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The West forgot how to make things, now it’s forgetting how to code

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Re: The West forgot how to make things, now it’s forgetting how to code

#321

Post by bsenftner »

jdw64 wrote: post #17

The real issue, in my view, is not AI itself. The problem is a management pattern: removing people and organizational slack because they don’t generate immediate profit, and then expecting the knowledge to still be there when it’s needed. Short-term cost cutting leads to less junior hiring, and removes the slack that experienced engineers need in order to teach. As a result, tacit knowledge stops being transferred. W…

That 'real issue' is the lack of formal effective communications training across the board in the United States, and probably all of Western Culture.

The Problem is wider than management, it is understanding the extended ramifications of action, understanding the larger systems one is a member and then identifying with them, protecting them, because you and all your peers understand their extended foundational need.

That type of critical analysis and secondary considerations tacit knowledge is developed through effective communications training, which is an entire perspective, a way of seeing the world. This can be gained by reading a wide diversity of literature, of the Nobel Literature quality; the reason being such literature is first person accounts of institutions crushing individuals, and individuals finding the power within themselves to defeat the institutions. That personal transformation is practically a Nobel Trope, but it teaches the reader how to have such insight and perseverance. Read a half dozen or more such novels, and you are materially a different person. A better, deeper considering person with a longer perspective horizon. We need this civilization wide.

Re: The West forgot how to make things, now it’s forgetting how to code

#322

Post by _heimdall »

sofixa wrote: post #93
cladopa wrote: post #52

People are not perfect. I went to Ukraine just days before the invasion. Travel and Hotels in Kiev had become extremely cheap. You asked the Ukrainians about the possible invasion. "Not going to happen" everybody said."Russia talks always aggressively, but never does anything". They did not properly prepare and as a result lost 20% of its territory in days. Days after that I was back is Austria and could not stop thi…

> They did not properly prepare and as a result lost 20% of its territory in days. They did though. While nobody actually believed Putin would be dumb enough, the Ukrainian army was still, just in case, extremely busy on preparing defences, organising stockpiles, preparing defensive tactics.

> While nobody actually believed Putin would be dumb enough

I'm not sure why you'd say nobody thought they would invade. To me it was clear in December the year before when the Russian navy began sailing the long way around Europe, getting in the way of Irish fisherman and confirmed days before the invasion when they had stockpiled medical personnel and blood on the front lines.

Re: The West forgot how to make things, now it’s forgetting how to code

#323

Post by don_esteban »

esseph wrote: post #284
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone wants to tag the evil with their opposition's name. The evil is concentration of power. But no one wants to call it that because then they can't pretend that it's something different when they're doing it themselves. Witness the people who keep proposing to solve market consolidation with higher taxes. Higher taxes go to the government, and therefore the interests that have captured the government. Are we go…

I'd argue we need both massive antitrust, and higher taxes on the wealthy to prevent them from amassing the power to prevent the antitrust.

And change in laws regarding the legalized corruption (Citizens United, ...). And fight for real freedom of speech.

This is very complex problem that needs to be tackled from all sides simultaneously, the entrenched interests are already well setup to defend themselves.

Re: The West forgot how to make things, now it’s forgetting how to code

#324

Post by defrost »

brabel wrote: post #289
defrost wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, NATO hasn't advanced into Russia then? Just Russia advancing into the Ukraine (after promising not to if the USSR nukes were given to Russia)? Gotcha.

I know it’s what about ism but I really hope you apply the same logic when Cuba once more tried to enter an alliance with Russia or China to defend itself against a larger aggressor next door. So while I agree that Russia should allow Ukraine and Georgia to join NATO, I also think that’s only fair if countries like Brazil, Cuba and Venezuela are freely allowed to determine their futures by joining Russia, China and I…

As you've chosen to address me directly I'll reply honestly, I have zero concern about Cuba, Venezuela, any of the 190+ countries on the planet, wanting to join or form BRICs.

I have considerably more concern about the ability of a post MAGA USofA to successfully navigate such a world via soft power as they appear to have flushed all the competent diplomatic talent down a golden toilet.

Re: The West forgot how to make things, now it’s forgetting how to code

#325

Post by owebmaster »

wolvesechoes wrote: post #315
cpursley wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another perspective: AI reduces brain effort in some domains which actually frees up brain juice that can be applied elsewhere.

Show us effects. What amazing breakthroughs were achieved thanks to brain juice freed by AI usage? What great works of art were created?

Exactly. What service got better and/or cheaper?

Re: The West forgot how to make things, now it’s forgetting how to code

#326

Post by lnsru »

HeavyStorm wrote: post #304
jdw64 wrote: post #17

The real issue, in my view, is not AI itself. The problem is a management pattern: removing people and organizational slack because they don’t generate immediate profit, and then expecting the knowledge to still be there when it’s needed. Short-term cost cutting leads to less junior hiring, and removes the slack that experienced engineers need in order to teach. As a result, tacit knowledge stops being transferred. W…

You're absolutely right. And the root cause is simple: the stock market / shareholders. The incentive is for quarterly returns, not long term. That's why CEOs look for that - that's the job they are assigned by shareholders and the board. For a shareholder what matter is the stock going up. Heck, you can make money even if it goes down, but you can't if it stands still.

No. It’s pure greed dominating the world. My employer is owned by bigger private company and the shitshow is the same as in big megacorporation. There are hordes of colleagues to stab one for 100€ more salary a month. Disgusting.

The company is manufacturing special computers. The initial owner/founder ordered CPU modules and memory cards always looking at the price break. His question was always „how many to buy to get best price?“. So he ordered sometimes 200-300 parts more than needed immediately. Then the follow up order came and he emptied the storage. Now new manager always orders EXACT amount memory cards as ordered computers. Price is secondary thing, most important thing to work without warehouse and get things delivered just in time. What doesn’t work at all for the while already. The high prices buying small quantities is eating up the profit, so people are getting fired to save costs. It is pure greed dominating western world. Everything is done to look accounting nicely at every cost, get whole bonus despite ruining the company long term. I see this pattern recently very often.

Re: The West forgot how to make things, now it’s forgetting how to code

#327

Post by adam_patarino »

jdw64 wrote: post #17

The real issue, in my view, is not AI itself. The problem is a management pattern: removing people and organizational slack because they don’t generate immediate profit, and then expecting the knowledge to still be there when it’s needed. Short-term cost cutting leads to less junior hiring, and removes the slack that experienced engineers need in order to teach. As a result, tacit knowledge stops being transferred. W…

Most workforce reductions are using AI as a cover up for greedy short term bonuses.

Any exec using AI to pay fewer people lacks imagination.

Re: The West forgot how to make things, now it’s forgetting how to code

#328

Post by paganel »

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #312
jdw64 wrote: post #17

The real issue, in my view, is not AI itself. The problem is a management pattern: removing people and organizational slack because they don’t generate immediate profit, and then expecting the knowledge to still be there when it’s needed. Short-term cost cutting leads to less junior hiring, and removes the slack that experienced engineers need in order to teach. As a result, tacit knowledge stops being transferred. W…

> The core problem is that decision-makers—often far removed from actual engineering work — believe that tacit knowledge can be replaced with documentation, tools, and processes. [It] cannot. I am not so certain: For example, I think that a lot of my knowledge about the system that I work on could be documented, and based on this documentation someone new could take over the system. The problem rather is: the volume…

It’s way easier (for this type of scenarios) and far more effective to learn by doing than to learn by reading (even tens of thousands of pages of) documentation, that is the crust of it.

Re: The West forgot how to make things, now it’s forgetting how to code

#329

Post by cpursley »

wolvesechoes wrote: post #315
cpursley wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another perspective: AI reduces brain effort in some domains which actually frees up brain juice that can be applied elsewhere.

Show us effects. What amazing breakthroughs were achieved thanks to brain juice freed by AI usage? What great works of art were created?

So this is the classic tension between the "coding for the love of code" vs the "coding to solve problems" mindset. This cultural concept has been around since before AI was on the scene, heck well before software existed (craftsman vs builder).

Re: The West forgot how to make things, now it’s forgetting how to code

#330

Post by ekidd »

SlinkyOnStairs wrote: post #243
vishnugupta wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> removing people and organizational slack You are spot on w.r.t every assertion you've made. When bean-counters took over the ecosystem they optimised immediate profitability over everything else. Which in turn means, in their mind, every part of the system needs to be firing at 100% all the time. There's no room for experimentation, repair, or anything else. I've commented about lack of slack on several times here…

They also took out all the quality , though in pure business terms one can argue that's a kind of "slack" by itself. The beancounters have cut all the corners on physical products that they could find. Now even design and manufacturing is outsourced to the lowest bidder, a bunch of monkeys paid peanuts to do a job they're woefully unqualified for. And the end result is just a market for lemons. Nobody trusts products…

> E.g. Desktop Linux has always been kind of a joke. It hasn't gotten better, the problems are all still there.

Desktop Linux has gotten better, though much of the improvement happened decades ago. I believe the first person to prematurely declare "the year of Linux on the desktop" was Dirk Hohndel in 1999: https://www.linux.com/news/23-years-terrible-linux-predictio...

And speaking as someone who was running desktop Linux in 1999, I remember just how bad it was. Xfce, XFree86 config files, and endless messing around with everything. The most impressive Linux video game of 2000 was Tux Racer.

But over the next 10 years, Gnome and KDE matured, X learned how to auto-detect most hardware, and more-and-more installs started working out of the box.

By the mid-2010s, I could go to Dell's Ubuntu Linux page and buy a Linux laptop that Just Worked, and that came with next day on-site support. I went through a couple of those machines, and they were nearly hassle free over their entire operational life. (I think one needed an afternoon of work after an Ubuntu LTS upgrade.)

The big recent improvement has been largely thanks to Valve, and especially the Steam Deck. Valve has been pushing Proton, and they're encouraging Steam Deck support. So the big change in recent years is that more and more new game releases Just Work on Linux.

Is it perfect? No. Desktop Linux is still kind of shit. For examples, Chrome sometimes loses the ability to use hardware acceleration for WebGPU-style features. But I also have a Mac sitting on my desk, and that Mac also has plenty of weird interactions with Chrome, ones where audio or video just stops working. The Mac is slightly less shit, but not magically so.

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