41–50 of 210 posts
Probably not, but job title inflation has made it so that apparently 5 years of experience is enough to be given a "senior" title. I've got like 15 but still feel like a medior at best. Yeah this is humblebragging, whatever it's a throwaway internet comment.
> Actually, what are we going to do when everyone that cares about the craft of software ages out, burns out, or escapes the industry because of the ownership class setting unrealistic expectations on people? Nothing, I guess? There's an implicit assumption that software written by humans is a necessity. If the future finds that software written by computers is more profitable then that's just what it is. The univers…
Profit motives are a relatively recent phenomenon, though, and are often erroneously cited as analogous to efficiency gains (despite mountains of evidence to the contrary). > Even food is not able to escape this hole: it's not profitable to manually cultivate food anymore if you wanted to do that as a career. Does this not horrify you? That the foundational discipline of humanity - nutrition via hunting, gathering, o…
I don't understand this statement. These things aren't unprofitable. Doing these things a specific way is unprofitable. Growing food is most certainly profitable; but only at scale. Is it sad that a small, family farm isn't really a great way to make a living nowadays? Sure. But that's not a foundational discipline of humanity; "creating food" is, but there's lots of ways to do that.
And, honestly, if we _ever_ get to the point where we can fabricate food from raw elements (a la Star Trek), then that will be a little sad, too... but still "creating food".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The owning class will use it to reduce payroll costs Of course. That's been going on since the invention of the plow. That's why today we can do more interesting things than turn over the earth with a pointy stick all day every day. > economic democracy, where average people regain control over their lives History shows us that this inevitably means people lose all control over their lives, because the state will m…
There are _other options_! You're argument is that the only two alternatives are that the ruling class and owning class be separate groups of people, or the same group of people. And either way the labor class if F'ed. You're right that having the ruling class and the owning class being the _same people_ is terrible. That's what we're living in right now! But what about the labor class being the owning class? What if…
Bezos started Amazon with $300,000. I'm sure it wouldn't take too long for workers to raise that kind of money, after all, $300,000 to buy a house is considered cheap.
On the other hand, the history of businesses being confiscated and handed over to the workers has not been a successful one.
"A picture of two patches of wild grass bifurcated by a retaining pond"
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have a whole list of things I'd like from my car that the market does not provide because it is more profitable not to. Why do I get the feeling that instead of seeing this as a horror story you would scold me for unreasonable expectations, even though it is the identical mirror form of the horror story you just told?
Because Mr. Bright has a long, storied comment history of neolibertarian fantasies being wielded as a cudgel against anyone who dares envision a future that does not align with his own. Speaking from experience with them in another thread. Your best bet is to ignore the bait and move on to more fruitful discussions.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If we don’t figure out a way to keep people alive and relatively happy, the metric may become pitchforks per angry mob. I used to wonder if a Butlerian Jihad was plausible or just an interesting plot device. Now, it seems more plausible every day.
Yeah that's totally possible but I suspect if AI really does take over software, the number of people who will riot over software quality is going to be dwarfed by the number of people who are happier that they can get their chats GPT'd faster.
Let’s be honest; capital wants to eliminate all labor, and damn the consequences. People are not going to willingly give up lives of comfort for abject squalor. This will not go well.
> Actually, what are we going to do when everyone that cares about the craft of software ages out, burns out, or escapes the industry because of the ownership class setting unrealistic expectations on people? Nothing, I guess? There's an implicit assumption that software written by humans is a necessity. If the future finds that software written by computers is more profitable then that's just what it is. The univers…
There's a photo on that page with this description: "A picture of two patches of wild grass bifurcated by a retaining pond" I was just thinking how I'd describe that different, and how many different ways it could be described.
If you're sending the first say 12-months worth of experience work to india then local gang straight out of college end up with a pretty tangible gap. There are key formative experiences missing. The programming equivalent of fighting with manual array memory management. Or shooting yourself in foot with a pointer.
Worse they don't realise that they're missing pieces. By necessity you start them off at a higher level and their understanding ends up fuzzy for lack of better word. It's not their fault...to them it looks normal, to the previous gen it's all "how can you not know this"
...still the world keeps turning
"It's just how things are."
"That's what generates profit."
"If that's what the market demands, who are we to judge?"
"Guess we do nothing."
We've all heard it before. We get it, so many HN and Tech folks have thrown in the towel and given up on changing anything within their own lives, or within the lives of others. So many more are content just "going along with the ride", abdicating all responsibility to an imagined god in various forms ("invisible hand of the free market" being most common among our peers).
For the rest of us who want to actually discuss the merits of the piece, we're sidelined by those who found reward in the path of libertarian ideals and seek to punish or discipline those of us who seek to make any sort of change or improvement beyond direct profit motives. Serious discussions of organization and direction are derailed in favor of blatant troll bait and bad-faith arguments.
This, I think, is also what Xe is trying to highlight: those in the position to enact the most positive change are staunchly refusing to do so, which in turn exacerbates the harms caused. Too few people with too much power and too much capital believe themselves to be more knowledgeable and intelligent than anyone else, denigrating any thoughts that may come from the slime beneath them on the ladder. When Xe said "Rolling the ladder up behind us", they make it very clear who they're speaking to:
> Look, CEOs, I'm one of you so I get it. We've seen the data teams suck up billions for decades and this is the only time that they can look like they're making a huge return on the investment.
They're basically shouting that "the call is coming from inside the house", and that the only place - right now - to address these harms are by and from the people inside said house. Nobody is coming to save us, but history books are filled with examples of what happens to those classes, those societies, those civilizations for whom greed becomes all consuming, standards of living collapse, and meaningful progress stagnates.
> Maybe the problem really is winner-take-all capitalism.