Ask HN: Does anyone else feel like nothing matters anymore? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone else feel like nothing matters anymore?

#61

Post by thomasjeff1 » Tue, Aug 18, 2026, 2:38 AM UTC

1. why haven't we developed blood in the lab yet?

2. why haven't we developed organs in the lab yet?

3. why haven't we invented space travel yet?

4. why haven't we solved food, shelter, cover for all human beings on planet earth yet?

5. why don't we have absolute democracy and have hold politicians accountable for their inaction, exploit and abuse? (specifically using Software and AI). Where are the dashboards of all public info of each politicians with organization chart of each country representing top leader with nodes of people working under him/her and further down.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone else feel like nothing matters anymore?

#62

Post by xpct » Tue, Aug 18, 2026, 2:38 AM UTC

kranner wrote: post #12

I think one aspect of this relates to extrinsic vs intrinsic motivation. I'm intrinsically motivated to work on my software projects because I want them to exist, and I enjoy exploring the problem space and working my way to a good solution. AI is great because it accelerates my abilities in this regard. If I'd had only extrinsic motivations of credit and money, I can see that AI would affect them negatively. But I'd…

I envy your enthusiasm. I sincerely enjoyed being proficient at something that was hard to replace, and still feel pride for it. There's still avenues like that, but they've grown thinner and it's not as one-sided. I'm still very happy to be in this field and keep toiling away, but with less joy.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone else feel like nothing matters anymore?

#63

Post by thomasjeff1 » Tue, Aug 18, 2026, 2:40 AM UTC

thomasjeff1 wrote: post #61

1. why haven't we developed blood in the lab yet? 2. why haven't we developed organs in the lab yet? 3. why haven't we invented space travel yet? 4. why haven't we solved food, shelter, cover for all human beings on planet earth yet? 5. why don't we have absolute democracy and have hold politicians accountable for their inaction, exploit and abuse? (specifically using Software and AI). Where are the dashboards of all…

5.1. where are the alerts when a politicians takes a bribe or does insider trading?

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone else feel like nothing matters anymore?

#64

Post by themgt » Tue, Aug 18, 2026, 2:42 AM UTC

No one will care because it's just another addition to the mountain of slop, and the guy bagging your groceries can do it.

Did the universe bestow on you some right to code better than the guy who bags your groceries? This whole post oozes a sense of wounded, bitter entitlement.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone else feel like nothing matters anymore?

#65

Post by quaverquaver » Tue, Aug 18, 2026, 2:42 AM UTC

diydsp wrote: post #46

This is a form of ego death and should be taken seriously. Your/our place(s) in society have been shaken up like dice in a cup...and someone may not even care to pour them out and see what numbers come out. What are you like when no one is watching? Like any death, it will re-arrange your values. Fortunately existentialist philosophers have been grasping with this for some time. The secret is you have to make your ow…

^hell yeah! thx

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone else feel like nothing matters anymore?

#66

Post by firefoxd » Tue, Aug 18, 2026, 2:43 AM UTC

I think the phenomena we are experiencing is "change". That's what change looks like. Out with the old, in with the new. It feels like nothing matters only because this is all happening too fast.

Since we are talking about AI, I'll bring up one thing that hasn't changed, or hasn't been solved at least by AI. Understanding. We are producing so much more than ever, yet we are not understanding the world better.

You can experiment it yourself, just because you have the world's knowledge at your fingertips doesn't make you an expert in every field. I asked an LLM to teach me everything I need to know about batteries so I can get into the business. All the information is there, a well crafted curriculum. The amount I didn't know that I didn't know before starting is depressing.

Extend this to the idea that now everyone knows everything about everything and you'll quickly realize that we still don't understand much about anything despite this powerful tool on our hand.

Understanding things still matters.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone else feel like nothing matters anymore?

#67

Post by solarized » Tue, Aug 18, 2026, 2:43 AM UTC

We have to adapt. This what happened to textile workers during Industrial Revolution. Satisfaction of crafting things disappeared once machines automated the work. I literally hesitated to code manually again because I've figured out how to drive this “creature” properly. It can do almost anything faster than me. (for production context).

Upgrade toward sales and management ?. At least cover our basic daily needs, so we still have freedom to explore different interesting domains.

I feel sorry for brilliant engineers who rely too heavily on their technical skills, because those skills can become almost "irrelevant" in day-to-day work.

Some of them literally refuse to adopt AI in their problem-solving process. They still can't accept that “my hard-earned knowledge from decades of learning can be wiped out in just one day.”

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone else feel like nothing matters anymore?

#68

Post by glimshe » Tue, Aug 18, 2026, 2:44 AM UTC

I don't feel this way at all - and I'm in my late 40s. I'm excited about the future of technology, not only because of AI but also other opportunities next-gen GPUs and new power-efficient processors bring. RISC V. Cheap PCB manufacturing. Cheaper FPGAs and, perhaps, even homebrew ASICs. Much to be excited about.

And look around you - so much pain and suffering in the world. Lots and lots of problems to be solved, hopefully helped by all this technology.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone else feel like nothing matters anymore?

#69

Post by RussianBot9580 » Tue, Aug 18, 2026, 2:48 AM UTC

thomasjeff1 wrote: post #61

1. why haven't we developed blood in the lab yet? 2. why haven't we developed organs in the lab yet? 3. why haven't we invented space travel yet? 4. why haven't we solved food, shelter, cover for all human beings on planet earth yet? 5. why don't we have absolute democracy and have hold politicians accountable for their inaction, exploit and abuse? (specifically using Software and AI). Where are the dashboards of all…

I don't think (5) is called "democracy", but it sounds nice. Democracy is "everyone gets a vote", which devolves into a battle of populists. There's nothing in democracy that would guarantee the kind of accountability you are describing.

Besides, as soon as you introduce this kind of checking, you'll just cement the oligarchy. The winning strategy would be for a billionaire not officially in government to work their magic through a puppet with a clean tax report.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone else feel like nothing matters anymore?

#70

Post by solarized » Tue, Aug 18, 2026, 2:49 AM UTC

> Also, anything we do write will just get immediately slurped into AI embeddings, anonymizing it and detaching it from its human source, at most nudging some corner of its vectorized slurry. Maybe someone will ask a question that our content influences, but if that user bothers to thank anyone, he'll thank Claude. Perhaps this is what it feels like to be fully commoditized, fully alienated from one's labor.

Holy F. elephant in the room !