Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Hope he’s doing well. AFAIK @eevee [1] identifies as she/her [2]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=eevee [2] https://twitter.com/eevee
Quoted post unavailable.
No post body was provided.
I quit the tech industry (2015)
231–240 of 276 posts
Re: I quit the tech industry (2015)
#232We 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…
There is a huge cost to losing the most talented people in the workforce. Exit these days means that very talented people often lose track of their field and face a harder re-entry point with lower salary if they decide to return. What I'm most worried about in leaving my career as a solutions architect is that the ability to start and build a business of my own seems insurmountable when you consider the world's reli…
There's a lot going on that's squeezing out real value and replacing
it with a controllable facsimile of value. And yes, this is
anti-social, and anti-capitalist, in the purest and best sense of both
those terms. It's a bonfire of human value.
In the face of so much disruptive potential, so much surplus of intellect, and so much human energy unleashed by automation and fossil fuels, the strategy of the incumbents has been to stifle it.
I mean, isn't that what the entertainments business has been focused on for the past 40 years, with DRM etc? What some parts of the tech industry does is actually anti-technology. We have a kind of job creation scheme with one person digging a hole, while another fills it in. Some computer scientists working to create innovation, and others overtly set on stifling it. To ignore that adversarial aspect is to completely fail to understand modern technology.
Re: I quit the tech industry (2015)
#233Earlier quoted context omitted.
> since you're giving up that total control of your life whether you're working 20 hours or 80. You forget the age effects: when you're 80 you will have less control on the basics (like, control over being able to run for a few hours without pain) > Then, when you've got enough money, you get total control of your life for as many years as possible. Depending on what you value, it can be a totally reasonable optimiza…
Not having to work doesn’t mean you can’t be participating in society anymore. It just means you’re now calling 100% of the shots instead of suffering someone else’s decisions.
If you are fully insulated from everyone else decisions, I'd call that not participating in society anymore...
Re: I quit the tech industry (2015)
#234> 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 man…
Yeah I was looking for the section that explained how you commit to this radical act of just quitting with no plan, roll the start-up dice and win. Great.
Re: I quit the tech industry (2015)
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 m…
>calling out the pronouns she uses to identify herself seems like a perfectly natural response to correct someone using the wrong pronouns I feel like this pronouns thing started up in just the past few years. To me it seems more natural to say someone is a man/woman. If someone doesn't fit into one of those boxes then I think it makes sense to clarify the preferred pronouns.
>> If someone doesn't fit into one of those boxes
That's kind of the point of using them though. The goal is to -stop- saying "you either fit into this gender binary, or you are 'other'".
It's kinda like normalizing the use of "partner" instead of "husband/wife" even for the straight married people; it helps normalize relationships that fall outside of monogamous, state recognized marriage, and doesn't force gender definitions (what if you're in a committed relationship, or married, to an NB person?) or force releasing sexuality just to indicate you're in a relationship (i.e., the person maybe doesn't want the fact they're gay to come up in this setting).
Providing your own pronouns, even if you're cisgendered, is a form of allyship; you're normalizing it, and helping create space for those whose pronouns don't match how they present to provide theirs.
Re: I quit the tech industry (2015)
#236Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I know a lot of nurses. They make decent (not outrageous) money, but their work environment is frequently a shitshow. Many are quitting. You're conflating recent and broad economic trends with the specific conditions of a specific profession. Millions of Americans all over the country have been quitting and changing careers (it even has a name: "the Great Resignation"). This doesn't mean their conditions are shit,…
Nurses are treated like complete shit and work in dreadful conditions in the UK too (public and private), and that certainly predates the pandemic.
Thank you. I see so much that people conflate some issues has having been a direct result of the pandemic. Its like, nope, the pandemic just made the problem surface, but the problem has been there for a lot longer. With nursing, it is keeping the nurses understaffed and hiring travel nurses when they are suddenly backed into a corner. Many hospital systems have been under-staffing nurses for years, it just didn't become apparent until the pandemic. The nurses at my local hospital went on strike a year BEFORE COVID over this exact issue.
Re: I quit the tech industry (2015)
#237Earlier quoted context omitted.
>calling out the pronouns she uses to identify herself seems like a perfectly natural response to correct someone using the wrong pronouns I feel like this pronouns thing started up in just the past few years. To me it seems more natural to say someone is a man/woman. If someone doesn't fit into one of those boxes then I think it makes sense to clarify the preferred pronouns.
>> If someone doesn't fit into one of those boxes That's kind of the point of using them though. The goal is to -stop- saying "you either fit into this gender binary, or you are 'other'". It's kinda like normalizing the use of "partner" instead of "husband/wife" even for the straight married people; it helps normalize relationships that fall outside of monogamous, state recognized marriage, and doesn't force gender d…
No post body was provided.
Re: I quit the tech industry (2015)
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Nurses? I know a lot of nurses. They make decent (not outrageous) money, but their work environment is frequently a shitshow. Many are quitting. >Tenured professors? I know a few. I guess some of them are paid well, but they often make a lot less than their students. They do have job security (like tenured teachers). Doctors don't make money because they help people. They make money, because people with money think…
> I know a lot of nurses. They make decent (not outrageous) money, but their work environment is frequently a shitshow. Many are quitting. You're conflating recent and broad economic trends with the specific conditions of a specific profession. Millions of Americans all over the country have been quitting and changing careers (it even has a name: "the Great Resignation"). This doesn't mean their conditions are shit,…
What he's describing is by no means a recent trend!
Re: I quit the tech industry (2015)
#239Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you absurdly reduce it down to that point then, yes, anyone can live cheaply in a rural area. But that's not the point. Financial independence is about the ability to live a good life without having to worry about next's day food.
Agreed. Also there’s an in-between. I think parent’s point is worth reminding us of, because in our consumer-driven economy, there’s no economic incentive to teach people that reducing their consumption may be a reasonable and “happier” alternative to earning more income. (Above a certain line of course)
There are a lot of FIRE people who focus on cutting expenses over raising income. I would say it's more common, which is why people invented the term "Fat FIRE" to distinguish people who want to retire early without seriously cutting expenses.
Re: I quit the tech industry (2015)
#240So, 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…
2022 is a great time to join a start up. Tech compensation has plateaued at a high level. The “recession” is good for innovation. And in recent years early and extended exercise have become the norm, so equity is less of a scam. And start ups are fun. https://zachholman.com/posts/the-basement/
In what sense has tech compensation plateaued? Maybe compared to a few months ago, but my sense is that there has been significant growth over the past year.