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Don't Become the Machine

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Re: Don't Become the Machine

#41

Post by roncesvalles »

Kerrick wrote: post #30
roncesvalles wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like to think I'm very much abreast of the bleeding edge because I feel this anxiety myself. At this point I can't code without LLMs because I just notice things that I could hand off to LLMs and they will do it faster and there's no reason for me to do it myself (although I still could). But the overall gain in efficiency is still a low single digit speedup. It's not a multi-OOM speedup as if e.g. doing 1000 long…

For me the speed-up has not been in doing things I was already an expert at doing quickly with high quality. It has been in skipping the learning curve for adjacent things.

Does it make the curve easier or do you skip learning it entirely and just trust the LLM? I wouldn't do the latter.

Re: Don't Become the Machine

#42

Post by orionspelt »

noduerme wrote: post #40
antfarm wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The majority of people don't have that luxury, and very few have it throughout their whole career. The lucky ones should be grateful this label does not apply to them and not feel insulted by the less fortunate.

Or you should realize that it's called work because it's not fun and you can still enjoy and appreciate it. You think only people with rare amazing unicorn jobs enjoy work? Go drive a cab. Bartend. Work long hours for a startup you care about. Yes you can complain it sucks, but that's why it's called work . Learning how to enjoy it is the same as learning how to be good at it - and better at life. This luxury you spe…

Those things you describe are jobs

Work is a term of physics; breathing is work. Eating is work.

Jobs exist because people are too lazy to do work for themselves.

What I want is no job and to work on my house, work in my food prep, work on interesting projects. Work on making the last mile stuff I need.

Work is great. Jobs are dumb.

Re: Don't Become the Machine

#43

Post by pests »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #36
pests wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm currently the type of person that is always plugged into noise (music, podcast, YT). It is rare that I sit in silence. Not directed towards you, but this brings up a thought I often ponder. I have friends and people around me who are plugged in 24/7. I don't really think they spend any time, what so ever, on internal thought or introspection / reflection. I think it really affects them. The "default mode networ…

There's an orthogonal aspect to it: control. I know I need some amount of noise to stay grounded and look outwards instead of collapsing into infinite reflection regression - but I also need control over that noise. That is, it needs to be my noise. Living in noise introduced by people around me is not reinvigorating, it's draining and depressing.

I couldn't agree more. Especially noise introduced by people around me. Drains me.

I'm not on a high horse either, I do succumb to modern temptations. I have a YouTube addiction, but its all educational / a topic I'm learning / a hobby / etc. I just got my Recap and somehow I have watched 4500 different channels this year, that's saying nothing of # of videos or watchtime. I was pretty shocked.

Still though, I purposefully make time to be alone and just daydream or relax and ponder. I don't use my phone while driving (besides maps etc). I try to put my phone away when others are around (unless we're sharing memes or photos or you know, actively using our phones together). I'm not a snob, go ahead and reply to your significant other while we're eating dinner - that's understandable. When I watch movies or TV (that I care about, I do keep old scifi on in the background while on the PC or doing stuff around the house) I am actively watching and do not touch my phone, and if I do need to I pause first.

The worst part? When you know someone is on their phone 24/7, phone in hand at all times, and you can't get them to respond to your calls or texts.

I feel like I'm bragging or showing off or something but I'm really not, just interested in how people interact with their devices, and their life.

Re: Don't Become the Machine

#44

Post by Scarblac »

noduerme wrote: post #40
antfarm wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The majority of people don't have that luxury, and very few have it throughout their whole career. The lucky ones should be grateful this label does not apply to them and not feel insulted by the less fortunate.

Or you should realize that it's called work because it's not fun and you can still enjoy and appreciate it. You think only people with rare amazing unicorn jobs enjoy work? Go drive a cab. Bartend. Work long hours for a startup you care about. Yes you can complain it sucks, but that's why it's called work . Learning how to enjoy it is the same as learning how to be good at it - and better at life. This luxury you spe…

I think it's called work because it _accomplishes something_, in a way that play or idleness doesn't.

Something can be a work of love, your life work, et cetera and it doesn't imply anything about it being fun or for money or not.

I want to learn more skills so I can do more types of work.

Re: Don't Become the Machine

#45

Post by runarberg »

samuraijack wrote: post #31

The constant anti work agenda that is thrown in your face if you use almost any social media is so annoying. Have these anti work people ever considered that maybe some people actually like work and labelling them as slaves is insulting?

Some work is exploited, in fact in this economy most work is exploited. If most people could work without being forced to work unreasonable hours, under stressful conditions, with ample free time, and without their bosses, or worse, their shareholder talking almost all of the profit they generate, most people would probably choose to work.

Most people like working, hardly anybody likes being exploited.

Re: Don't Become the Machine

#46

Post by Scarblac »

orionspelt wrote: post #42
noduerme wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you should realize that it's called work because it's not fun and you can still enjoy and appreciate it. You think only people with rare amazing unicorn jobs enjoy work? Go drive a cab. Bartend. Work long hours for a startup you care about. Yes you can complain it sucks, but that's why it's called work . Learning how to enjoy it is the same as learning how to be good at it - and better at life. This luxury you spe…

Those things you describe are jobs Work is a term of physics; breathing is work. Eating is work. Jobs exist because people are too lazy to do work for themselves. What I want is no job and to work on my house, work in my food prep, work on interesting projects. Work on making the last mile stuff I need. Work is great. Jobs are dumb.

Sometimes jobs are great streams of interesting work to do that also switch off at five.

Re: Don't Become the Machine

#47

Post by arvid-lind »

ge96 wrote: post #27
mstank wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever tried meditation? Does a great job scratching that ‘boredom’ itch…

I'm trying to. I don't know how you know it's working. Maybe, sometimes I do feel present like I am in this building, this town right now. It is funny, I bought an old phone of mine from the 2010s, I had a different mindset back then (try to make a shit ton of money through ads on a website). That did not happen but I had this ambition/tried to make a lot of dumb apps. I'm trying to get back to that mental state as n…

> I don't know how you know it's working.

after a while it should feel like a refreshing nap. during the meditation itself, you're just doing a simple task and going along with it without resistance, like when sleeping. eventually the idea of "non-doing" will make more sense.

another way to look at it: upon waking each morning, you start with an empty glass. from this point, everything that enters your realm of awareness accumulates in this glass and at some point it will start overflowing if you don't manage what you're accumulating. meaning you can only effectively work with a certain amount of "stuff on your mind". So you shouldn't make a habit of carrying stress from the morning commute all day into affecting your afternoon meetings, for example.

take a few deep breaths and let the morning commute pass, and your glass is empty again. allow the glass to fill up with morning work, noticing and managing points of friction so they don't linger more than necessary. if you notice yourself getting overwhelmed or stressed about everything that comes up, you're overflowing and would likely benefit from some meditation. as you meditate more, it becomes more effortless so you won't be reliant on "doing meditation" as much.

the Plum Village app has a meditation bell that rings on a schedule (default is every 15 minutes). they recommend you take a few deep breaths to re-center and state your intention(s) for the moment. I started using it earlier this year and it has a noticeable effect over time, would highly recommend trying it out all day if possible. or at least during times where you're trying to do focused work but have a tendency to get distracted.

Re: Don't Become the Machine

#48

Post by yeasku »

noduerme wrote: post #40
antfarm wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The majority of people don't have that luxury, and very few have it throughout their whole career. The lucky ones should be grateful this label does not apply to them and not feel insulted by the less fortunate.

Or you should realize that it's called work because it's not fun and you can still enjoy and appreciate it. You think only people with rare amazing unicorn jobs enjoy work? Go drive a cab. Bartend. Work long hours for a startup you care about. Yes you can complain it sucks, but that's why it's called work . Learning how to enjoy it is the same as learning how to be good at it - and better at life. This luxury you spe…

I would like to see you working in construction.

Re: Don't Become the Machine

#49

Post by yeasku »

askafriend wrote: post #15
roncesvalles wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think AI is completely optional for software development. There seems to be a new kind of anxiety wherein devs feel that they aren't leveraging AI to the fullest in order to make them more productive at developing software, and that since they aren't doing so, they should just give up writing software completely. This anxiety is unfounded. The difference between using AI vs not using AI is not like using a physical…

I think it’s exactly like going from paper spreadsheet to Excel in some very important aspects of engineering (but not all). I really encourage you to update your priors since capabilities are very different than even 6 months ago.

The 6 months ago is a meme at this point.

Re: Don't Become the Machine

#50

Post by wiseowise »

> I was recently recommended a YouTube video with the following title:

> "Ligma balls"

I don't know what I've expected from the article, this is your typical run of the mill tech/linked-in bro fart in the wind. How to write a page and not say anything at all.

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