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What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

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Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#921

Post by johnnyanmac »

throwaway1183 wrote: post #586
thraway3837 wrote: post #546

I think what happened is that a lot of the wrong personalities entered technology for all the wrong reasons. Some of us started in the 80s or 90s and got into it with personal projects and treating the PC as a hobby. It is satisfying to be able to command a hunk of metal and get it to do things. And it can do boring stuff really fast and repeatedly. And that alone was exciting. The majority of us would stay up into t…

Oh my god!! You nailed it. I see two categories in tech. One the builder, innovators, tinkerers, those who just wanted to use tech to draw their ideas to life. Then other is artisan, those who took pride in organizing and craft. Second one is having miserable time. The former like me are having a blast. I love tech for that reason. I stopped talking to people who think LLMs are waste. It's because they don't even tou…

>They think it's a taboo to touch it.

I'm in a tricky situation as someone out of a full time job. Where "I love AI" might be a red flag that I'll use it to cheat. So I'm even more hesitant to make use of it.

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#922

Post by johnnyanmac »

flaburgan wrote: post #764

I don't understand those articles, especially, I don't see why AI changed anything. At least for me, the important quest isn't how you build, but what you build. If your product is meaningless, useful only to the company because what it does is futile, then the emptiness you feel is not coming from the fact that AI is "stealing your job". Don't quit to a farm with goats, find a way to distribute food which would have…

> I don't see why AI changed anything.

Impacting millions of jobs under the illusion that it can change something, maybe, kind of, one day, is still changing a lot for people. Those who don't understand this haven't been impacted by a layoff (yet).

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#923

Post by johnnyanmac »

crnkofe wrote: post #635

I have this nagging feeling that the depression, anxiety and pessimism is as-of-late coming from people from all the companies that risked it by adopting token maxing and AI usage enforcement. Its not representative of the whole industry though. There are still many places where engineers or knowledge workers are respected and left to lead (or not) AI adoption.

>There are still many places where engineers or knowledge workers are respected and left to lead (or not) AI adoption.

And they sure aren't hiring.

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#924

Post by johnnyanmac »

andix wrote: post #417

I have the feeling this goes much deeper than knowledge work and AI. I see it in many places that people seem to not take their job serious anymore. The incentive seems to be gone. Also their managers don't seem to care anymore, as they are also taking their job less seriously. I can't put a finger on it, but it's not about younger people or Gen Z, it also applies to older people. It just feels like good work doesn't…

It's the product of a low-trust society. Goals and aspirations are founded upon optimism about the future and striving to better youself. If you're a new grad and can't even start your career, what hope do you have for the future.

For the older folk, it does seem like they gave up but also refuse to cede poewr. They lived their full careers and are comfy in retirement on assets. They are just enjoying the rest of life and have no regards for the future.

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#925

Post by johnnyanmac »

dan_q wrote: post #711
hdndjsbbs wrote: post #493

The bigger problem, for me, is that knowledge work has become stupid. If you want to write code by hand and do a good job, you will be ruthlessly replaced by your boss churning out "good enough" LLM code. The CEO at my company tried to PR code to my repo. It didn't make any sense but it was a whole political thing to make it go away. The industry has always been stupid and selfish and short-sighted but now the ICs at…

> The industry has always been stupid and selfish and short-sighted but now the ICs at the bottom of the pyramid are themselves being commoditized like all the workers they "disrupted". Are you allowed to use the word "union" on this website?

Sure. Reactions to the word are mixed, though. Tech is still very resistant to the idea for various reasons.

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#926

Post by johnnyanmac »

jebarker wrote: post #92
rarisma wrote: post #59

"It's good to be in something from the ground floor. I came too late for that and I know. But lately, I'm getting the feeling that I came in at the end. The best is over." I feel like this can be applied to a lot of things, but this is pretty much how I've felt working in tech for the last 2ish years.

What makes you feel like that? Is it AI specifically?

having some 6-7 yeras of fruitful work followed by 3 years struggling to make ends meet. I thought getting over the 5YOE hump would mean I'd be set for any future roles, but that delusion is long past.

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#927

Post by johnnyanmac »

InfinityByTen wrote: post #849

I went through the whole article, agreeing to most of it and I was baffled by how skeptical people were in the comments here, with remarks of "follow the money". I didn't read all of it in one shot, but in breaks over the course of 2 days and when I finally got to the last paragraph I understood what people in the comments were on about. I grew up in a culture where hustle and work was the way out of a terrible life.…

> but work is still a lot of what I derive meaning from

Not work directly. But my rent sure does threaten to take my meaning away. Can't create when I'm begging for scraps on the street.

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#928

Post by johnnyanmac »

xnx wrote: post #249
dspillett wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In some cases being told "just treat it like you are a manager", when we've always done our level best to avoid anything vaguely like management because we like doing things particularly the nitty gritty details.

Nah, the part of management that sucks is the people. Management/operation of a thinking machine is a dream by comparison. With AI you can still get into the details all you want. AI won't get offended for being "micro-managed".

>AI won't get offended for being "micro-managed".

And you say the quiet part out loud on why some people really, really want AI pushed in at all costs.

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#929

Post by johnnyanmac »

scottLobster wrote: post #117
NicuCalcea wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A quarter of Americans (and 40% of young Americans) see Mangione favourably, so it definitely is a society thing. https://yougov.com/en-us/articles/51189-presidential-pardons...

The only reason in my mind to view Mangione unfavorably is that vigilante justice, however justified, does not result in a civilization anyone would want to live in. It's the same reason we can't just go around killing everyone in the Epstein files. It's not that they don't deserve it, it's that the resulting corrosion destroys the entire system, including the good parts. If Mangione had killed the UHC CEO by being h…

> It's not that they don't deserve it, it's that the resulting corrosion destroys the entire system, including the good parts.

You're right that it's not the right way. But if things keep going, it will be the inevitable way. History doesn't really have an extended history of serfs being continually robbed of all freedoms and just accepting it peacefully. People talk of the French Revolution but not the centuries of instability afterwards.

I guess the US will be the same if we keep going at this rate.

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#930

Post by johnnyanmac »

cleandreams wrote: post #516

I am not excited about tech anymore. I dread it to be honest. I was an early engineer at a AI company that got acquired. From that and related stock (golden handcuffs) was able to retire a couple of years ago. There were some tech problems that I wanted to investigate and I took a bunch of classes. Fun. I loved my career. Wow have my feelings changed. I'm disgusted. It's a moral disgust. The scene turns me off SO MUC…

> Just a recent tidbit: I think it is Anthropic that is buying old (some antique, vintage) books, scanning them, then pulping them.

I wouldn't be surprised if all the companies are doing that, and Anthropic was just the featured company that had someone talk about it.

>The other day I was sitting around doing nothing and suddenly out of the blue dreamed up an app that could help build community regarding an activity I care a lot about.

Wish you the best of luck. But from my honest experience: the hardest part of building community was never the technology.

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