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The Who Cares Era

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Re: The Who Cares Era

#451

Post by pinkmuffinere »

strgcmc wrote: post #429
pinkmuffinere wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the tradeoff between [rest and vest] vs [leave for higher standards], I think the second option is better, and “more care-y”. At the very least, it shows the company that there is a problem, and doesn’t squander talent. You’re right that there are even more care-y paths though — potentially op could continue to escalate the issue, train all his coworkers, or work crazy hours to fix the problem themself. There is a…

But this thread here has either misinterpreted or willingly ballooned the problem up, into this strawman of an unfixable culture or a terrible company which no one engineer could possibly fix... The OP here, basically has a simple (and common!) 3-way collaboration/communication problem: - OP did not get along with 1 single fellow coworker that he was assigned to work with; this coworker reportedly does not listen to…

Ya, I agree with you. I don’t want to malign op without context, but I also worry that they might be overconfident, or over indexing on an unimportant detail. I think it’s hard to give detailed advice without more info

Re: The Who Cares Era

#452

Post by bentley »

saltwatercowboy wrote: post #140
b112 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wage stagnation always happens at the start of any economic downturn. However, once over and the economy resumes, typically the stagnation ends, and wages jump. The massive, huge cynic in me says, people make less because all they do is stare at their phones. Yes, I know, I'm overstating things a bit. But the other day I noticed the approx 20 year old garbage collector, was staring at his phone the whole time. I am n…

Well that's the word, isn't it: 'typically'. That hasn't happened. The activities that make life worthwhile have largely been priced out for the average person. I think that we can tarry about historical causes (and accomplish nothing, creating an ever-worsening feedback loop) or identify where changes could be made to incentivize productivity beyond what amounts to macroeconomic punishment. As for the garbage man...…

> The activities that make life worthwhile have largely been priced out for the average person.

What activities make life worthwhile?

Re: The Who Cares Era

#454

Post by badpun »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #170
WalterBright wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's all due to the focus on short-term financial results I've heard that my whole life. If that were generally true, company stocks would be going steadily downwards.

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 stock price still almost doubled in the past 10 years. Went up by hundreds of percent in the past two decades. GE stock is worth 40x what it was worth 40 years ago, when Jack Welsh took over management! These two seem like two very successful companies, led by succesful strategies.

Re: The Who Cares Era

#455

Post by catlikesshrimp »

lolinder wrote: post #359
david-gpu wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it's not that we don't care, or that it doesn't affect us directly, it's the complete lack of agency that makes us disinterested. Why focus our attention on the million things that we can do nothing about, when we could focus instead on the very few things where we can make a difference? There are plenty of people out there who live their lives rarely watching the news, or browsing social media, and it is reall…

The argument is rarely that their lives are worse, it's that they're somehow making other people's lives worse by not paying attention to X, Y, or Z injustice. But even that argument doesn't really hold water. I know people who are so incapacitated by their anger, frustration, and sadness about the Gaza war that they spiral into depression and are incapable of making any impact on the world directly around them. In t…

Since you touched the topic. The protests in the US did have an impact, which now triggered a second impact on Harvard international students.

I think the concern in Gaza tickled some group the wrong way and there will be more awareness.

Additionally, there should be more awareness that protests are less tolerated by the government, which seems a bad thing.

Re: The Who Cares Era

#456

Post by clolege »

mdavid626 wrote: post #416
ncr100 wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my opinion: It comes down to values, of the people that you are working with, and of the market in which your groups people is operating. If you can dial those things in to match your own proclivities about how you like to be treated, then you're golden.

The problem is, most of the people, including me, can’t.

What's stopping you?

Re: The Who Cares Era

#457

Post by strgcmc »

tolerance wrote: post #123

Where I think that pieces like this fall short at are identifying what they think people should "care" about and why these things matter. For example, * Who cares that those newspapers ran AI-generated reading lists when the actual people who represent the newspapers wouldn't actually be the ones recommending the books anyway ? (People who make things that you read aren't reading themselves.) * Why should people care…

Your comment somehow reminded me of this quote: "In a society that profits from your self doubt, liking yourself is a rebellious act." (https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/9371890-in-a-society-that-p...)

That's not a direct response to your concern, but I think this quote applies in a parallel manner -- I've seen this quote applied as a statement about what it means to be "punk", and how simply being content with yourself (meaning you don't fall victim to all the ways society attacks/preys on insecurities or tries to sell you drugs or makeup or clothes or surgery or whatever to change yourself), is actually incredibly "punk". You don't have to dress up weird, or go out and do graffiti, or get into fights... just being content with yourself is "punk", within a capitalist/post-capitalist world.

So, in a similar vein, I think this author is saying that, "caring" is also a form of being "punk", in a world where seemingly not-caring is mainstream now. The thing is, being "punk" doesn't need an external "why" reason to justify it... the whole point of "punk" culture is about authenticity, that just being yourself is what's important, that you don't need a special reason to reject capitalist consumerism or mainstream opiate-of-the-masses media or to dress how you feel instead of how society thinks you should look. In that way, being "punk" is quite Buddhism-aligned actually, to center on existence and enlightenment through self-realization, instead of pursuit of external "why" reasons for doing X or Y.

Caring is the punk thing to do, because it is who you actually are. You don't need a special reason to care, if you subscribe to any kind of "punk" mindset/philosophy about life. Don't care because it will yield better material rewards, get you laid, or whatever. Care, just because.

At least, that's the argument... up to you if you buy it or not.

Re: The Who Cares Era

#458

Post by palmotea »

WalterBright wrote: post #299
palmotea wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No company goes up forever. They all eventually strangle themselves with bureaucratic inefficiency. So they should act to strangle themselves faster? It feels like your reasoning is equivalent to, "Eventually you'll die, so there's no point taking care of your health. Go save money by avoiding the doctor, take up smoking, and eat junk food all the time."

> So they should act to strangle themselves faster? Come on.

Being relentlessly focused on the short term will do that, eventually.

You seem to think the assumption "all companies die" means you can simplify away their journey, but it matters if they get there faster or slower (at least to society, if not the decision-makers to maximize their personal profit while hoping to not being the ones left holding the bag).

Re: The Who Cares Era

#459

Post by superultra »

I think a better term for it is the “we’re cooked era.” I see this phrase everywhere, in relation to AI, in relation to national politics, in relation to big problems like climate change. It’s really demoralizing because it’s a passive acquiescence to systemic change as if we have no control over anything. Which will inevitably lead to entropy.

If there’s one book I could “force” everyone to read, it’d be the Dawn of Everything. The David’s (Graeber and Wingrow) describe how the fundamentally most interesting attribute of humans is how much we tinker.

I love this article because it shares those same values. It’s so crucial for us to reject abject passivity and even when things seem impossible, to tinker and play and never assume that everything is as it will be.

Re: The Who Cares Era

#460

Post by [deleted] »

1dom wrote: post #149

I read the title and it triggered something I've been thinking a lot lately: there's too much for everyone to care about right now. Article didn't really touch on it directly, but: > something that sounded like every other thing: some dude talking to some other dude about apps that some third dude would half-listen-to at 2x speed while texting a fourth dude about plans for later. It's not that the dudes don't care, i…

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