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Extremely disillusioned with technology. Please help

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Re: Extremely disillusioned with technology. Please help

#441

I think the fundamental flaw is trying to be 'successful'. Playing that game invariably requires you to pretend to be what you think the market wants. I would suggest you think about building something you want that you find fun. If you're a scuba diver, build a dive computer. If you're a woodworker make a tool for making the best use of a board. The most important thing is you absolutely don't plan on making it a wo…

For most people it's not about trying to be successful. It's about not having to be stressed out daily about basic needs like home, health, transport, kids upbringing etc. Unfortunately it all costs a lot of money these days, which makes you take a compromise for the sake of security for you and your closest relatives.

> It's about not having to be stressed out daily about basic needs like home, health, transport, kids upbringing etc.

That is a problem that is better solved with politics than with technology. There is enough in the world that if we shared more, most people would not have to worry about these things. (I say most, solving for "all" is more difficult)

But let's be honest. Work isn't always going to be fun. Not having to stress about things is not going to make Dilbert-style corporations enjoyable. Just keep smiling and be happy you are not plowing the ground with an Ox.

Re: Extremely disillusioned with technology. Please help

#443
It sounds like the person is disillusioned with people and the industry more than the tech itself.

And yeah, jobs suck (even the good ones), but I think a bigger problem is the lack of friends and other social supports to make it OK that your job sucks.

The author writes they poured "every ounce of energy" in to their company. They were putting time in to the company instead of their human relationships, and unfortunately it bit them.

I've posted this once or twice before, but I always come back to this remarkably insightful comment by HN user dexwiz a while back.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20470085 """ The Screen and the Job have displaced almost everything else is our lives. Loneliness is just a primary symptom.

The Screen, whether it’s TV, computer, or phone, has supplanted almost all social interactions. This manifests itself in things like SitComs on TV (just a bunch of friends or family hanging out) or Social Media on phones. It’s very easy to fill the social needs of right now with a Screen. But under even a minuscule amount of self reflection these are revealed as hollow substitutes for real human interaction.

The Job has completely taken over as a driving force in evaluating choices. The average person has to consider all options in the light of both the current employer and the specter of tomorrow’s. Moving across the country for a high paying job? Great! Moving to be closer to friends? That’s a career killer.

No wonder we are lonely. We make choices in the short term that optimize happiness, often at the expense of our relationships. Ghosting is not just for dates now. Then turn around and make choices in the long term that optimize employability at the expense of all else.

"""

Re: Extremely disillusioned with technology. Please help

#445
This is actually quite common situation and it seems that the major cause is that tech is now saturated with "normies" (liberal arts college dropouts, SJW schizoids, etc) instead of math or biology majors like it used to be at the times of Bell labs or Xerox PARC or early Google.

Abstract bullshit, misapplication of statistical methods is another cause. We are drowning in the sea of screaming narcissistic virtue-signaling bullshit.

So, go back to concrete mathematics, grounded in reality modeling, lightweight high level prototyping languages and functional programming. This, like universal principles, will never fail you.

Re: Extremely disillusioned with technology. Please help

#446
post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GP is talking about pre-WWII civilization, not medieval serfdom.

I’m talking about rural Mexico up through the 1960s, within the living memory of elderly people (with some of the features I mentioned persisting today or only recently changing). The US South was like this at least through the first few decades the 20th century (after WWII the US Federal government made a tremendous effort to bring jobs and infrastructure to underdeveloped parts of the country), as were many parts o…

The past was fairly horrible, of course, but we've definitely lost elements of it which were good. For example, commerce where both parties know and care about each other on some level like you might find in a farmers market or similar. Remnants still exist, but the mass market replacement, supermarkets, are missing a lot that was once better in the past. We've certainly vastly exceeded any previous material lifestyle, I don't feel like we've exceeded a lot of the cultural aspects of the past. Not, of course, that I want a return to conservative rural culture or something, but there's definitely something uniquely atomised about modern life in the West.

Re: Extremely disillusioned with technology. Please help

#447
post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holy crap lmao. Are you completely oblivious as to how much of a dick you sound like? Here's a societies claimed moral compass nice thing to do: tell him you aren't friends, possibly give him the reasons why, and leave it like that. Don't come to HN trying to humble yourself in posting this. I bet you're a ton of fun

Yeah I am a condescending dick - to people with no skills, no capital, no ability to execute. They don't typically bring anything to the table! I happened to internalize the idea of a co-founder with somewhat of a network to resurrect an idea that needed to be funded, and I can say that yes it did get me/us taken more seriously. I'm finding solidarity in this thread amongst the engineers that also are annoyed with ov…

Well, sorry to burst your bubble, but the "solidarity" amongst engineers in this thread is somewhat close to "fuck the money, be more of a moral ethical human" which is so, so far from what you've described. I don't think you should automatically lump yourself in with them.

Yes, I, and many others, have something close to the same feelings you do towards these types. However, we don't pride ourselves on being manipulative wolves and going "hehe I actually hate you" under our breath.

Have you, perhaps, considered, that he maybe feels the same way about you, but is even more of a manipulative asshole and has strung you along more than you can possibly imagine by being a complete psychopath?

Anyways, there's probably not much of a point in trying to reason with somebody like you. If you can't tell, if there were only "you's" and "hims" in the world... it would only end in two petty parties, and then war, with no good for the hypothetical humanity at all. Enjoy your money and your arguably strange views on making the future a brighter place.

Re: Extremely disillusioned with technology. Please help

#448

I'm having similar issues, and i think i found a way out: stop playing their game. Don't make enterprise software. Don't write unit tests. Don't accept pull requests. Simply write software for yourself and have fun doing it. Forget refactoring code into modules, just fucking code. Don't worry about deployment with k8s, just copy the Python script to your production folder and run it. Fuck all that shit about git bran…

[deleted]

Re: Extremely disillusioned with technology. Please help

#449
post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the OP comment, and also with this one. It is important to understand two things in coping with the state of the world in my opinion. 1) The reality is you need to find validation and fulfilment outside of work, because in our current society you are just a drone. 2) Don't be depressed because it seems like this is how it's always been. It hasn't. Our work culture is broken. People never used to be so fa…

Let's go further with it and read "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind". Not to spoil too much but those people working land were cripples as well. Hunter gatherers had perfect life because unlike peasants they could enjoy their life instead of returning to the work in field. Now think about how hunter gatherers were exposed to risk. What kind of stress they had everyday. Look at current animals how they live. It i…

Anxiety is just a normal feeling, if you are a animal out in the wild.

Re: Extremely disillusioned with technology. Please help

#450
post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Moving a bit further from the specifics, it's worth noting that this is not a natural state of affairs. Humans evolved to be in groups of about 30-100 people who they knew their whole lives Yup, there are still some anarcho-primitivists who think technology was a bad deal for us humans overall, and that living in a tribal setting of hunters-gatherers is best. The infamous "unabomber manifesto" was broadly advocatin…

Well, there are the billions who are now alive thanks to modern agriculture and medicine. We are perhaps comparing the best of the past with the worst of the present, which may not be a fair comparison. Best is to collect the best of past and present to create the best future.

But it also matters how those billions live, and considering that the vast majority live in extreme poverty the picture becomes less rosy. Not to speak of the ecological disasters of climate change and pollution this is causing, which also has an impact on our well being. Modern agriculture and medicine have in a way made it possible for all those people to be alive at the same time. I agree with your last sentence since we obviously can't change the past.
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