The diminishing returns of productivity culture (2021) • Hacker News Board

Re: The diminishing returns of productivity culture (2021)

#91

Post by caffeine » Sat, May 07, 2022, 10:05 AM UTC

dav_Oz wrote: post #87

caffeine wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s true on average might not be true for certain individuals, and power-law mechanics might make those individuals more significant than everyone else who makes up the average. Like imagine Elon Musk works 80 hours a week and he doesn’t suffer any negative consequence, he just becomes the most productive human ever according to the market. And then a bunch of other people work 80 hours and they do suffer burnout…

Isn't there a sweet spot though? As Elon, by virtue of his massive wealth now, is depriving an ungodly amount of people of financial resources and opportunities. I mean on that scale I venture to say it's like a Usain Bolt sucking up nearly all the sponsoring for 100m sprinting so there are very few left to even challenge him in a professional sense which makes him even more "valuable". [Of course in this analogy (ac…

> As Elon, by virtue of his massive wealth now, is depriving an ungodly amount of people of financial resources and opportunities.

That doesn’t make any sense at all. His wealth isn’t made up of financial resources and opportunities that other people could have used - his wealth is the price that other people would be willing to pay him to own shares in the companies he created.

I think it’s a common misconception out there that paper billionaires like Elon and Jeff Bezos have like a giant pile of cans of food in a warehouse somewhere that they could give out to people but don’t because they like having the biggest pile.

That’s not really the case.

Re: The diminishing returns of productivity culture (2021)

#92

Post by noduerme » Sat, May 07, 2022, 10:08 AM UTC

mike_hock wrote: post #72

a_t48 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And unless you do something to the environment, it doesn't wear down over time. Disagree here (at least in spirit?) - code smell can also point to maintainability issues - if the codebase is continually changed some code is more likely to break than others.

I've never heard/read/thought of "code smell" as anything BUT referring to maintainability issues. When you're debugging a concrete issue and have a hunch what might be the cause, that's not a "code smell."

Code can smell and be perfectly maintainable. Sometimes it's even more maintainable, because it's so unnecessarily replicated that the patterns become obvious. You could even argue that the best precision code is the hardest to grok and maintain in the long run.

Re: The diminishing returns of productivity culture (2021)

#93

Post by gugagore » Sat, May 07, 2022, 10:11 AM UTC

jseban wrote: post #82

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want all the niceties of modern society to include high quality widely available single-payer health care, sane non-captured media, politicians who are responsible to voters and not to corporations and extremely rich individuals, significant social investment in education and basic research, no forced personal debt, climate stability, and no indirect incentives which reward crime as a workable path out of extreme p…

Having a utopia is impossible hard, and those issues you want to solve are literally the same fundamental problems that have existed since the dawn of civilisation, they are not caused by technology, and destroying computers in the office and insisting on only using rubber stamps and fax machines is not going to help in any way.

It's not possible to truly know the counterfactual. However it is clear that technological progress could have been directed toward the utopia. Instead, social inequality in big parts of the Western world is on the rise, with many people getting poorer.

Technology holds the promise of solving fundamental problems, right? And I think it's good to have high expectations for technological progress.

And yes there is at least a hint of technological solutions exacerbating the fundamental problem arising from the human condition. Social media for one seems to be a radically different form or quantity of communication. I find it easy to see that things have gone a little haywire.

Re: The diminishing returns of productivity culture (2021)

#94

Post by jseban » Sat, May 07, 2022, 10:14 AM UTC

somewhereoutth wrote: post #88

jseban wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having a utopia is impossible hard, and those issues you want to solve are literally the same fundamental problems that have existed since the dawn of civilisation, they are not caused by technology, and destroying computers in the office and insisting on only using rubber stamps and fax machines is not going to help in any way.

> utopia Or 'Europe' as we call it.

Sure, moving to Europe sounds like a pretty reasonable approach if you want to have more socialism, as opposed to revolting against computers.

Europe is not less efficient and they are not against computers, it's just a different type of redistribution politics, technology is entirely neutral in these matters.

The problem is that the size of both your home and your paycheck will be cut in half, it's always a tradeoff.

Re: The diminishing returns of productivity culture (2021)

#95

Post by Mordisquitos » Sat, May 07, 2022, 10:16 AM UTC

noduerme wrote: post #53

esaym wrote: post #4

>Technology robbed workers’ of what had been highly valued physical knowledge about a job: the precise way to jimmy a stuck gear, the sound a machine makes when something’s about to break. There's an experience that lives rent free in my mind as well. As a teen, I worked at a bait shop that was on the Gulf coast. They sold mostly live shrimp but had other live stuff for bait as well. Salt water was pumped from the ne…

Why is there an apostrophe after "workers", and why has it caused me to read this six times?

It may have been caused by an incomplete editing decision. If you remove a few words the sentence becomes grammatical, if clumsy. Compare:

> Technology robbed workers’ of what had been highly valued physical knowledge about a job: [...]

...with...

> Technology robbed workers’ highly valued physical knowledge about a job: [...]

Maybe the original sentence was the second one and was edited for clarity, but they forgot to remove the apostrophe.

Re: The diminishing returns of productivity culture (2021)

#96

Post by caffeine » Sat, May 07, 2022, 10:16 AM UTC

koonsolo wrote: post #85

caffeine wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s true on average might not be true for certain individuals, and power-law mechanics might make those individuals more significant than everyone else who makes up the average. Like imagine Elon Musk works 80 hours a week and he doesn’t suffer any negative consequence, he just becomes the most productive human ever according to the market. And then a bunch of other people work 80 hours and they do suffer burnout…

I'm pretty smart and a hard worker. I have a Masters degree in computer science. I can do about 4 to 6 hours of concentrated work per day. I never seen anyone do more or better. I know plenty of people who claim to work a crazy amout of hours. But in the end it always turns out they are deceiving themselves. I don't know Elon, so maybe he is different. But in the end, I'll believe it when I see it.

You are doing solo, technical, concentrated work.

I have seen a lot of people do more and better. But different work, not coding.

Like leading and managing people is very possible for some elite people to do for say 70 hours a week and mostly involves talking, persuading, answering emails and phone calls, and most importantly making good decisions.

The value of good leadership and good decisions is directly proportional to the number and quality of people being led.

So that could be a huge value. Doing twice as much of it could way more than double that value with compounding.

Re: The diminishing returns of productivity culture (2021)

#97

Post by gugagore » Sat, May 07, 2022, 10:19 AM UTC

caffeine wrote: post #91

dav_Oz wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't there a sweet spot though? As Elon, by virtue of his massive wealth now, is depriving an ungodly amount of people of financial resources and opportunities. I mean on that scale I venture to say it's like a Usain Bolt sucking up nearly all the sponsoring for 100m sprinting so there are very few left to even challenge him in a professional sense which makes him even more "valuable". [Of course in this analogy (ac…

> As Elon, by virtue of his massive wealth now, is depriving an ungodly amount of people of financial resources and opportunities. That doesn’t make any sense at all. His wealth isn’t made up of financial resources and opportunities that other people could have used - his wealth is the price that other people would be willing to pay him to own shares in the companies he created. I think it’s a common misconception ou…

No one believes they are hoarding cans of food. People say they are hoarding wealth, and assuming it's liquid.

https://ncarteron.medium.com/the-billionaires-arent-liquid-a...

Which it is.

They absolutely could, and the only reason they don't is because they like being in the club of biggest-pile-havers.

Re: The diminishing returns of productivity culture (2021)

#98

Post by jseban » Sat, May 07, 2022, 10:23 AM UTC

gugagore wrote: post #93

jseban wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having a utopia is impossible hard, and those issues you want to solve are literally the same fundamental problems that have existed since the dawn of civilisation, they are not caused by technology, and destroying computers in the office and insisting on only using rubber stamps and fax machines is not going to help in any way.

It's not possible to truly know the counterfactual. However it is clear that technological progress could have been directed toward the utopia. Instead, social inequality in big parts of the Western world is on the rise, with many people getting poorer. Technology holds the promise of solving fundamental problems, right? And I think it's good to have high expectations for technological progress. And yes there is at l…

> Technology holds the promise of solving fundamental problems, right?

I don't think so, I think it only amplifies the human condition, in a neutral way.

Non-profit organisations are benefitting from technology just the same as profit driven ones.

The free software movement has quite literally put the means of production in the hands of the workers, and it didn't lead to a communist utopia this time either.

The internet can be seen as evil in china because it's used for censorship and propaganda, and good in the west because it's used for freedom and democracy.

Re: The diminishing returns of productivity culture (2021)

#99

Post by dredmorbius » Sat, May 07, 2022, 10:32 AM UTC

noduerme wrote: post #60

>> We have to collectively reject the engine of endless growth, and the aspiration for infinite productivity, before it breaks us all. Or, y'know, not be so fragile. My generation, GenX, didn't get to where we are as semi-successful slackers by whining, we did it by actually just arranging our own gigs and either accepting or rejecting the abuse of the capitalist system on a case-by-case basis. Appealing to the colle…

Advising someone not to be fragile is a lot like telling them not to be so sick, or poor, or black, or gay, or male, or whatever.

It's blaming the victim. It denies the problem. And it only works to the point it doesn't.

Someday, someone you care about may wake up and discover that what was once possible is no longer. And that person might very well be you.

Re: The diminishing returns of productivity culture (2021)

#100

Post by kqr » Sat, May 07, 2022, 10:34 AM UTC

caffeine wrote: post #91

dav_Oz wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't there a sweet spot though? As Elon, by virtue of his massive wealth now, is depriving an ungodly amount of people of financial resources and opportunities. I mean on that scale I venture to say it's like a Usain Bolt sucking up nearly all the sponsoring for 100m sprinting so there are very few left to even challenge him in a professional sense which makes him even more "valuable". [Of course in this analogy (ac…

> As Elon, by virtue of his massive wealth now, is depriving an ungodly amount of people of financial resources and opportunities. That doesn’t make any sense at all. His wealth isn’t made up of financial resources and opportunities that other people could have used - his wealth is the price that other people would be willing to pay him to own shares in the companies he created. I think it’s a common misconception ou…

> His wealth isn’t made up of financial resources and opportunities that other people could have used

This is literally how profit works. You make sure your costs (salaries you pay your workers) are less than the value they produce. In other words, you keep some of the financial resources and opportunities that others could have had.