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Create value for others and don’t worry about the returns

geohot.github.io

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Re: Create value for others and don’t worry about the returns

#481

Post by roncesvalles »

dataflow wrote: post #478
roncesvalles wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Companies already treat software engineers like disposable cogs to be burnt out and discarded. I'm sorry but this is simply false. Nothing has really changed on the ground for SWEs. Nothing at all. Compensation is still sky high. Interviews are still the same. Career progression is the same. Everything takes the same amount of time. It's all business as usual for software engineering as a profession. AI is just one…

> I'm sorry but this is simply false. Nothing has really changed on the ground for SWEs. Nothing at all. Compensation is still sky high. Interviews are still the same. Career progression is the same. Everything takes the same amount of time. That's not remotely what I'm hearing or seeing from those who are on the job market.

The tech job market hasn't been "easy" for many years (basically since 2015 except for a ~2 year boom from mid 2020 to mid 2022). People always find different things to attribute the difficulty to. I remember way back in the day when bootcamps were the boogeyman.

Re: Create value for others and don’t worry about the returns

#482

Post by mike_hearn »

maybewhenthesun wrote: post #462
mike_hearn wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea you're suggesting here is 19th century era Marxism, and isn't based on historical or economic realities. There has never been a famine caused by new technologies creating unemployment, and food security is much higher now than at any other time in the past.

> There has never been a famine caused by new technologies creating unemployment That's a bold statement. And depending on how you define famine it might even be true-ish. But I'm quite certain most poor people in the 1920s would disagree with you. Which is why we got the russian revolution and both world wards at that time. All 3 were partially caused by 19th century industralisation creating an poor, hungry undercl…

It's not particularly bold, it's just a fact. It only seems bold because our society is still flooded with Marx-era propaganda.

Poor people in 1920 would agree with me. We know this because in this era Marxist ideas were already quite old, well known and widespread. He argued for what was effectively a UBI or very generous welfare system under a different name. He predicted the poor would rise up as capitalism drove their wages to zero and "alienated" them, then they'd overthrow it. But Marx became bitterly disappointed in his lifetime when capitalism didn't fail, wages didn't fall to zero and the working classes rejected his call to revolution.

Technological progress hasn't caused famines, it's ended them. What has caused several famines, though, is left wing people reorganizing society via force to solve imagined problems. If you're worried about people not having enough to eat, you should be terrified of a UBI.

Re: Create value for others and don’t worry about the returns

#483

Post by Krei-se »

FearNotDaniel wrote: post #480
Krei-se wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe in the first 10 years of your career, after that you totally have the skills needed to create value from nothing - something no value extracting actor will ever be able to learn. Might take a while but the milk surely becomes butter. His point is valid, maybe your pov is a bit clouded because his baseline is quite high (fame, money) but its not that different at a lower baseline. You bring 1.x to the world that…

Who creates value in the art market? Is it the artist who creates the work? Or the dealer who persuades the buyers that the work has value? As a builder I’m attracted to the fantasy that I can create value with my bare hands just by writing code (or telling the AI to write the code), without needing any of those horrible slimy people in suits to build a business around it. Rock n roll man. If you build it, they will…

Fear not Daniel,

you can create value by preventing damage in the future, this will get rewarded by the ecosystem itself. That's really hard to describe, but you can try simply removing a danger or annoyance in an ecosystem like your hood or local park then be attentive about what will be better in your own life.

Art creates value with measurable 1.9x in my country, its studied and thus gets funding because they know every 100€ funded will create 190€ of economic value. This means if you give an artist 100€ doesn't matter how - the local economy will grow by 190€. Magic? Well it's just many soft factors - higher quality of life leads to more educated and productive people!

Understand these are all tools to make more of WHAT IS ALREADY THERE and has nothing to do with extracting resources and selling them or bartering. I think your dotcom bubble is an extreme with no value for general advice.

Hope this helps. Hang tight!

Re: Create value for others and don’t worry about the returns

#484

Post by flammafex »

mike_hearn wrote: post #482
maybewhenthesun wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There has never been a famine caused by new technologies creating unemployment That's a bold statement. And depending on how you define famine it might even be true-ish. But I'm quite certain most poor people in the 1920s would disagree with you. Which is why we got the russian revolution and both world wards at that time. All 3 were partially caused by 19th century industralisation creating an poor, hungry undercl…

It's not particularly bold, it's just a fact. It only seems bold because our society is still flooded with Marx-era propaganda. Poor people in 1920 would agree with me. We know this because in this era Marxist ideas were already quite old, well known and widespread. He argued for what was effectively a UBI or very generous welfare system under a different name. He predicted the poor would rise up as capitalism drove…

As an Irish person, I want you to explain to me how "left wing" the British were when they had us export our food at gunpoint.

Re: Create value for others and don’t worry about the returns

#485

Post by jatari »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #459
UncleMeat wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was an extremely brief period where public health advice discouraged the general population from masking. This was because there was a huge undersupply for medical workers and because we hadn't fully figured out whether covid aerosolized mere weeks into the pandemic. Once we had a bit more information in a rapidly evolving situation public health advice switched to recommending masks and stayed that way for yea…

There was indeed a huge undersupply for medical workers. The appropriate response from public health officials should've been something like "surgical masks help protect others, and right now, we need to protect hospital patients", not "we want to keep masks available in hospitals where they're needed, because they're important, so let's tell people they're not important to make sure they're available". This is the k…

>are we going to do any better next time

The US is completely fucked if another pandemic hits within the next ~20 years. Or at least until a large percentage of the anti-vaxers created in the covid pandemic age out of the population. Having a decent response when half the country is going to be on team virus is not possible.

> Have we put measures in place to ensure that accurate information about the disease, including appropriate disease-specific hygiene measures, are rapidly disseminated.

This is irrelevant if half the country has the through process of "goverment says it therefore it is fake news bill gates microchip conspiracy".

Re: Create value for others and don’t worry about the returns

#486

Post by vasco »

camillomiller wrote: post #479
vasco wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're a random worker of a huge organization and it gets bought or co-opted, yes you should jog on. Go help someone else that hasn't been co-opted. This is why even though I'm generally a progressive I'm against unions. The solution to bad owners is everyone quitting their company. This was not feasible in a town with a single factory but is very feasible today. Quit working for bad people and bad people will cha…

Have you ever had to pay rent or feed children?

Of course I'm not a rich Californian on a 300k salary

Re: Create value for others and don’t worry about the returns

#487

Post by lofaszvanitt »

10xDev wrote: post #179

You will get laid off but you won't if you create value and you will create value if you don't care about money and it will go recursive but it won't go recursive because there are limits. It won't change anything but it will change everything. No one knows what he is actually saying (see comments) but at least he managed to compress the entire discourse on AI impact into a blog post.

LSD is quite a thing.

Re: Create value for others and don’t worry about the returns

#488

Post by jbaviat »

keiferski wrote: post #318

As is often the case, the title is a bit misleading and implies a universality that I don’t think the author intended. He is specifically talking about AI, and saying (in my understanding) that you shouldn’t worry too much about whether your specific thing will be overwritten by AI, as long as you focus on actually creating true, real value with your work. I agree with that completely and can see it happening in my o…

I _do_ believe the author implied universality on purpose.

That’s also close to the YC motto: “make something people want”.

Or as Paul Graham puts it: be good. https://paulgraham.com/good.html

Re: Create value for others and don’t worry about the returns

#489

Post by fragmede »

DangitBobby wrote: post #338
fragmede wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll come out and get kicked out of communism club to say that I don't support UBI on the basic fact that money is exchanged for goods and services is just so foundational that I can't support UBI. I think everybody should have a roof over their heads and 3 square meals a day, but UBI isn't the way to get there.

You don't support it on principle or because you don't think it works?

The exchange of money for goods and services is foundational to capitalism, and UBI seems like a divide by zero kind of trick that's isn't going to work out. Let's fire a bunch of people to make the government more efficient with this one neat trick is just the most Republican thing ever.

Re: Create value for others and don’t worry about the returns

#490

Post by fragmede »

UncleMeat wrote: post #377
fragmede wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll come out and get kicked out of communism club to say that I don't support UBI on the basic fact that money is exchanged for goods and services is just so foundational that I can't support UBI. I think everybody should have a roof over their heads and 3 square meals a day, but UBI isn't the way to get there.

I am not aware of any mechanism to ensure that everybody has a roof over their heads and 3 square meals a day besides direct payments to the poor.

Welfare and SNAP may be imperfect, but they seem to be working.
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