161–170 of 1001 posts
Side note: a half an hour call on a commute train (or in public spaces) is considered extremely rude in many parts of the world.
I think it depends not just on culture but also on the volume of the conversation. Some people manage to have a conversation when you can barely hear them; others seem to have a conversation with everyone on the train.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So much this. I've spent my whole career avoiding being promoted into management because I don't want to be or enjoy being a manager. So it always amuses me when genAI advocates say things like "your job isn't going away, you're just going to be doing management" as if that is a good thing. To my ears, that reads as "you'll still be getting a paycheck, but your job is going to shitty."
The last time a programmer wasn't a manager was when they were handed a piece of paper with toggle combinations and their job was to flip the toggle switches as detailed. AI doesn't seem to have much applicability in any other profession, other than maybe graphic arts, but the same holds true there. Artists are also always managers. So, what is this magical not-a-manager but also at risk of AI taking it away career?…
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 things just for the sake of it. Now I daydream about being homeless. I look around at all the meaningless crap I have accumulated, and feel shame that I didn't use that money to retire early.
I am surprised that remote work didn't get a bigger mention in the article. In a few weeks I will have been working from home for 12 years, and I believe it is the cause of most of most of my angst. At first, the convivence was such a relief, but it has become a trap. The effort of the commute, forcing me to go out every day and talk to human beings face to face, even just little things like making sure I was showered and dressed every day, they all felt like a burden at the time but they were good for me and I didn't realize it. Not to mention that it makes my house feel like work, and I now I hate it here.
I will say as an anecdote counter to the AI examples given in the article. I have a young co-worker who is very excited about AI and is using it way more effectively than I am. Talking to him gives me hope for the future, the kids will be alright.
But to the point of the article: I have many friends my age that are making less than half of what I do working objectively harder jobs for way longer hours, but they all seem so much happier than I am.
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He murdered a guilty man, not an innocent one. Still murder, and murder is wrong, but let's not get things twisted
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He deserved death, but the manner in which that death is administered matters. Vigilante justice corrodes the very foundations of the justice system, if we allow it the end result will be far more dead innocent people than guilty ones. I don't want more innocents to die just to kill those who deserve it.
This article is too inward, clique referential looking. It uses too many "known" things to frame and validate its points, but has very little contributions of its own. The way that people are described, and the conditions portrayed, have been this way for quite some time. The only thing that is changed is now there is a clearly defined boogeyman to point to that justifies it. Because the other boogeymen make the usua…
Long long time ago people in tech were in tech because of the tech. Then, at some point, being in tech became a gilded profession and everyone: salesmen, artists, clerks etc. joined in. Not because they wanted to be in tech. They wanted gold. For years it was working, but right now things shifted. You can no longer just do the thing you learned for a job and continue doing so, because landscape shifted. So they're mi…
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The last time a programmer wasn't a manager was when they were handed a piece of paper with toggle combinations and their job was to flip the toggle switches as detailed. AI doesn't seem to have much applicability in any other profession, other than maybe graphic arts, but the same holds true there. Artists are also always managers. So, what is this magical not-a-manager but also at risk of AI taking it away career?…
That's a weird way to put it. Yeah, everyone does a level of management for their own time and work projects. Still, the bulk of the work is in the details. Programmers talked a lot more about data structures and algorithms instead of keeping the LLM on track or sandboxed. How is it not different? We can play semantics on what it means to be a manager but the jobs as they were are going away
How so?
> Still, the bulk of the work is in the details.
The bulk of the work is in describing the details of what you want to see happen to another entity, which is what managers do. Someone else, or something else (like a compiler), will carry out the actual work to see your idea become a reality. Are you under the impression that managers don't do anything or something?
> We can play semantics on what it means to be a manager but the jobs as they were are going away
Are they? It is becoming easier to pass a lot more information off to the worker bees, so conceivably you should be able to do more management now, but the general act of describing what you want to the worker bees to do and seeing them carry out the task is no different. The telephone also increased the capacity of a manager being able to relay information, so while there is still evolution happening, what we're seeing in increasing the information density isn't unprecedented.
And, sure, maybe that will go away eventually. It is conceivable that AI can become the manager too, going off and coming up with its own ideas, plans, and delegating it all without any human intervention. But at that point you won't be a manager. Manager would be the very job on the chopping block.
If you want to say that managing a computer isn't managing I'd accept that stance in general, but the whole basis behind the idea of "everyone will become managers" is entirely premised on the idea of everyone managing computers, so that angle doesn't work within the context of this discussion. You cannot make that claim here.
Side note: a half an hour call on a commute train (or in public spaces) is considered extremely rude in many parts of the world.
It's rude to me as well. But I think we are wrong about this. I was in the doctor's office and a person was on the phone talking in the waiting room. I thought it was weird. But then I thought "if a person was sitting in the seat next to them and they were talking, would that be weird?" I don't think we'd see two people talking as being weird. Why is it weird if someone is by themself speaking to someone that isn't a…