by Imustaskforhelp | 2026-03-03 15:55:14+00:00
> 3) People are insecure about their writing ability and find the non-judgmental non-human LLM editor soothing

My writing style gets criticized. a lot (I think its from people who have good hearts who just want to point out some flaws and I appreciate that). So I will admit that I understand this point because if someone questions your writing style, you do get insecure and sometimes I did have thoughts of leaving hackernews because of it, because I mean I always took pride in all of my comments, they are mine after all :)

I don't think you can ever fix that, All AI does is remove that critique from you to LLM but I'd say that the largest reason people might do it is because its hard to respond to such criticism (IMO).

If suppose someone says your writing is bad. To me, it takes a huge mental effort to not be angry at the decision and type something. It takes me time to reflect and try to respond to them peacefully.

I think I am only able to do that because I imagine this as a person who has business and I imagine how I would want an ideal business or a person who has business would want to reply and how it would look on the business. I have witnessed some businesses who are absolutely top notch but their responses/nature in forums sometimes is very off-putting. I'd rather try to do opposite.

And to me, its those particular comments that I write that I cherish the most. I had once written a comment which felt so good to me personally from a criticism that I seriously wondered how I wrote that. For a few days, I can't say for sure but I remember just looking up at that comment whenever I felt bad.

The one thing I agree is that it can be very time consuming tho to respond to such criticism.

I mean, I try to respond to these comments nicely but that doesn't mean I am not insecure about my writing. I do think that I may project that if I write a nice comment but yeah, I believe everyone can be insecure about writing to some degree. And chances are that most people are more likely to create a ruckus of the situation than handle it well.

So I think from all of this, if I had to summarize it, I'd like it if people could share their concerns but in a way which is agreeable. If you don't like someone's writing, try to point it out in a way of feedback/cooperation that the other person I can agree in.

If you do want to point out someone's writing, try to imagine yourself being in their situation and try to anticipate what message might be the most beneficial/(cooperative?) in that sense. Just imagine yourself in their shoes basically.

So I do agree with you on this point. Perhaps point 5) as well because this comment took me 40 mins to write and think.

It's also how time is invested, like people rather use their 40 mins to create a project which can reach x stars on github and that will have some definite measure. Whereas this comment got no measure in like, the value right now but I like to think that given enough long time, if I ever create anything. These comments could be meaningful in that regards to show what I think maybe.

Another part is that I can't stand obnoxious reddit/twitter. Those algorithms feel flawed to me and I'd rather not contribute to that machine and the funny thing is that the above line of thinking might be more beneficial in those platforms than here given that they are mainstream but yeah.

More than anything, I just write because I find these topics interesting to type about or that, I write for myself, I wish to read these comments I type in future to really see what I was thinking about stuff. Kinda like a journal and twitter/reddit platforms are less intended for such long comments than HN and tbh HN can have its limits too but I think the community overall is much more receptive of long comments.

(Imagine if I wrote you such a long post on a random subreddit or in twitter, those platforms are less likely to capture nuance imo)