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What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

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Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#211

Post by KellyCriterion »

nancyminusone wrote: post #144
lostaccount wrote: post #32

This is basically office space but for the modern era. Peter found happiness in construction work, but when something physical like that is your job… I don’t know. A lot of those guys have back pain, inflexible schedules, working in extreme weather, and the pay isn’t even that good. Is tech so bad? Or is the world of work broken?

Office workers get chronic conditions from sitting around all day too. Yet vary few jobs provide any such balance.

Actually the only job without all those problems (err,any problems?) is to b a fitness instructor or personal trainer; not on an extreme level,8h a day, but let say you have 2 clients or maybe 3 clients a day, this would be enough movement / workout to never ever run into these problems, I guess?

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#212

Post by consensus1 »

MarkusQ wrote: post #99
marginalia_nu wrote: post #54

Saw a meme on mastodon the other day contrasting people of the '90s going online to escape from offline reality, and people of the '20s going offline to escape from online reality. There's something to that. I think a big part of it is just how incredibly toxic the web has become. If you spend any time online, as most tech workers do, you have exceptional resiliency if you're able to stay sane and level headed. Going…

"It's just been spiraling in a very dark direction for a long time. You have these blackpill depression cirklejerks everywhere. Astroturfing is getting worse every year." Agreed. From TFA: "This disillusionment is infectious." I would suggest it is in part being spread by articles like this one. If you look at the press surrounding earlier advances, it was largely neutral to positive. Nowadays, as you note, it's doom…

I remember reading a theory on this that basically it is a symptom of the decline of the news media industry. The positive attitude in the industry lined up with good times for them until around 2000 when their revenue peaked: https://compote.slate.com/images/42207fae-3603-4fe5-b4fe-a65...

For them it really is doom and gloom, and they spread it to the rest of society like a contagion by their writing much like the the banking crisis in 2008 poisoned the entire economy.

I'm not sure if it's true, but it makes a lot of sense to me.

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#213

Post by consensus1 »

Gud wrote: post #159
marginalia_nu wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A counterpoint would be that you don't really ever see investment bankers reacting in this fashion.

Because engineers and investment bankers are wired differently.

Having done both I would say not by much

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#214

Post by [deleted] »

m463 wrote: post #208
marginalia_nu wrote: post #54

Saw a meme on mastodon the other day contrasting people of the '90s going online to escape from offline reality, and people of the '20s going offline to escape from online reality. There's something to that. I think a big part of it is just how incredibly toxic the web has become. If you spend any time online, as most tech workers do, you have exceptional resiliency if you're able to stay sane and level headed. Going…

> '90s going online ... '20s going offline It feels to me like the change from: - old: going downtown to the restaurants and shops of your small village to enjoy a relaxing evening. - new: downtown is a crowded confusing mishmash of unregulated blaring music, over-the-top blinking flashing signs, intrusive people accosting you and dangerous thieves lurking everywhere. don't go. there's no "regulated" that makes thing…

[deleted]

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#215

Post by DeluluDon »

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #163

This dropped off the front page in the time I read it, I assume because of the controversial gate that favors upvotes to comments (which I am making worse by replying to others). It is a shame, because this really resonated with me. I've been working in tech for over 20 years now in various roles, and this is the least I have cared about it. I used to want to get better, and was constantly excited about learning new…

I used to daydream about homelessness until I did it for 6 years. You're surrounded by threats and your limbic system is in overdrive, deindividuation kicks in and takes a year of being rehoused before you're back to being the same person. Those daydreams generally stop after taking a hike or twenty over the weekends.

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#216

Post by bluefirebrand »

xlii wrote: post #177
dec0dedab0de wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been in tech for the tech for over 20 years now, heck over 30 years as a hobbyist. I have lost almost all interest in it these days. It feels increasingly meaningless, and actively harmful. I know it is my own fault for neglecting my health and relationships, but I can't help but feel this career makes the most important things more difficult.

The burnout is a separate topic, and it was always difficult to balance in this specific industry. All these "Working in IT isn't stressful at all - John 25yo" memes didn't come come from nothing. But I wouldn't really put it on LLMs/AI. It was always like this. Jokes about how hopeless development cycle is, and how everybody have impostor syndrome etc.

> The burnout is a separate topic

I think it's pretty strongly related, honestly

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#217

Post by [deleted] »

m463 wrote: post #208
marginalia_nu wrote: post #54

Saw a meme on mastodon the other day contrasting people of the '90s going online to escape from offline reality, and people of the '20s going offline to escape from online reality. There's something to that. I think a big part of it is just how incredibly toxic the web has become. If you spend any time online, as most tech workers do, you have exceptional resiliency if you're able to stay sane and level headed. Going…

> '90s going online ... '20s going offline It feels to me like the change from: - old: going downtown to the restaurants and shops of your small village to enjoy a relaxing evening. - new: downtown is a crowded confusing mishmash of unregulated blaring music, over-the-top blinking flashing signs, intrusive people accosting you and dangerous thieves lurking everywhere. don't go. there's no "regulated" that makes thing…

[deleted]

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#218

Post by watwut »

consensus1 wrote: post #212
MarkusQ wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It's just been spiraling in a very dark direction for a long time. You have these blackpill depression cirklejerks everywhere. Astroturfing is getting worse every year." Agreed. From TFA: "This disillusionment is infectious." I would suggest it is in part being spread by articles like this one. If you look at the press surrounding earlier advances, it was largely neutral to positive. Nowadays, as you note, it's doom…

I remember reading a theory on this that basically it is a symptom of the decline of the news media industry. The positive attitude in the industry lined up with good times for them until around 2000 when their revenue peaked: https://compote.slate.com/images/42207fae-3603-4fe5-b4fe-a65... For them it really is doom and gloom, and they spread it to the rest of society like a contagion by their writing much like the t…

Except that journals pump one super positive article after another. It is everywhere else people get annoyed ... including at journalists that pretends tech is better then it is.

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#219

Post by pastel8739 »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #171
Gud wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because engineers and investment bankers are wired differently.

There's much more overlap than you'd think. Quants generally have a STEM background, and stay in the field much for the same sort of reasons tech workers stick around building torment nexuses for FAANG.

Aren’t quants and what you would usually refer to as “investment bankers” pretty different groups of people?

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#220

Post by BigTTYGothGF »

ang_cire wrote: post #196
BigTTYGothGF wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> industry of tinkerers and designers At no point in history was it ever thus.

Yes and no. There were really 2 sides to the original 'tech' industry: military and consumer. The military side was always about profit, because it was just an extension of the already extant WW2 military industrial complex (and frankly, IBM falls here despite their mainframes being largely used in civilian businesses). But the consumer side that really grew out of universities into early gaming, internet, and consum…

> early gaming

Gaming got very corporate very quickly. Atari sold itself to Warner in 1976. Magnavox was a defense contractor. I don't have to tell you about Fairchild or Mattel or the Connecticut Leather Company. On the arcade side, Bally, Midway, and Williams had been making pinball machines for decades.

I'll grant you that there were a lot of "garage-start tinkerers" on the home-computer software side.

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