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The Who Cares Era

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Re: The Who Cares Era

#361

Post by thewebguyd »

gilbetron wrote: post #347

The future is gone. I'm in my 50s, and for nearly all of that time I thought, dreamt, and worked towards a future that I read about, researched, talked to others about, and consumed media about. But over the past several years I realize it is gone. I thought maybe it was just my age, but it seems like the world is doing the same, so maybe not my age. Another thread mentions that no one talks about "life in the 22nd c…

> Things aren't really changing in many ways, but changing crazy fast in other ways, but not toward anything in particular. Maybe it is some sort of singularity-type thing approaching that I'm feeling. All I know is that my life hasn't changed much in the past decade. Smartphones, awesome computers, instead streams of videos, a sea of video games and books and music, but nothing new and remarkable.

Late 30's here, and I feel/noticed the same thing.

It feels like a state of purgatory. Things are changing, I suppose stuff is coming out, but nothing is really new. Remakes, rehashes, the same trends over and over, the same tropes in media. The world feels "stuck" in a way that's hard to describe.

Re: The Who Cares Era

#362

Post by alabastervlog »

buangakun wrote: post #74

Oh man, I gotta write a comment here. I'm gonna leave out a few details in case this guy or my tech lead/manager read HN. So, I am senior software engineer, got hired into this company. I was tasked by my manager/tech lead to work with another senior software engineer. Overtime I realized that this engineer did not have the proper background in this field. I asked him and I asked my tech lead, and confirmed he did no…

I think the 3rd or so time that all the work I'd been doing for months or years just got thrown in the garbage, having never provided more benefit than it cost, or even without ever providing any benefit whatsoever due to never having been released, through no fault of my own, was when I decided giving a shit was for suckers.

We're just human parts of some weird business-metaphysical Plinko board—and we ain't the ones dropping the chip or winning the prizes. Truly, who could possibly maintain any amount of giving-a-shit after years and years of that? All that's left is pretending, which is, transparently, the same thing "leadership" does.

Re: The Who Cares Era

#363

Post by dowager_dan99 »

WalterBright wrote: post #214
layer8 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no contradiction between stocks going up and things being mediocre due to focus on short-term profits.

Looks like a contradiction to me. If you're sacrificing the long term for the short term, your stock isn't going up.

stock markets are indices of successful companies; you need to look at the composition. The metric I would look at is the age of the companies in the S&P 500 or similar, and that IS increasingly skewing young, which shows both a focus on the short term and increasing markets

Re: The Who Cares Era

#365

Post by whstl »

azemetre wrote: post #268
ewhanley wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you should be able to run the table with so little competition. Why not engage, take on more responsibility, and obviously stand out to get more money and influence?

Because you won't be rewarded with money and influence while still having the same risks of layoffs. At this point you're better off working on your own thing because the company is usually, always with few exceptions mind you, a dishonest actor that is openly hostile. The elites can't blame the state of the world on workers when they've created out hellscape of treadmills to delusion and abandonment.

Yep. The only reward in a place that doesn’t care is time.

I am in a proper place now, but I regret not getting a second job in my previous fintech job.

Re: The Who Cares Era

#366

Post by dsr_ »

WalterBright wrote: post #180
toomuchtodo wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The book on GE is specifically about how they lied, cheated, and committed fraud -- er, accounting irregularities -- for decades, in order to maintain the illusion of number goes up predictably.

In retrospect, it was exactly as unlikely as Madoff's numbers.

Re: The Who Cares Era

#367

Post by dowager_dan99 »

WalterBright wrote: post #286
bumby wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the time horizon of investors.

The value of a stock is based on long term results. If the investors catch wind of the company sacrificing the long term for the short term, the stock price will go down accordingly.

why do the companies with the shortest planning horizons have the highest P/E ratios then?

Re: The Who Cares Era

#368

Post by sillysaurusx »

gilbetron wrote: post #347

The future is gone. I'm in my 50s, and for nearly all of that time I thought, dreamt, and worked towards a future that I read about, researched, talked to others about, and consumed media about. But over the past several years I realize it is gone. I thought maybe it was just my age, but it seems like the world is doing the same, so maybe not my age. Another thread mentions that no one talks about "life in the 22nd c…

One way to break this illusion is to remember how new things are introduced. Bitcoin didn’t seem more than an intellectual exercise when it was introduced. Facebook seemed like a way to stalk college students. HN seemed like an alternative to Reddit. An iPad seemed like a dumbed-down laptop. Smartphones seemed like a desktop computer in your pocket.

The point is, once you wait a decade or so and look back, you find that we did in fact get a lot of newness. It just takes awhile to see what makes them distinct from mere optimizations of previous work. AI is no different, and we’re certainly not approaching some singularity moment. Not anytime soon anyway.

Be optimistic. Life is good. I’m 37 and keenly aware that as I age, I’m likely to fall into bitterness and disillusionment. But It’s natural for everyone to go through periods like that. It’s not your age, it’s your outlook.

We live in an era of almost literal magic. Being able to cure plagues that would have dealt so much misery that it’s hard to imagine; having fruit at grocery stores in winter; being able to get from point A to point B almost effortlessly as long as you have the money for it; that half our children no longer die during child birth, along with our wives. It’s easy to get caught up in tech-focused miracles, but the physical ones are often way more impactful. And we’re at the beginning of tech miracles anyway. It’s only been less than a century since computers became available, let alone practical. Charles Babbage would think he’d died and was in heaven.

Be optimistic. Life is good.

Re: The Who Cares Era

#369

Post by MinimalAction »

I entirely resonate with this article. It is true that most people don't care these days; empathy is a resource that is hardly spent/utilized on others. It is also true that there is just way too much to care. There are two different kinds of being overwhelmed going on here.

Re: The Who Cares Era

#370

Post by ncr100 »

try_the_bass wrote: post #339

I don't think I agree with this. As someone who has cared deeply about sometimes esoteric things, I've found that caring is actually the shortest path to being _hated_, mostly by other people who care about the same things but for different reasons. The best thing I did for my own sanity was to stop caring so much. But this is still the case. One of the things I care the most about is having a consistent moral framew…

As a person who has dabbled in that that perspective olive, saying the sky is falling, and who has other people who actively engage in that, in his life, I think it's important to be aware of your own motivations. Deeply.

Because, relationships are a two-way thing. If you notice people are being mad at you .. then know that's one of the "two-ways". You are doing something which triggers them. Now I need to be careful of course about victim blaming here, but assume I'm you know a fair and kind person just giving some orthogonal advice :-). I am.

And it's not The World is just against change. It's More often the message, and how it is delivered.

Specifically, it's the emotional weight behind the message. This is where it gets difficult because we're not like trained emotionally, by many of the western cultures.

Briefly, analyze Like, why do you care? Why do you care about the subject that you are saying needs to be changed. And then you can start to think well maybe the way that I care comes out in terms of intonation. Or brevity. Or the way that I cut people off. Or the way that I force the conversation to be focused on my concern. Note here I am transposing me and you.

And of course all of this is just my two cents based upon speculation, so feel free to ignore it :-)

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