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Programming Still Sucks

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Re: Programming Still Sucks

#281

Post by alt_422568 »

lopsotronic wrote: post #266
canelonesdeverd wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How come is anyone "entitled" to a decent living? kind of the point of living in a civilized society i reckon

Yeah once payback goes below subsistence[1] - even when it gets near it- things get unstable and extremely dangerous. Ancient people understood this very quickly and built up institutions to keep the baseline above subsistence for urban civilizations. It's been so long since we've seen actual bread riots I fear we forgot how nasty those are. I think the notion is that with new automated systems of violence and contro…

> There was a big zillionaire conference where they talked about slave collars

What? Do you have a link?

Re: Programming Still Sucks

#282

Post by stevenlangbroek »

wavemode wrote: post #279
stevenlangbroek wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're describing is akin to Jevon's paradox. Let's see. The Industrial Revolution, I think a good analogy, caused years of death & suffering before raising standards of living, and even then only so because of mass organizing & uprising.

I don't think most software engineers have to worry about dying of industrial accidents and black lung... Long hours? Sure, but that's not new (or universal), and AI definitely didn't cause it.

That's not what I mean. You can't just retrain and get a job in a new field and maintain your mortgage, rent or your kid or partner's needs, and downward social mobility is incredibly painful (think personal bankruptcies, pretty grim mental health outcomes).

Re: Programming Still Sucks

#283

Post by lelanthran »

msie wrote: post #175
stevenlangbroek wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Programming gives me great joy. I wrote my first batch scripts when I was 6 years old. I got my first job in the industry when I was 20. I'm 41 now. The problem isn't the act of programming. As to juniors, first time I heard someone brag about AI removing the need to hire juniors was in 2022. every junior I know is struggling to find work. It's not hard to find reddit threads with people sharing their experience to t…

"I wrote my first batch scripts when I was 6 years old." - Wow, that's pretty amazing. What did you write when you were 10? Really curious.

> What did you write when you were 10?

Me, personally, a text adventure game filled with bugs that I did not know how to fix. (I realise only decades later that the index into array I was using to store the location references was probably incorrectly calculated when I moved sometimes.)

I learned a lot of programming from books like these (official links, not pirated):

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bxv0SsvibDMTdGY0VEQzSGZnelU...

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bxv0SsvibDMTb2VxczM3WGNBLUE...

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bxv0SsvibDMTRUl3SFRONGN0MFk...

There were more (one had a game called "Rats" and from the description I thought it would be a 3D game, but alas I never got it entered properly and even if I did, I realise now that it probably wasn't 3d rendered).

Re: Programming Still Sucks

#284

Post by Brian_K_White »

bluegatty wrote: post #65
Brian_K_White wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not absurdist. It's shining a light on something that actually exists and is absurd.

It only 'shines light' on the mental disposition of the author.

I think there is another "mental disposition" in need of some examination.

Re: Programming Still Sucks

#285

Post by Brian_K_White »

bluegatty wrote: post #61
Brian_K_White wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a quote that goes something like "The purpose of any system is whatever it does." Whatever any system does, it's someone's intention that it does so. It's like an unavoidable truism. You can't say anything that gets around it.

Great. The system does what it does. It's not 'destroying society'. Not remotely in, any sense. Many people seem to like Facebook. It's not really not causing harm, they are a minor nuisance at worst ... that you can avoid by ... not using it. Open AI makes AI that you can use to do whatever. That's mostly it.

"The system does what it does."

The statement was that the purpose of the system is what it does.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_wha...

Read at least the first couple lines and become microscopically less ignorant. Or don't. I'm not your mom.

Re: Programming Still Sucks

#286

Post by coldtea »

munksbeer wrote: post #248
coldtea wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, raw "actually good balance of stuff I like and stuff I don't like in those decades" pragmatism. I could not give less fucks for having AI and smartphones and most other stuff, including all the fancy new medical procedures which are barely incremental. Fridges, basic 90s-style internet and mini-skirts and welfare, and cheap housing, and jobs-a-plenty, more affordable healthcare, and the lifestyle, I can use jus…

The thing is, the option you want is available today. There are communities all around the world that live much simpler lives. Some just because that is how they are, others because they've formed communities to escape all the things you don't like. Genuine question, have you ever investigated these options? If so, why did you dismiss them?

Because I don't want a fucking enclave to larp in, and even if I did, no place is safe from late stage capitalism and its corporations and politics.

I want the era/society/world, not mere personal or communal play-acting it.

Re: Programming Still Sucks

#287

Post by coldtea »

munksbeer wrote: post #272
esseph wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The option is still available to you though. Sticking your head in the sand could be a great strategy if it improves your happiness and wellbeing. Right now I am picturing the dog drinking coffee in the burning room meme.

I really think this is extreme doomerism. Things are not that bad. And as I say, wouldn't you be happier if you lived in an environment where you were not impacted by all the stuff you dislike?

>wouldn't you be happier if you lived in an environment where you were not impacted by all the stuff you dislike?

What I want is a better society (as I see it), not convenience for me personally.

Obviously to the degree I can distance myself from stuff I don't care for, I do it. But I don't want to larp in some like-minded commune while the world turns to shit, I want the world to not turn to shit.

Re: Programming Still Sucks

#289

Post by lopsotronic »

alt_422568 wrote: post #281
lopsotronic wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah once payback goes below subsistence[1] - even when it gets near it- things get unstable and extremely dangerous. Ancient people understood this very quickly and built up institutions to keep the baseline above subsistence for urban civilizations. It's been so long since we've seen actual bread riots I fear we forgot how nasty those are. I think the notion is that with new automated systems of violence and contro…

> There was a big zillionaire conference where they talked about slave collars What? Do you have a link?

https://www.popsci.com/environment/douglas-rushkoff-survival...

It was a private 2017 desert retreat where five wealthy tech and hedge-fund investors flew out media theorist Douglas Rushkoff, ostensibly for a speaking engagement.

Rushkoff wrote it up first as a Guardian essay and later expanded it into his 2022 book Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires.

The problem's super duper obvious if you studied history, but it is also pretty obvious if you can think about second order effects. In collapse the wealthy obviously need security forces to hold on to their stuff, but in a collapse your stuff will - presto changeo - become the security force's stuff. Essentially the singular founding story of all European royal families. Barbarian general took the house, banged the wife, now he's king. Or King-Sound. Kai- Zar

At the end of the day all these little lords and lordettes figured out the time honored lesson that to be actually safe you want to make friends with the locals. And that's part of being new king types as well. But "making people like you" isn't a popular notion with the Revenge of the Nerds types who love this "Lord of the Bunker" kind of thing.

I've seen zoo chimpanzees make a mockery out of this sort of device in VERY short order, and I would dread to impose it on a Delta Force psychopath who also has more higher degrees than I do. Because he's going to know who it was who did it and have all sorts of ideas about what he's doing about that. So the basic premise is also idiotic.

Sorry, I was a little more snide than I usually am on HN, it's been a long day.

Re: Programming Still Sucks

#290

Post by emmelaich »

stevenlangbroek wrote: post #147
wavemode wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People don’t hand wash clothing for money because we have machines to do that now. We don’t need people delivering news papers because the news is delivered digitally. Those jobs aren't creative knowledge work. The advent of digital audio workstations didn't reduce the number of musicians - it increased the amount of music. Now that we can write code with AI, we (as a civilization) will simply write more code than…

What you're describing is akin to Jevon's paradox. Let's see. The Industrial Revolution, I think a good analogy, caused years of death & suffering before raising standards of living, and even then only so because of mass organizing & uprising.

That's disputed. Progress was uneven and lagged a little, but by many standards (height, mortality) quality of life increased for many from the start of the industrial revolution.
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