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The Who Cares Era

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Re: The Who Cares Era

#581

Post by THroaway225 »

sam-cop-vimes wrote: post #120

It comes down to what is "popular" culture. When I was young, society presented mostly people with intellectual achievements as role models which spurred a generation to strive. Hard work, humility, respect for others were actively inculcated into the growing generation. Children had few external influences other than their immediate circle of family, friends, neighbours and the school community. Now we have reality…

Yes, and in my generation, Jackass and skater culture gave us all the dream of escaping the horrors of adult life

Re: The Who Cares Era

#582

Post by THroaway225 »

try_the_bass wrote: post #339

I don't think I agree with this. As someone who has cared deeply about sometimes esoteric things, I've found that caring is actually the shortest path to being _hated_, mostly by other people who care about the same things but for different reasons. The best thing I did for my own sanity was to stop caring so much. But this is still the case. One of the things I care the most about is having a consistent moral framew…

"As someone who has cared deeply about sometimes esoteric things, I've found that caring is actually the shortest path to being _hated_, mostly by other people who care about the same things but for different reasons."

This is too true, and ive been guilty of being the hater more times than id liek to admit.

Re: The Who Cares Era

#583

Post by JohnBooty »

0_____0 wrote: post #5

I was just kvetching about this to my partner over breakfast. Not exactly, but a parallel observation, that a lot of people are just kind of shit at their jobs. The utility tech who turned my tiny gas leak into a larger gas leak and left. The buildings around me that take the better part of a decade to build (really? A parking garage takes six years?) Cops who have decided it's their job to do as little as possible.…

My experience is that people want to do their jobs well, but SYSTEMIC reasons tend to prevent this.

Typically (almost ubiquitously, really) this comes in the form of time constraints. I mean, come on, we're (nearly) all engineers here.

How much suboptimal code have you shipped? How much of it was due to a lack of skill or motivation vs. time constraints or other external factors?

    Where I live, it seems like half the streets 
    don't have street signs (this isn't a backwater 
    where you'd expect this, it's Boston).
Again, I'd bet dollars to pennies that it's a systemic issue. Voters tend to demand lower taxes as their #1 or #2 issue, especially in local elections where big-picture issues like abortion etc. are not decided.

So, are Boston's missing street signs a symptom of people not caring? Or a symptom of that department probably being underfunded? I obviously don't know, but my money would be on the latter.

In my experience the only people not trying their best on an indivdual basis are people who have been completely screwed over and beaten down by their jobs. Everybody else is trying, if only out of rational self-interest (wanting promotions, or at least needing to keep their jobs)

Re: The Who Cares Era

#584

Post by mos_basik »

ambicapter wrote: post #409
bigtex88 wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even that person is likely being underpaid for the work they are doing. And unless they're the ONLY PERSON AT THE JOB then they're not doing all the work. Everyone is important to make things work. And I guarantee those other people aren't seeing the fruits of their labor either. Productivity gains going to the top 0.1% since the 1970's has caused the rest of us to not want to work hard, because we don't capture our…

So people are getting mad at a grunt doing work because they believe that grunt isn't getting paid enough? Seems like a stretch.

The belief that grunts (like the hard working grunt) aren't paid enough might not be sufficient on its own to make the end result (people getting mad at that grunt) believable.

But what if one considers it as one of several beliefs frequently held together? What if a grunt believes the following?

A) grunts (in general, but also including the hard worker) don't get paid enough for how much they work

B) grunts have more control over how hard they work than over how much they are paid

C) if one grunt works extra hard, management will start expecting all grunts to work that hard (exacerbating what they already think is a poor work/pay ratio; see A)

Now is it a stretch?

Re: The Who Cares Era

#585

Post by [deleted] »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #572
rexpop wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thucydides of Athens quotes Pericles as having used a specific term for citizens who were not interested in public affairs, the community, or issues beyond their own private lives: idiotes (ἰδιώτης).

Did the Ancients ever figure out what to do when it's near-impossible to be interested enough in public affairs to gain an accurate understanding of things, and even if one manages that, it's pretty much impossible to meaningfully act on that understanding? It's one thing when "public affairs" and affairs of your local community are one and the same. But modern democracies seem to be actively preventing citizens from…

[deleted]

Re: The Who Cares Era

#586

Post by capyba »

const_cast wrote: post #539
palmotea wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> There's a culture of indifference, an embrace of mediocrity. I don't think it's new, but I do think perhaps AI has given the lazy and prideless an even lower energy route to... I'm not sure. What is the goal? > I think pride in work has declined a lot (at least in the US) because so many large employers have shown that they aren't even willing to pretend to care about their employees. It's difficult to take pride…

Most workers have learned that going above and beyond almost always backfires. Employers don't value long-term employment relationships, so working hard just results in you raising the bar for yourself, with no benefit. A lot of these people were once starry-eyed highschoolers and college students who got burned too many times. They put in the time, the effort, the blood, sweat and tears, and what did they get? No th…

Dang, feeling this right now. Went above and beyond again and again, for years, barely got a thank you - let alone a raise of any sort. Now I’m completely burnt out and don’t have the energy to even consider my own ideas for my own next move.

Re: The Who Cares Era

#587

Post by Vegenoid »

0_____0 wrote: post #5

I was just kvetching about this to my partner over breakfast. Not exactly, but a parallel observation, that a lot of people are just kind of shit at their jobs. The utility tech who turned my tiny gas leak into a larger gas leak and left. The buildings around me that take the better part of a decade to build (really? A parking garage takes six years?) Cops who have decided it's their job to do as little as possible.…

It’s a result of people disliking the system. Personally thriving by gaming the system is seen as the enlightened thing to do, because people don’t respect or appreciate the system, often viewing it as actually harmful and malicious.

Re: The Who Cares Era

#588

Post by try_the_bass »

sp0rk wrote: post #66
0_____0 wrote: post #5

I was just kvetching about this to my partner over breakfast. Not exactly, but a parallel observation, that a lot of people are just kind of shit at their jobs. The utility tech who turned my tiny gas leak into a larger gas leak and left. The buildings around me that take the better part of a decade to build (really? A parking garage takes six years?) Cops who have decided it's their job to do as little as possible.…

> There's a culture of indifference, an embrace of mediocrity. I don't think it's new, but I do think perhaps AI has given the lazy and prideless an even lower energy route to... I'm not sure. What is the goal? I think pride in work has declined a lot (at least in the US) because so many large employers have shown that they aren't even willing to pretend to care about their employees. It's difficult to take pride in…

Personally, I find it harder and harder to take pride in the work that I do, and in the effort I put in, when others who have no understanding of the quality of my work or amount of effort I put in are empowered to handwave it away with bullshit excuses and are applauded for doing so.

I don't think you're wrong that hard work is also no longer rewarded the way it used to be, but I think there are a lot more factors in play here.

Hard work is also a bit of a commons problem. If you're the only hard worker in a group, it's easy to be taken advantage of. If everyone's a hard worker, they probably all understand the value of hard work, and are more likely to reward it accordingly.

I think another social issue affecting this is people's measure of what makes hard work "hard". Social media shows is a parade of very talented people doing impressive things, while rarely giving us insight into the amount of effort that goes into those accomplishments. To anyone who hasn't put in the level of effort required to be "really good" at something, it's very easy to underestimate how much effort is truly involved. And when someone consistently underestimates how much effort is involved in doing "hard" things, they'll also consistently overestimate the amount of effort they're putting in relative to the results they're achieving. This will lead them to believe they're doing "hard work", when in reality their level of effort is closer to "mediocre".

Re: The Who Cares Era

#589

Post by try_the_bass »

vjvjvjvjghv wrote: post #564
porridgeraisin wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> reduce to purely economical I didn't. Please read the multiple qualifiers I added to that phrase. >> If you collect enough people, with sufficient heterogeneity, you will find that the GCD is always financial self-interest. What that means is that if you scale groups of people too much, the only common interest you'll find among _all_ of them will be financial self interest. Hence GCD - "greatest common divisor". O…

"But these interests don't overlap within a sufficiently large and diverse group of people, as much as financial self-interest does." I honestly don't think this is true. Finances are a tool to get security and comfort in our society but it's still just a tool to achieve the real goal. I bet if we had viable UBI that gives people their basic needs, most people wouldn't worry about finances.

At the end of the day, most people are employed in part because they want to (or need to) make money.

Therefore, the greatest common denominator for an arbitrarily large and heterogenous group of employees at the company is the paycheck.

This isn't really disputable. Your argument doesn't really counter this fact, either. Sure, UBI might remove that common need that nearly every employee has, which could change the calculus entirely... But we don't have UBI, and the GP wasn't making an argument about some hypothetical world, they were making a point about the one we actually live in.

Re: The Who Cares Era

#590

Post by whstl »

azemetre wrote: post #496
whstl wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. The only reward in a place that doesn’t care is time. I am in a proper place now, but I regret not getting a second job in my previous fintech job.

Why do you feel the need to work a second job, why would that be better? Wouldn't you rather be a part of your local community and put effort there rather than a private enterprise?

Yeah, that's also an option.
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