If we do not stop to help each other, what do we become?

如果我们不再停下来互相帮助，我们会变成什么样？

Yesterday, I received this email as a response to You Can’t Vibe Code Love. It’s such a remarkable and powerful statement that I asked permission to share it here, in its entirety, with personal information redacted: 昨天，我收到了一封回复《你无法通过“氛围编程”获得爱》（You Can’t Vibe Code Love）的邮件。这封邮件的内容如此非凡且充满力量，我请求并获得了对方的许可，在此全文分享（已删除个人隐私信息）：

Hey Jeff, Hope you and your family are doing well. Just jogging your memory; I reached out to you (and John Carmack) about how difficult interviewing had become despite me being a stellar engineer at my work. You offered some words of wisdom, wrote me a postcard, which I still have, and stickers (which my kids loved). 嘿 Jeff，希望你和你的家人一切都好。帮你回忆一下：我曾向你（以及 John Carmack）求助，提到尽管我在工作中是一名出色的工程师，但面试过程却变得异常艰难。你当时给了我一些智慧的建议，还寄给我一张明信片（我至今仍保留着）和一些贴纸（我的孩子们非常喜欢）。

I took a leadership coordination role in Tokyo, and it freed me from the interview process I hated, and I’m still programming. Through the public school here my family found our way into a community, which brings me to why I’m writing. I’ve been thinking about Stack Overflow drying up and honestly; I feel profoundly sad. 后来我在东京担任了一个领导协调职位，这让我摆脱了令我厌恶的面试流程，而且我依然在从事编程工作。通过当地的公立学校，我的家人融入了一个社区，这正是我写这封信的原因。我一直在思考 Stack Overflow 的衰落，说实话，我感到非常难过。

2013 I was active duty in the Air Force. Simultaneously I was also going to college full time remotely. I was deployed in Zamboanga Philippines. The Zamboanga Siege happens. Over 100 people killed, 120,000 civilians displaced. It was warfare in a populated city where nobody should have every been caught up in that to begin with. For 3 weeks this went on. 2013 年，我是一名现役空军。同时，我还在远程攻读全日制大学课程。当时我被派驻到菲律宾的三宝颜。三宝颜围城战爆发了。超过 100 人丧生，12 万平民流离失所。那是一场发生在人口稠密城市的战争，本不该有任何人卷入其中。这种情况持续了三周。

I was still doing college. I still had homework, tests, projects. All of that needed to be done. With everything happening around me, missing my projects and homework became a huge risk. Everyday was a fight to do my job and help these people, and do my school. I would cry a lot looking at my textbooks not sleeping. The smoke from the burning city would come in the cracks of the buildings I worked and lived in. 我当时还在上大学。我依然有作业、考试和项目。所有这些都必须完成。在周围发生的一切混乱中，错过项目和作业成了巨大的风险。每一天，我都在努力工作、帮助那些受难者以及完成学业之间挣扎。我常常看着教科书哭泣，彻夜难眠。燃烧城市的浓烟从我工作和居住建筑的缝隙中飘进来。

I had a Microsoft Surface because it was perfect for someone who was flying around with equipment on vehicles that vibrated all the time. I swapped the plate out from my vest and slid in my Surface so that I could still do my homework if we had to leave. That’s how important this was to me. 我有一台 Microsoft Surface，因为它非常适合我这种经常带着设备在震动不断的车辆上奔波的人。我把防弹背心里的插板换成了 Surface，这样即使我们需要紧急撤离，我也能继续做作业。这对我来说就是这么重要。

Sometimes I would get stuck, and I needed someone to just nudge me in the right direction. I actually come from a family with a few software engineers. I have friends who were software engineers. I reached out for help. The standard response from everyone fell between ignoring me or telling me I need to “do it myself”. 有时我会卡住，需要有人推我一把，指引正确的方向。其实我出身于一个有几位软件工程师的家庭，我也有做软件工程师的朋友。我向他们求助，但得到的标准回复要么是无视我，要么是告诉我“你自己解决”。

You know who did help me? Random strangers on Stack Overflow. People who had nothing to gain from helping me other than just trying to help someone in need. That meant so much to me. I felt a connection to people through a community. And it meant the world. 你知道是谁帮助了我吗？是 Stack Overflow 上的陌生人。这些人帮助我没有任何利益可图，仅仅是出于想帮助一个有需要的人。这对我的意义太重大了。我通过社区感受到了与他人的连接，这对我来说意味着全世界。

An LLM would have done exactly what I wanted back then. But would it have given me what I needed? At the time, I needed to know somebody cared enough to help me. You, your colleagues, and random strangers in the Stack Overflow Community, really helped me. It was more than answering my questions. You gave me your time. That made me feel like I mattered. The fact my questions could help other people in my predicament made me feel like I was part of something. 大语言模型（LLM）确实能完成我当时想要的结果。但它能给我我真正需要的东西吗？当时，我需要的是知道有人在乎我，并愿意帮助我。你、你的同事，以及 Stack Overflow 社区里的陌生人，真的帮助了我。这不仅仅是回答我的问题，你们付出了时间。这让我觉得我被重视。我的问题能帮助到其他处于困境中的人，这让我觉得自己是某个群体的一部分。

An LLM can’t do that. So when I watch communities hollow out, replaced by something that gives answers but doesn’t give me a single thought… I get depressed. Because we’re losing something that was always there but I didn’t notice. It’s like losing gravity. Thanks for everything. If you ever find yourself in [city] I’d love to say thank you personally. Hope all is well, D 大语言模型做不到这一点。所以，当我看着社区逐渐空心化，被那些只会给出答案却没有任何情感共鸣的东西所取代时……我感到沮丧。因为我们正在失去某种一直存在、但我却未曾察觉的东西。这就像失去了重力。谢谢你所做的一切。如果你有机会来 [城市]，我很想当面谢谢你。祝一切安好，D

Perhaps the LLMs are a reminder that we should make an extra effort to cultivate relationships with each other and form communities online – communities that belong to us, not some billionaire. Communities where we regularly stop to help each other, because that’s how we learn too. And if we do not stop to help each other… what do we become? 也许大语言模型是在提醒我们，应该更加努力地去培养彼此的关系，并在网上建立社区——那些属于我们自己，而不是属于某个亿万富翁的社区。在这些社区里，我们经常停下来互相帮助，因为这也是我们学习的方式。如果我们不再停下来互相帮助……我们会变成什么样呢？