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I quit the tech industry (2015)

eev.ee

111–120 of 276 posts

Re: I quit the tech industry (2015)

#111
post #102
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Divorces are between people not related by blood (usually). The reason you provide resources to blood relatives (kids) is to give your genes the best chance to survive.

What if a person not related by blood will give your kids better chances? What says that the parent will necessarily be the "best" person for their child through their whole life, and not someone else? That's arbitrary. You see no issues with swearing life long loyalty to blood relations? That's just going to be the optimal solution in every case? That's making it a little bit too easy don't you think?

Are you arguing that there's zero biological programming specific to children or blood relatives?

Re: I quit the tech industry (2015)

#112

I sympathize and did the same thing earlier this year: I quit my job to try and strike out on my own. For most tech companies, they sell you on this "mission" and tell you how valuable your work is. Then, you realize all you do is grease the wheels of bureaucracy. Any serious attempts of asking the question "how would anything be different if I didn't do my work" only leads to depressing answers. I've found the resul…

> but are you really impacting the world more?

You're impacting your own world more. It may be for better or worse, but you're giving yourself more control. For many folks, that's not a good thing - there's value in structure/hierarchy/rules. However, you personally don't often get as much of that value directly.

Working 'on your own', gives you then potential to capture more of that value (from your own structure/rules/etc), but it's also not trivial to do better than a larger org. Much depends on what you're measuring - money? freedom/flexibility? sense of satisfaction? Decide what the goals are first, then work towards that, and make adjustments as needed.

Re: I quit the tech industry (2015)

#113
post #15

“Rich kid cash stocks and stops working in tech to do whatever he likes” Come on.

Yeah it really snowballs at the end too, when he talks about opening a Patreon ("Yelp thought what I did was worth some cash, so maybe other people will too). Could you imagine a construction worker quitting her job and opening a Patreon, thinking it's realistic that people give her free money because she used to be productive on a job site? That all being said, the first part of the post is relatable. Tech jobs real…

Not completely the same as construction work, but carpenters/woodworkers etc. have had good success with Patreon and similar. It's more about being skilled and being able to leverage that while also appealing to people willing to fund you to show off the thing you're skilled in

Re: I quit the tech industry (2015)

#114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing less selfish than havint kids. The amount of sacrifice you have to put in is huge. If you are not on board with that, don't have kids.

Even if sacrifice and selflessness were always the same, if one would treat having your own kids differently to adopting a newborn, all other things equal, then at least part of your desire to have kids is some kind of "selfish" motivation, rather than a purely altruistic endeavour to bring up a child or contribute to the workforce of tomorrow (or whatever the ostensible motivation is). If one actually only cared abo…

You are intellectualizing too much.

Re: I quit the tech industry (2015)

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing less selfish than havint kids. The amount of sacrifice you have to put in is huge. If you are not on board with that, don't have kids.

You're doing it for a return though: the joy of having kids, planning for the future and so on... I'm sure it's hard work, but it's certainly not an altruistic act.

I am not planning on getting anything back from these kids except the joy of seeing them grow up into healthy independent individuals.

Re: I quit the tech industry (2015)

#116

So, what could you advice for people who's about to enter the tech industry? I've been having extreme senioritis for more than two years and one of the reasons, I think, is fear of entering this industry. Don't get me wrong, I love tech and all, it's just that I don't think my personality fits the standard employers look for. I don't want to constantly learn new skills just to prove my worth. Yes, most jobs nowadays…

Most jobs don't actually require, expect, or even provide opportunity for you to learn new skills all the time. And that actually can be part of the burnout problem.

You'll have to learn a few when you start. That's okay. What you're feeling as senioritis is basically "I've been doing this same shit for the past 4+ years", and by this point, even in a 'new' class, it feels largely the same, and it's a bump on the road to the outcome you want, and no longer interesting.

Remember how you felt as a freshman though? Coming in when you knew nothing/comparatively little, and having to actually learn something, everything ahead was just one big mess of possibilities?

Well...that's what getting a job offer for the first time is. For about 4-6 months. After that, most of the time, the rose tinted glasses come off and you realize "oh. I know what I'm doing at this point. I've learned what I need to learn. And there's not really anything left except for me to come in, work toward a known outcome, and then go home". Companies don't adopt new technologies if they can avoid it. They don't care about you learning new things. They just want you producing, so they can capture the value you generate and pay you a part of it. What's left to learn is the business domain and the specific combination of decisions others made in the past that you now have to navigate.

Which, if you have a rich enough life outside of work, the job isn't too demanding, and are paid enough to be comfortable, can be fine for some people. The feelings of security a predictable, well paid job provides can fund what they actually care about in life. For others, it feels like they're spinning their wheels on the activity they spend the majority of their time on and they want something else.

How you, personally, respond, is going to be something you figure out as you go. And it can change. I was a lot more "I need fulfillment from my job" when I was younger; now I just need a good enough paycheck and enough freedom in hours and such (WFH is a must) to be able to do the stuff I actually care about and find value in.

So my advice is don't worry too much about it. Mentally prepare for the process of applying all over the place and potentially not getting an offer for a while, but once you get something you'll almost assuredly be excited and eager to prove yourself, and you can start figuring out what is important to you.

Re: I quit the tech industry (2015)

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whoa, that's a lot of super weird assumptions you're making. Fwiw, neither myself nor any other parent i ever met even gets in the remote vicinity of the picture you're painting. It sounds to me like you just have shitty parent-friends in your bubble? But rest assured that there a legion of other parents out there who neither got kids because they're afraid to die alone nor want to force their own wishes and life goa…

> kids enrich your life, and they allow tremendous opportunity for self-growth and a host of experiences that are hard to replicate otherwise As other people said, these are by-the-book examples of selfish justifications. (And no, I'm not saying that ALL parenting is selfish) And this is without considering climate change. If you consider it, having kids is very selfish.

There's also an argument that it's unethical to intentionally bring someone into the world when there are so many problems and a fair chance that their life may involve a lot of suffering

Re: I quit the tech industry (2015)

#118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing less selfish than havint kids. The amount of sacrifice you have to put in is huge. If you are not on board with that, don't have kids.

That does not make it less selfish. Imagine putting the same sacrifice in donating money or otherwise contributing to a charity that does important work. And you only get a "thank you" letter. Does it feel the same? If you are as selfless as you said it should not make a difference.

I don't know, I have never put in the same sacrifice/money to charity.

Re: I quit the tech industry (2015)

#119
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the only way to escape this garbage system is to blow it up. How so? Countries with blown-up systems typically become more shitty, not less.

There’s no country that has blown things up and given power to the people. So there’s no precedent to look at.

There’s no such thing as “giving power to the people.” This is grossly naive in both basic economics and society. There is only giving power to different people and under different terms.

Re: I quit the tech industry (2015)

#120
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's arbitrary about a family? It's changed in size over the history of homo sapiens, but it has always existed and is pretty obviously a biological necessity and unavoidable natural law for us. The arguments against it are entirely abstract and ungrounded.

You assign an enormous amount of special status to certain people who you happen to be related to by blood, and that's arbitrary. It works when it works, and it doesn't work when it doesn't. What natural law says it's better to spend time with/live only with people who are related to by blood? The only necessity for reproduction is sexual intercourse. A family is susceptible to the same abuse and corruption as any ot…

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