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Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?

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Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?

#191

Post by burntoutfire »

guerrilla wrote: post #47
kolinko wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who lived through communism - this kind of phrasing is really dangerous. What people complain about on /r/antiwork is problems that people from my country would kill to have. Capitalism has it's faults, but just complaining, without a constructive alternative can lead to way worse outcomes.

Worker ownership of the means of production ( i.e. democracy at work) is an alternative and that's most certainly not what you lived through, nor did you live through a stateless, classless and moneyless society. What you lived through was fascism with red flags. If you check the sidebar of that subreddit you'll find anarchism and mutualism as the solutions to the problems it identifies.

What exactly are the means in production in software companies though? The code bases and the patents?

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?

#192

Post by silentsea90 »

You should explore what you're excited about. Could it be self driving cars, robotics, logistics, health care tech? Do you think space travel is epic? The benefit of being a SWE is that you're needed in every industry. While I certainly fall prey to this emotion from time to time, there is good reason to be optimistic in our choice of vocation.

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?

#193

Post by burntoutfire »

guerrilla wrote: post #47
kolinko wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who lived through communism - this kind of phrasing is really dangerous. What people complain about on /r/antiwork is problems that people from my country would kill to have. Capitalism has it's faults, but just complaining, without a constructive alternative can lead to way worse outcomes.

Worker ownership of the means of production ( i.e. democracy at work) is an alternative and that's most certainly not what you lived through, nor did you live through a stateless, classless and moneyless society. What you lived through was fascism with red flags. If you check the sidebar of that subreddit you'll find anarchism and mutualism as the solutions to the problems it identifies.

> What you lived through was fascism with red flags.

What makes people believe that further attempts at implementing this utopia will not just end as another cases of fascism with red flags? Certainly so far all previous attempts ended up this way, and there was a good amount of them so the sample size is not small.

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?

#194

Post by guerrilla »

burntoutfire wrote: post #193
guerrilla wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worker ownership of the means of production ( i.e. democracy at work) is an alternative and that's most certainly not what you lived through, nor did you live through a stateless, classless and moneyless society. What you lived through was fascism with red flags. If you check the sidebar of that subreddit you'll find anarchism and mutualism as the solutions to the problems it identifies.

> What you lived through was fascism with red flags. What makes people believe that further attempts at implementing this utopia will not just end as another cases of fascism with red flags? Certainly so far all previous attempts ended up this way, and there was a good amount of them so the sample size is not small.

Prefigurative politics. Your groups to change the world operate in the same way that you want to see the world be in the future, not in ends-justify-the-means vangaurdism. If you intend to implement democracy, you operate as a political group democratically, etc.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prefigurative_politics

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?

#195

Post by guerrilla »

burntoutfire wrote: post #191
guerrilla wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worker ownership of the means of production ( i.e. democracy at work) is an alternative and that's most certainly not what you lived through, nor did you live through a stateless, classless and moneyless society. What you lived through was fascism with red flags. If you check the sidebar of that subreddit you'll find anarchism and mutualism as the solutions to the problems it identifies.

What exactly are the means in production in software companies though? The code bases and the patents?

This shouldn't be a hard question for you to answer for yourself. What do software companies produce? Software. What's used to produce that software? That's your means of productions: IP, desks, chairs, laptops, routers, development software, etc.

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?

#196

Post by rmk »

burntoutfire wrote: post #190
rmk wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Work satisfaction is a large component of happiness, as we spend a lot of our time at work (nearly half our waking hours). It's important not to neglect other aspects of your life and base your self-worth and happiness on work alone, but it's important to ensure you are happy at work.

I agree, but i would phrase it contrarily, as this much more common - work dissatisfaction is often a large component of unhappiness.

Absolutely. Work dissatisfaction has the potential to disrupt other aspects of quality of life, including interpersonal relationships, especially if it's not addressed for a long time.

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?

#197

Post by sharken »

dmitriid wrote: post #187
sharken wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it can also be answered with a "no", so i fail to see your point.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines?...

Maybe it's just me, but i also fail to see the use of Betteridges law.

But it's probably great for lengthy philosophical discussions :)

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?

#198

Post by zepto »

guerrilla wrote: post #165
zepto wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

*Solutions that nobody anywhere has ever implemented successfully.

It's almost as if there's a class of people who own most of the world's resources and entire heavily armed states who have an interest in ensuring that failure at all costs, you might say. Then again, it's been tried plenty of times. That's what cooperatives are, family farms are, what you owning your laptop as a programmer are. We just cut down on the coup d'etats and union busting and expand that kind of democratiz…

> That's what cooperatives are, family farms are, what you owning your laptop as a programmer are.

These are just different kinds of organization within capitalism. Clubs are a thing too, you know.

These aren’t ‘solutions to capitalism’.

> It's also a silly argument considering you could have said the same before agriculture and before capitalism succeeded.

It’s only a silly argument if someone presents a solution. So far nobody is doing so.

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?

#199

Post by moistly »

I’m late to the party and the thread is nigh endless, so perhaps I repeat what others have said… perhaps consider a physical labour job in construction, at least for a while. It is practical, meaningful work, building someone a home. There’s tangible proof of having accomplished something and you know that people will appreciate the end result. Plus, it’s healthy, both physically and mentally. I think you might find it rewarding.

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?

#200

Post by kyriakos »

siva7 wrote: post #54
elephanlemon wrote: post #36

Don’t agree with most of these comments. Not wanting to work at a company that makes some uninteresting business product just a little more profitable does not mean that you are depressed. Working at a place like that can certainly make you depressed though! To the OP, I think you have a few options. On one hand you can keep taking short jobs / consulting or try to build some sort of simple SaaS business that you can…

Basing your happiness from your work life is a recipe for unhappiness. You will always find something to nitpick about

We spend a lot of our time working, enough to affect our general state of mind. A lot of people in a high demand occupation would sacrifice a high salary for happier conditions.
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