4 hours ago
I do like the Potemkin Village metaphor for things like the website in question. Given how little effort something like this takes, I imagine there are a lot more of them than I've considered before, and given the way search engines operate and index, and LLMs scrape relatively indiscriminately, it seems to have implications that go beyond Google's stupid summarized answers at the top of the results page.
6 hours ago
A robots.txt explicitly allowing LLMs has nothing to do with whether it was made for humans or not and is generally the right move assuming you want your site picked up and recommended by AI tools. No different than allowing search engine crawlers to pick it up and the authors focus on that is bizarre when the rest of the evidence is so stark.
6 hours ago
His point is that the goal of this site is to skew the knowledge of future models, to which this is a relevant point (though.i agree not smoking gun alone)
6 hours ago
But, what actually are the benefits of all this peptide ingestion ? Does it replace, Good Food, Sleep and an exercise ?
6 hours ago
Ozempic and Mounjaro are peptides. They are a silver bullet for obesity and orders of magnitude more effective than anything up to a gastric band surgery. Insulin is a peptide and keeps some 50 million people alive globally. You could go on and on.
The real question is: Should you be putting novel, poorly researched and dubiously manufactured substances (which happen to be peptides) in your body via injection? To that I say, to each their own but I'll wait for the pharma industry to catch up. I'm not that bored.
6 hours ago
My take on the peptides craze is it’s like random people started injected insulin because they have a hazy idea of it being helpful for something or other based on the word on the street but they aren’t sure about dose and also can’t be sure what they’re injecting is actually insulin or uncontaminated. They also aren’t diabetic.
5 hours ago
Most peptides don't seem nearly as dangerous as insulin, luckily. Injecting insulin without medical supervision is a good way to give yourself hypoglycemia and die - blood sugar regulation is not something you want to mess with!
People don't seem to be regularly dying from peptides, at least not now.
4 hours ago
I'd love to be able to make that statement with such confidence, but you just don't know. Literally no one has any clue what the long-term effect of injecting BPC-157 or what ever stupid well-marketed bullshit is the flavour of the week is, is.
20 minutes ago
It is true. Because the short-term effects of incorrectly injecting insulin are far greater and known risks. I agree that the long term effects are unknown but considering you could basically kill yourself quite easily with insulin... its clearly far more dangerous.
4 hours ago
So, chemical pollution and the destruction of our microbiome with excessive antibiotics cause a global obesity problem, and we pump more chemicals into the body to try to solve it.
Life out of balance, indeed.
3 hours ago
What other solution do you propose?
(Yes, eating healthy and exercising would probably help most people, but many remain)
5 hours ago
> The real question is: Should you be putting novel, poorly researched and dubiously manufactured substances (which happen to be peptides) in your body via injection?
on one hand: no, absolutely not, hell no.
on the other hand: these people are voluntarily doing human sperimentation. things like this are going to happen anyway so we might as well collect the data (samples, effect etc). it's not much different from the safe needles initiatives.
4 hours ago
Except the data is completely useless. Especially given the extremely strong selection biases towards: status/image-obsessed; high-risk; low-intelligence; generally high appetite for a constellation of dubious interventions.
3 hours ago
The data isn't entirely useless. It might be a good signal of areas to point legitimate research toward
Narrowing down areas into "Anecdotally many people say it works, we should check" does have some value, even if it does just wind up debunking the claims
2 hours ago
In theory, maybe. In practice, there are far better sources of signal for far more valuable therapeutics to develop.
There are far more promising development targets than there is development resources. Self-reports from a bunch of the most drug-addled people in the world are not going to make it to the next-most-viable target.
5 hours ago
Peptides are basically protein chains. Proteins are instructions to certain things in our bodies, proteins can activate/deactivate certain processes in our bodies among many other things.
If you artificially inject the correct protein into your body to mimic a naturally producing one, it would do the job and in that way peptides works. However, most of peptides injected by people are hardly human tested for long term effects. Human body is remarkable at adjusting and maintaining a baseline and we don’t know what would be the unintended side effects of these peptides because the body would try to counterbalance it. At best it could be just a mild headache or stomachache and at worst it could be cancer
6 hours ago
Clearly they have effects. Heck insulin is a peptide. And pretty sure it has a benefit for those with diabetes. Dismissing peptides outright is just as silly as thinking peptides are the solution to everything
4 hours ago
"peptide" is just a category of chemical. Some of them do good things, some do bad things, some do nothing at all.
Anyone talking about "taking peptides" as a meaningful sentence is absolutely dismissible in the same way someone talking about "taking chemicals" is dismissible.
4 hours ago
Yup
6 hours ago
You also wouldn't want to randomly inject yourself with insulin outside of medical supervision, because it can kill you pretty quick.
Injecting poorly-studied grey market peptides seems like a bad idea.
4 hours ago
For sure.
5 hours ago
How is insulin a peptide? Insulin is a giant folded protein
4 hours ago
Probably better people to explain it. First sentence on wiki ” Insulin (/ˈɪn.sjʊ.lɪn/ ⓘ;[5][6] from Latin insula 'island') is a peptide hormone produced by beta cells of the pancreatic islets encoded in humans by the insulin (INS) gene.”
4 hours ago
Insulin is a peptide hormone. It is a small protein made of 51 amino acids in two chains linked by disulfide bonds.
5 hours ago
Seems like it is very much on the edge of categories thus fits both. And it really is not a giant as proteins go and instead is on smaller end.
6 hours ago
You can feel like you have control of your life and body, without doing anything about sleep, exercise or food. If you like that control.
6 hours ago
I guess "feeling like", sounds like a placebo.
From what I've read there is some real risks associated with using them. Sounds a bit like the marketing of steroids in the 70s.
4 hours ago
Hormones control a lot of what you describe as "feeling like."
The drugs (coincidentally of shape "peptide") that have been through clinical trials are obviously measured against placebo, and they (like the approved GLP-related set of drugs) are outrageously effective beyond placebo. And have very little downsides compared to the downsides of being obese, which are far more immense than people appreciate.
6 hours ago
Insulin is a peptide. Not sure if it is really a placebo when a diabetic needs insulin.
5 hours ago
Peptides aren't all insulin.
4 hours ago
exactly my point. That it is dumb to dismiss all peptides as useless when at least some are necessary for survival for some people.
6 hours ago
I have seen so much talk of Bay Area "peptide parties", so at least there is some social benefit?
6 hours ago
I'm not sure I'd agree that a "bay area peptide party" has any real, useful social benefit. Sounds like hell.
5 hours ago
Just because you wouldn’t like it doesn’t mean no social benefit. Going to mar a lago and watching the president put ketchup on a well done steak doesn’t sound fun for me, but could be very socially beneficial for a lot of people.
5 hours ago
I mean both things sound like hell, has the USA ran out of ideas?
5 hours ago
Yes, those are the only two things that happen here
5 hours ago
> what actually are the benefits of all this peptide ingestion ?
50 years ago it was cocaine, 40 years ago there was crack, 30 years ago it was heroin, 20 years ago we had bath salts, 10 years ago it was gas station drugs and meth, 5 years ago it was Ivermectin, this year it's SF techies doing their own research into peptides and taking some. Taking the latest drug (or peptide in 2026) is its own benefit.
5 hours ago
Ah yes... Ivermectin, very much like the crack epidemic. "It's for horses!!1!" "They do their own research!"
As with any substance, there can be use, and abuse. If you would have told people 30 years ago you use creatine, you would be stared at as if you inject steroids or growth hormone. Today it is in the supermarket, literally next to the protein bars. Throwing Ivermectin on the same pile as crack and heroin though.. :D
I am sure there are dozens (dozens!) of idiots who inject whatever they think it is for whatever reason, valid or not. Peptides is a craze, and it is also emerging here in the Netherlands, but as people have pointed out, lots of things are peptides, and lots of them seem to have significant health benefits, when used properly. Give it another 30 years... they will be next to the protein bars as well, once someone has figured out how to capture the profits.
4 hours ago
Ingestion, like eating?
4 hours ago
“stay strapped” is a fantastic sign off.
5 hours ago
"Anyone who’s not been living under a rock knows that we’re in full peptide mania."
No, they don't, it's a very Silicon Valley specific thing and I never heard about them here in France. People need to stop thinking their experience generalizes by default
5 hours ago
One of America's biggest exports is culture - but primarily in English. I bet the UK knows it.
5 hours ago
Yeah, France should try to export its culture sometime!
5 hours ago
The only reason I know it is because I keep seeing spam for it on reddit.
Not every aspect of american culture makes it overseas and much less does now than used to 20-30 years ago.
I think peptides (and medicating yourself out of a hole in general) are a pretty uniquely american thing.
5 hours ago
You reading things on Reddit is one way that America exports culture, yes. Or on Hacker News.
4 hours ago
But in this case it's "exported" primarily to be ridiculed.
We're amused by your antics but no one wants to emulate American culture anymore.
4 hours ago
It doesn't work that way. You're not immune to advertising.
3 hours ago
"you're not immune to advertising" does not imply that "any sort of advertising will work on you, guaranteed" though. :/
4 hours ago
Deep
4 hours ago
did you think I was ignorant of them being american?
if I asked 20 of my friends about peptides I'm probably the only one that subscribes to that american leaning, peptide-spammed subreddit.
5 hours ago
As someone from the UK, Techy, nerdy people can know, but normies don't.
Also, I'd add that gym bros definitely have heard of them, especially if they are familiar with steroids.
The GLP-1 drugs are probably the main cause of this. We have this amazing class of compounds that work really well, But are priced pretty high, at least considering lower UK wages.
So there is a big incentive to look at getting these much cheaper from China. You hear about this happening, and then you see the fact that these companies have big catalogues full of other peptides that are a crypto payment and a click away.
an hour ago
I strongly suspect that peptide use is more common amongst the botox/filler crowd than techies in the UK. Most aesthetics clinics have been pushing peptide-based skincare for years, so it was only a small step into injectables for them.
And, as you say, the gym performance / sports crowd.
The BBC and the Guardian have covered it fairly neutrally, but the likes of the Daily Mail and gossip mags have been both more frequent and more breathless.
5 hours ago
I don’t think it’s popular in Germany as well. I know some Leo taking steroids, but seems like peptides are yet to be popular
5 hours ago
East Coast exurbs of NYC here, these things are everywhere, go to a gym the whole place is on them
Maybe a US thing
5 hours ago
It's all over in Norway too. Anecdotally it is definitely more common than steroids already. I can only find statistics on the legal ones, but they show that 10% of all women in their 50's are prescribed the ones for weight reduction <https://www.fhi.no/he/fr/folkehelserapporten/samfunn/legemid...> (Fig 13).
2 hours ago
I live in a college town on the east coast and it is highly advertised at all of the wellness businesses here.
4 hours ago
5 hours ago
uh, a friend of mine in barcellona is going all in on peptides as well, along with his friends.
it's not a sv-only thing.
4 hours ago
was any evidence ever given?
>"The trained eye, weary of vibe coded designs, will see Claude Code’s aesthetic fingerprint all over this. "
yeah, everyone is re-doing old interfaces with LLMs.
>"They're hosted on AlexHost"
yeah, they're selling grey market pharma.
Now, I have no problems saying that the whole thing is a bot driven scam -- it probably is , grey market web is filled with scams -- but there was no evidence given; just an ad for a magic tool that detects AI... somehow.
...which makes me feel like an asshole for putting in the time looking for the anchor and hoping it wasn't an advertisement.
5 hours ago
This article is not so much about peptides it's about entirely AI generated ecosystems. The goal is to promote questionably scammy commercial interests, or obviously political interests as I'm sure is happening also, by creating whole webs of semi convincing looking portals, discussion boards, review sites, community activity, etc, all fake.
The blog post rightly points out we should get good at spotting all this but this is not the scary part, the scary part is that the audience for these ecosystems is not even humans, it's the big AI players like Gemini and ChatGPT, and those are places that a lot of people are going to get information and advice on things.
I use Gemini quite a lot and lately I've already noticed it's very quick to give me a broad spectrum vibe on some issue or topic and not good at all at backing it up with reputable sources. So I think this is potentially a very ominous development of the entire web itself becomes a giant poisoned cauldron of untrustworthy AI maliciously influencing "trustworthy" AIs.
Update: i fed this comment into Gemini and asked "what is Google doing about this?" and it produced a very long, detailed answer, leading off with tagging this as the so-called "internet ouroboros" problem. For those who don't feel like doing the same, I can distill it's answer as follows: "Yo. Chill. We got this, bro. Lol" so we're good!
4 hours ago
The battle between black-hat SEO and search engines has been going on for a long time. They may or may not "got this," exactly, but they definitely know a lot about it. I'd wager if a blogger can sniff this out, the search engines at least stand a chance.
4 hours ago
I'm struggling to get the point. Which one these?
* Use pangram for catching AI slop
* Be good at spotting AI slop
* Beware of website built for AI crawlers only
* Do not buy stuff from China
* Do not consume peptide supplements
* Peptides are good but buy local
* Do not live in SF
an hour ago
Interesting what athletes get popped for a few years ago = what optimize bros will inject into heir body, from test to peptides. Honestly lowkey glad Muricans willing to guinea pig when it comes to "performance". Asians have passed west in doing stupid beauty regimes, I like that US has big enough athletic culture to focus on performance. Hopefully Hegseth diverts billions into testosterone research, actual good use of department funds.
6 hours ago
4 hours ago
Is this an ad for "pangram"? Reads like one to me. Not much of anything related to peptides was actually communicated, which makes the insult about your reader's potential ignorance of peptides even more unnecessary.