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Ask HN: Who else is working on nothing?

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Re: Ask HN: Who else is working on nothing?

#231

Post by smugglerFlynn »

brabel wrote: post #54
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #37

Wow, I just wanted to say thanks a lot for posting this. I'm in a very similar boat. I was always very focused and goal-oriented in my younger days - a bit of a workaholic but generally enjoyed working hard. A number of changes since the pandemic have left me feeling very similar to you: 1. Like tons of other people, I re-evaluated my relationship with work during the pandemic. To be honest, it wasn't easy. I think a…

> I started my career during the dot com boom, and there was so much optimism about the beneficial societal changes that tech and the Internet would bring. I don't feel like all tech is "evil" these days... Wow that's so true... we totally didn't see the social media dystopia we're living in today coming. We imagined a world where everyone has all the world knowledge available at their fingertips would be wonderful.…

I think what we have really underestimated is the amount of people who would get hooked on instant gratification more than this available knowledge (which, turns out, I am also guilty of).

Then came for-profits that agressively monetised every single bad habit one might imagine online and got us where we are today. Knowledge is still at the fingertips, but so many of us are now short-attention-span information-holics and instant gratification addicts.

We imagined brave new world, but became an equivalent of chain smokers trying to break out of their habit in a world where everyone else also smokes.

Re: Ask HN: Who else is working on nothing?

#232

Post by askafriend »

fidotron wrote: post #47
tenpoundhammer wrote: post #31

I found in my mid thirties that my perspective on what was important and desirable shifted significantly. Which led me to become disengaged from my desire to build side projects and learn new programming languages. It was a time were ecclesiastes from the Bible resonated a lot. After a while I just found out that I wasn’t interested in nothing but I had to rediscover what was important to me and what I valued spendin…

One of the massive things which caused a shift was knowing a decent sized group of people that became incredibly financially successful as the result of acquisitions and what this actually did to their personal lives. It really wasn't the all happy fun situation that it is so often portrayed as being. Then there is the whole have kids not have kids axis, and where people fall on that will dramatically influence their…

Can you say more about your first point? I find that really interesting and much often isn't written about those scenarios.

Re: Ask HN: Who else is working on nothing?

#233

Post by ponector »

bakugo wrote: post #119
castalian wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it was the people. Early internet users demographics was a result of extreme selection. Companies did exist back then.

This is true. The big turning point was the release of the iPhone, a device that allowed people who didn't know what a computer was to access the internet.

Why iphone? We had internet on mobile phones before that point.

But I agree with idea that internet became dumber with more people in.

Re: Ask HN: Who else is working on nothing?

#234

Post by vwcx »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #225
doctorwho42 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ehh this type of thinking is reductive. The primary issues are a combination of nature vs nurture. The age of argument, the solution has always been some combination of both. But when you look at our western society over the past 60 years or so, you see that -fundamentally- the nurture part of the equation is being heavily influenced by capitalistic forces. For example, news used to be once a day, then 3 times a day,…

>Look for the guys running into the fray when everyone else runs away... Those people are just as human as you or me... They are the true character of the human species. If we have to look to find them, are they really the "true" character? I'm sure if we look hard enough we could find a polite polar bear, but is that a "true" polar bear?

main characters =/= dominant characters =/= true characters

Re: Ask HN: Who else is working on nothing?

#235

Post by brabel »

kirso wrote: post #204
brabel wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nihilism is behaving as if there is a God who gives life meaning, even when you don't actually believe that, instead of assuming responsibility for making your own meaning during the brief time you're alive. TIL I am a nihilist.

That sounds more like absurdism > the belief that human beings exist in a purposeless, chaotic universe.

Would be interesting to hear a convincing argument against that.

Re: Ask HN: Who else is working on nothing?

#236

Post by d1m »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #37

Wow, I just wanted to say thanks a lot for posting this. I'm in a very similar boat. I was always very focused and goal-oriented in my younger days - a bit of a workaholic but generally enjoyed working hard. A number of changes since the pandemic have left me feeling very similar to you: 1. Like tons of other people, I re-evaluated my relationship with work during the pandemic. To be honest, it wasn't easy. I think a…

>I don't feel like all tech is "evil" these days, but I do feel that the world would be better off if all the big tech companies (Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft) just completely stopped building any new tech. Obviously that's not realistic, but it highlights my feeling that I'm not looking forward to any new tech from these companies, because more tech is going to invariably lead to more isolation, more "doom scrolling", more assaults on our attention. I feel like most big tech companies have just become the equivalent of drug dealers, just trying to hijack our brain's evolutionary attention mechanisms to addict us. "Attention is all you need" is right...

"Attention is all you need" among above paragraph really hits hard and it's true. I think I feel the same way like all big tech companies should just be stopped from bringing new tech. Indeed, I have just started hating tech now a days. We are just getting more apart and away from everyone day by day with new emerging technology.

It is really pathetic to know that tech is influencing new generation totally in negative direction to what we supposed where they should be leading to. I think even the Parents now a days should parent their child more like it used to in olden days rather than showing them children's rhyme on phone or tablet.

I have stopped surfing social media, they try to isolate me from the truth and what's actually happening and rather feed content which is biased according to my activities and what I like. This really frightens me.

Re: Ask HN: Who else is working on nothing?

#237

Post by slotrans »

Not exactly, but close.

When the pandemic hit, my big outlet at the time was rock climbing, mostly indoors. That went from "3 days a week" to "zero" immediately, and when things opened back up it just never recovered for me.

I started spending more time and mental energy on software, even though that's my day job. I've been at this for nearly 19 years and I really care about doing it well. The problem is that seemingly no one else does. I've bounced from company to company (7 jobs since 2019) and they've all been nearly wall-to-wall incompetence. It's just baffling how the industry can be in such dramatically worse shape than when I started in it.

Anyway I have been working on a few things, but just for myself. If my employers don't care about doing anything right I guess that's their problem, but I have problems of my own I'd like to solve.

I wrote a SQL formatter, just for myself, because all the ones out there are terrible. I don't care one tiny little bit if it ever has any users but me. It's not "done" (never will be) but it's stable, and I get to use it now, and I enjoyed writing it over 2 years or so. It has been a purely positive presence in my life, and continues to be.

Now I'm working on a SQL IDE, because again the stuff out there sucks. It will be weird, and built just for me and the way I work. I doubt anyone else will ever use it and I don't care. It will probably take me much more than 2 years to write and that's fine. I try to spend 2 hours a week on it, sipping a coffee in my favorite cafe. That's enough.

And lately, for [reasons], I've gotten back into [politically incorrect hobby]. I gave it up in 2015 for [other reasons] and I've missed it. It has such depth to it, and it just animates my curiosity and drive for mastery. Once upon a time it was what my life-outside-of-work was dedicated to and it can be that again if I want.

I still think about work sometimes on my own time, but I try to minimize it. I let it happen when it's what my brain really wants to do. Otherwise there's just no return on investment. Software companies that will hire me just don't care to leverage my skills, no matter how badly they need them, so I'm sick of fighting for it. If they want to choose failure I'll heat up some popcorn and watch. Maybe someday I'll get a chance to really work on something good again, with good coworkers who also give a shit, but I'm not holding my breath. Until then I'm just gonna do my own thing. No leetcoding. No cloud certifications. No home k8s lab. Fuck all that shit.

Best of luck to you, I really mean that.

Re: Ask HN: Who else is working on nothing?

#238

Post by johnnyanmac »

Sajarin wrote: post #214
reactordev wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“There is a right view and a wrong view” there you go again. No, there is your own right way and wrong way. Those ways are not the same as mine per se. Stop trying to conform my world view to yours. I would highly recommend you read “The Heart of the Buddha’s Teachings” by Thich Nhat Hanh.

The terms right view and wrong view are from buddhism. There is a right view as taught by the Buddha found in his teachings. Clinging to right view is better than clinging to wrong view, even if it’s still clinging. But following your own logic, why the resistance to my comments if my statements are neither right or wrong and is just as valid as yours? I’m not intentionally doing the things you’re accusing me of doin…

>The terms right view and wrong view are from buddhism

so again, from one individual or group of individuals' subjective views of right and wrong.

>why the resistance to my comments if my statements are neither right or wrong and is just as valid as yours?

Because you are accusing others of being wrong? If I said your right view is wrong, how would that make you feel? Golden Rule.

Re: Ask HN: Who else is working on nothing?

#239

Post by johnnyanmac »

granshaw wrote: post #184
thr0way120 wrote: post #151

The value proposition, honestly, has fallen off a cliff. If "they" can dangle things you really want (money, better lifestyle, interesting work) in front of you, then there is reason to get excited. Right now? Oh hell no. Entire tech industry is in the mode of getting rid of people, lowering standards, lowering pay checks, the work is boring and tedious. It is reasonable to simply not have any motivation to work on o…

Learn to live on a ~50-75% of your salary is what I’ve been telling people. The good times for American engineers are gone

I don't know, I think it's a wave. Market will bounce back. But yeah, always try to live humbly and keep a hefty savings buffer. This won't be the last bump.

Maybe in 20 years if/when AI assisted coding gets good. But even then I question if it will take every domain out. Webdev, hell yes. Distributed, maybe (but doubtful). Embedded/HFT/anything performance critical? Doubtful. And they sure aren't going to completely automate out anything mission/safety critical.

Re: Ask HN: Who else is working on nothing?

#240

Post by johnnyanmac »

logiduck wrote: post #132

I'm not sure how this will resonate here, but this past year my interests in side projects sharply declined. For reference I am early 30s, married no kids. Up until now I used to work on 2-3 large side projects a year, diving deep into them obsessed with sleepless nights working. Now with LLMs it just feels kind of like whats the point? Either my work will be consumed by an LLM to train and get tossed aside or i shou…

Why you so concerned with how the public perceives "AI"? They've always been bad at it and we both know that LLMs are not the only part of "AI" that matters. They aren't really concerned with really understanding what's going on, so why entertain their fleeting thoughts?

>Unless you are working on a LLM right now nobody really cares what you are doing in software. Just seems futile.

Well it was the same for web dev 20 years ago. Then data science/big data 10 years ago. Then Crypto/NFTs 5 years ago (ugh). If that clout is a big motivator then you gotta keep following trends. Nothing is stylish forever.

But glad you have some hobbies to enjoy.

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