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Don't Become the Machine

armeet.bearblog.dev

51–60 of 157 posts

Re: Don't Become the Machine

#51
post #4

The most important thing is not to have a purpose. Machines will always outdo you in optimizing for a goal function. Don't follow rules and if you really need to, make your own and never tell them to anyone. Keep people guessing and change your mind often. Never ask opinions. They are useless and if you never ask people think you know better. What you know you think and feel are not what you think and feel but dead r…

Jesus Christ, was this written by LLM trained on 69 laws of power something or some other psychopath bullshit aimed at angsty coming of age?

Re: Don't Become the Machine

#54
post #3

> I think hustle-culture and the vision being pushed on my timeline is a corrupted one. A satirical video which I think captures some of the frustration: "The Hustle" by Krazam - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_o7qjN3KF8U > Machine Head - Derek Hobbs 1995 For anyone else a little nerd-sniped, the ASCII art head is 54,505 bytes, My original motive was something like: "If this were a PNG it would have only taken a muc…

A very un-scientific screen grab and saving as a GIF gives me 604kB at 990×1000 pixels, but this does include color fringing at the edges of each letter and I'd be inclined to treat this as a 1 BPP image.

Re: Don't Become the Machine

#55
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Will you remember it if you don't "break your teeth" on it though? At the same level as the things you're already an expert on?

Re: Don't Become the Machine

#56

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?

I think it's a lot more complicated than anti-work vs. pro-work. The author is cautioning people against defining themselves by their level of productivity.

Re: Don't Become the Machine

#57
Anthony Jackson interview from 1992:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IS-xDsic84Q

Please listen to it.

> The machines are here.

> We have to live with that. Things are different.

> Hopefully, if one has done his homework, one can continue to pick and choose what to do.

> If you keep your skills up, there is a place for you. If you don't, then there isn't. Very simple equation.

> I will not permit myself to be outplayed by someone using the machine.

---

Anthony Jackson is regarded as one of the most talented bassists that ever lived. He did, in fact, outplayed the machine, re-invented his own tone and technique, and proved over and over again that synthesizers could not do what he did. Synthetisers could replace thousands of pop musicians (they still do), but not him.

So yeah, do the grind. Don't break the machines, don't bow to them. Instead, outplay them. Keep your skills up, so you are free to pick and choose.

Re: Don't Become the Machine

#58
post #20

It seems so silly to say but I too have a dream of not wanting to work. Then I can just exist. I came across this YT video about enjoying boredom. It slows down time and you do things you really want to do. I'm currently the type of person that is always plugged into noise (music, podcast, YT). It is rare that I sit in silence. But yeah I'm hoping I can save, exit working, I'll still be making stuff that I enjoy at a…

This is exactly why my dream is to save enough money so that I can retire and fuck off and just smoke weed and play vidya until I die. People speak of "hedonistic treadmill" but there's also "achievement treadmill" where you want to achieve more and more and more and it never ends. The biggest perk of my current job is that the company is completely dysfunctional, so it's normal for me to spend entire day doing nothing and I don't even need to be at the office. At first my body reacted with panic because I was used to being a slave, but I'm slowly adapting to think "wait, I'm actually winning"

Re: Don't Become the Machine

#59

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.

You want to work on your house and prep your food? I am the complete opposite. I would rather work on building a website, and eat in a canteen, than work on my house or my food.

Re: Don't Become the Machine

#60
post #24
post #20

It seems so silly to say but I too have a dream of not wanting to work. Then I can just exist. I came across this YT video about enjoying boredom. It slows down time and you do things you really want to do. I'm currently the type of person that is always plugged into noise (music, podcast, YT). It is rare that I sit in silence. But yeah I'm hoping I can save, exit working, I'll still be making stuff that I enjoy at a…

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

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

No, but I am considering getting a working Amiga, a CRT and just writing some games for it.

All I had growing up was a C64, and I remember how peaceful I felt when I was designing and writing my (simple) games for it. I hankered all through my childhood for an Amiga; any Amiga.

TBH, I might even settle for a C128; just the thrill of writing software with some paper manuals next to me, no internet and no distractions.

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