Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh yeah. I've met more than a couple of engineers who spent their teens and twenties coding like that was the meaning to life, all suffer from deep regret, burnout, resentment, depression. They are better than average technically, but their social skills fail them. Which in a paid employment situation carries a lot of weight. I feel sorry for these guys
> all suffer from deep regret, burnout, resentment, depression Nonsense. John Carmack is the most obvious counterexample. But pretty much anyone that works in gaming. While the stories of resentment of specific employers abound — your general thesis is nonsense.
I’m taking some time away from Comma
251–260 of 437 posts
Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma
#252Earlier quoted context omitted.
>autonomous cars are no closer to reality today than they were 5 years ago Why do people keep printing things like this, which are objectively wrong? I have had a completely autonomous waymo come to my location, pick me up, and take me to another location. That didn't exist five years ago, it does exist now. How is this not "closer" than it was 5 years ago when it literally exists now, and didn't exist then?
The situation you're describing is no different to 5 years ago: autonomous vehicles exist but can only operate in a limited environment. That's where Waymo was 5 years ago, it was just an even more limited environment. Read the "Road Testing" section on Wikipedia, specifically, 2017. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waymo
Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma
#253Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma
#254An existentialist Christian engineer? There are dozens of us - dozens! > If it turns out we are automata, then the whole struggle is and always was pointless. The empty godless machines will take their rightful place as the rulers of Earth. All existentialists need to give ol' Darwin a read. The only truth is survival. If machines survive, you can bet it will only be a matter of time before one of them progresses eno…
Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma
#255Bullshit. In the last 5 years we've gone from optimists saying "Hey these new ML models are really smart we might be able to solve self-driving with this", to "We've totally solved self-driving, sure you can't, you know, let it drive, and in fact we've had to install cameras that monitor you to make sure you don't try and let it drive, but we've totally solved it trust me". Yeah sure buddy, you solved it, good job.
It turns out the guys making grandiose claims five years ago, are still willing to make the grandiose claims today, and it doesn't matter that over the last 5 years their credibility slowly shrank to zero.
Self-driving is more than throwing an ML model in a car.
Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma
#256Earlier quoted context omitted.
His insights on self driving cars are total fluff once you realize he was only working on problems several orders of magnitude smaller in scope than the ones spending billions are attempting to solve. Autonomous driving is more than just making lane-keep on highways work with a camera mounted to the windshield and requires more than just "hacking". His insights do indicate one thing: that he doesn't understand the ri…
I mean you can say that all you want, but the proof of the self-driving pudding is in the driving, and SAE Level 2 is the most practical self-driving we are ever going to get. I don't think there's anything wrong with trying to refine that approach as much as openpilot did, and honestly if there was fruit in SAE Level 3 and above, I feel like we would have seen it by now, but we haven't. I have no idea what you mean…
We've had the technology for level 2 for 20 years. You just need to track the painted lines and track the distance to the car in front of you. Higher levels are orders of magnitude more complicated.
If you think level 2 is the best we'll get, that's fine, but that's giving up. It's not what people mean by self driving.
Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma
#257Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh yeah. I've met more than a couple of engineers who spent their teens and twenties coding like that was the meaning to life, all suffer from deep regret, burnout, resentment, depression. They are better than average technically, but their social skills fail them. Which in a paid employment situation carries a lot of weight. I feel sorry for these guys
> all suffer from deep regret, burnout, resentment, depression Nonsense. John Carmack is the most obvious counterexample. But pretty much anyone that works in gaming. While the stories of resentment of specific employers abound — your general thesis is nonsense.
The intersection of the sets of developers who:
A) make it to their 40s and are still IC's
B) still work > 40hrs/wk on a startup for little-to-no-pay
C) are still happy and enjoying themselves
Is small. It's not empty though!
But I do think there are many people who think this is the ideal way to live or something they ought to strive for. And the set of people who try and realize later in life that was not what they should have been working towards do tend to burnout and have regrets.
It happens a lot to people who want to be famous. They don't think about what they would have to give up to get it: some measure of your health in later life (hello carpal tunnel, frequent recurring hemorrhoids, type-2 diabetes, heart disease, poor vision, etc), friends and relationships (read enough biographies and loneliness is a recurring theme) -- things they might take for granted. There are stories from people who did make it and became famous and wish they hadn't. There are more of those than the, "I wouldn't have given this up for the world," types I think.
Grass is always greener on the other side, as they say.
Update: also, Carmack hasn't been working at a startup since he took the golden parachute out of Id and could afford to build rockets as a hobby.
Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma
#258Quoted post unavailable.
You're asking for this forum to be based on appeals to authority as opposed to voting, which usually doesn't go down well, and I also disagree would be better - stuff with merit usually gets voted up, just give it time.
Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma
#259Can't say I care much about what "George Hotz" is doing, but this line struck me as particularly silly: > And even if you are an atheist, you probably still accept the bible is the closest thing we have to a human origin story. I can't imagine why he believes so. Apart from the modern materialist origin story, what about all the mythical ones from other cultures? Of all of them, this is my favorite: https://www.youtu…
Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma
#260Quoted post unavailable.
You're asking for this forum to be based on appeals to authority as opposed to voting, which usually doesn't go down well, and I also disagree would be better - stuff with merit usually gets voted up, just give it time.