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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

#411

Post by djeastm »

GaryBluto wrote: post #189

While I admire his commitment to his ideals, I find some of this veers into an uncomfortable fanaticism, especially the remarks praising the savage acts of violence committed by the Sentinelese (which I find particularly odd considering the author's professed religion). I doubt the Amish (who apply technology selectively and intelligently) would appreciate being compared to them either; the Sentinelese are not preser…

>barbarians

I didn't realize people still used this word to apply to human beings.

Re: I am retiring from tech to live offline

#412

Post by nunez »

This reminded me of a fellow SRE that I met on my first day of onboarding at Google.

I don't remember which team he got matched with, but he was definitely going on to do hardcore SRE stuff.

He didn't have a smartphone. Just a little dumb flip-phone that's so difficult to come by these days.

This was in 2015. That blew my mind.

He absolutely knew what was coming. Just like the author of this really nice letter.

I wish him the best of luck in his new lo-fi life. Don't forget to get a rifle to shoot your printer with!

Re: I am retiring from tech to live offline

#414

Post by deadbabe »

siren2026 wrote: post #237

I have been at it for 20 years now and have started to feel my time is up as well As a lot of comments here highlights, the issue is not so much the tech but the politics, constant perf reviews, re-orgs, nonsense BS that is pushed top-down. This industry is taking a toll on you. My advice for anyone reading this that is starting your career: Live simply and save a lot. When I started my career I thought I would love…

I feel like I could still endure this AI hype cycle a bit, that things will eventually stabilize to some point I’m comfortable with, agents already seem kinda cool after the psychosis wears off.

But the next big disruptive thing like this, that will probably be my last straw. Not sure what it will be, but when it comes, I’ll just know. Maybe it will be developers installing neuralink type devices or something into their brains to have some kind of “organic interface” or something using their thoughts to build prompts or whatever. You will have to have it just to stay competitive in the industry.

I will check out.

Re: I am retiring from tech to live offline

#415

Post by busterarm »

eej71 wrote: post #312
busterarm wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's insurance. The same way you don't want to go too far with germline editing. There are genetic variations that you might need to save your species some day. The cost of that is people suffer. We may need a close connection to that way of life again and not have to relearn it from scratch. This strikes me more as one of those things that is shocking to hear but not incorrect. People get more upset that someone sai…

I understand the value of things like a seed bank. But in no way is "their knowledge" (which I think is an overly generous use of that term) - acting in the role of a knowledge seed bank.

I think you're underestimating how much we simply don't know about how to live that primitively. Maybe you could do it in small groups of people. Maybe up to a dozen. Most experiments at this fail hilariously early by the way.

Can you do it and sustain hundreds of people? I doubt it. At least they're here to be potentially observed. You don't have to _totally_ wing it. People living like that through history had bigger day to day survival concerns than documenting the finer details of sustaining their continued existence to us.

The last closest analog we have to them would be the Hadza people and they've had agriculture since 500 CE...

Re: I am retiring from tech to live offline

#416

Post by floren »

reylas wrote: post #242
ItsBob wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm hoping to retire in the next 12 months (52 years old). When I do, I'll be buying a Chromebook. Any and all PC-related shit is being sold off. I will quite literally never write a line of code again... with any luck!

Just curious, what are you doing for healthcare. I can retire money wise soon, but healthcare is an issue. May have to work 10 more years just because of that.

Yes, that's a concern for me too, I'd like to retire early but healthcare has me wondering about getting a job as a teacher or something just to make sure I can afford it if I get cancer at 55.

Re: I am retiring from tech to live offline

#417

Post by alephnerd »

Rover222 wrote: post #355
sph wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People in tech, especially from US, are so accustomed to spending $5,000/mo just to survive, that they cannot fathom one is able to live without having a tech job in San Francisco. It's a pretty sad state of affairs. I live in a first-world European country where the average salary is about €25,000 per year. My mortgage estimate is less than €300/mo. I'm not that afraid of having to supplement my income if I need to.…

Yeah, I was just living off $1k/month in Brazil just to see if it was possible. It definitely is. And was in a beautiful, safe area.

Of course you felt amazing living off US$1k/mo in Brazil - the average per capita household income in Brazil is less than US$450/mo and a salary of $700/mo puts you in the top 10% [0].

Basically, you enjoyed feeling rich in a country where the vast majority are getting screwed.

And this is what I as well as my SO's family (middle and working class Vietnamese in VN) hate about digital nomads - y'all don't realize that you end up perpetuating the same inequality you try to run away from, and feels deeply colonial in nature as the countries y'all end up in had histories of being colonized and stratified.

You get to travel everywhere because you have a strong passport. They don't because their passport is weak and their salaries are low.

You will always be promoted to the top of the social pecking order thanks to your passport. They will always be relegated to the bottom and attacked by politicans as "stealing jobs" or "changing demographics" thanks to their passport.

[0] - https://g1.globo.com/economia/noticia/2026/05/08/veja-quanto...

Re: I am retiring from tech to live offline

#418

Post by xantronix »

latkin wrote: post #407
patcon wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chad is one of the most high-integrity persons I've ever had the pleasure of knowing. He is not fucking around for clicks in any shallow sense. I agree with the sibling comment that your cynicism is deeply misplaced imho. I mean, you can be cynical for whatever reasons, but I just think you'd be assuming (and participating in and perpetuating) a game Chad isn't playing.

> He is not fucking around for clicks in any shallow sense. He is undeniably "fucking around for clicks." When you don't want clicks, you don't cross-post to YouTube, BlueSky, LinkedIn, your blog, etc. Clearly a lot of effort went into making this announcement social media friendly and click-worthy. He has analytics on his blog to track how many clicks he gets. Whether it's in a "shallow sense" or not is subjective a…

I don't really see the problem of proliferating a message one finds sufficiently important to as many places as one has reach.

Re: I am retiring from tech to live offline

#419

Post by deadbabe »

GloriousKoji wrote: post #327
siren2026 wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is surely a spectrum between small apartment with asbestos and 5m$ house. I read on HN all the time that once you have kid it is unavoidable to spend 300k$ a year. But yet 99.9% of the world and the US manages to raise kids with a fraction of that income and they turn out mostly fine. (Before you ask, yes I have kids and yes we still live simply)

The mental gymnastics I've seen kids enable is Olympic level. Need to upgrade to a bigger house, need to upgrade the car to a SUV, need keep traveling 2-3 times a year, need to sign up for some crazy sports league and coach which means domestic flights and hotels every other week.

Friend had a baby.

She went out and bought a massive Cadillac Escalade.

To haul around a 10 pound infant.

Re: I am retiring from tech to live offline

#420

Post by ian-g »

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…

From the flip side, 10 years in, I've been getting really into art.

It's not cheap, but it's easier to do my job with the thought that I have art this week and next week and maybe I'll get to teach it someday too.

It feels healthy to not let your work control your life after retirement. There's so much else out there to do.

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