is sending it. For some people, yes. For the rest (majority), it's a case of

He: Makes some claim

Me: I question some aspect of it.

... Potential back and forth

He: Oh, just look at this video/article/book that explains and answers all your concerns.

Thing is, in the majority of the cases, it didn't address my concern. I'd write up something in detail, and get back either silence or yet another link. Took way too long for me to realize I shouldn't bother clicking the link to begin with.

You are just collateral damage.

Too many people put up a lazy comment when it is clear they haven't thought about $it, googled $it, or asked AI about $it. Where $it == {whatever they are unsure about or arguing about}.

The lazy commenter desires a human to waste their time writing a response. Often others judge that the commenter doesn't deserve the time or effort, so instead of a thoughtful response others often just reply with a relevant link - giving the commenter a chance to learn or reply.

Unfortunately offhand responses like LMGTFY become a common behaviour in forums, even when wildly inappropriate (as you note).

When it happens to you, it isn't personal, you are just a victim because everyone has been trained to a pattern of behaviour by thoughtless commenters.

It is also likely your comments get pattern matched as not worthwhile reasoning clearly to. You can do something to change your writing to avoid appearing waffly/bullshitty/unworthy (or whatever the reason responders are not replying to the meat of your point). Here's where I've done that pattern match in the past although usually spent time writing reply too: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by%3Arobocat%20duckduckgo&sort...

See also: https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/19665/the-help-vamp...

Sorry in advance if I've misunderstood your point or if I'm being Captain Obvious.

  • You're totally on point, but I do think you're missing my wider point:

    People replying with LLM responses is not really functionally different from lazily responding with a link. If the OP is astounded that LLM responses are tolerated, where was he all those years when people were lazily responding with links?

    • I am likely agreeing with you: but perhaps I just failed to follow what you were trying to say.

      Perhaps it is a wider problem of "flipping the bozo bit", that someone perceives they are being treated as worthless (or worse) and then they respond similarly?

      A considered AI response can be good if quoted correctly. Unfortunately I've seen a lot of AI-hate, where even fantastic AI answers (carefully vetted/curated) are shot down.