331–340 of 441 posts
Sadly, getting funded for such important missions seems hard somehow
My advice: get yourself working in a pharma company or a hospital. They need people with real software skills. The pay will suck, but you will be saving lives.
You might as well have asked who among us won the lottery. I've been struggling with this for years now; after 4 boring jobs I finally gave up even the expectation that what I'll be asked to do will be even remotely interesting (or socially useful). The chance of landing an interesting job is absolutely minuscule - the market rewards whatever it rewards at the moment, and that's where jobs flock. These days, one of t…
You might as well have asked who among us won the lottery. I've been struggling with this for years now; after 4 boring jobs I finally gave up even the expectation that what I'll be asked to do will be even remotely interesting (or socially useful). The chance of landing an interesting job is absolutely minuscule - the market rewards whatever it rewards at the moment, and that's where jobs flock. These days, one of t…
Yes. The most rewarding thing one can do is to figure out a way to change that.
It's sad that our brightest minds don't want to understand this, and that they'd rather think about how to make people click ads.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Eventually everything becomes "just a job." In my mid twenties this was hard for me to grasp. I was working as an electronics design engineer for a company that made low-end industrial controls. We had a customer who had what seemed like the dream company to me: he made robots for animatronics and lab applications. One day I was talking to him about how exciting the work was and his answer surprised me: it used to be…
I wonder if there are some people who are exceptions. I worked with an software developer at my last job who was incredible. He seemed to have a strong interest for the technology, no matter what technology that was. At the time, it was iOS, and he was an absolute master of iOS. I was constantly impressed by his attention to detail and emphasis on quality, well written, technically challenging code. I've loosely foll…
Question - is his management crushing it as well or are they crushing him? Is he good at standing up for himself and not letting management crush him?
I think a lot of enthusiastic and brilliant people get destroyed by their managers exploiting them. So the individual goes from crushing it to getting crushed. Management really has to enable that kind of person to succeed.
We are developing a matter compiler. We are working on designing molecular Lego to assemble them into new catalysts, therapeutic compounds, atomically precise membranes and sensors for proteins and small molecules. The goal is to make molecules that can do everything that proteins can do and that can be designed by human beings with computer assistance. We've developed a programming environment with a custom compiler…
You might as well have asked who among us won the lottery. I've been struggling with this for years now; after 4 boring jobs I finally gave up even the expectation that what I'll be asked to do will be even remotely interesting (or socially useful). The chance of landing an interesting job is absolutely minuscule - the market rewards whatever it rewards at the moment, and that's where jobs flock. These days, one of t…
You might as well have asked who among us won the lottery. I've been struggling with this for years now; after 4 boring jobs I finally gave up even the expectation that what I'll be asked to do will be even remotely interesting (or socially useful). The chance of landing an interesting job is absolutely minuscule - the market rewards whatever it rewards at the moment, and that's where jobs flock. These days, one of t…
I mean if you're a programmer and want a job fighting cancer, maybe pick up some ML skills and find a way into that industry. But short of getting your PhD in medicine or a law degree fighting injustice, we're all just a different sort of coal miner providing the things society needs to keep chugging along. And there's no shame in simply being a productive member of society. As far as societies go, we're better than all that have come before.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder if there are some people who are exceptions. I worked with an software developer at my last job who was incredible. He seemed to have a strong interest for the technology, no matter what technology that was. At the time, it was iOS, and he was an absolute master of iOS. I was constantly impressed by his attention to detail and emphasis on quality, well written, technically challenging code. I've loosely foll…
>I've loosely followed him since, and he seems to be absolutely crushing it wherever he goes. Question - is his management crushing it as well or are they crushing him? Is he good at standing up for himself and not letting management crush him? I think a lot of enthusiastic and brilliant people get destroyed by their managers exploiting them. So the individual goes from crushing it to getting crushed. Management real…
Yes. This. He was very, very good at standing his ground and asserting that his time and effort was being spent well.
Multiple times I witnessed management clashing with him over something. Usually he felt like more time and effort needed to go into a certain part of code. Rather than just "get it done" he took pride in his work and wanted it done RIGHT.
In general he was so good / fast that he could get it done "RIGHT" within management's expectations. But occasionally he would take on a big chunk of work, and management would try and shut him down. 9/10 they failed, he would do the work, and a damn good job of it.
Money, Time, Fun. Pick two.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> alleviating a social problem for some group of people Not sure what you mean by "social" problems specifically, but when you alleviate a problem for a group of people, they pay you, and that's what a business is. I realized recently what a useful abstraction money is, because when money came about we didn't have the ability to create a massive blockchain keeping track of who did favors for who, and when. So it's a…
What I meant by social problem for some people are things impacting their happiness and quality-of-life, reducing suffering, etc. Some examples to narrow down the possibility space: - Make it so that people in your community have access to clean water. Surprisingly, it's a problem even in the most advanced countries. - Contribute to something in healthcare that reduces costs, improves availability, or makes more peop…
It's a somewhat serious, somewhat tongue-in-cheek question. But if you need to clean your room, maybe you should do that first. Instead of having grandiose visions of improving things at large scale, prove to yourself you can improve things at a local scale and keep them that way.
If that sort of thinking is interesting, there's a whole book of it in https://jordanbpeterson.com/12-rules-for-life/ Though I'll say I got out of the existential and nihilistic mindsets differently, I don't feel like I have to wrestle with meaningness like I used to, before I ever heard of the author, I've just read good-sounding things from people who have read that book or have otherwise gotten themselves invested in the author's doings.
I suspect you've read this before but if not, point 5 might resonate with you: http://coding.derkeiler.com/Archive/Lisp/comp.lang.lisp/2006... If you fit the mold and can't change your mindset then you'll forever be unhappy unless you manage to get one of those "interesting" jobs.