Tech Workers Now Want to Know: What Are We Building This For? • Hacker News Board

Re: Tech Workers Now Want to Know: What Are We Building This For?

#351

Post by ForHackernews » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 3:30 PM UTC

camjohnson26 wrote: post #350

ForHackernews wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. You are tragically misinformed. Most systems that generate value incentivize generating as little waste as possible. There is nothing "efficient" about proof-of-work -- in fact, it's deliberately inefficient because it's a zero-sum game and all the miners have to waste as much electricity as possible to compete with the other miners. The wasted energy is not "on the chain". It's gone, converted into CO2 poisoning…

Every system of currency creation is a “zero sum game” because someone ends up with the unit of currency and everyone else doesn’t. The wasted energy is on the chain as hashes which are difficult to recreate. These are the basics. Do you seriously think people aren’t wasting energy trying to get their hands on created dollars? And they’re incentivized to waste up to a dollar to receive a dollar.

"Currency creation" is not value-creation. A good currency is a medium of exchange and a unit of account.

Re: Tech Workers Now Want to Know: What Are We Building This For?

#352

Post by mLuby » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 9:05 PM UTC

KaiserPro wrote: post #138

mLuby wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not necessarily true in big companies. A devops middle manager doesn't need to know whether the company is building widgets or dohickies; their job is to keep the software running securely. CTO/VP Eng should certainly know more about business priorities. At smaller companies it is more important. Also can improve morale.

so how do you negotiate SLAs? How do you know what level of security is required? How do you prioritise requests? How do you know which team to ask favours from? How do you get more money for your department? How do you avoid the poop-gravity interaction cycle? All of this is intrinsically linked to the business logic/goals of the company. For example: Our team worked with $cashCow team to reduce time to live by x pe…

poop-gravity whaaa?

Re: Tech Workers Now Want to Know: What Are We Building This For?

#353

Post by brokenmachine » Thu, Oct 11, 2018, 2:13 AM UTC

saosebastiao wrote: post #151

Lately I've been experiencing some depression (under treatment), so maybe this is just the state of my mind right now, but is anyone else growing more and more cynical about the potential for changing the world, and adjusting their moral philosophy to compensate? I could barely impact how my former employer ran the company, and even though I had the company's best interests at heart the whole time, I faced resistance…

That's the system working as designed by the ruling class. A person under so many personal pressures won't have the resources or energy to force the ruling class into fixing those bigger issues. It's perfect positive feedback to enable the rich to get richer.

I'm cynical too. I'm on a "good salary" but still can't afford my own home, and have made the decision to not have children mostly because I don't like the way anything is headed and don't see any change on the horizon.

When 8 people control more resources than 50% of the people on the planet [1], it's pretty clear that the evil overlords have already won.

I don't know how to fix it but I'm blown away by the apathy of most people towards the disgusting state of affairs.

From the finance sector bailout, which still blows my mind, to justice only for the rich and powerful while ridiculous numbers of people are put in jail for non-violent crime - which is sure to continue because of lobbying by the private prison industry, everyone knows it's unfair but the population has been beat into a feeling of powerlessness and somehow blaming each other and immigrants instead of the ridiculously greedy beyond comprehension 1% who are really responsible.

Everyone seems to be a crab in a bucket harboring secret dreams of eventually being part of the 1% while simultaneously not willing to admit the fact they are struggling much more than they should be with the amount of resources out there, unfortunately hoarded by a very small percentage of people who have successfully lobbied the politicians to continue the status quo.

So no, I don't think you're alone...

Edit: Some people have suggested some useful ideas here to do something about it at a local level. I'm going to try not to be so cynical and think of the problem being too big to fix, but it's difficult.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/jan/16/w...

Re: Tech Workers Now Want to Know: What Are We Building This For?

#354

Post by brokenmachine » Thu, Oct 11, 2018, 2:18 AM UTC

Domenic_S wrote: post #224

saosebastiao wrote: post #151

Lately I've been experiencing some depression (under treatment), so maybe this is just the state of my mind right now, but is anyone else growing more and more cynical about the potential for changing the world, and adjusting their moral philosophy to compensate? I could barely impact how my former employer ran the company, and even though I had the company's best interests at heart the whole time, I faced resistance…

This is either going to resonate with you or seem totally out of left field, but I'm going to say it anyway: everything you're saying is unconscious defense against changing _yourself_. You don't need to affect policy on a national level to change the world. Changing the world can be as simple as putting the phone away and being present for your family, or volunteering at a local soup kitchen. Cleaning up the side of…

Well put. I'll try to keep that in mind too.