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The Who Cares Era

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Re: The Who Cares Era

#171

Post by XorNot »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #110
sp0rk wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's a culture of indifference, an embrace of mediocrity. I don't think it's new, but I do think perhaps AI has given the lazy and prideless an even lower energy route to... I'm not sure. What is the goal? I think pride in work has declined a lot (at least in the US) because so many large employers have shown that they aren't even willing to pretend to care about their employees. It's difficult to take pride in…

Acting their wage is reasonable. Can't ask for a smile and pride in work from those forced to participate in the torment nexus. 60 percent of Americans can't afford to meet their basic needs, for example. If we want better outcomes, employers must provide the necessary comp, benefits, and work life balance to arrive at those outcomes. Otherwise, we get slop because that's what is paid for.

Which is of course an argument for the idea that workers rights, civil liberties and welfare might just have outsized effects on productivity and economic growth compared to their sticker price.

Re: The Who Cares Era

#172

Post by thewebguyd »

sp0rk wrote: post #66
0_____0 wrote: post #5

I was just kvetching about this to my partner over breakfast. Not exactly, but a parallel observation, that a lot of people are just kind of shit at their jobs. The utility tech who turned my tiny gas leak into a larger gas leak and left. The buildings around me that take the better part of a decade to build (really? A parking garage takes six years?) Cops who have decided it's their job to do as little as possible.…

> There's a culture of indifference, an embrace of mediocrity. I don't think it's new, but I do think perhaps AI has given the lazy and prideless an even lower energy route to... I'm not sure. What is the goal? I think pride in work has declined a lot (at least in the US) because so many large employers have shown that they aren't even willing to pretend to care about their employees. It's difficult to take pride in…

> I think pride in work has declined a lot (at least in the US) because so many large employers have shown that they aren't even willing to pretend to care about their employees. It's difficult to take pride in work done for an employee that you aren't proud of, or actively dislike.

I agree that I think this is a big chunk of it. There's no loyalty on either side, and it's not rewarded if there is. Doing good work is only rewarded with more work without the extra pay or benefits.

A ton of large employers have removed any and all incentive to do anything but the absolute bare minimum to not get fired.

Re: The Who Cares Era

#173

Post by weweersdfsd »

ramesh31 wrote: post #30

I've always thought that caring is the most precious resource in software development. You can pay people to show up to an office, you can pay people to write code, but you simply cannot pay people to care. It takes some special confluence of factors that money can't buy. And great software is only made by people that care. This is the real "10x" factor that most people and organizations don't have.

Perhaps you can't pay people enough to make them care, but you sure can make them not care by paying too little.

Re: The Who Cares Era

#174

Post by AndrewKemendo »

0_____0 wrote: post #5

I was just kvetching about this to my partner over breakfast. Not exactly, but a parallel observation, that a lot of people are just kind of shit at their jobs. The utility tech who turned my tiny gas leak into a larger gas leak and left. The buildings around me that take the better part of a decade to build (really? A parking garage takes six years?) Cops who have decided it's their job to do as little as possible.…

There’s two things going on:

1. People are embracing the fact that there is no possible objective direction for society

2. People a rejecting the directions they were told to prioritize (education, family, religion etc…) because none have predictable outcomes

As function of both, there’s no consistent or coherent philosophical for people to align to.

In the past, the percentage of the population that was forced to align with a local philosophy was basically 100%. Most people had no options to defect from the ritual and social structure they were born into, so they adapted and adopted them even if they didn’t want to.

Now, humans have infinite mobility - which means anyone can defect. That also means you have to either find a new affinity group that fits your vectors or make your own.

That’s new in the last 500 years for humanity.

“God is dead” was meant as a lament, because it epistemologically fractured society - and even if that epistemically was “more correct” or “less wrong” it shows how all ritual and culture is built on effectively nothing but non-testable hallucinated stories.

So how do you align society to coherent action when the core epistemology is constantly changing and being overrun?

You don’t.

Re: The Who Cares Era

#175

Post by parpfish »

ryandrake wrote: post #132
toomuchtodo wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Acting their wage is reasonable. Can't ask for a smile and pride in work from those forced to participate in the torment nexus. 60 percent of Americans can't afford to meet their basic needs, for example. If we want better outcomes, employers must provide the necessary comp, benefits, and work life balance to arrive at those outcomes. Otherwise, we get slop because that's what is paid for.

Yea, I was also going to trot out the "act your wage" phrase. As a worker, you can't buy groceries with "pride". And as an employer, you're not going to get a craftsman who cares by paying them bottom of the barrel wages. The labor market is completely broken.

there's also the fact that you can't really show pride in work if you're being forced to follow a script or the demands of some piece of bureaucratic paperwork.

i think a prerequisite for being proud of your work is that you have enough autonomy so that the final product is truly the result of your decisions and mastery.

Re: The Who Cares Era

#176

Post by vjvjvjvjghv »

sp0rk wrote: post #66
0_____0 wrote: post #5

I was just kvetching about this to my partner over breakfast. Not exactly, but a parallel observation, that a lot of people are just kind of shit at their jobs. The utility tech who turned my tiny gas leak into a larger gas leak and left. The buildings around me that take the better part of a decade to build (really? A parking garage takes six years?) Cops who have decided it's their job to do as little as possible.…

> There's a culture of indifference, an embrace of mediocrity. I don't think it's new, but I do think perhaps AI has given the lazy and prideless an even lower energy route to... I'm not sure. What is the goal? I think pride in work has declined a lot (at least in the US) because so many large employers have shown that they aren't even willing to pretend to care about their employees. It's difficult to take pride in…

“ I think pride in work has declined a lot (at least in the US) because so many large employers have shown that they aren't even willing to pretend to care about their employees.”

Exactly. Companies and wealthy people have cancelled the social contract a long time ago and have decided to go for profit at any cost. It’s hard to be excited about work when you know that you get raises below inflation rate while the company makes record profits. And the CEO may do a town hall claiming how great business is and then lay off people two weeks later. Or DOGE. In theory this is a good idea but instead of improving processes so government workers can do a good job they just laid off people and let the people who are left deal with the mess.

No wonder people become cynical.

Re: The Who Cares Era

#177

Post by nine_zeros »

1dom wrote: post #149

I read the title and it triggered something I've been thinking a lot lately: there's too much for everyone to care about right now. Article didn't really touch on it directly, but: > something that sounded like every other thing: some dude talking to some other dude about apps that some third dude would half-listen-to at 2x speed while texting a fourth dude about plans for later. It's not that the dudes don't care, i…

[flagged]

Re: The Who Cares Era

#178

Post by pixl97 »

SamBam wrote: post #130
0_____0 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was in New Zealand a couple of months ago and today something crystallized about my experience there - I consistently encountered people who were good at their jobs there. They've got a shortage of people in the trades, but their tradies seemed highly professional and efficient, the folks at the bike shops were on point, the airport staff were quick to help and super informative (gate attendant explained visibility…

I think that observation stands in the US too -- there are certain professions where you're more likely to find someone who cares. You mentioned bike shops. At least in my area (New England) every person I've ever seen working in a bike shop was competent and cared about working in a bike shop. (They weren't necessarily the nicest and most personable people, but that's a different story.) Who works in a bike shop? Al…

I think some of it is about getting away from big box stores and working with smaller shops. Now, that's not saying that small shops are automatically good, but you'll find people way better at some of them than you ever will at a big store. Big stores tend to care about pushing numbers and not expertise.

Re: The Who Cares Era

#179

Post by weweersdfsd »

RamblingCTO wrote: post #63
0_____0 wrote: post #5

I was just kvetching about this to my partner over breakfast. Not exactly, but a parallel observation, that a lot of people are just kind of shit at their jobs. The utility tech who turned my tiny gas leak into a larger gas leak and left. The buildings around me that take the better part of a decade to build (really? A parking garage takes six years?) Cops who have decided it's their job to do as little as possible.…

The reason simply is late stage capitalism, there's not enough upside anymore, so why bother do a good job? That's how I explain it. I noticed that as well with almost all employees, there was a shift. And it feels like it's got to do with misaligned incentives. Why bother working yourself stupid if you'll never own a house if you don't become a slave to the loan? There's no upwards movement/middle class anymore.

This is it. It's rational not to give a damn in this environment, at least for anyone who isn't an entrepreneur or very well paid.

Re: The Who Cares Era

#180

Post by WalterBright »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #170
WalterBright wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's all due to the focus on short-term financial results I've heard that my whole life. If that were generally true, company stocks would be going steadily downwards.

GE [1]? Boeing [2] [3]? The stocks go up because management and shareholders pull forward the gains as financialization destroys the long term value of the enterprises. Works until it doesn't. [1] Power Failure: The downfall of General Electric - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44102034 - May 2025 [2] Fatal Recklessness at Boeing Traces Back to Long-Standing C-Suite Greed - https://www.thenation.com/article/poli…

Boeing consistently went up for many decades prior to the MAX crisis. So did GE.

Companies have life cycles. They grow until they become unable to function efficiently anymore, then they go down.

It's not about prioritizing short term results.

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