jpmitchell

It undermines an assumption that until recently was nearly impossible to violate: that the author spent time and effort to produce the writing you are spending time and effort to read.

They bother me as well. I lost over 200 lbs without even a visit to a GP to discuss the issue. I did it with slow incremental change mostly to my diet.

Obesity sucks so I don't want to judge anyone for 'cheating' with these drugs, but I hate the idea of becoming dependent on a pharma corporation to treat something when lifestyle change would have worked.

To answer the title's question directly? Yes, I think so. Or at least that it is a legitimate hazard.

I think the analogy to hyper-palatable, calorific food works well:

Humans adapted for a world with too little food. Then once there was too much, obesity and overeating became a problem for the first time. Self discipline is the cost we have to pay for this kind of abundance.

We now have a general-purpose way to offload mental effort, and are discovering in real-time the negative consequences of that.

I use AI for coding, but I feel I've moved past the honey-moon period and am now learning how to use it in a way that is not a detriment. If I care about the work I'm doing I don't want the AI to do it for me, even if it could. Deciding what work I want/should be doing myself vs what can be delegated is a new skill I, and I believe we all need to learn.

I do say in my post that I performed a backup. I should have clarified that that was not merely for my benefit while performing the work. My final conversation with him involved handing off a clearly labeled USB drive, and an explanation that all the data from his laptop was copied to that drive and that he should store it somewhere safe.

> Try consoling a few people about how the pictures or files they hold dear are gone forever and then come back and talk about this "dark pattern".

I have, and pretty much every time I've had that conversation with someone it ended with them buying a portable storage drive and having learned a valuable lesson regarding the need for a real backup strategy.

Microsoft's design choices can be both a benefit and an abuse of its users. There's no excuse here for using important features and functionality of the software as an underhanded marketing exercise.

That's a fair point. I enjoy being a _bit_ provocative, but that title might have been a bit much.

Same for me. It was slow but now I've fully joined the hate parade. I only use MS products as necessary to support my business.