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Ask HN: Does anyone else feel like nothing matters anymore?

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Re: Ask HN: Does anyone else feel like nothing matters anymore?

#151

Post by port11 »

Kurzgesagt has proposed Nihilistic Optimism as a tongue-in-cheek but grounded way to look at it. (https://www.asktherightquestion.org/the-philosophy-of-kurzge...)

I’m more or less a practicing Stoic and non-believer. Life never had any meaning, you have to create whichever one you can.

If someone can take away your purpose in life, it was too influenced by external factors. I get it. Someone stole my start-up away from me, you go through a period of anger and despair.

Do some shrooms, if you can and find your set and setting safe enough.

Focus in your hobbies. Have a kid ;)

Good luck stranger. I both agree with you and empathise with the despair. I hope the world rebuilds anew, with less elites, less power, less greed, less attempts and making humans redundant.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone else feel like nothing matters anymore?

#152

Post by happytoexplain »

piloto_ciego wrote: post #83
solarized wrote: post #67

We have to adapt. This what happened to textile workers during Industrial Revolution. Satisfaction of crafting things disappeared once machines automated the work. I literally hesitated to code manually again because I've figured out how to drive this “creature” properly. It can do almost anything faster than me. (for production context). Upgrade toward sales and management ?. At least cover our basic daily needs, so…

All I ever wanted to do in this universe was fly airplanes. And I did it professionally for nearly 15 years. Then I got sick, and couldn’t do it anymore. Suddenly, all my skills were meaningless and unemployable. I got over it. But it took time. I reinvented myself - I had always liked writing code. So I pivoted to this and literally went back to grad school to study AI. I’m watching a lot of people right now flounde…

If all the pilots were affected, it would be a disaster, not one person's personal challenge. If you switch out "pilot" for something even more common/fundamental in the economy, like "tradesman", "scientist", or "software developer", it gets even more grim. You write as though you are enlightened, but in this light, your anecdote is selfish. It's selfish to apply your personal experience to the whole world with the broad "just handle your situation like I did mine" brush.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone else feel like nothing matters anymore?

#154

Post by OutOfHere »

> Working on that side project? No one will care because it's just another addition to the mountain of slop, and the guy bagging your groceries can do it. Everything is done and cooked with AI now.

Do side projects that interest you, ones that you need or want. Why does it matter if anyone else cares or not.

The random guy bagging the groceries can never do it, not even with AI, because to get it right requires defining the specifications and requirements in good detail to the AI. Without this detail, the output is likely to remain unsatisfactory. A code review matters too for the same reason.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone else feel like nothing matters anymore?

#155

Post by preg_match »

bm3719 wrote: post #11

Corollary to your complaints: Another downside that I haven't seen on anyone's AI hatelist yet is that it crowds out all other discussion. What happened to everyone talking about languages, protocols, algorithms, architecture, etc.? We can't have those conversations anymore because we're not even sure they matter now. In fact, we probably suspect they don't, hence the not bothering. Also, anything we do write will ju…

Languages is the biggest bummer to me. It's great the LLMs make languages less relevant, rewrite cheaper, etc. But I love languages and language design. It's sad to think that we're converging on the most common languages in training data, without considering the developer ergonomics and semantics. But, it's been happening for decades, LLMs just put it into maximum overdrive.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone else feel like nothing matters anymore?

#156

Post by preg_match »

margalabargala wrote: post #53
throw-the-towel wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why go see Rome when you can google up some photos? Why climb Mt Everest? Why have your own sex when there's so much porn? The answer is going to be the same it's always been: because we fucking can .

I take your point, but unlike everything you mentioned, programming languages have usually been written for others to use, with a handful of Intercal-like exceptions. Any fully new languages we get will be either doomed from the start, or the language equivalent of TempleOS. Or both.

I'm writing a new language and I know it's doomed. I expect exactly zero users beyond me in the age of AI. But I love languages, I love language design. So, I'm doing it because it's fun and rewarding. The joy I get from seeing my language written out and thinking "I came up with that, that's mine" can't be beaten.

Anyway I have one blog post about it. I'm working on the implementation now, just takes a while. I'm close to having a parser (not semantic analysis) and I'll probably do a dev log.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone else feel like nothing matters anymore?

#157

Post by happytoexplain »

kranner wrote: post #12

I think one aspect of this relates to extrinsic vs intrinsic motivation. I'm intrinsically motivated to work on my software projects because I want them to exist, and I enjoy exploring the problem space and working my way to a good solution. AI is great because it accelerates my abilities in this regard. If I'd had only extrinsic motivations of credit and money, I can see that AI would affect them negatively. But I'd…

I am intrinsically motivated, but AI doesn't just accelerate, it changes the end product when used in the way we are forced by economics to use it: Broadly, and supported by tests rather than by looking at each line. Something I made is explicitly different from something somebody (or something) else made over which I merely acted as a manager. For my personal experience, that's a different end product - I know the architecture of the thing, but the thing itself can not be internalized. It's less interesting, and, despite requiring less thinking, it's more stressful. And even regardless, reviewing code is simply less enjoyable/motivating than writing code.

I am also extrinsically motivated, as everybody is. The "if you don't like AI, then you only cared about the money" implication is nonsensical. I'm not going to starve or become homeless, but I absolutely could lose my current home. That would drive me to depression. I also don't want to have a job I don't enjoy at all. That would turn me into a different person. A miserable person. Switching to something I can learn to do within a short enough time frame that I'm not being financially irresponsible, that I enjoy at least a little, and that ultimately ends up paying at least 75% of what my previous job pays, is essentially not realistic.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone else feel like nothing matters anymore?

#158

Post by preg_match »

sph wrote: post #114

I thought I was the only one, so burnt out from software engineering I am glad to be out of a job. I am starting to have physical revulsion at the thought of it, and I have been dealing with the fact that I have even lost my fun time in front of the PC, playing games or browsing. These days I literally feel better doing the dishes than opening Steam or watching YouTube. If it’s only me, I can say it’s burnout and dep…

I had this experience and then it completely flipped after being out of work for chemotherapy. I was ready to leave software engineering for good, a complete career transition with the years of investment it would take.

But in my time off, I've done my own coding projects and I've rediscovered my love for code. I realized it never left, what I grew to dislike is coding in a corporate environment. But coding for myself is different, I do it for my own rewards and satisfaction. And nothing beats coding for that, really. You get to make things and take pride.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone else feel like nothing matters anymore?

#159

Post by brynnbee »

maplethorpe wrote: post #105
kranner wrote: post #12

I think one aspect of this relates to extrinsic vs intrinsic motivation. I'm intrinsically motivated to work on my software projects because I want them to exist, and I enjoy exploring the problem space and working my way to a good solution. AI is great because it accelerates my abilities in this regard. If I'd had only extrinsic motivations of credit and money, I can see that AI would affect them negatively. But I'd…

> I'm intrinsically motivated to work on my software projects because I want them to exist Isn't that extrinsic motivation? You're motivated by the desire to bring something outside of yourself into existence. The software project doesn't exist within you.

I think you may be applying extrinsic too broadly. I believe it's still intrinsic because it's about an internal feeling and desire rather than the threat of bad grades, punishment, or coercion from someone else. It's about the motivation, not the output.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone else feel like nothing matters anymore?

#160

Post by kypro »

> It's exactly like that feeling once you enable cheats in a game; sure you can do anything, but everything is meaningless now.

I said pretty much exactly the same thing on another thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49334614

> My sense is that AI appeals to the types of people video game cheat codes appeal to. If you feel satisfaction from completing games with unlimited health, then you probably love AI. I'm not that person. I like things I do to be hard with high barriers to entry.

But yes, I feel this acutely and it hurts me terribly.

I've been an AI doomer for like 15 years so the existential risks bother me emotionally less as I've lived for almost half of my life believe AI would ultimately kill me. What I never expected was for it to take so much from me along the way. This meaningless is something I've been adjusting to for the last 1-2 years, and as someone who very self-motivated and is always doing something it's not something I'm used to feeling.

I knew automation was coming though and honestly should have seen this. Even to some extent in SWE I realised that the job was likely going to change a lot from AI after we first saw LLMs be able to generate simple syntax. But I guess I never considered that the writing I did (in AI), and the other creative tech pursuits I did would also be so easily automatable.

AI has robbed me of both things I loved and the many years of my life I invested in those things.

But I don't like to complain about this stuff. I work in AI and think about how to automate people's jobs away for my day job. I can't complain about karma which is due. It hurts, but at least for me, I am grateful for the pain on some level.

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