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6 months ago, I left the bullshit industrial complex

joanwestenberg.com

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Re: 6 months ago, I left the bullshit industrial complex

#191

Post by JohnFen »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #3

While this author is of a younger generation, this really resonated with me as a Gen Xer. I feel there is so much disillusionment among folks that came of age during the 90s because there was so much techno optimism then, and it didn't quite turn out like we envisioned. Two things made me think about this recently: 1. I saw a Reddit post that was titled something like "The 90s were peak humanity. Enough tech to make…

Indeed so.

For a while now, I've been struggling with the realization that I may need to just leave this industry entirely as a dev.

The tickle in my brain that tells me that as an industry we have ceased to be a force for (on the whole) good and have instead become a force for profit extraction above all else is getting too loud for me to ignore.

It seems to me that the tech that I've been helping to build for decades has been repurposed and weaponized against people instead of helping people and improving everyone's situation.

Re: 6 months ago, I left the bullshit industrial complex

#192

Post by JohnFen »

throwaway7ahgb wrote: post #161
majewsky wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> LLMs are very exciting This just goes back to your grandparent comment: "I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for AI to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes." Also, I'm not particularly excited about my day job becoming about fixing up half-broken scripts that other people pump out with LLMs. > WASM/WASI is a bold idea I will admit that I have not looke…

"I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for AI to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes." To read this and get upset is very bizarre to me. LLMs as most of the public know, is just a few years old. The things these services are doing are nothing short of sci-fi ideas 10 years ago. And were complaining it can't do our laundry? IMO this is peak first world com…

> And were complaining it can't do our laundry?

As I read it, the complaint is that it looks like it will be automating the things we don't want automated rather than automating the things we do.

Re: 6 months ago, I left the bullshit industrial complex

#193

Post by ForHackernews »

surgical_fire wrote: post #147
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #3

While this author is of a younger generation, this really resonated with me as a Gen Xer. I feel there is so much disillusionment among folks that came of age during the 90s because there was so much techno optimism then, and it didn't quite turn out like we envisioned. Two things made me think about this recently: 1. I saw a Reddit post that was titled something like "The 90s were peak humanity. Enough tech to make…

> The 90s were peak humanity Nostalgia is one hell of a drug. I was a teenager during the 90's, and I do have fond memories of things from that decade, but it would do well to keep your nostalgia in check. Even when we restrict ourselves to the realm of tech, a lot of things back then sucked horribly. Large tech companies already showed their rent-seeking tendencies, there was crazy hype for shit ideas (the dotcom bu…

It's So Sad When Old People Romanticize Their Heydays, Also the 90s Were Objectively the Best Time to Be Alive

https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/its-so-sad-when-old-peo...

Re: 6 months ago, I left the bullshit industrial complex

#194

Post by mihaaly »

t0bia_s wrote: post #180

I'm freelancing about ten years in audiovisual production and design. I'm avoid commercial sphere. I'm absolutely avoiding product advertising. In those 10 years I realized how fake it is. Basically product advertising is proof that product is not good enough to be sold on market. Good product is advertising by itself. With this honesty, you cannot participate in fake indistry.

"Good wine needs no bush".

Re: 6 months ago, I left the bullshit industrial complex

#195

Post by seoulmetro »

throwaway7ahgb wrote: post #167
tim333 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's the issue so much as the global reach of tech makes it winner take all. Instead of 100,000 retailers making a bit of money they go bust and Jeff Bezos makes all the money.

That's not what is happening though. Millions of companies and indie developers have a platform to make money. This never existed before. Amazon, Google and Apple also employ thousands of SWEs that make a good living building these services for customers. Bezos doesn't "make all the money".

It's akin to everyone being in a big shopping centre and the shopping centre charging rents though. Eventually you have to admit that the model has changed, people are still able to rent but the building is infinitely large. The building size is quite a disrupter.

Re: 6 months ago, I left the bullshit industrial complex

#196

Post by [deleted] »

vinyl7 wrote: post #174
fragmede wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can’t be a techno-optimist anymore. You can't? Just yesterday, Waymo opened their self-driving taxi service to the general public in San Francisco. We now have self driving cars. You draw a stick figure and the computer draws the rest of the fucking owl. I have an AI that I talk to on my phone and I tell it about my life's bullshit and it guides me through it. It helps me with my writing and my programming. Rob…

That just means that most humans are now obsolete and the government and corporations have no need to keep us around

[deleted]

Re: 6 months ago, I left the bullshit industrial complex

#197

Post by m463 »

prox wrote: post #116
m463 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is how I felt. Computers made everyone's life better! My opinion is that "the big sellout" happened when apple introduced the iphone and the apple app store. and it basically came down to a couple nuances in their policies... #1 apps have unfettered network access #2 apple would never approve security apps like a firewall (because #1) and when a big player sets an example, it normalizes the situation for everyon…

This seems like historical revisionism. Not saying Apple wasn’t part of a certain trend, but it’s an odd bone to pick since Apple technically is one of the few companies that relies on hardware sales, not ad revenue. Google is far more likely to fit your profile. It’s where ads (adwords and adsense) started to transform the web. First just a few cute banners at the top. And these days some sites just plaster the whol…

> relies on hardware sales

but apple made it a free-for-all on the device that you arguably own.

for example, you can block google in your browser. web browsing still has choices and is still somewhat democratic. But you can't block google in an app on your phone.

Re: 6 months ago, I left the bullshit industrial complex

#198

Post by ryandrake »

prox wrote: post #116
m463 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is how I felt. Computers made everyone's life better! My opinion is that "the big sellout" happened when apple introduced the iphone and the apple app store. and it basically came down to a couple nuances in their policies... #1 apps have unfettered network access #2 apple would never approve security apps like a firewall (because #1) and when a big player sets an example, it normalizes the situation for everyon…

This seems like historical revisionism. Not saying Apple wasn’t part of a certain trend, but it’s an odd bone to pick since Apple technically is one of the few companies that relies on hardware sales, not ad revenue. Google is far more likely to fit your profile. It’s where ads (adwords and adsense) started to transform the web. First just a few cute banners at the top. And these days some sites just plaster the whol…

I think a lot of companies (including Apple) figured out at around the same time that the Internet finally allows them to have that unbreakable "tether" to the end user. The Internet provides them the control over what the user is doing that they never had before. Without intrusive things like hardware dongles and long distance modem calls, they were never able to watch the user and control their activities like they can today.

Re: 6 months ago, I left the bullshit industrial complex

#199

Post by seoulmetro »

throwaway7ahgb wrote: post #166
mordae wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly it's not money. It's inequality. To build a stable business, you need to carer to the rich more then to anybody else.

This statement keeps getting postulated here and I still don't buy it. The economy is NOT 0 sum. Inequality in itself doesn't doesn't do anything bad. Billionaires existing can be true while poverty shrinks. IMO it is a low value argument to state that we could fix world problems by removing "inequality". I'm happy to be proven otherwise.

Billionaires existing are actually fantastic for poverty. The more the better.

BUT we need to somehow poke holes in the billionaire that don't both totally drain them or leave them unharmed. The holes need to be large enough that they can help the government support the people.

Problem we have is that the billionaires bought all the hole punchers and aren't letting the gov use them like they used to.

Re: 6 months ago, I left the bullshit industrial complex

#200

Post by damsalor »

fragmede wrote: post #152
ryandrake wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to love computers and software. When the next great thing came out, I’d be an enthusiastic early adopter, and enjoyed the new powers the technology gave me. Now, whenever something new comes out, my first thought is: “how is this thing going to suck up my personal data and monetize me?” And my second thought is “how is this going to wreck some part of life and/or humanity and turn it into profits for the rich?…

> You can’t be a techno-optimist anymore. You can't? Just yesterday, Waymo opened their self-driving taxi service to the general public in San Francisco. We now have self driving cars. You draw a stick figure and the computer draws the rest of the fucking owl. I have an AI that I talk to on my phone and I tell it about my life's bullshit and it guides me through it. It helps me with my writing and my programming. Rob…

Obeying Computers just leads to the commodification of control and efectively humans-as-a-service
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