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You are what you love

gspanos.tech

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Re: You are what you love

#101

Post by lepus »

inertiatic wrote: post #2

>I find it really challenging to talk with people who have completely separated their work from their emotional being. For me, work is part of life and it should be a meaningful one. I like my work too but when I hear things like this it's so hard not to cringe because of how much of a place of privilege this comes from. Most jobs are things no one would want to do if they didn't need to survive, and that's fundament…

Their only reference point is other tech workers. Maybe they should get out of their social bubble and make some blue collar friends to figure this out.

Re: You are what you love

#102

Post by CalRobert »

lepus wrote: post #101
inertiatic wrote: post #2

>I find it really challenging to talk with people who have completely separated their work from their emotional being. For me, work is part of life and it should be a meaningful one. I like my work too but when I hear things like this it's so hard not to cringe because of how much of a place of privilege this comes from. Most jobs are things no one would want to do if they didn't need to survive, and that's fundament…

Their only reference point is other tech workers. Maybe they should get out of their social bubble and make some blue collar friends to figure this out.

And most tech workers are doing classic "bullshit jobs" aka "dumb shit that doesn't matter". Too many of the others are doing work that is a net negative to the world. I'd be more passionate about collecting garbage bins than making kids depressed.

Re: You are what you love

#103

Post by Jensson »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #100
wouldbecouldbe wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically emptying the bins and picking fruits might be more directly meaningful for people then building the new generation ad platform/social media/saas tool.

100%, I was thinking this exact same thing. I couldn't help but ponder the irony that during the pandemic, the vast majority of "essential workers", i.e. people we really need to fulfill the foundational layer of the economy, were usually the lowest paid: garbage men, farm labor, construction labor, grocery store workers, delivery drivers, etc. The famous "Pyramid of Capitalist System", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…

We make sure that all important jobs are easy to do so that they can reliably get done. Hard unreliable jobs can thus never be as important as the easy ones, they are still important but never as important because we don't want to rely on unreliable work.

You can see that in software orgs as well, the easiest tasks are also the most important, like ensuring the site continues to run and handling breaking changes in dependencies, those tasks has to be done or your entire product is gone. But the highest paid engineers probably don't work on those things, instead they might look at adding more features or drafting new architecture, those tasks aren't as important but they are much harder to do so are better paid in general and you require higher skilled workers.

So in general the lower paid the more important their work is, because higher skilled tasks are harder and less reliably done so we try to not rely on them getting done. Think famous painter vs low paid icon designer, which work is more important? Goes for most things.

Re: You are what you love

#104

Post by becquerel »

CooCooCaCha wrote: post #81
polio wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we're at a point in the history of Western civilization where we should strive to guarantee non-painful survival for all our citizens. This doesn't necessarily mean comfort, but nobody who grew up legally in the United States should have to wonder about finding nutritious food; clean water; and a quiet, warm, and secure place to sleep. I only restrict this tentatively to citizens because I think these program…

I totally agree and I don't understand why everyone isn't on board with this vision. Sometimes I look around and think "this can't be the end of the story, there has to be a better way to run society". What's interesting are the libertarian types who want the opposite. You don't get anything by default, you have to fight for everything. All I can think of is 1) why? and 2) is that really their vision of the future? L…

They want that future because they ultimately believe in human hierarchies.

Sometimes those hierarchies are natural and essential (race, gender, age, whatever), sometimes they're contingent and constructed (skillset, grindset, 'hard work', whatever), but it always has the same end result: they think that you can categorise people like insects, and that some groups of people deserve better things than others. Naturally they believe they would not be at the bottom of the hierarchy.

You may also be interested in the term 'capitalist realism'.

Re: You are what you love

#105

Post by nyanpasu64 »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #44
bambax wrote: post #21

> If you don’t know what you love, try playing with a couple of things. I have a theory that what you love is what you can experience bad versions of. If you're picky about something, you don't really like it. Connoisseurs and fanatics aren't picky, they're voracious. If you can only drink the very best wines, you don't like wine. I can eat very very bad, even stinky Chinese food, because I love all versions of it. I…

Definitely "love" in its casual usage, is very fickle. You can turn something you love into something you hate by over-doing it. Maybe the best way to kill something you love is to make it into work in the first place. There's a good argument for keeping the things you really savour a little at arms-length. One psychological idea I found immensely helpful but hard to digest is the relation between love and hate; Love…

Socially I'm more worried about targeted harassment, legal threats to safety, and murder than indifference to my existence.

Re: You are what you love

#107

Post by dottjt »

j4yav wrote: post #18
__s wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which jobs are you considering no one would want to do? I've worked labor in flooring, it's definitely not a job one wouldn't want to do without pay, but there was still an element of craftsmanship which one could find joy in

I grew up in pretty severe poverty, the adults around me didn’t work glamorous jobs but they all took pride in doing a good job. Even sanitation jobs, which were pretty common in the family. They would actually say something pretty similar to what the guy wrote - that if you’re going to spend so many hours of your life doing it, it’s taking pride in a job well done, the relationships you have with your colleagues and…

Well, tech is a bit different in that because it uses a computer (and a lot of roles aren't highly monitored, if at all i.e. WFH) you have the choice to do things other than your job.

I imagine most people working with a computer in a corporate role, are spending maybe a few hours of their time actually working, and the rest of their time doing things they actually enjoy doing.

Re: You are what you love

#108

Post by dottjt »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #33
Dachande663 wrote: post #8

I used to be the same. Until I started a family. You suddenly realise how… unimportant coding is when you have people who depend on you and you them. I’m a different developer now than I was back then, but I think better for it.

> Until I started a family. I'm 51 and I've got a family too (9 years old kid) and my love for coding and tinkering with computers never went away. For example yesterday evening when they were asleep I spent hours playing with a (used) NUC I just bought. I did hack on some scripts too. My hobbies are my cars and computing and I love that, since forever. And I still love these even though I've got a family. I'd argue…

It's possible to love something for a period of time, and then no longer love it as you find other substitutes for it.

Re: You are what you love

#109

Post by agumonkey »

djoletina wrote: post #89
agumonkey wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so many people argue the opposite, to me I often am what I do, which is an issue since most people want to get away from the tasks as soon as possible there's also the problem of ending exploited since you will accept doing more for less

Same here. And when you make a point of it in conversation you’re considered the crazy one. Let alone mention it to coworkers, you’re instantly a kissass.

Exactly.

Re: You are what you love

#110

Post by nonrandomstring »

thfuran wrote: post #98
nonrandomstring wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What would be a fix for capitalism that cripples our attitude to work? Us. Our culture. FWIW I'll try to explain a little more. I mean, that's a great question but I think it's the wrong question, if you don't mind me saying that. Nobody can see outside the logic of their own epoch. Capitalism can't be "fixed", because it's just what it is. If we "fixed" it, it wouldn't be capitalism any more, it would be something…

But we can change the way capitalism works (see the EPA or FLSA) much more easily than we can change human nature.

I don't think we can ever change human nature (if such a thing exists), no?

That's not the same as changing culture. That by definition must change.

You're talking about changing rules (EPA)

Are you familiar with the work of Meadows? She gives names to each of these levels and sets up a relation between them.

Here's a couple of digs into that if you're interested [0,1]

[0] https://cybershow.uk/episodes.php?id=19

[1] https://cybershow.uk/episodes.php?id=21

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