25 years of coding, and I'm just beginning • Hacker News Board

Re: 25 years of coding, and I'm just beginning

#161

Post by CM30 » Sun, Jan 20, 2019, 5:09 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #126

ellius wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hannah Arendt draws a useful distinction between "labor" and "work." Labor is effort required to sustain life: catching food, finding water, plowing crops. Because living creatures need these things continually, labor never ends. Food is eaten or decays and new food must be grown. Work, on the other hand, has a defined start and endpoint. Ideally, it produces something enduring and unique. In ancient times, labor was…

I like this. I very much like this. I feel what you described matches the problem almost perfectly. Modern economy seems to be transmuting all kind of work into labor. In particular, in white-collar work is something that abstracts you almost completely away from reality. You come in, do whatever arbitrary thing you're asked to, and get money for it, which you can exchange to services of the modern society. Any contr…

> so there's almost nothing you can point to and say "I made that".

Really? I'd hazard a guess that most of Hacker News could point to the websites and apps they made and say they made that. What else would be on a developer or software engineer's CV?

Same with many other white collar jobs. Designers and media creators/artists can easily point out what they've worked on, as can writers and journalists, or scientists or academics, etc.

Re: 25 years of coding, and I'm just beginning

#162

Post by ellius » Sun, Jan 20, 2019, 5:28 PM UTC

adwn wrote: post #157

ellius wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hannah Arendt draws a useful distinction between "labor" and "work." Labor is effort required to sustain life: catching food, finding water, plowing crops. Because living creatures need these things continually, labor never ends. Food is eaten or decays and new food must be grown. Work, on the other hand, has a defined start and endpoint. Ideally, it produces something enduring and unique. In ancient times, labor was…

> Capitalism transmutes nearly all work into labor. In your opinion, was there ever a system where that was not the case? If not, then you can't really say that it's capitalism which transmutes work into labor, no? Do you think there could be a system where that is not the case (apart from an anarcho-communistic utopia as in the Culture series)?

I'm not sure, I'd really have to think about that one. I'm pretty sure there has never been a society where the bulk of activity was not labor. That seems necessary by definition: you can't build things if you don't first sustain life which can build it, so "work" is necessarily a luxury of surplus. But I do think the idea of transmutation might be unique to capitalism. If you're really interested in thinking about this stuff I'd recommend going to the source and reading Arendt and other political science. This idea specifically comes from "The Human Condition," which I've just started.

EDIT: Sort of a follow-up thought: capitalism might actually be the escape mechanism that allows the bulk of activity in a society not to be labor. But the tradeoff is that all work is "transmuted" into labor (or feeling like labor) since everything is priced and a salary becomes the means of subsistence. I'm just spitballing, but I thought it was an interesting enough thought to add.

Re: 25 years of coding, and I'm just beginning

#163

Post by derangedHorse » Sun, Jan 20, 2019, 5:34 PM UTC

justaguyhere wrote: post #137

ratsimihah wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe some of us tend to mix up "a life lived" with overachieving. In other words, we only feel it worth if we produce something truly outstanding.

In other words, we only feel it worth if we produce something truly outstanding By this metric, most of humanity probably feels it worthless, isn't it? I understand this is HN and people here achieve more than the normal crowd - still, I don't get the obsession over being productive every second, the need to "produce something truly outstanding" etc. Whats wrong with just being happy, taking it easy, spreading happin…

Not really. For some people having a child counts as producing "something truly outstanding."

What I believe the quoted commentor was trying to get at was that some people have goals for happiness that are harder to achieve, but also can't be replaced for something else.

Re: 25 years of coding, and I'm just beginning

#164

Post by ivanhoe » Sun, Jan 20, 2019, 5:48 PM UTC

claplouder wrote: post #26

ivanhoe wrote: post #19

Jordan Peterson has come up with this rule: "Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today". Aside all the controversy that surrounds him, this is really deep and solid advice IMO. You don't live the life to impress others, so who cares if you have to show "something", you did a tones of projects, you got knowledge and experience from those projects, that's what you can (and should) sho…

Pretty sure that Jordan Peterson didn't come up with that.

I can't claim that he did or did not, I quoted him simply as I first heard it from him in this form. And it's not really important who come up with the idea first, in some way it is really an obvious thing, but we all forget about it too often. With the rise of Internet we stopped comparing ourselves with people around us locally, instead now you compare yourself with the whole damn planet. Instead of competing with few hundreds or thousands, you've now set yourself against billions of people - and that's a recipe for depression.

Re: 25 years of coding, and I'm just beginning

#165

Post by BurningFrog » Sun, Jan 20, 2019, 5:55 PM UTC

theoh wrote: post #118

BurningFrog wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely different angle: We're primates who by nature are very hierarchy oriented. We judge our lives by how high in the hierarchy we are. And no matter how rich society gets, how good our homes, health, food supply and culture are, we still end up on average in the middle of the pack. And maybe that's what feels like you have "nothing to show for it".

Explanations based on evolutionary psychology tend to neglect the social or psychological adaptations that are responsible for complex society. The validity of the claim that we would be happier as hunter gatherers, for example, is really difficult to assess from the perspective of someone embedded in modern human society. The high level of interdependence (sometimes called organic solidarity) changes everything. The…

Sure, you can dress up most any argument in some plausible sounding evolutionary psychology argument.

But "people really care about social status" does not rest primarily on that at all. I just threw that in to sound a little Malcolm Gladwell.

PS The tendency to deny evolutionary psychology isn't politically neutral :)

Re: 25 years of coding, and I'm just beginning

#166

Post by salmanarshad321 » Sun, Jan 20, 2019, 6:26 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #119

salmanarshad321 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't speak for other places but in my city many have made a business out of doing this. They buy and soup up old cars. There's a trust factor because they've been in the business for more than a decade. Also, they have a reputation for selling at comparatively higher prices -- and they don't seem to be running out of business. https://m.indiamart.com/yash-car-bazar/

I think we have a different definition of 'pristine'.

It's likely. Plus, most cars here are likely to be scratched or dented. The state of UP recorded the highest rate of road accidents in the country which also indicates the recklessness of the drivers.[1] I attribute this to a poor bureaucracy, widespread corruption[2], and careless drivers. My driving test was literally just accelerating and reversing the car once. Personally, when I park my car somewhere I assume it might be a little scratched when I am back. Perhaps that's what most people do and therefore we are content with not-so-pristine vehicles.

[1]https://www.hindustantimes.com/lucknow/road-accident-deaths-... [2]https://www.forbes.com/sites/ronakdesai/2018/03/07/india-con...

Re: 25 years of coding, and I'm just beginning

#167

Post by ratsimihah » Sun, Jan 20, 2019, 6:48 PM UTC

justaguyhere wrote: post #137

ratsimihah wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe some of us tend to mix up "a life lived" with overachieving. In other words, we only feel it worth if we produce something truly outstanding.

In other words, we only feel it worth if we produce something truly outstanding By this metric, most of humanity probably feels it worthless, isn't it? I understand this is HN and people here achieve more than the normal crowd - still, I don't get the obsession over being productive every second, the need to "produce something truly outstanding" etc. Whats wrong with just being happy, taking it easy, spreading happin…

By "some of us " I did refer to a subset of HN, and not most of humanity.

Re: 25 years of coding, and I'm just beginning

#168

Post by Antoninus » Sun, Jan 20, 2019, 6:58 PM UTC

orev wrote: post #3

What every salary-person has to show for it: a life lived; bills paid; food on the table; health; a roof over your head; a body not ravaged and damaged by hard labor; the ability to relax and have some entertainment in the evening; a place to sleep; comfort; relative stability; the ability to make a living using mostly just your brain. Yes, perspective is important, and I’m not saying one should not strive to make mo…

I agree with this sentiment. Isn't that interesting part of this job? That you get have all of things the listed above and 'nothing' to show for it? We're left with nothing tangible. I'm really happy with my memories, freedom to work where I want, using my brain for living. A life built from my brain, pen, paper and a portable computer.

Re: 25 years of coding, and I'm just beginning

#169

Post by tomc1985 » Sun, Jan 20, 2019, 7:05 PM UTC

abledon wrote: post #155

justaguyhere wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In other words, we only feel it worth if we produce something truly outstanding By this metric, most of humanity probably feels it worthless, isn't it? I understand this is HN and people here achieve more than the normal crowd - still, I don't get the obsession over being productive every second, the need to "produce something truly outstanding" etc. Whats wrong with just being happy, taking it easy, spreading happin…

i think when people focus on optimizing code they slip into a frame of mind where they try to 'optimize' their lives like they are a machine. the road to hell is paved with good intentions

> the road to hell is paved with good intentions

This, right here, is the summary of all technology now. Millions of people with millions of (mostly bad) ideas, flooding the world with unprecedented ease and access. Yay convenience...

Re: 25 years of coding, and I'm just beginning

#170

Post by tjtrapp » Sun, Jan 20, 2019, 7:10 PM UTC

pugworthy wrote: post #28

Speaking from 40 years of programming (not counting before 18), OP needs to move to a life that's not about just programming. The idea that OP has nothing to show from programming is short sighted, in that it's assuming that all one can or should created in life is code. Do you have stories to tell? Tell them. Do you know more about how to create solutions now? Become a better problem solver. Do you know how to talk…

This response echoes my sentiment. I've been coding for 20+ years and have found that literally writing the code becomes a smaller and smaller portion of my day-to-day as my career moves forward. The solution design, guidance for less-experienced team members, pull-request reviews, solution design with customers/partners, etc. becomes a larger portion of my daily responsibilities.