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I quit the tech industry (2015)

eev.ee

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Re: I quit the tech industry (2015)

#121

Post by afavour »

slategruen wrote: post #84

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…

The frequency isn't actually that high in the tech industry at large, just in the trendy areas everyone blogs about (and discusses on Hacker News). There are a ton of people out there making a very happy, comfortable living maintaining Java/C# codebases. They learn about the new features in the latest language release and that's more or less it.

Re: I quit the tech industry (2015)

#122

Post by lostcolony »

morelisp wrote: post #106
Elinvynia wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Quoted post unavailable.

Is it? I've never heard a person introduce themselves as "woman". I've heard people identify themselves with their pronouns plenty of times. In fact, given the links, literally all I see from eevee is their preferred pronouns, not "woman". I don't see anyone even calling out that she's trans (is she?), just correcting a misconception from the original comment that she uses he/him pronouns.

Those particular pronouns may imply being a woman (I don't know enough to venture an opinion there; certainly I've seen people use combinations of pronouns such as "she/them" that don't make such an implication straightforward), but calling out the pronouns she uses to identify herself seems like a perfectly natural response to correct someone using the wrong pronouns, and not some sort of 'gotcha' to differentiate someone being trans (doubly when it's not at all apparent she's trans), especially when the person in question...identified themselves with those pronouns.

Re: I quit the tech industry (2015)

#123

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

adhesive_wombat wrote: post #93
towaway15463 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s interesting that you don’t consider landscaping, juice bars, and wind surfing schools as beneficial to the economy. Could it be that these highly educated and intelligent people you are talking about see things differently? Perhaps after 5 years in tech they realize that none of the companies they’ve worked for are actually providing any benefit to society and are perhaps even a net negative. That realization is…

> companies they’ve worked for are actually providing any benefit to society and are perhaps even a net negative Right? When I started out, 1/3 of my interviews were with gambling machine companies, another was with a company that only existed to arbitrage betting odds for their own profit, and one was some kind of quasi-AI surveillance thing. A lot of GDP is generated on completely parasitic activities, and you can…

I'm doing that now.

For free.

I've written infrastructure software that has, without a doubt, saved a lot of lives, and will continue to do so, for many years to come. I've been working on a client implementation that leverages that software, for the last couple of years. It's approaching ship (but still a ways off). One of the goals of that project, is to help train a few young friends in the ins and outs of what it takes to create shipping software.

These projects would be worth a lot of dosh, if I were to hang a sticker on them.

But I did them for no money.

Society (especially US society) does not value vocations that help others. Teachers are incredibly well-educated, but treated like dirt. The same with social workers. We value individuality and selfishness. In fact, we actually deify these qualities.

It's an issue, but one I have no ideas how to solve. I think that the right to spend money on what we want is an important one, and I won't gainsay anyone else's right to do that. If driving around in a Model X and having a model (of any gender identification) on your arm is your priority, and you have worked hard for that, then Godspeed and good luck. I have different priorities, and the story of how I got them is long and winding. Not so many folks have backgrounds like mine, and not many that do, have developed priorities like mine.

I am grateful to be in the position I'm in.

Re: I quit the tech industry (2015)

#124

Post by ctvo »

towaway15463 wrote: post #65
nonrandomstring wrote: post #37

We talk about externalities. A chemical company pours toxins into a river, an automaker knows its products kill X people per year. These are tangible, understandable. But we don't yet think of the effects on the workforce as social externalities. Industrial safety has made the workplace a much safer space physically, but not mentally. The reality is, a great many jobs make us sick. Depression, anxiety, heightened agg…

It’s interesting that you don’t consider landscaping, juice bars, and wind surfing schools as beneficial to the economy. Could it be that these highly educated and intelligent people you are talking about see things differently? Perhaps after 5 years in tech they realize that none of the companies they’ve worked for are actually providing any benefit to society and are perhaps even a net negative. That realization is…

A baker, landscaper, or small business owner doesn't need to do 10 years of additional education at specialize schools, not that they're less beneficial. The charitable reading of the OP's comments would be that it's an inefficient use of society's resources to invest in the education of these folks only to have them leave their respective fields after a short amount of time.

The broader question is how do we change that? Is it worth squeezing an extra 1-2 hours a day of productivity from people to have them burn out in 5 years vs. a more steady 25 year career?

Re: I quit the tech industry (2015)

#125

Post by jseban »

thebean11 wrote: post #111
jseban wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

No, but I'm arguing that it's very unreliable, often fully backfires and becomes actually destructive, and that in our modern society there are other factors that are much more relevant to people's success in life, and blood relations I would say is fully arbitrary.

It's also just as natural for people to branch out and leave their families, as it is to stay close to their families.

And I think it's irrelevant to the discussion of shortening working hours, and a bad example because it's another oppressive construct.

It's like arguing for shortening working hours so that people can go to church more, and church is healthy. Really? That's highly debatable, and obviously another power structure which is also old fashioned and has seen decreasing success.

How about just shortening the working hours so that people can be more, free? And do what they want?

Re: I quit the tech industry (2015)

#126

Post by goodpoint »

logical_ferry wrote: post #118
goodpoint wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

...hence the keyword "imagine".

Plus, you make strong claims like "nothing less selfish" and yet you have never made sacrifices for anything other than kids... maybe there's something to think about.

Re: I quit the tech industry (2015)

#127

Post by saos »

> I had stock options, and I cashed them all in last week. I net enough to pay off the mortgage, so I’m doing that, which will leave the entire household debt-free and cut our expenses drastically. There’s not a whole lot left after that (lol taxes ), but I can keep us afloat for a while.

There you go. These type of post piss me the hell off!!! This type of person you will see making a video on YouTube convincing many other to quit too. They managed to buy their time back which is cool but they should be upfront with it from the off.

No wonder some kids today are confused. Spend too much time on social media watching content from these type of garbage users

Re: I quit the tech industry (2015)

#128

Post by logical_ferry »

hugg wrote: post #76
kettleballroll wrote: post #60

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…

I mean most people (like you) seem to justify having kids in a selfish way (self-growth, experiences). As someone who doesn't want my own kids (but like kids and spend time with them), I feel no need to have my own

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