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The Value of Things

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Re: The Value of Things

#41

Post by ares623 »

GMoromisato wrote: post #39
siavosh wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s interesting—playing devil’s advocate on the purse example, I’m not sure I’d actually call that meaningful. It’s certainly a kind and thoughtful gift, but meaningful? What if meaning isn’t only about the relationship or the recipient’s satisfaction, but also about what the gift costs the giver in terms of personal value? In the yard-sale case, the purse may be rare to the mom, but it’s essentially cheap and dispo…

You're not wrong--there seems to be some connection between effort and meaning. But I don't think it's that simple. For example, imagine I go to Starbucks and buy my mom a branded mug. Meaningful? Probably not. Now imagine that I drive 8 hours across state lines to a Starbucks and buy my mom a branded mug. It's still not meaningful even though I made a huge effort. The effort itself has the be meaningful! It can't be…

I think the word you are looking for is "intent". Effort + intent = meaning.

Re: The Value of Things

#42

Post by michaelhoney »

ge96 wrote: post #3
xqb64 wrote: post #2

I'm literally considering a career switch from software engineering to electrical engineering and electronics, and naturally going back to school, because the AI and the way it's used in writing software has sucked out all the meaning in it for me.

Yeah I'm the same, I enjoy thinking of a system of things, doing it, not typing a couple of commands and a bunch of code is generated. It's not the rote process but feeling like I worked for it/doing it. Similar argument is "why buy milk" you can get a cow, milk it yourself, kind of thing. Which I see that, some people don't care what the code looks like, does it work.

Any sufficiently interesting project won't be generated with a couple of commands though: you can still think about systems, about the _right_ way to do something. Then you can document your understanding and hand it to Claude Code to do the fiddly bits which you _could_ do, but they're not as interesting. You're already using a higher level language and leaving implementation details to the compiler: this is another step up.

Re: The Value of Things

#43

Post by camgunz »

mbil wrote: post #31
camgunz wrote: post #16

I love Nystrom's writing, and he's so good at it because he's written so much. A huge part of the value of things is how we grow in the making of them, and I worry that in a world where we accept generative slop, we'll never have the opportunity to woodshed enough to become excellent at a craft. I'm a good engineer because I've written tons of code, I've taken no shortcuts, and I've focused on improving over my many…

> I've written tons of code, I've taken no shortcuts, and I've focused on improving over my many iterations. This has enabled me to be an effective steward of generative coding (etc) models, but will younger engineers ever get the reps necessary to get where I am? Are there other ways to get this knowledge and taste? I think this will be a problem in the middle term, and I've written about such deskilling before [0].…

> I think this will be a problem in the middle term, and I've written about such deskilling before

I'm thinking more broadly. Here's an example: barring malnutrition, western people aren't as strong as they used to be. But why is that? We have gyms and home exercise machines. People have never had more access to the latest exercise science and technology. It's because you no longer incidentally get the reps in modern life. We're reaping the rewards of that with obesity and cardiovascular disease, and that's bad enough.

Imagine the same thing happening to our minds because we no longer incidentally get cognitive reps in future life. People will be asking chatgpt who to vote for, whether they should have kids, whether they should stay in relationships or which major to choose. People will stop going to doctors because doctors will forget how to doctor after using medical models. Etc.

What's a society that's forgotten how to think like? What happens when there are no teachers, doctors, software engineers, lawyers, writers, artists, therapists, because the lack of economic incentive has made it impossible to justify the employment, let alone the training?

There is value in the doing. We aren't what we produce or make; we are what we do.

Re: The Value of Things

#44

Post by ge96 »

michaelhoney wrote: post #42
ge96 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I'm the same, I enjoy thinking of a system of things, doing it, not typing a couple of commands and a bunch of code is generated. It's not the rote process but feeling like I worked for it/doing it. Similar argument is "why buy milk" you can get a cow, milk it yourself, kind of thing. Which I see that, some people don't care what the code looks like, does it work.

Any sufficiently interesting project won't be generated with a couple of commands though: you can still think about systems, about the _right_ way to do something. Then you can document your understanding and hand it to Claude Code to do the fiddly bits which you _could_ do, but they're not as interesting. You're already using a higher level language and leaving implementation details to the compiler: this is another…

What about code verbosity and vulnerabilities, I guess make smaller change sets.

Still I do like the process of typing things out, vs being like a checker of check boxes, looks good check, looks good check, kind of deal.

I don't mean typing as in typing a story but feel that I'm actively building it.

What's bad is I'm not 100% into it, I work in this field but I'm also skeptical of it at the same time. I'm not like "hell yeah Agents!" But also I work with them and it's the current hotness for high paying jobs.

Re: The Value of Things

#45

Post by munificent »

arjie wrote: post #20

I don't really think it's the effort, to be honest. A short while ago, I made a Custom GPT for my wife[0] that she thoroughly enjoyed and uses all the time. It didn't take me that long. The value in the thing is that I could see what she wanted and make it like she wanted. And on the receiving side, a friend of ours knitted our daughter, Astra, a quilt with her name on it and with this lovely star motif. It must have…

I'm glad you brought this up.

I considered going into this direction but decided not to. You're right that we can sometimes to very meaningful things for others that are easy for us. A couple of years ago, I broke my ankle. While I was trying to figure out what surgery was best, I had a conversation with my cousin's husband to who happens to be an orthopedic surgeon. That conversation took nothing but twenty minutes of his time, but was very helpful and meaningful to me.

However, the reason he was able to have that easy conversation is because of all of time he already spent training to become an ortho.

Likewise, in your case, you were able to easily set up a custom GPT because of the experience you already have in software engineering.

The effort is still there, it's just sort of amortized out over time.

Re: The Value of Things

#46

Post by munificent »

thundergolfer wrote: post #38

Whether Nystrom realizes it or not, and I think he does, this piece is shot through with Marxist thinking on use value, exchange value, socially necessary labour time, and the general structure of capital social relations. Capitalism has been a fantastically productive system that has also produced a great deal of labour alienation. Nystrom has a deep need to labour for those he cares about, he needs to make the scar…

I am actually fortunate in that I find my work labor deeply meaningful too. Most of my career has been in developer tools, making software that helps empower other people. I love that work and I love hearing from users that I've helped them make things and earn a living.

Re: The Value of Things

#47

Post by kulahan »

IncreasePosts wrote: post #35
kulahan wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because programmers probably think it'll be a similar field, but it's different. It has correct and incorrect ways of doing things, strongly enforced. You're not inventing new shit, you're reapplying old shit constantly. Old shit that works. Many think writing software is engineering, but it couldn't be further from the truth. edit: to clarify, trying to get people to realize the grass isn't always greener, and both…

How many programmers-turned-X do you have experience with?

Billions

Re: The Value of Things

#48

Post by Klonoar »

kulahan wrote: post #30
Klonoar wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...why do you think this comment is warranted?

Because programmers probably think it'll be a similar field, but it's different. It has correct and incorrect ways of doing things, strongly enforced. You're not inventing new shit, you're reapplying old shit constantly. Old shit that works. Many think writing software is engineering, but it couldn't be further from the truth. edit: to clarify, trying to get people to realize the grass isn't always greener, and both…

I think you're missing the point of my comment.

Your comment feels unwarranted because other engineering professions have guardrails, because they recognize that people will die if they don't. Your comment is implying that a software engineer can simply apply their existing (lack of) guardrails when that's probably not the case.

Re: The Value of Things

#49

Post by kulahan »

Klonoar wrote: post #48
kulahan wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because programmers probably think it'll be a similar field, but it's different. It has correct and incorrect ways of doing things, strongly enforced. You're not inventing new shit, you're reapplying old shit constantly. Old shit that works. Many think writing software is engineering, but it couldn't be further from the truth. edit: to clarify, trying to get people to realize the grass isn't always greener, and both…

I think you're missing the point of my comment. Your comment feels unwarranted because other engineering professions have guardrails, because they recognize that people will die if they don't . Your comment is implying that a software engineer can simply apply their existing (lack of) guardrails when that's probably not the case.

No, my comment is implying that if you enjoy the relative freedom of writing software in new and interesting and novel ways, you probably will not enjoy copy-pasting buildings or bridges or whatever again and again and again.

People can easily die due to software, and there are still few (any?) regulations in almost every single industry, plus no way to assign accountability. If a bridge collapses, it's pretty simple to figure out whose fault it is.

Re: The Value of Things

#50

Post by kulahan »

IncreasePosts wrote: post #35
kulahan wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because programmers probably think it'll be a similar field, but it's different. It has correct and incorrect ways of doing things, strongly enforced. You're not inventing new shit, you're reapplying old shit constantly. Old shit that works. Many think writing software is engineering, but it couldn't be further from the truth. edit: to clarify, trying to get people to realize the grass isn't always greener, and both…

How many programmers-turned-X do you have experience with?

No response, so I assume this brain dead comment is a China bot.
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