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I am retiring from tech to live offline

openpath.quest

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Re: I am retiring from tech to live offline

#161

Post by webdoodle »

I've been smartphone free for over 5 years now. It's been liberating, but its just not enough. I still use my computer to doomscroll for an hour or 2 a day. It takes me hours of hiking alone in the woods afterwards too unwind all the stress and distraction that comes with being connected.

Ironically right around February I started to have similar thoughts as Chad, that perhaps I should become Neo Amish as he calls it. Like Chad, I like disconnected, non-AI technology just fine. But anything that spies on me or tries to modify my behavior needs to go.

Maybe I'll mail Chad a letter and see if he wants to be my penpal.

Re: I am retiring from tech to live offline

#162

Post by pjc50 »

pipes wrote: post #41
kamaitachi wrote: post #7

I just retired after 40 years writing code. The last year or so wasn’t fun - battling with AI, trying to get it do what I wanted. For a long time, I thought I’d do a lot of hobby or open source coding when I retired. I haven’t even tried. I’m not burned out, but find I’ve lost the passion for coding I once had. Is that AI? Or is it me? Maybe as my retirement progresses, I can rekindle that passion, but as of now, I d…

The battling ai bit you mentioned. This is my life right. Ai is both amazing and shit. I feel like everyone else is running dark factories and producing millions of lines of code and having amazing lives. Meanwhile I am going insane with stress because I've burnt so much time trying to wrangle it on a team I've just joined. My productivity has not been good. I half feel like I am being gas lit by YouTubers and half f…

I am not convinced that the "dark factory" / "gas town" people are actually shipping anything that isn't also part of the AI ecosystem. At least the noise/ship ratio is incredibly high.

Re: I am retiring from tech to live offline

#163

Post by coldtea »

chrisweekly wrote: post #124
aurareturn wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best position anyone can be in 2026 is having financial freedom so you can leverage AI to build whatever you want. The worst position is working in a company with non-technical and AI psychosis management.

Figuring out what you want to build isn't necessarily easy.

Being unemployed and unemployable with depleting savings is even less easy however.

So being financial independent even if undecided on what you want to build is still way better.

Re: I am retiring from tech to live offline

#164

Post by retired »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #86
retired wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And many employers now require you to code faster, which is only possible with AI tooling. They don't understand that coding faster isn't always better.

Is this related to what business your employer is in? In other words, is their business producing code, or is code written to support some other business? Or is this just everywhere now?

Everywhere. Normally adding an extra endpoint to the REST API would take a sprint. Now PM expects you to do two. Only way to get that done is a lot of vibe-coding and delivering sub-par results.

Re: I am retiring from tech to live offline

#165

Post by hellohello2 »

azangru wrote: post #32
kamaitachi wrote: post #7

I just retired after 40 years writing code. The last year or so wasn’t fun - battling with AI, trying to get it do what I wanted. For a long time, I thought I’d do a lot of hobby or open source coding when I retired. I haven’t even tried. I’m not burned out, but find I’ve lost the passion for coding I once had. Is that AI? Or is it me? Maybe as my retirement progresses, I can rekindle that passion, but as of now, I d…

> battling with AI, trying to get it do what I wanted What I am selfishly curious about is: is it possible to remain a software developer, and ignore AI? To write code the same way we did before 2022? I understand that there are many companies in which managers demand more of workforce — but are there still places where people are satisfied to not rush ahead and do business same way they did three or four years ago?…

I'm curious, have you tried working seriously with claude code or gpt codex and which part of it did you not enjoy? What makes you wish to write code like 2022?

Re: I am retiring from tech to live offline

#166

Post by coldtea »

sqircles wrote: post #158
kamaitachi wrote: post #7

I just retired after 40 years writing code. The last year or so wasn’t fun - battling with AI, trying to get it do what I wanted. For a long time, I thought I’d do a lot of hobby or open source coding when I retired. I haven’t even tried. I’m not burned out, but find I’ve lost the passion for coding I once had. Is that AI? Or is it me? Maybe as my retirement progresses, I can rekindle that passion, but as of now, I d…

Sounds quite normal, honestly. Programming is in a dark place right now relative to how I used to enjoy it. I haven't touched a personal project in many months. You did something for four decades and whatever mystery may have been left there is probably gone with AI. Try identifying what made it feel like a "passion." Was it problem solving and discovering new things on your own by piecing things together? Then yeah,…

>Try identifying what made it feel like a "passion." Was it problem solving and discovering new things on your own by piecing things together? Then yeah, AI probably has something to do with that in regard to software development - but there are many other avenues you can take to fulfill that whether it be unrelated hobbies or charity work, etc.

If you had a passion for coding, then unrelated hobbies or charity work wont fulfill it.

And if you have no job or a shit job or a shit coding job because of AI, no much means or morale for hobbies and charity either...

Re: I am retiring from tech to live offline

#167

Post by amanaplanacanal »

eej71 wrote: post #39

I am clearly in the minority in these parts. I find it intellectually alarming (but not surprising) that someone would say something like "[the north sentinelese tribe] are doing the rest of us a favor by preserving a way of life we may need again someday". "way of life" is doing a lot of obscuring here. It took centuries of hard work to leave that behind.

It has been said that hunter gatherers spend a lot less time working and a lot more time just hanging out and socializing than agriculturalists. It would be nice if we could use all of our modern technology to get back to that kind of work/life balance.

Not to mention all the time they spent in nature which is impossible now.

Re: I am retiring from tech to live offline

#168

Post by kayo_20211030 »

antonyt wrote: post #148
yubblegum wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do the Amish pay non-Amish to do forbidden things for them? Asking for a friend.

I'm not sure if payment is involved, but I've heard Orthodox Jews can and do seek non-Jewish help when they need e.g. light switches toggled on the Sabbath.

Shabbos goy. Pete Hamill was one, and tells a good story. Snow in August, I believe, is based on his experiences.

Re: I am retiring from tech to live offline

#169

Post by causal »

thesamethrowawa wrote: post #91

Impressive to take such a stand, doing something they believe is the right thing. The home depot line says a lot though. I guess tech has been good enough to provide some kind of economic cushion that you can retain a reasonable life style as home depot as your only source of income. I would (genuinely) be interested in a follow up on how that works out for them. I've "threatened" to do this many times, but my partne…

Even just having to clock in on time is something many tech folk don't really have to bear.

But I don't think it's charitable to assume the author doesn't understand what he is getting himself into. I'd rather give him the benefit of the doubt and increase my admiration for his commitment accordingly.

Re: I am retiring from tech to live offline

#170

Post by magic_hamster »

While I share the sentiment, this feels like an extreme, nuclear reaction which might be irreversible. I understand the fatigue, and resentment, but if you are about to be a family, you are going to find that typewriters aren't the acceptable mode of communication nowadays, and that you need some money to raise children.

Even if you are already wealthy and don't actually need to work anymore, going off the grid completely is still the wrong move. There's a lot of ways to spend less time online, improve your privacy and reduce tracking, and still benefit from some of the actual, real advantages of tech.

And the last and maybe most important thing is, we are currently on a roller coaster of disruption and frankly some daunting prospects - but we don't know what's right around the next turn. What the development landscape might be like in a few years, or maybe what kind of new problems will emerge that are not yet clear.

The right move is to take some time off, clear your head and decide if you stopped liking tech altogether, or you just needed a break. If you still like problem solving, limit your AI use, stay effective and skillful, and find ways to enjoy your skill.

I've never met an engineer who actually stopped enjoying problem solving.

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