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I am retiring from tech to live offline

openpath.quest

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Re: I am retiring from tech to live offline

#541

Post by sfn42 »

gonzalohm wrote: post #289
aeyes wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where I work % of code written by AI and AI spend is tracked all the way down to the individual person. It is obvious to me that this will be used in performance reviews in the future.

That's so stupid. Let the agent write code that will never be used then and you focus on the important code

What's stupid in my opinion is this idea that the LLM can't be used to write good code. Like you use it for throwaway code.

I use LLMs heavily, bit it doesn't diminish the quality of my code at all. If anything it raises the quality. Because I keep it on a tight leash and make sure every like of code is what I want it to be. If you let the thing run wild for hours and barely glance at the result sure you'll be producing slop. But there's nothing stopping you from being more involved using it as a tool rather than a slave, and getting great results that way.

Re: I am retiring from tech to live offline

#542

Post by eudamoniac »

alephnerd wrote: post #417
Rover222 wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I was just living off $1k/month in Brazil just to see if it was possible. It definitely is. And was in a beautiful, safe area.

Of course you felt amazing living off US$1k/mo in Brazil - the average per capita household income in Brazil is less than US$450/mo and a salary of $700/mo puts you in the top 10% [0]. Basically, you enjoyed feeling rich in a country where the vast majority are getting screwed. And this is what I as well as my SO's family (middle and working class Vietnamese in VN) hate about digital nomads - y'all don't realize that…

Uh, ok, guess I'll keep my dirty American dollars out of poor economies. That should really help them out.

Re: I am retiring from tech to live offline

#543

Post by alephnerd »

eudamoniac wrote: post #542
alephnerd wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course you felt amazing living off US$1k/mo in Brazil - the average per capita household income in Brazil is less than US$450/mo and a salary of $700/mo puts you in the top 10% [0]. Basically, you enjoyed feeling rich in a country where the vast majority are getting screwed. And this is what I as well as my SO's family (middle and working class Vietnamese in VN) hate about digital nomads - y'all don't realize that…

Uh, ok, guess I'll keep my dirty American dollars out of poor economies. That should really help them out.

> That should really help them out

Yeah, it does if you're a tourist.

It's been documented [0] for [1] decades [2] how tourism induces a form of Dutch Disease [3].

Tourism dollars are inherently extractive, as that is foreign capital that is not redeployed into capacity building and also leads to premature inflation which prices out less extractive industries. Additonally, most tourist led economies lead to additonal economic stratification, as most countries tourism industries are deeply regulated and tend to be captured by pre-existing economic players (eg. Thailand, Brazil) which only exacerbates social stratification and economic inequality.

A great example of this is Thailand versus Malaysia and Vietnam - overtourism in Thailand led to an inflation in low skill services jobs associated with the tourism industry at the expense of manufacturing, which left for fellow ASEAN members Malaysia and Vietnam, both of which limited tourism and strategically targeted foreign capital to manufacturing and high value services (BPO, Software) despite Thailand historically being a peer and significantly more developed than Malaysia and Vietnam respectively.

No developing country has made the leap to becoming developed due to a tourism-led industrial policy, and the developed states that did adopt such a policy (eg. Puerto Rico, Portugal, Greece, Italy) only did so after their industrial growth spurts in the 1970s-2000s ended.

[0] - https://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/lup/publication/1334498

[1] - https://wiiw.ac.at/tourism-and-economic-development-the-beac...

[2] - https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3648158

[3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_disease

Re: I am retiring from tech to live offline

#544

Post by cindyllm »

sfn42 wrote: post #541
gonzalohm wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's so stupid. Let the agent write code that will never be used then and you focus on the important code

What's stupid in my opinion is this idea that the LLM can't be used to write good code. Like you use it for throwaway code. I use LLMs heavily, bit it doesn't diminish the quality of my code at all. If anything it raises the quality. Because I keep it on a tight leash and make sure every like of code is what I want it to be. If you let the thing run wild for hours and barely glance at the result sure you'll be produc…

[dead]

Re: I am retiring from tech to live offline

#545

Post by pbgcp2026 »

siren2026 wrote: post #237

I have been at it for 20 years now and have started to feel my time is up as well As a lot of comments here highlights, the issue is not so much the tech but the politics, constant perf reviews, re-orgs, nonsense BS that is pushed top-down. This industry is taking a toll on you. My advice for anyone reading this that is starting your career: Live simply and save a lot. When I started my career I thought I would love…

"spending everything they make to buy multi-million dollar houses in the bay area" was very good financial decision, wasn't it? ;-)

Re: I am retiring from tech to live offline

#546

Post by pbgcp2026 »

I've been in this industry for 30+ years. I still don't understand how I can retire from my hobby that I have been having a passion for since I was 17 and still enjoy? Yes, I have been paid for it (handsomely!) but that was _never_ the goal. I just liked playing with computers ...

Re: I am retiring from tech to live offline

#547

Post by necovek »

retired wrote: post #164
amanaplanacanal wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this related to what business your employer is in? In other words, is their business producing code, or is code written to support some other business? Or is this just everywhere now?

Everywhere. Normally adding an extra endpoint to the REST API would take a sprint. Now PM expects you to do two. Only way to get that done is a lot of vibe-coding and delivering sub-par results.

I am amazed that anyone ever needed a "sprint" to "add an endpoint".

It usually speaks to the approach you are taking, but I also believe sprint-based planning leads development teams to make work fit into it instead of needing natural time to do it.

Let's remember that all of have probably built full systems over a weekend. What organizational dysfunction has led to us needing a sprint is what needs fixing.

Re: I am retiring from tech to live offline

#548

Post by necovek »

rootusrootus wrote: post #111
mikeyinternews wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As Eric Schluntz from Anthropic put it (not verbatim): If you're not using AI (I believe he was specifically referring to Vibe Coding), then you are the bottleneck.

That sounds like a good reason not to listen to advice from someone who works for Anthropic.

That sounds like a good reason not to listen to Eric Schluntz, who both overestimates the ability of LLMs today, but also has a vested interest in it being so.

I am sure Anthropic is full of smart people who are making Claude work well for those who do not want to be vibe coding and who believe that's not productive either.

Re: I am retiring from tech to live offline

#550

Post by andai »

latkin wrote: post #320

This whole thing is eye-searingly performative. Whether or not he follows through and goes dark after this, this farewell is just so ridiculous. Claims to have not used the internet or a phone since February, does all communication via USPS, declares that AI and social media make him hate himself... But somehow is continuing to post on Bluesky, continuing to update his blog, continuing to post YouTube videos, continu…

If you find a way to escape the Matrix... do you go back and help?
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