Post #4170485

2026-07-28 16:19 UTC

@dnkboston@apobangpo.space no you’re right, the problems with doctorow started a long time ago and extend far past cognitive surrender, but as a mental model it’s very useful to explain why he’s suddenly so bad at grifting a lot of the guy’s fans are asking what changed and why he’s seemingly contradicting his earlier positions. really he’s always been like this, but I feel that an over-reliance on LLMs has damaged his ability to control a crowd. he’s no different from any CEO in that regard: they’ve all been unhinged this whole time, but chatting daily with the “you’re absolutely right” machine and filtering their output through it has cost them their ability to mask it.

Replies (1)

@MaddieM4@raphus.social 2026-07-28 17:30

@zzt@mas.to @dnkboston@apobangpo.space Yep. On the one hand, it feels embarrassing as someone who was "grifted" - I didn't really follow him closely enough for something to smell off until pretty recently. On the other hand, I don't necessarily regret platforming the particular stances I agreed with, like the analysis of enshittification, why right to repair is important, etc. I don't care if some famous guy has some bad takes on AI and some good takes on other things - if I couldn't get along with people I only 70% agree with, it would really limit my ability to navigate the world. What I find myself disliking is *not knowing where people stand*, which is important for taking certain people with specifically-shaped grains of salt. That particularly helps with deciding who to recommend to others as a "wise voice", and with which caveats.

Open ##4170484