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The happiest I've ever been

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Re: The happiest I've ever been

#271

Post by whstl »

signatoremo wrote: post #98
SoftTalker wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The programming itself is the reward for people who love doing it. It attracts the sort of detail-oriented thinkers who enjoy the doing and don't frame everything in terms of "value added." AI is attractive to the sorts of people who have their secretary write their Christmas cards.

AI helps you to focus on the aspects that you are interested in. Perhaps you care about database nifty stuff, but you may need the front end to make an end to end solution. You can delegate that part to AI

Not disagreeing, but apart from coding the most boring part of the entire job is the one that's the hardest to correctly delegate to AI: testing and ensuring the whole thing is sound.

Which is why it's changing the calculus on junior devs: if you're not mature enough to do self-review and self-QA, you're just dead weight for the team/company.

Re: The happiest I've ever been

#272

Post by ionwake »

littlexsparkee wrote: post #239
jimbokun wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are on course to have far more elderly people than young people. A global retirement community without even any grandkids to visit them strikes me as a depressing dystopian future.

I see less burden on earth's environment as a positive.

not necessarily connected to the number of people but the type - if they are all conservationists that would be a net positive, not counting OTT population numbers.

Re: The happiest I've ever been

#273

Post by ionwake »

bengale wrote: post #138
steeleyespan wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve spent too much time talking to Claude, because this sounds exactly like one of its messages

Absolutely! That’s a great point. For real though, I’m not wasting tokens on comments. I do wonder if we will pick up habits when interacting with them a lot though.

For real the grammar is so good its sus, did you aprse this through claude?

Re: The happiest I've ever been

#274

Post by StrangeSound »

NickNaraghi wrote: post #27

Csikszentmihalyi's flow research[0] basically predicts the author's whole arc here. People are happiest during structured, challenging activities with clear goals and tight feedback loops. Coaching middle schoolers in a gym hits every condition on his list. Btw, the other finding worth mentioning is that people consistently predict that free time and relaxation will make them happier, then report the opposite. [0] Fl…

Thanks for this, I've ordered it and look forward to reading it!

Re: The happiest I've ever been

#275

Post by agumonkey »

nvarsj wrote: post #40
bengale wrote: post #35

In the nicest possible way, this is basically the oldest lesson there is. You weren’t happy because you optimized your feelings or had the right opinions. You were happy because you stopped focusing on yourself and became responsible for other people. Six kids needed you, in the real world, every week. That kind of outward focus kills emptiness fast. Chasing happiness, moral righteousness, or political engagement jus…

There’s an entire generation of mostly childless adults who are shocked to find they enjoy contributing to others’ happiness. I have friends like this, their only purpose in life is to have no responsibilities, FIRE, and never give to anyone but themselves. Seems like a terribly depressing way to live but pretty common in tech/upper middle class circles.

I agree with you but i'd add our cultures pushed these psychological profiles (not far from mine) into running for some kind of (supposed) early safety because entering adulthood felt too bland heavy and risky.

From the few ive read about previous decades, people joined adult life earlier, with easier and better integration around adults and cheaper housing or similar needs. This creates a different existential landscape imo

Re: The happiest I've ever been

#276

Post by abhaynayar »

It's great to do what he's doing, but I just had a qualm with pinning this on AI- based on my experience repeatedly trying to make AI work every time a new model comes out, what I've realized is it requires a huge amount of pre-existing knowledge and context/harness engineering to get useful outputs consistently over a long time. Even then it's not like AI is replacing you more like it kinda helps a bit if you put a lot of effort into covering all its mistakes. I do agree there's a huge benefit in using AI as an alternative to search, research, prototyping though.

Even after adding all that up maybe you save some time. 10%-20%? Maybe? You do save a lot of cognitive load as well and it feels good but a lot of the times you pay the price later when you don't understand the code/project as it gets more complex and you need to debug it when the AI can't anymore. The point is there's just not enough to replace and even if the research angle saves you some time or cognitive-bandwidth why not just use that time to do something else? Like more work or more life.

Re: The happiest I've ever been

#277

Post by abc123abc123 »

Aurornis wrote: post #99
nvarsj wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s an entire generation of mostly childless adults who are shocked to find they enjoy contributing to others’ happiness. I have friends like this, their only purpose in life is to have no responsibilities, FIRE, and never give to anyone but themselves. Seems like a terribly depressing way to live but pretty common in tech/upper middle class circles.

> but pretty common in tech/upper middle class circles. It's common in some tech and upper middle class bubbles , but outside of some startups and a few VHCOL cities most of the 40+ people in tech I encounter have families. I think the mindset is most popular in internet bubbles like Reddit. Reddit went mainstream a decade ago and many people in their 30s and 40s grew up reading a lot of Reddit. Reddit cleaned up the…

I find the polarization of the child/no-child discussion revolting. One side poo-poo:ing on the other, have a child? Breeder! The other poo-poo:ing back... no child, you f*cking egoist, I'm happy your gene line dies out.

Personally I am of the opinion that everyone is entitled to their own life, and that the default assumption should be that they make conscious decisions in line with their own preferences.

Have a child? Great, but don't complain to me about early mornings and stress... you knew that before you had one. No child? Go for it! But don't complain to me about loneliness and lack of purpose.

I'm leaning towards the no child camp myself. I love my long morning, and complete lack of some little createurs (rightful) demand on my time. Yes, I won't have the pleasure of seeing that little creature grow up, and I might have a lonelier old age (but there's plenty of social settings I can inject myself into), but that's life. There's advantages and disadvantages to everything.

The trick is to find out which ones you like more.

Re: The happiest I've ever been

#278

Post by abc123abc123 »

sublinear wrote: post #146
Aurornis wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but pretty common in tech/upper middle class circles. It's common in some tech and upper middle class bubbles , but outside of some startups and a few VHCOL cities most of the 40+ people in tech I encounter have families. I think the mindset is most popular in internet bubbles like Reddit. Reddit went mainstream a decade ago and many people in their 30s and 40s grew up reading a lot of Reddit. Reddit cleaned up the…

I am about to hit 40 soon and have an alternative take on all that. I agree reddit was and still is a very toxic echo chamber, but the rest of us who have avoided having kids shouldn't be lumped in with those people. I came from a big family and grew up somewhat poor watching remorseful adults who didn't recognize the gravity of bringing a life into this world, let alone several, basically drink themselves to death t…

This is the way!

Re: The happiest I've ever been

#279

Post by abc123abc123 »

Gareth321 wrote: post #253
lukan wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Tldr is, people find fulfillment without children easier nowadays" Do they? Or have most just become too distorted to feel allright filling their emptiness with empty online debates and netflix? I know people who are really happy without kids (and who will never have them), but the majority is rather miserably lonely when you look past the facade. And with many, there isn't even a facade.

Kids are a cheat code to finding fulfilment. Some rare people are able to make it themselves, but they are the exception. I think most people who post on social media about living their best DINK lives are either lying to us, themselves, or have never experienced fulfilment and confuse it with margaritas on the couch with Netflix.

This sounds to me like rationalizing the regret of losing independence due to having children, and realizing one can never go back.

Re: The happiest I've ever been

#280

Post by abc123abc123 »

arealaccount wrote: post #91
whaleidk wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who want to be childless usually champion the importance of building strong community through friends and neighbors, just because they don’t want kids doesn’t mean they don’t want to contribute to others’ happiness lol. People wanting FIRE is a lot more to do with the current economy and wealth of useless or harmful jobs than kids

> dont want to deal with kids Someone has to bring up the next generation, the no kids crowd want all the luxury of having the next generation without putting in the effort or spending the money.

That's a very instrumental and de-humanizing way to look at humans. Only as enablers of further enablement. Know that there is no inherent reason at all why there should be a next generation, if we, collectively, do not want one. Some are interested in this, others not, and that's perfectly fine.

The assumption that humanity must, and shall, exist forever has no proof.

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