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Anger, Anxiety and Agency

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Re: Anger, Anxiety and Agency

#131

Post by DougN7 »

jjulius wrote: post #78
lazyasciiart wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is flat out not a nice feeling to experience uncertainty about things like "can I pay for someone to look after my child so I can go to work?" and "will I have food to eat this weekend?". For some people, "will AI mean my job goes away next year?" leads directly to those concrete uncertainties, and they understand that, and that is why they don't enjoy the uncertainty they are currently feeling. I'm guessing that…

Sure! Uncertainty is a spectrum, and there are certainly moments where it's not a nice feeling. I'm a father, and I'd be lying if I said I haven't had those feelings over the years. My (making it very clear here that one's mileage will obviously vary) approach? I don't know what's going to happen. Maybe I'll need to figure out childcare, maybe I won't. Maybe I'll have food to eat this weekend, maybe I won't. Maybe my…

I attempt to live sort of like this too. My mother is beside herself with all of the wildfires in the world. In my opinion that is like stabbing your hand with a fork. I’m aware of lots of problems in the world, but I can’t do much if anything about them. So I let them go - I’m not going to injure myself over something I can’t control. Uncertainty is the same - worry and anger injure yourself, but changes nothing. Don’t subject yourself to needless pain. I just wish I could live by these words all the time, but it’s hard.

Re: Anger, Anxiety and Agency

#132

Post by n4r9 »

jjulius wrote: post #35
tolerance wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People typically do not approach existential uncertainties with such intrepidness. I think this is the case for most people who hate AI. This article glosses over that.

I suppose I am one of the people who could technically be lumped into the "hate AI" category, and yet I find myself incredibly comfortable with the uncertainty around where things are going. Perhaps it's because, as I previously mentioned, I have always enjoyed the feeling of uncertainty (and I recognize that's not the norm for most), but it's also because the entire thing feels so hyperbolic from all angles that I c…

I would be the same way if either: I didn't have dependents and heavy responsibilities, or: I had enough in savings to last a few years without income. I'm fascinated to see where software engineering is going to go, but I can't be comfortable about a threat to my ability to pay my mortgage and give my family a decent life.

Re: Anger, Anxiety and Agency

#133

Post by loeg »

tptacek wrote: post #20
strken wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're redirecting an increasingly large portion of the world's R&D funding into building data centres to run LLMs which can barely speak English ("Good observation - that's the pivot point. I'll land the load bearing backstop.") and which turn what should be 100 lines of code into 4000. The end result for me has been that I am now a gatekeeper trying to prevent AI slop making its way into systems which I care about,…

LLMs write samey English that is of significantly higher quality than the median literate native speaker. There's a difference between obnoxious writing and bad writing, and when you claim LLMs can "barely speak English" you've run off the rhetorical cliff of your argument.

I'm not sure I'd agree that the quality is significantly higher than the median literate native speaker. Who do you have in mind? I interact some online with people I meet through sports, and it'd be difficult for me to imagine the LLM output as superior writing. But perhaps that isn't a representative example of the median.

Re: Anger, Anxiety and Agency

#134

Post by 63stack »

jjulius wrote: post #29
tptacek wrote: post #18

The record scratch for me here was the idea that people can choose to be unsure instead of angry. People hate being unsure. Neurochemistry prefers anger to uncertainty. People get angry about being unsure. We feel anger in large part as our brain's natural salve for the discomfort of uncertainty. The suggestion he's making sort of defines away human nature. (There's a lot of practical benefit to be gained from unders…

Perhaps it doesn't come naturally for others and is therefore a bit of a struggle to shift into, but I love being unsure. It's great. It's a thing that's totally okay to be . The reality of life is that we're all unsure about a great deal, and it's quite a nice feeling to acknowledge uncertainty, sit within it and feel okay.

I'm pretty sure I could post "standing in the fire is painful and bad for your health" and there would at least be one person in the comments saying "I actually like standing in the fire".

Re: Anger, Anxiety and Agency

#135

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

bitexploder wrote: post #130
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #32

I was taught that anger isn't an emotion. It's a reaction -a defensive surge of adrenaline, binary thinking, and motivation to fight. It can feel empowering and energizing. We aren't just sitting here. We're gonna do something . The emotion is fear. Anger is just a reaction to fear. Basically, if we are angry, we are also scared; whether or not we want to admit it. It's a long topic, and one I know well (I agree with…

Fear and anger are generally distinct emotions. You can have one without the other. Many of the same pathways are active with fear that are active with an anger in your mind, mechanically speaking. You can have anger without fear though. I see a lot of people can conflict the two, but they are distinct as label labels and mechanical processes in the mind. Anger surfaces when there is someone to blame. Or something to…

I was taught that fear is not just fear of personal harm.

The most destructive fear, is fear of not getting what I want. That is the fear that is most ubiquitous, and manifests in all sorts of destructive behavior.

It's still fear, though.

Re: Anger, Anxiety and Agency

#136

Post by unified101 »

dimbletimbers wrote: post #89
tptacek wrote: post #18

The record scratch for me here was the idea that people can choose to be unsure instead of angry. People hate being unsure. Neurochemistry prefers anger to uncertainty. People get angry about being unsure. We feel anger in large part as our brain's natural salve for the discomfort of uncertainty. The suggestion he's making sort of defines away human nature. (There's a lot of practical benefit to be gained from unders…

I think I’m angry b/c I’m unsure but so many people are claiming to be sure without sufficient evidence.

You can choose to be unsure.

Re: Anger, Anxiety and Agency

#137

Post by unified101 »

deathanatos wrote: post #79

> Sean Goedecke wrote a post arguing that you should never be angry at work — a post with which I strongly agree. Anger can be a useful signal, but being angry at work rarely improves the situation. More often, it makes life worse for the people around you, many of whom have no more power over the source of your anger than you do. I did learn that lesson, but it did not come naturally. One thing in particular that I…

> But seeing people get away with such levels of incompetence

This is the deeper narrative. Some things apart from anger you could do: 1. Inspect this narrative and see if it's right? Or is there something you don't understand. It's happened for some reason. Disallow easy answers. 2. Learn that, so you're better prepared for the future.

Re: Anger, Anxiety and Agency

#138

Post by stronglikedan »

akerl_ wrote: post #114
stronglikedan wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, but why get angry about it? Getting angry at things you can't do anything about is just silly, and if you can do something about it, get motivated instead of angry.

Are you asking why emotions aren't logical?

NO, I'm saying they're controllable, so why let something make you angry if you can't do anything about it. And if you can, choose a different path of motivation.

Re: Anger, Anxiety and Agency

#139

Post by jjulius »

63stack wrote: post #134
jjulius wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps it doesn't come naturally for others and is therefore a bit of a struggle to shift into, but I love being unsure. It's great. It's a thing that's totally okay to be . The reality of life is that we're all unsure about a great deal, and it's quite a nice feeling to acknowledge uncertainty, sit within it and feel okay.

I'm pretty sure I could post "standing in the fire is painful and bad for your health" and there would at least be one person in the comments saying "I actually like standing in the fire".

Of course you would! I'm sure you'd see some firefighters or arsonists who would respond in such a manner. It's a very natural thing for some people to find a positive of some kind in things that many people find to be a negative.

Re: Anger, Anxiety and Agency

#140

Post by jcelerier »

dgellow wrote: post #37
Aeolun wrote: post #4

I think right now I love my job. I can work 5 times faster and explore all the little things that I never had time for. All my side projects suddenly come to fruition! But I have never been more anxious. I have a hard time sleeping, I constantly feel the need to keep up or fall behind. It didn’t use to be like this.

What does falling behind mean for you? What happens if you’re not keeping up? In my personal experience, nothing actually bad happen when you take your time to do your work without feeling the need to always follow the latest trends

> What happens if you’re not keeping up?

As in the huge majority of entrepreneurship cases, your company fails and then you're in personal financial ruin for the rest of your life ?

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